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"Michelle Jenneke was the viral hit during the 2012 Olympics -- and she wasn't even in London.

Jenneke, an Australian hurdler, was competing in the world junior championships in Barcelona at the same time when this video of her enthusiastic warmup dance darn near broke the internet. That led to a modeling gig for the 2013 Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue and other opportunities.

Now Jenneke, 23, will make her Olympic debut Tuesday in Rio, competing in the 100-meter hurdles.

Here's a recap of Jenneke's storyline starting with that viral video in August 2012:

Sports Illustrated Gets On The Bandwagon: February 2013

World Star Hip Hop: January 2015

The Flying Pushup, March 2015

The Countdown To Rio, August 2016

A video posted by Michelle Jenneke (@mjenneke93) on Aug 7, 2016 at 5:01pm PDT

More Olympics: -- Lolo Jones: I'm Not Hope Solo -- How Simone Biles Got Started In Gymnastics -- It Was By Accident -- Perfect Way To Train For Decathlon? Why There's No Such Thing

Hurdles, Michelle Jenneke, Olympics, Rio Olympics, Track And Field, viral video","Michelle Jenneke, who became an instant global sensation with dance moves before her hurdles race in 2012, is set for her Olympic debut."
"Darkness, no parents... and Rosario Dawson!

Dawson will is joining Will Arnett, Michael Cera, and Zach Galifianakis in Lego Batman, the Bat-family-centric followup to 2014's wildly successful and entertaining The Lego Movie. Arnett will return as Batman, with Cera as Robin and Galifianakis as the Joker. The Lego Movie's animation supervisor, Chris McKay, is directing the film.

Will Arnett will reprise his role as Batman, with Dawson and others joining as his allies and enemies.

Dawson, whose Batgirl character is also the daughter of police commissioner James Gordon (who has yet to be cast), is no stranger to comic book adaptations. She regularly guests on Netflix's Marvel's Daredevil and previously voiced another famous female superhero, Wonder Woman, in DC's Justice League: Throne of Atlantis.

Have something to add to this story? Share it in the comments.",The 'Daredevil' actress is moving to the other side of the comics universe for 'Lego Batman.'
"James Houghton, who created Signature in 1991 and remains artistic director, found a solution, thanks to an actor whose career he helped start: Edward Norton, the Oscar-nominated actor (“American History X”) and a Signature board member since 1996. Mr. Norton offered an empty corner in his expanded downtown apartment, and soon he and Mr. Houghton were holding cocktail parties and private viewings.

Mr. Norton’s friend Barry Diller came by one snowy morning; the foundation financed by Mr. Diller and his wife, Diane Von Furstenberg, ended up donating $3 million. This winter Mr. Norton hosted the hedge fund magnate William A. Ackman and his wife, Karen, who, like Mr. Norton, is on the board of the High Line. Even though the Ackmans have never seen a Signature production, they donated $25 million last week through their foundation.

On Tuesday Mr. Houghton, Mr. Norton and their friends will gather in finery to open the $66 million Signature Center, one of the most ambitious new cultural complexes in New York in decades and a testament to the value of long-term relationships.

Mr. Norton was an aspiring young actor out of Yale in 1993 when he auditioned for an Edward Albee production at Signature; he didn’t get the role, but Mr. Houghton liked what he saw and cast him in another Albee play, “Fragments.” (Most Signature seasons are devoted to a single playwright, a distinction that will continue among Signature’s expanded offerings.) Mr. Norton said that role earned him his first paycheck as an actor.

“Jim is an incredibly loyal man, to his actors and writers and also to his institutional vision for retrospective work at Signature, and his spirit was one I’ve loved being around,” said Mr. Norton, who, less than three years after “Fragments,” was nominated for an Academy Award for best supporting actor for his feature film debut in “Primal Fear.” (He also starred in an acclaimed Signature production of “Burn This” in 2002.)

“So when Jim asked me to co-chair the capital campaign in August 2008,” he continued, “even when the bottom fell out of the economy the next month, with the Lehman collapse, I thought, ‘We can do this.’ ”

Mr. Houghton, also the director of the esteemed drama division at the Juilliard School, has managed a daunting feat in an economic downturn by attracting true believers to the 12-year planning effort for Signature’s home. Early on, he won friends in Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s administration by agreeing to base Signature in a proposed performing arts center by Mr. Gehry at ground zero, then a key part of the redevelopment in Lower Manhattan. But the cost and logistics of the project became untenable, and by 2007 Mr. Houghton and Mr. Gehry were discussing a new home closer to the Times Square theater district.

The city has remained a supporter of Signature (as well as of other theaters seeking new homes), providing $27.5 million of the $66 million needed; Mayor Bloomberg’s own foundation is donating $3 million, Mr. Houghton said.

The center, which is opening on Tuesday night with a production of Athol Fugard’s “Blood Knot,” includes three theaters, an expansive cafe and bookstore space, with sofas, open to the public (and free WiFi), and a gleaming glass marquee that newly lights a stretch of West 42nd Street near 10th Avenue. (Signature’s former home, a single theater located a block farther west, away from Times Square, is seeking new tenants.)

Another important relationship has been Mr. Houghton’s with Juilliard, which will base a new training program for drama students at Signature Center. Juilliard’s financial contribution will probably be a wash, given that Signature could probably otherwise rent that space; the artistic contribution, meanwhile, will be the energy of having Juilliard students and teachers working there.

“What mattered most in creating the center was proposing a bigger scale for Signature — the sort of scale that would excite major donors — while at the same time making clear that our mission would remain steady,” Mr. Houghton said in an interview in his modest office overlooking 42nd Street. “We’re not going to start creating a bunch of new musicals. We’re not going to start casting celebrity actors or aim things to transfer to Broadway.”

Part of the sales pitch of Signature’s capital campaign was the theater’s unusual commitment to low ticket prices: thanks to corporate and private underwriting, tickets are expected to cost only $25 for the next decade. (They ranged from $15 to $20 in recent years.)

Mr. Norton said Signature still had about $10 million left to raise for the combined needs of construction and the subsidized tickets. As for his own donation, he said, “I’m waiting to see what the gap is going to be when we get to the real zero hour.” Mr. Norton’s involvement is rare for a high-profile actor; he has proved to be Signature’s rainmaker, working virtually full time over the last two years and passing up several film projects to stay close to New York to help raise the money.

The addition of two new theaters is only one part of Signature’s expansion. The company, which has chiefly produced revivals, recently began an unusual residency program for playwrights that guarantees each of them three productions over a five-year period, as well as a $50,000 cash award and health insurance. The first playwrights in residence are Annie Baker (“Circle Mirror Transformation”), Will Eno (“Middletown”), Katori Hall (“The Mountaintop”), Kenneth Lonergan (“The Starry Messenger”) and Regina Taylor (“Crowns”).

Mr. Houghton estimated that Signature would produce 45 plays over the next five years, with about 35 of them new works. By comparison, over the previous five years, Signature produced about 20 plays, and about two-thirds were revivals.

Mr. Eno, a 2005 Pulitzer Prize finalist for “Thom Pain (based on nothing),” said he decided to accept the Signature playwriting residency largely because of Mr. Houghton.

“Like almost no one I know, he manages to have both a deeply comprehensive and specific vision of things, along with a really wide-open and kind of down-home way,” Mr. Eno said. “It makes you feel very comfortable to be around someone who is both so aggressively detail-oriented and who’s also generally calm.”

The playwriting residencies have provoked some private grumbling among a few theater executives and playwrights’ agents, concerned that Signature is hoarding the talent. Yet none of those concerned would speak on the record.

“I’m sure people have opinions,” Mr. Houghton said, “but there is also plenty of remarkable theater going on in this city. And now Signature can be doing more of it.”","Signature Theater Company opens its new home on Tuesday, an ambitious project undertaken in the midst of the recession."
"It’s a distinction that is actually worth making — this is a world record top speed for a convertible. Not a hardtop. Not a closed coupe. The reason we make this distinction is that cars with their tops off tend to buffet around at, say, 70 or 80 miles an hour, what with the wind slamming over the (in this case, poorly named) windshield and rocketing down into the cabin, where it blows everything and everybody all askew.

Imagine this at more than three times your normal freeway speed.

That’s what racing driver Anthony Liu got to experience at the Volkswagen Group (VW owns Bugatti) test track in Ehra-Lessien, Germany, a few days ago. The car was not just any car and, in fact, it was not just any Bugatti Veyron. This was a Bugatti Veyron 16.4 Grand Sport Vitesse (GSV) and instead of the standard Veyron’s 1,001 horsepower, this GSV was throwing out 1,200 horses from its 8-liter W16 engine.

With a few bystanders looking on, Liu cranked up the GSV and launched it around the 13-mile test track. On the five-mile straightaway, he hit 254 miles an hour. (Or 408 kilometers an hour, if you’re into the whole metric thing.) Liu reported later that even at this 200-plus-mph speed, the car was “incredibly comfortable and stable.”

Wanna do this yourself? Find a patch of Nevada or Utah desert and unleash the beast? VW will be happy to sell you one of these two-seat rockets at a little over $2.6 million a copy. I got to drive one a few years ago and you can see that report (and photos) here.",Bugatti Veyron with the top off — 254 miles an hour. And you can license it for the street.
", these Guru stocks have reached their 52-week lows.

Ford Motor Company (F) Reached the 52-Week Low of $9.56

The prices of Ford Motor Company (F) shares have declined to close to the 52-week low of $9.56, which is 33.6% off the 52-week high of $14.12. Ford Motor Company is owned by 13 Gurus we are tracking. Among them, 7 have added to their positions during the past quarter. 8 reduced their positions.

Ford recently reported its first quarter 2012 financial results. The company reported EPS of 39 cents per share, compared with 47 cents per share a year ago. Sales were $32.4 billion.

Ronald Muhlenkamp bought 917,045 shares in the quarter that ended on 03/31/2012, which is 2.1% of the $549 million portfolio of Muhlenkamp Fund. David Tepper bought 6,535,715 shares in the quarter that ended on 03/31/2012, which is 2% of the $4.05 billion portfolio of Appaloosa Management LP. Leon Cooperman bought 1,000,000 shares in the quarter that ended on 03/31/2012, which is 0.25% of the $5.01 billion portfolio of Omega Advisors. David Williams sold out his holdings in the quarter that ended on 12/31/2011.

Vice President and Controller Stuart J. Rowley sold 14,000 shares of F stock on 06/07/2012 at the average price of 10.61. Stuart J. Rowley owns at least 22,896 shares after this. The price of the stock has decreased by 9.9% since. Other insiders have also decreased their positions in the company.

General Motors Company (GM) Reached the 52-Week Low of $19.72

The prices of General Motors Company (GM) shares have declined to close to the 52-week low of $19.72, which is 40.1% off the 52-week high of $31.8. General Motors Company is owned by 16 Gurus we are tracking. Among them, 8 have added to their positions during the past quarter. 8 reduced their positions.

General Motors recently announced first quarter net income attributable to common stockholders of $1.0 billion, or $0.60 per fully diluted share. These results include a net loss from special items related to goodwill impairment that reduced net income by $0.6 billion, or $0.33 per fully diluted share.

David Tepper bought 2,202,153 shares in the quarter that ended on 03/31/2012, which is 1.4% of the $4.05 billion portfolio of Appaloosa Management LP. Warren Buffett bought 10,000,000 shares in the quarter that ended on 03/31/2012, which is 0.34% of the $75.3 billion portfolio of Berkshire Hathaway. David Einhorn owns 14,813,163 shares as of 03/31/2012, a decrease of 22.07% of from the previous quarter. This position accounts for 6.9% of the $5.54 billion portfolio of Greenlight Capital.

Director Thomas M Schoewe bought 3,800 shares of GM stock on 03/05/2012 at the average price of 26.05. Thomas M Schoewe owns at least 3,800 shares after this. The price of the stock has decreased by 24.3% since. Other insiders have decreased their positions in the company.

Exelon Corporation (EXC) Reached the 52-Week Low of $37.63","According to GuruFocus list of 52-week lows, these Guru stocks have reached their 52-week lows. Ford Motor Company (F) Reached the 52-Week Low of $9.56 The prices of Ford Motor Company (F) shares have declined to close to the 52-week low of $9.56, which is 33.6% off the 52-week high of $14.12. [...]"
"Amar’e Stoudemire can only reflect on what could have been as frontcourt partnership with Carmelo Anthony implodes.

After Game 1 in Miami, Carmelo Anthony did really say, “Now the fun starts.”

We all looked at him like he was nuts, since he couldn’t escape LeBron James or Shane Battier in a 33-point beatdown, and the prospect of winning just one game in the first-round series against the Heat went from slim to virtually none.

But in a way, Anthony’s line now has some truth to it.

LUPICA: AMAR'E THE PUNCH LINE, BUT HARDLY TO BLAME FOR KNICKS WOES

STOUDEMIRE OUT FOR GAME 3, DOUBTFUL FOR GAME 4

THAT'S AMAR'E: STOUDEMIRE'S HIGHS AND LOWS IN NEW YORK

He can have all the fun he wants and keep losing, which he does in the playoffs with alarming regularity, and Knick fans won’t hold it against him. Melo can shoot to his heart’s content and suffer another sweep and no one will care.

Anthony got his playoff pass late Monday night, courtesy of Amar’e Stoudemire.

Stoudemire literally does have blood on his hands for this Knick playoff debacle, even if they never had a chance to beat the Heat in the first place.

By taking his best shot at that glass door in Miami and cutting his left hand, Stoudemire made this postseason all about him.

It’s no longer about the fact that Anthony is looking at another quick first-round exit, which would be No. 8 in nine playoff seasons, or the fact that Anthony can carry a team in the regular season, as he did a few weeks back, but just can’t be like LeBron and the other big boys when the games really count .

Now Stoudemire has the one thing he desperately craves: The spotlight. He hasn’t enjoyed it since he heard those M-V-P chants during his first 54 games in New York.

Then Anthony arrived, because Jim Dolan wanted a bigger star and guess who got top billing on the Garden’s marquee?

You felt bad for Stoudemire, but not that bad because he was still getting his $100 million.

But look at what he has done to himself now. He has taken a career path no New York athlete ever wants to travel. He has moved from hero . . . to sympathetic figure . . . to bum.

His act of selfishness/stupidity is the talk of the town and will be Topic A whenever the Knicks are discussed, right through the summer.

Technically, the Knicks still have at least two more games to play, starting Thursday at the Garden. But as Mike Woodson continues to lose players, starting with Iman Shumpert, his top perimeter defender, and now Stoudemire, how can they win a game? Perhaps if the Heat shows some mercy and doesn’t want to make quick work of a wounded, vulnerable opponent, the Knicks get a game. Not that James and Dwyane Wade have exhibited any signs of compassion thus far.","Carmelo Anthony got his playoff pass late Monday night, courtesy of Amar’e Stoudemire. By taking his best shot at that glass door in Miami and cutting his left hand, Stoudemire made this postseason all about him."
"FORTUNE — After Monday’s opening statements in the government’s federal antitrust case against Apple — stemming from Apple’s game-changing foray into the then nascent ebooks market in 2010 — it’s apparent that the case raises novel legal questions that could well end up commanding the attention of the U.S. Supreme Court.

For casual observers of the case, this had not been so obvious before. That’s because the legal questions raised by the conduct of the five publishing companies who were also originally named as Apple’s AAPL co-conspirators and co-defendants in the case — Hachette, HarperCollins, MacMillan, Penguin, and Simon & Schuster — did not pose comparably challenging questions. (Each publisher settled before trial admitting no wrongdoing.)

Unlike Apple, the publisher defendants were charged with engaging in a horizontal price-fixing conspiracy — a well-recognized, frequently encountered, and widely condemned variety of collusive behavior. While the publishers’ motivations may have been unusual — some would argue laudable — there is much evidence that they did, in fact, collude to hike up the price of ebooks. Under Section 1 of the Sherman Act, which forbids conspiracies “in restraint of trade,” that’s hard to justify.

In contrast, though, Apple had a vertical relationship to all the other players in the alleged plot. As a result, its conduct poses far less familiar factual and legal questions. While there have been prior cases in which vertical players have participated in horizontal antitrust conspiracies, these have usually involved situations where a behemoth vertical player was the instigator and chief beneficiary of the whole scheme — the “ringmaster,” as courts have put it.

Apple doesn’t fit that template, though. Far from being a dominant player in the book industry, Apple was a new entrant. Far from instigating the scheme, it was — even on the government’s view of the evidence — an opportunistic late-comer who exploited a preexisting situation. Moreover, it’s not at all far-fetched to believe that Apple behaved at all times in a manner that furthered its own independent, seemingly lawful business objectives: opening a digital bookstore. In the process, Apple brought competition to a market that was, prior to its arrival, dominated by an 80% to 90% near-monopolist, Amazon AMZN .

The Supreme Court has expressed far more reluctance to intervene in alleged vertical price-fixing conspiracies than in horizontal price-fixing conspiracies, due to having much less confidence in the former context about what constitutes reasonable commercial behavior and wherein lies the public interest. (As recently as 2007, for instance, the Court overturned 96 years of precedent to declare that there was nothing illegal “per se” about vertical price restraints.) The unique facts of Apple’s case will make it a singularly sympathetic one to today’s markedly pro-business Supreme Court if the case eventually reaches them.

MORE: Meet the man who created the ‘linchpin’ of Apple’s e-book strategy

The following basic facts appear to be fairly undisputed. In November 2009, just two months before Steve Jobs made his historic unveiling of the first iPad tablet on January 27, 2010, Apple’s head of content, Eddy Cue, convinced Jobs to give the iPad e-reader functionality and use the opportunity to launch a digital bookstore, comparable to Apple’s already successful iTunes and Apps Store. Jobs greenlighted the project. But while the new iBookstore would launch on April 3, 2010, Jobs wanted the key contracts with publishers signed by the time of his January iPad unveiling, so he could include it in his presentation. (In his opening, Apple lead lawyer Orin Snyder, of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, included a video excerpt from Jobs’s masterful iPad launch. While it was a moving and bitter-sweet moment for many of the journalists and business people present, U.S. District Judge Denise Cote, who is hearing the case without a jury, seemed ominously cold during the clip.)

Cue began meeting the CEOs of the six major publishers in mid-December 2009, sent out proposed term sheets in early January, and finally reached signed contracts with five of the publishers over the final three days preceding his January 27 presentation.

Cue knew next to nothing about the book industry when he undertook his task in December, according to Snyder, the attorney for Apple. But one thing everyone knew by then — because it had been the subject of major articles in the Wall Street Journal and New York Times during the summer of 2009 — was that the publishing companies were, by this time, furious with Amazon about the rock-bottom $9.99 price at which it was selling the ebook versions of most of their new-releases and New York Times bestsellers.

Amazon then controlled about an 80% to 90% share of the ebook market, having helped pioneer that market with its November 2007 launch of the Kindle e-reader. Publishers sold Amazon the digital versions of their books using the same so-called “wholesale model” that they used for selling hardcover and paperback books to brick-and-mortar bookstores. Under that model, they’d sell the book to a retailer at about half the contemplated list price — say $12.50 for a hardback with a $25 price printed on the jacket –affording the retailer the discretion to determine how much of a discount they’d offer off the list price, if any.

Contemplating a retail price of about $20 for a digital book — about 20% off the standard $25 price for a new-release hardback — publishers sold ebooks to Amazon under this wholesale model for about $10. To their horror, however, Amazon resold the ebooks to the public for $9.99 — a slight actual loss or, as U.S. Department of Justice lawyer Lawrence E. Buterman put it in his opening, a “break-even” price. Buterman didn’t explain why Amazon did this in his opening, but Amazon evidently viewed the low-priced books as a way to kickstart a new market and stimulate sales of its new Kindle devices. Publishers feared, however, that such a low price would pull down the price of hardbacks and paperbacks, diminish authors’ royalties, torpedo the viability of brick-and-mortar bookstores, and possibly lead to the elimination of publishers altogether (disintermediation) as ebook distributors like Amazon would begin contracting directly with authors.

In response, some publishers chose to raise their wholesale ebook prices to $12 or even $15, but Amazon continued to sell even those ebooks for $9.99 — now absorbing a $2 to $5 loss on every single book sold. Government attorney Buterman glossed over Amazon’s below-cost pricing without comment, though such pricing in other contexts, at least in the past, has been itself branded an antitrust violation (“predatory pricing”).

MORE: The DOJ is arguing the facts. Apple is arguing the law.

Some publishers began withholding ebooks from Amazon altogether, or adopting “windowing” policies, where they would delay releasing an ebook until a certain number of months after the hardcover release. Some of Amazon’s ebook competitors, like Barnes & Noble BKS , also complained that Amazon’s below-cost pricing was enabling it to monopolize the market and exclude would-be market entrants.

This brouhaha was widely known and reported as it was happening. What was less known at the time was that by the summer of 2009 the CEOs of the six major publishing companies had also begun meeting in private to discuss the future of their “industry” and what could be done about Amazon’s $9.99 pricepoint. There is evidence that they tried to keep these meetings secret, presumably out of concern that the discussions might be thought to violate the antitrust laws.

“I think it would be prudent for you to double delete this from your mail files when you return to your office,” one high-level Hachette executive told another at the close of an August 2009 email discussing conversations with other publishing houses, for instance.

If the publishers’ meetings during the summer of 2009 did, in fact, constitute an antitrust conspiracy, however, there is no question that Apple was not part of it — at least not yet. Eddy Cue, Apple’s head of content, had not even conceived the notion of going into the ebook industry until November 2009, Snyder contends.

Apple also contends that it never knew about the extent of the publishers’ horizontal collusion with one another, which seems both plausible to an extent, and implausible to an extent. Part of the problem here is that the concept of “collusion” is a funny one in the antitrust context. Whenever a traveler compares airline fares between two cities at a desired departure time, for example, he usually finds that all the key competitors charge exactly the same price — down to the penny. That’s not illegal price-fixing, so long as one Airline A set its price first, and Airlines B and C simply chose to match that fare later. If, on the other hand, all the competitors agreed beforehand that Airline A would announce its price first and that the others would then purport to “match” it after the fact, that’s illegal price-fixing. It’s a fine line for pragmatical, aggressive, business people to observe.

The government’s theory, in any case, is that once Apple did decide to get into the ebook business, it learned of the conspiracy and then exploited it. Apple gave the publishers a way to force Amazon to abandon the wholesale model, and to impose a new “agency” model on the entire ebook industry. This was “a deliberate scheme orchestrated by Apple to fix prices,” Buterman said on Monday.

MORE: The DOJ’s antitrust case against Apple Inc. in 81 slides

Under the agency model, book publishers would set the retail price of the book themselves, and Apple would take 30% of the revenue as its commission (as it already was doing with its iTunes and App stores). Thus Apple joined the publishers’ scheme, Buterman said, “as a quid pro quo to ensure they’d enter the market with guaranteed 30% margins and without price competition.”

The government theorizes that no publisher acting alone had the leverage to force Amazon to abandon the wholesale model, but that five major publishers acting in concert did have that leverage, and that Apple was the crucial “go-between,” “facilitator,” or “ringmaster” that could orchestrate this united effort. The government will point to some emails between Apple’s Cue and individual publisher CEOs in which Cue appears to reveal, when prodded, how many other publishers have committed to sign, or are likely to.

When Cue circulated the original proposed “agency model” term sheets to publishers in early January, each included a bullet-point stating that “all resellers of new titles must be in agency model.” Thus, the government argues, Apple was requiring each publisher to insist that it alter its relationship with Amazon — abandoning the wholesale model.

Negotiations continued, however, and by the time contracts were signed in late January, there was no provision in any of the publisher’s contracts with Apple explicitly prohibiting anyone from using the wholesale model with other retailers if they wished. Instead, there was a so-called “most-favored nation” clause (MFN), which is a fairly common feature in distributors’ contracts. This clause provided that if some other retailer was selling an ebook for less than a publisher wanted to sell it at Apple’s iBookstore, Apple was free to match that lower price.

So the MFN did not literally require publishers to abandon the wholesale model, though it certainly incentivized them to do so. (Here’s why: If a publisher allowed Amazon, under the wholesale model, to continue to sell one of its books at $9.99, Apple could do so, too, under the MFN. But now the publisher would be receiving in return from Apple only $6.99 [70 per cent of $9.99] rather than the $10 wholesale price it was used to getting from Amazon.)

In late January 2010, after signing its agency contract with Apple, Macmillan CEO John Sargent met with Amazon and demanded that it switch to the agency model of pricing (at least once the iBookstore got up and running in April). After a brief tantrum — Amazon initially deleted the buy buttons from all of Macmillan’s books on Amazon.com — Amazon capitulated.

In April 2010, when the iBookstore opened, most new-release ebook prices for the five major publishers jumped from $9.99 to either $12.99 or $14.99. (Apple’s agency contracts had included the $12.99 and $14.99 price caps on different tiers of books because Apple feared the publishers would otherwise charge more than the digital market would bear.)

MORE: U.S.A. v. Apple Day 1: Calling Eddy Cue

The final impact of the adoption of the agency model on prices is, nevertheless, sharply disputed. Apple’s Snyder claims the evidence will show that the average prices for the categories of ebooks in dispute actually declined over the course of the alleged conspiracy. The government’s Buterman said that these declines in average prices over time merely reflected “trends” that were already “under way before Apple entered the market.”

In context, then, was Apple’s inclusion of an MFN clause into its contracts with publishers illegal? That, after all, is the mechanism that eventually, if indirectly, led to the demise of the wholesale pricing model.

The government claims that it is. In its antitrust complaint it characterized Apple’s MFN clause as “the key commitment mechanism to keep the Publisher Defendants advancing their conspiracy in lockstep.” And in its pretrial memorandum of law the government argued: “Apple knew that . . . the retail price MFN would sharpen [publishers’] incentives to follow through on raising prices across all retailers.”

Apple’s Snyder, on the other hand, argued that “no court has ever held an MFN to be illegal.” On its face, certainly, an MFN simply gives a retailer the right to offer consumers the lowest available price. How could that be illegal, then, Snyder asked rhetorically. The MFN, indeed, made Apple agnostic to whether the publishers continue to use the wholesale model with Amazon or any other retailer, he said, since Apple (and its consumers) would be guaranteed the lowest available price no matter what.

And while the MFN does, indeed, give each publisher who signs with Apple an incentive to stop using the wholesale model with Amazon or anyone else — so what? The entry of a new competitor into a market always changes every market participants’ incentives.

“I’m aware of no antitrust case that’s been based on ‘sharpening another company’s incentives,’ ” he said in his opening. “What does it even mean ‘to sharpen incentives’? . . . That’s no standard at all?”

MORE: Apple’s day in court

In apparently having made an MFN clause the lynchpin of its conspiracy theory, the government may face another hurdle as well. At least according to Snyder, the evidence will show that each of the publishers during the negotiation process resisted the inclusion of that clause in their contracts with Apple. Snyder claims, for instance, that Hachette initially deleted it from the contract, calling it a “deal-breaker.” HarperCollins CEO Brian Murray refused to sign until Steve Jobs went over his head, to News Corp. executive James Murdoch, and persuaded Murdoch of the wisdom of the deal. Random House, the largest publisher in the world, refused to ever sign Apple’s agency contract, at least in part due to the presence of that clause, Snyder claims. (Random House was never named as a defendant in the government’s case.)

“Each [publisher] was negotiating against the provision that supposedly held this conspiracy together,” Snyder contended in his opening. “The publishers opposed the very contract term that the United States says was the secret sauce, the magic bullet … that enabled the conspirators to kill the $9.99 price point.”

Of course, it remains to be seen whether, over the next three weeks of trial, the evidence will in fact come in the way Snyder has promised that it will, or whether it will, in the end, conform more closely to the more damning narrative predicted by Justice Department attorney Buterman.

Yet even though it’s still hypothetical, highly contingent, and years down the road at best, it’s hard not to already hear Justice Antonin Scalia’s taunting voice at an oral argument, caustically demanding: “Mr. Buterman, can you name another case in which we have held that a company violates the antitrust laws by ‘sharpening the incentives’ of a contractual partner to act in certain ways?”",The unique facts of Apple’s case will make it a singularly sympathetic one to today’s markedly pro-business Supreme Court -- if the case reaches it.
"The Democratic party was run over in the midterm elections, giving up at least eight seats in the Senate. In some cases, they lost races they were supposed to win, and in others they lost by wide margins in contests that were supposed to be close.

So what does this newly chastened and humbled party do to show a fresh face to voters? It chooses the same person to helm the party as minority leader, naturally.

Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) was re-elected to the top spot in his party's caucus on Thursday, but not without at least six votes against him and some pretty vocal opposition by his colleagues. Even some who supported Reid didn't exactly sound a note of confidence. As Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) told Politico: “There wasn’t anyone else running.”

Reid, apparently aware things can't just stay the same after the midterm lashing, is making some changes. ""We’re going to do things a little differently, a little different approach,” he told the Post as he left the Old Senate Chamber on Thursday night. In an attempt to expand and bolster his leadership team, he created an entirely new post for Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), the popular progressive voice, and appointed Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) to chair the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. Tester's 2012 victory was seen as a blueprint for Democrats who hail from conservative states.

Reports say Reid will also open up weekly leadership meetings and policy lunches, and that he intends to let more Democrats take the wheel on specific issues, as well as to free up the process for amendments.

But will all this be enough? Warren's role, at least for now, seems ill-defined, and apparently came as a surprise to many Senate Democrats. And while more open meetings and lunches within the caucus should help, they won't correct the uneasy relationship between Reid and now Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) that has left so many senators feeling like bit players in a dysfunctional system. The relationship between the two men has broken down so much, the Post's Paul Kane wrote in July, it has ""almost immobilized the Senate.""

And so, here we are. A decisive midterm election is now over, and the same two men are still in charge, only with their roles reversed. It will be tempting for McConnell, who has reached the goal of becoming majority leader, to turn the tables on his longtime opponent. And Reid will need to adjust to his new role without a loser's spite. Given the battles between the two men, which have been described as akin to ""divorce proceedings between a couple who loathe each other,"" that won't be easy.

Perhaps Reid's experience at the helm — and how well he knows the way McConnell works — will pay off. And the midterm losses may have been as much about President Obama as they were about a dysfunctional Congress. But until Reid and McConnell can find a way to bridge their divide, the Democratic party is going to have a hard time putting a fresh face on what for now continues to look like a lot more of the same.

More than 100 women in Congress for the first time, but not much growth

Like On Leadership? Follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

Jena McGregor writes a daily column analyzing leadership in the news for the Washington Post’s On Leadership section.",Democrats are struggling to put a fresh face on what for now continues to look like more of the same.
"Answering Microsoft’s recently unveiled 1TB Xbox One with a refresh of its own, Sony has announced a new 1TB “Ultimate Player Edition” PlayStation 4, as well as revised 500GB model.

But the best part about the new PlayStation systems isn’t the extra storage space.

Unlike Microsoft’s Alcatraz-like Xbox 360 and One game systems, both Sony’s PlayStation 3 and 4 game consoles have been user upgradeable from the start, allowing owners to pop in new off-the-shelf hard drives at leisure. Thus if you already own a PlayStation 4, there’s no storage-related reason to buy a completely new console when you can just grab a much less expensive hard drive, then follow Sony’s own official installation instructions.

But the real reason to take note of the new models is that they’ll also be roughly one-tenth lighter and consume slightly less power than the original 500GB PlayStation 4. That, and if you find the current model’s fingerprint-magnetic glossy hard drive cover irritating, the new models—available in either “glacier white” or “jet black”—will come with a “grainy” matte finish across their entire exterior.

No word on prices yet, but Sony PlayStation Europe says the new 1TB model will be available on July 15 in Europe. Sony Japan says that the new 500GB models will be available in Japan by the end of this month, followed in sequence (though without specific timetables) by the rest of the world.",After a similar upgrade for Xbox One owners
"Melbourne is Australia's undisputed cool kid. The other capitals might fawn over their Melbourne-style cafés, bars and laneways, but only Melbourne delivers the real deal.

A notoriously temperamental climate forced this city to look indoors and inward from an early age. The result is a moody, complex, deep-thinking metropolis more akin to Berlin than Brisbane - a place obsessed with art, food and coffee, packed with switched-on galleries, architectural flourishes, independent bookshops, cafés, and iconic music venues.

Unlike Perth, Sydney and the Gold Coast, Melbourne has not given its soul to the beach.

Beyond Melbourne's urban enlightenment is a state of prized wineries and sophisticated spas, millennia-old rainforests, snow-dusted mountains, and a wild, rugged coastline that will steal both your breath and heart away.

Melbourne's jam-packed events calendar, and Victoria's geographic diversity, makes this corner of Australia a year-round destination.

Summer is the most popular season with visitors, with the longest days and good beach weather (especially from January to mid-March). The Australian Open (January) draws huge crowds to Melbourne.

Victoria is also Australia’s most compact state, which means the Great Ocean Road, the Yarra Valley and Phillip Island with its fairy penguins are right on the doorstep.

Autumn is arguably the best season: days are warm to mild; blazing foliage graces Victoria's parks; and Melbourne's festival season revs up with the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival (February-March), International Flower and Garden Show (March), and International Comedy Festival (March-April).

Winters are grey and chilly, but always atmospheric. The AFL (Australian Rules Football) season is in full swing, the ski slopes are open for business, and the major cultural events continue, among them the Melbourne International Film Festival (July-August) and the National Gallery of Victoria's Winter Masterpieces exhibition (mid-May to August).

Spring offers spring blooms and sporadic weather. Winter is over and there's a celebratory feeling in air, with big-scale events including the AFL Grand Final (September), Fringe Festival (September-October), Melbourne Festival (October), and all the millinery, glamour and galloping of the Melbourne Cup Carnival (November).

Melbourne can rightly claim to be the sportiest city in a country where sport is the only true religion.

British Consulate-General (00 61 3 9652 1600), Level 17, 90 Collins Street, Melbourne, 3000.

Tourist office and information: The Melbourne Visitor Centre (00 61 3 9658 9658; visitmelbourne.com) is on Federation Square, right across from Flinders Street Station. Open daily, 9am-6pm. A smaller information booth is located in the Bourke Street Mall, between Swanston and Elizabeth Streets. Open daily, 9am-5pm. Tourist information is also available in the Arrivals Hall at Melbourne International Airport.

Melbourne is unquestionably Australia’s most exciting and diverse metropolis. Go now.

Currency: Australian dollar. Prices are rounded off to the nearest 5c (1c and 2c coins are not used in Australia).

Time: +10 hours (+11 hours during daylight savings Oct-Mar)

Travel times: Flying time from London to Melbourne is around 21.5 to 23 hours. Flying time from Sydney to Melbourne is around 1 hour and 15 minutes.

Local laws and etiquette: In the Central Business District (City Centre), many intersections require you to make a right turn from the left lane in order to keep tram tracks clear. This is called a hook turn, marked with a 'Right Turn From Left Only' sign, either overhead or to the side of the road. Approach and enter the intersection from the left lane and indicate that you are turning right. Move forward to the far left of the intersection, keeping clear of pedestrian crossings and remain stationary until the traffic lights on the road you are turning into have gone green, then turn right.

Tipping: As in the UK, tipping in restaurants and cafes is customary not compulsory. If you receive good service, 10% of the bill would be reasonable. If you wish to tip your hotel porter, A$2 to A$5 per bag is a suitable amount. In taxis, you may choose to round up the payment to the nearest dollar.

Melbourne sets the pace when it comes to fashion, theatre, design and architecture.

More Telegraph Travel expert guides

Follow Telegraph Travel on Twitter","An insider's guide to Melbourne and Victoria, featuring the best hotels, restaurants, bars, shops, attractions and things to do, including how to travel there and around. By Cristian Bonetto, Telegraph Travel's Melbourne expert. Click on the tabs below for the best places to stay, eat, drink and shop, including the best things to do and what to do on a short break."
"Melinda Gates and Bill Gates of the Gates Foundation, winners of the Public Service Award, are seen during the The Lasker Awards 2013.

For the past five years, Bill and Melinda Gates have published an annual letter, modeled on Warren Buffett’s legendary Berkshire Hathaway Berkshire Hathaway shareholder missives, which help set the global philanthropic agenda. This year, they’ve taken a different tack: rather than list their foundation’s wins, losses and priorities, the letter, released today, takes the form of a manifesto. Actually, an anti-manifesto. And in dissecting its details with Bill Gates yesterday – “the exercise of writing forces you to have logic and critical reasoning,” he acknowledges, sporting sharp new black-framed eyeglasses – you get a surprisingly clear window into how the planet’s richest person and biggest philanthropist plans to spend the rest of his life.

Rather than posit on what’s required to end extreme global poverty – the primary goal of the Gates Foundation – this year’s letter focuses on three myths that impede progress. Specifically, that poor countries are doomed to stay poor, that foreign aid is a waste of money and that saving Third World lives just creates more starving mouths to feed. As statistics obliterate the fallacies of all three – Matthew Herper thoroughly debunked the Malthusian worries in Forbes two years ago — the Gates’ (Bill takes on the first two, Melinda the third) make short work of these arguments.

For me, the three myths prove less telling about Bill and Melinda Gates than three other threads that cut across the letter.

First, that for all the cash and brainpower, they can only succeed if governments buy-in (or at least don’t sabotage progress). The foreign aid example is obvious, and the recent U.S. budget compromise actually increases spending on polio eradication by $50 million (the Gates Foundation still doubles what the U.S. government provides). Gates points out that, since he has the “capitalistic freedom” to allocate his resources as he chooses, his foundation serves a de facto due diligence that this is money well-spent.

But at a point not too far in the future, “you’ll almost have to give a reason why a country is a poor,” says Gates. And that reason, perhaps save a few geographically-cursed countries in land-locked Africa, will be government policies. Those that offer market-based incentives and invest in health and education, says Gates, will almost surely pull themselves up, if they haven’t already. It’s why China has so thoroughly outperformed its fellow population behemoth, India. The poor souls trapped in North Korea? Gates offers no promises.

Second, you get a sense of optimism. For all of Gates’ data-laden wonk-speech, he’s one of humanity’s biggest cheerleaders. “There are no headlines, ‘Oh my God, look at what’s happened over 25 years of progress,’” he says, adding “the change since I was born to now is very dramatic.”

And he’s now making a prediction: There will be almost no more poor countries by 2035. The “developing world,” to a large degree, will no longer exist. Two years ago, Gates funded the Commission on Investing in Health, led by Larry Summers and 25 global experts in various disciplines, which envisioned a convergence of advances that will allow almost every country on the planet to see their children live past five years old at a rate equal or better than the U.S. standard in 1980 – a bellwether stat for Gates that indicates “health equity.”

That 2035 date also coincides with the year Bill Gates turns 80, a fact not lost on him. It’s the third underlying message of the letter: a personal blueprint for the next two decades. “It’s easier to think about years where you expect to be around,” Gates says. “It’s kind of nice, people can either tell me, ‘Well you really messed that up’ or ‘You got that right.’” For a human atlas, who can reel off the health care policy differences between Vietnam over Nigeria, or the checklist needed to bring up Haiti, the 2035 health equity goal provides “a finite problem” to solve.

It also matches the way he and Melinda have built the Gates Foundation, which will wind down, deploying all its resources on their stated goals – health equity currently sits at number one — within 20 years of their passing. “Rich people in those times will be able to pick what the problems are then,” says Gates. His work, however, will be done. It starts again today.

The Africa Trip That Changed Bill And Melinda Gates’ Lives

Bill Gates: Why Publicity Can Aid Your Cause

Where Bill Gates Finds The Dedication To His Causes","For the past five years, Bill and Melinda Gates have published an annual letter, modeled on Warren Buffett’s legendary Berkshire Hathaway shareholder missives, which help set the global philanthropic agenda. This year, they’ve taken a different tack: rather than list their foundation’s wins, losses and priorities, the letter, released today, takes [...]"
"A man lured car sellers on online classifieds website Gumtree by pretending to be a doctor before stealing the vehicles, police claim.

The 23-year-old man is facing several charges including 12 counts of fraud totalling $100,000 and six counts of stealing after being extradited from Melbourne to the Gold Coast on Wednesday.

Police claim the man responded to adverts claiming to be a doctor, even dressing up as one when he would go to inspect vehicles.

He then made claims about depositing money into victims' bank accounts by showing them a fake bank receipt, it is alleged.

Detective Senior Sergeant Jay Notaro said the case was a warning for people buying or selling items via the internet.

""One of the most important things to remember is only proceed with the sale if the buyer has the exact cash amount agreed upon their possession or you have actually received the money in your nominated bank account,"" Det Snr Sgt Notaro said.

""Also ensure you sight and photograph relevant photo identification before completing any transaction.""

The man is set to face Southport Magistrates Court on Thursday.

In 2013, police reportedly claimed 250 calls were being received a week about scams on Gumtree.

In August this year a Cairns man, Daniel James Strachan, 40, was given a four-year jail term after pleading guilty to setting up multiple fake ads on the classifieds website and defrauding people of almost $87,000.",A man who allegedly pretended to be a doctor while buying cars from an online classifieds website has been charged with fraud.
"Bob Elliott, who as half of the comedy team Bob and Ray purveyed a distinctively low-key brand of humor on radio and television for more than 40 years, died on Tuesday at his home in Cundy’s Harbor, Me. He was 92.

His death was confirmed by his son Chris Elliott, the actor and comedian, who said his father had had throat cancer.

Mr. Elliott and his partner, Ray Goulding — Bob was the more soft-spoken one, Ray the deep-voiced and more often blustery one — were unusual among two-person comedy teams. Rather than one of them always playing it straight and the other handling the jokes, they took turns being the straight man.

As Mr. Elliott told Mike Sacks, the author of “Poking a Dead Frog: Conversations With Today’s Top Comedy Writers” (2014), “We were both sort of straight men reacting against the other.”

Together they specialized in debunking gasbags, political airheads, no-talent entrepreneurs and Madison Avenue hypemasters. Their weapon was not caustic satire but wry understatement.

A typical bit of theirs was called “The Bob and Ray Overstocked Warehouse,” in which Mr. Elliott announced, deadpan: “We have 124 full cases of canned corned beef, which are clearly stamped ‘San Juan Hill, 1898.’ If you do not find this corned beef all you had hoped it would be, just leave word with the executor of your estate to return the remaining unopened cans to us.”

Perhaps the most enduring, and endearing, character they created was Mr. Elliott’s mild-mannered but indefatigable radio reporter, Wally Ballou.

Wally, whose reports always began a split-second late (“...ly Ballou here”), was a self-promoter, but a modest one — he was known to introduce himself as “radio’s highly regarded Wally Ballou, winner of over seven international diction awards.” His interview subjects (all played by Mr. Goulding, of course) had even more to be modest about than he did. They included a farmer who was plagued with bad luck, even though his crop consisted of four-leaf clovers, and the owner of a paper-clip factory whose idea of efficiency was paying his workers 14 cents a week.

Mr. Elliot, left, purveyed a distinctively low-key brand of humor.

After Mr. Goulding died in 1990, many feared they would never see or hear Mr. Elliott again, so inseparable was he from his partner. But he continued to work.

He became a cast member of Garrison Keillor’s “American Radio Company of the Air,” which briefly replaced “A Prairie Home Companion” on public radio. He appeared in the Bill Murray movie “Quick Change.” He played the father of his son Chris in the 1990-92 television series “Get a Life” and the 1994 movie “Cabin Boy.”

Comedy was an Elliott family affair. Chris Elliott — who in 1989 wrote a parody of celebrity tell-all books, “Daddy’s Boy,” with “rebuttals” by his father — has two daughters, Abby and Bridey, who also went into the business. Abby Elliott is a movie and TV actress who spent four seasons on “Saturday Night Live,” where Chris had earlier been a cast member. Bridey Elliott co-starred in the 2015 movie “Fort Tilden.”

Mr. Elliott also made commercials — real ones, as he had with Mr. Goulding years earlier when they provided the voices for Bert and Harry Piel, the animated spokesmen for a New York brewing company. But any fan who heard Mr. Elliott’s mellow voice in a legitimate commercial could not help recalling the spoofs of Madison Avenue spots that he did over the years with Mr. Goulding.

The team’s ersatz advertisements included exhortations on behalf of the Monongahela Metal Foundry (“Steel ingots cast with the housewife in mind”), Einbinder Flypaper (“The flypaper you’ve gradually grown to trust over the course of three generations”) and Height Watchers International.

Though Bob and Ray were seen on television, on Broadway and in the movies “Cold Turkey” (1971) and “Author! Author!” (1982), radio was their natural habitat. “Ray and I both grew up with radio,” Mr. Elliott once said. “Our whole hopes for the future were that we’d get into radio.” They won three Peabody Awards for their radio work and were inducted into the National Association of Broadcasters Hall of Fame in 1984 and the National Radio Hall of Fame in 1995.

Robert Brackett Elliott was born on March 26, 1923, in Boston. His father was an insurance salesman; his mother refinished antiques. An only child, he grew up in Winchester, Mass., and while attending Winchester High School developed his radio skills over the school’s public address system.

After high school, Mr. Elliott ventured to New York to enroll in the Feagin School of Drama and Radio. Back in Boston, he briefly worked as an announcer at WHDH before serving in Northern Europe with the Army during World War II.

After his discharge in 1946, he returned to WHDH, where he met Mr. Goulding, who had been hired as a D.J. and had a morning show. Mr. Elliott told Whitney Balliett of The New Yorker in 1982 that the two hit it off and began to ad-lib between records to amuse themselves.

“It wasn’t always funny,” he recalled, “but it was something.”

Bob and Ray’s style quickly took shape. As the cultural historian Gerald Nachman wrote, they “never felt a need to destroy their targets, preferring to tickle them to death with a well-aimed feather.”

Within a few months, WHDH gave them their own show, “Matinee With Bob and Ray.” New Englanders liked their patter so much that the station soon gave them another, “Breakfast With Bob and Ray.”

After five years in Boston, they went to New York, auditioned for NBC and were given a 13-week contract. They quit their jobs in Boston and started doing a one-hour Saturday night show on NBC radio in 1951.

They soon made the transition to television. Not all the critics loved them: Jack Gould of The New York Times dismissed them as “an incredibly inept ‘comedy’ team” that delivered “pedestrian theatrics.” But most of their reviews were good, and they began to acquire a loyal following.

Their career quietly picked up steam throughout the 1950s. They were prominently featured on the NBC weekend radio show “Monitor.” They recorded comedy albums. They began appearing on television variety shows; over the years, they were the guests of Ed Sullivan, Johnny Carson, Steve Allen, David Letterman and others. Along the way, they acquired a silent partner, Tom Koch, the uncredited writer or co-writer of many of their routines.

They brought their act to Broadway in 1970 with “The Two and Only,” in which Mr. Elliott appeared as Wally Ballou and as, among other characters, the president of the Slow Talkers of America, who talked so slowly that he drove his interviewer, Mr. Goulding, into a rage. (He was still talking as the curtain fell for intermission — and still in midsentence when it rose again for the second act.) It ran for five months.

By the early 1980s, Bob and Ray’s gentle approach had largely been supplanted by a louder and angrier brand of comedy. But they were not forgotten — perhaps, Mr. Elliott theorized, because the “hilarity of pomposity” had not gone out of style — and in 1982, they returned to the airwaves with “The Bob and Ray Public Radio Show” on NPR. They remained on the air for as long as Mr. Goulding’s failing health allowed.

When not performing, Mr. Elliott liked to paint, and he kept a studio in Manhattan for that purpose. He also liked carpentry and prided himself on personally having built at least half his house in Maine.

Mr. Elliott’s marriage to Jane Underwood ended in divorce. His second wife, the former Lee Pepper, died in 2012.

Besides his son Chris, he is survived by another son, Robert Jr.; three daughters, Colony Elliott Santangelo, Amy Elliott Andersen and Shannon Elliott; 11 grandchildren; and five great-grandchildren.

The reasons for Bob and Ray’s lasting appeal were hard to pin down. “Maybe the secret of our success,” Mr. Elliott himself once suggested, “is that we emerge only every few years. We don’t saturate the public, and new generations seem to keep discovering us.”

They were still being discovered two decades after Mr. Goulding’s death, and Mr. Elliott remained proud of their accomplishments — although he tended to express that pride, as he expressed almost everything, very quietly.

One expected no less from a man who once said of his partner and himself, “By the time we discovered we were introverts, it was too late to do anything about it.”

Correction: February 3, 2016 An earlier version of this obituary misquoted Mr. Elliott at one point. He said “Ray and I both grew up with radio,” not “Bob and I both grew up with radio.” The earlier version also misquoted a line from a Bob and Ray parody commercial. It was “The flypaper you’ve gradually grown to trust over the course of three generations” — not “The flypaper you’ve gradually learned to trust over the course of three decades.”

A version of this article appears in print on February 4, 2016, on page B16 of the New York edition with the headline: Bob Elliott, Half of the Deadpan Bob and Ray Comedy Team, Is Dead at 92. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe","The comedian and his partner, Ray Goulding, specialized in low-key humor that debunked gasbags."
"Whoever the special man is in your life that you want to thank, he'll be forever grateful if you serve up this feast

ARE you stumped for Father’s Day? Or looking for a way to make it that bit more special?

Step up celebrity chef Dean Edwards – he’s got you covered.

*6-8 pork and apple sausages, skinned

*150g baby button mushrooms, halved

1 Break the sausage meat into bite-sized pieces then dust with flour. Heat a frying pan until very hot, add the oil, then fry the sausage until golden. Reduce the heat to medium then add the mushrooms, onion, garlic and thyme leaves, then cook for a further 5 minutes.

2 Pour in the cider to deglaze the pan, scraping up all the lovely gooey stuff stuck to the bottom. Add the stock and continue to cook until the sauce thickens slightly. Stir through the mustard then season with salt and pepper. Take off the heat and leave the pie mixture to cool.

3 Preheat the oven to 200°C/180°C fan/gas mark 6. Roll out the pastry until it’s the thickness of a £1 coin then cut into a circle a little larger than your pie dish. Transfer the cooled filling into the dish, wet the edges with a little water then lie the pastry lid on top. Trim away any excess pastry then crimp the edges to seal.

4 As it’s Father’s Day, cut out pastry letters dedicated to your dad to decorate the top of your pie. Brush with beaten egg then bake in the oven for 40-45 minutes. Serve with mashed potato and buttered greens.

*100ml strong coffee (instant is fine)

*150g Italian savoiardi sponge fingers

1 Make the coffee with boiling water, stirring in 30g of the sugar until dissolved. Pour into a shallow dish, add the stout and nutmeg, then stir to combine. Set aside to cool.

2 In a bowl, lightly whip the cream and remaining sugar, then gently fold through the mascarpone. Spoon the mixture into a piping bag.

3 Cut each of the sponge fingers into four, and place the pieces into the dish of cooled coffee for a few seconds. You might have to do this in batches. Don’t over-soak them, as they will break up.

4 In four serving glasses, layer half the sponges. Pipe in some cream, add half the grated chocolate, then the remaining sponges. Add another layer of cream and top with the rest of the chocolate. Put the glasses in the fridge until ready to serve.",ARE you stumped for Father’s Day? Or looking for a way to make it that bit more special? Step up celebrity chef Dean Edwards – he’s got you covered. Pork and cider pie Serves 4 Pr…
"Lana Del Rey is trading her famed ‘blue jeans’ for H&M fashions.

The 26 year-old singer lends her signature teased, 1960’s Dusty Springfield-inspired bouffant to the Swedish megachain’s latest ad campaign.

Del Rey models soft sweaters and knits for the winter ad campaign, which was shot by famed fashion photographers Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin.

“The mood is very L.A. noir,” Donald Schneider, H&M’s creative director, told Women’s Wear Daily.

The photographs also play up Del Rey’s other well-known feature -- her lips.

The sultry-voiced songstress adamantly proclaims that her pout is all natural.

“They're real lips, I mean. In real life my lips don't look that big,” she told T magazine in February. “I think because I cartoonized the footage of myself in the video for 'Video Games' things look exaggerated.""

“I’m quite pouty,” she said. “That’s just how I look when I sing.”

Del Rey is becoming as well known as a fashion ‘It Girl’ as she is for her seductive, monotone singing style.

The sultry-voiced songstress was photographed by Mario Testino for the March issue of Vogue UK.

She also channeled both Marilyn Monroe and Jackie Kennedy Onassis in her video for the song “National Anthem,” which debuted in June.","The 26 year-old Del Rey models soft sweaters and knits  for the winter ad campaign, which was shot by famed fashion photographers Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin."
"Our Knit A Kid A Blanket campaign has been a roaring success as the Sun on Sunday says goodbye to 2016

LITTLE Lubove Seurtu would like a doll for Christmas — but she’s not likely to get one. Her best hope is to stay alive.

Thanks to you, our caring Sun on Sunday readers, she now has a better chance.

She’ll be warm this winter because of your fantastic response to our Knit A Kid A Blanket campaign. This week she got one of 600 blankets readers made to help needy kids in Europe, Syria and Britain.

With a brave, hopeful half-smile Lubove says: “Thank you to the people who made this blanket.” We thank you too for making hundreds of kids a little safer this Christmas.

Today’s Sun on Sunday is the last of 2016 — and what a year it was.

We had Brexit: the biggest thing to hit Britain since World War Two.

Like the war, it will reverberate for decades. We know it won’t be easy — but we also know it’s for the best.

We had a new PM: While Theresa May looks like she’s of the right stuff, Labour looks lost, led by an unelectable throwback who somehow managed to get re-elected.

We had a US revolution: Trump’s extraordinary win shocked the world. Now the world waits to see what he is going to do.

We had destruction: Syria, a blot on humankind. We had sorrow: Bowie, Ali, Wogan and the other stars who we lost.

We had shocks: Leicester’s Prem win. We had inevitabilities: England losing to Iceland then losing two managers. We had glory: Our best Olympics for a century, a tennis player on top of the world.

We wish you and your loved ones a merry Christmas and a happy New Year. We’ll be back on January 1 with more great news, sport and entertainment.

DAVID Miliband puts the boot in on brother Ed over Syria.

He says the ex-Labour leader’s decision to block British troops being sent to deal with the despicable President Assad was a “failure of monumental proportions”.

That neatly sums up Ed’s entire career.

David — a former foreign secretary who Labour moderates hope may one day return to rescue the party — said lack of action on Syria has created a western leadership “vacuum”.

It’s clear he was also referring to the space between Ed’s ears.

OUR prisons are in a dangerous mess.

Decades of mismanagement and under-investment have brought us to this: Riots, escapes, suicides, gangs, drugs.

Justice Secretary Liz Truss is right to say the full force of the law must descend on those responsible for the trouble at HMP Birmingham.

More resources are needed — and she promises reforms and 2,500 new guards.

But how do you stop a disastrous 46 per cent of criminals re-offending within a year? We must punish and protect but we also need to rehabilitate.

Is it time to clink the unthinkable?","Blanketed in love by our caring readers LITTLE Lubove Seurtu would like a doll for Christmas — but she’s not likely to get one. Her best hope is to stay alive. Thanks to you, our caring Sun on Sund…"
"SAN FRANCISCO, May 24— Mario Obledo frankly explains that he built his candidacy for the Democratic nomination for Governor of California on his Hispanic background.

He sees the primary June 8 as a testing time for Mexican-Americans and the California Democratic Party as well as for his political aspirations.

There are undertones of a sense of mission in the words used by Mr. Obledo, one of 12 children reared by illegal Mexican immigrants in a tiny house on an alley off a dirt street in San Antonio's barrio.

''I think that whatever I get will be a plus,'' he said. ''We started from zero. This is the first time we have had a person be a viable candidate for Governor in this state.''

For seven years, until he resigned to run earlier this year, Mr. Obledo was Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr.'s Secretary of Health and Welfare.

Now 50 years old, Mr. Obledo worked as a licensed pharmacist while he studied law. He was a founder and chief counsel of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, which has its headquarters here. He was a teaching fellow at Harvard Law School for eight months before joining Governor Brown's cabinet in 1975.

''We were on public relief,'' he said while discussing his childhood. His four brothers were convicted of such crimes as burglary, robbery and narcotics, but he was never jailed, he said, explaining: ''Every neighborhood had its own gang, if you want to call it that. I was involved in everything, I guess, that everyone else was. I just never happened to get caught in a serious situation that would embitter me to the point where I would continue in that pattern.'' Most Are Democrats

About 4.5 million of the 22 million residents of this state are themselves immigrants or descended from immigrants from Mexico, Puerto Rico and Central and South America. Of the million of these who are registered to vote, most are Democrats. There are 5.6 million Democrats among the 10.7 million California voters. There are few prominent Hispanic politicians on the California scene; only six of the Legislature's 120 elected members are Hispanic.

''I figure 1.2 million votes will win the Democratic nomination,'' Mr. Obledo said in an interview. He brushed aside the California Poll of the first week of May, which showed him with just 3 per-cent of the Democratic vote, as against 75 percent for Mayor Tom Bradley of Los Angeles and 11 percent for State Senator John Garamendi of Stockton.

''I figure at least 70 percent of us will vote in the primary,'' he said. ''That would be 700,000, and I expect to get better than 70 percent of that. So you see that gives me 500,000 votes going in.

''I think I can get the balance from a cross section of the voters of this state. After all, I served as secretary for seven years. My name is known amongst a lot of provider groups, recipient groups, and grantees of Government programs. I must have addressed 1,000 meetings.''

He said he had had no organizational support from ''Anglos,'' meaning whites, but said, ''I think I have a lot of Anglo friends and sympathizers who will vote for me.'' Help From the Farm Workers

His strongest volunteer forces have come from among Hispanic Americans. The United Farm Workers Union, led by Cesar Chavez, which has largely Hispanic members, has given him his largest campaign donation, $50,000, and has promised to provide precinct workers in the last week before the June 8 primary election, he said. He expects to spend $300,000 by the election.

The Obledo candidacy, with its strong ethnic tone, comes in a year when the traditional Democratic party institutions, such as labor unions and party workers, back Mayor Bradley, who is the first black candidate with a chance to win the gubernatorial nomination.

''I think it's time the Democrats supported someone from our constituency,'' Mr. Obledo said in the interview, held in his campaign headquarters on Olympic Boulevard in downtown Los Angeles. He said a disastrous defeat for him might turn Hispanic voters away from the polls in November to the disadvantage of the Democratic nominees.

Asked if he would support Mayor Bradley if the Mayor won the primary, Mr. Obledo said: ''It's too early to tell. First I have to know what he stands for and I can't find that out.'' Mr. Obledo described the Mayor's refusal to meet him in debate as ''a sad commentary.'' Would Close Nuclear Plants

Mr. Obledo's campaign issues tend toward the traditional liberal Democratic positions of help for education, for the poor and for the disadvantaged. He favors a nuclear weapons freeze, and of nuclear power plants he says, ''I think we ought to close them up.''

In the interview, he described himself as firmly opposed to construction of the Peripheral Canal, which would increase the amount of water exported from Northern California to Southern California. Earlier, he had tentatively supported a ballot measure that would accomplish that, but now says his further studies persuaded him it was too costly.

One position he takes would probably make him unique among governors: He has supported Argentina on the Falkland Islands. ''The security and well-being of our country rests on the relationship we develop with the nations in our hemisphere,'' he said, adding that England was ''declining as a prestigious power.''","Mario Obledo frankly explains that he built his candidacy for the Democratic nomination for Governor of California on his Hispanic background.   He sees the primary June 8 as a testing time for Mexican-Americans and the California Democratic Party as well as for his political aspirations.   There are undertones of a sense of mission in the words used by Mr. Obledo, one of 12 children reared by illegal Mexican immigrants in a tiny house on an alley off a dirt street in San Antonio's barrio.   ''I think that whatever I get will be a plus,'' he said. ''We started from zero. This is the first time we have had a person be a viable candidate for Governor in this state.''"
"CBS is airing ""The Victoria’s Secret Swim Special"" for the second consecutive year. It’s set for 9 PM Wednesday, March 9.

The special, shot on the island of St. Barts, features supermodels including Behati Prinsloo, Candice Swanepoel, Elsa Hosk, Jasmine Tookes, and Josephine Skriver, among others. Pop stars Demi Lovato and Nick Jonas are set to perform. CBS also airs ""The Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show.""

""The Victoria’s Secret Swim Special"" is produced by Done + Dusted, inc. Edward G. Razek, Ian Stewart and Hamish Hamilton are the executive producers.

Pilot Season 2016: How Many Pilots Is Each Network Ordering?

NBC And CBS Stations Swap Network Affiliations In Raleigh, NC

'Code Black' Casts Boris Kodjoe In Recurring Role",CBS is airing The Victoria’s Secret Swim Special for the second consecutive year.
"For major retailers, the week of darkness has arrived. With $4 gasoline and tight credit keeping consumers' wallets shut, it's time to announce dismal profits. Unless you're a discounter or a seller of hip clothing really ahead of the fashion curve, forget about it. Wall Street is braced for the worst.

Here's one sign of how bad things are: ""Coupon redemption is at an all-time high,"" says Britt Beemer, president of America's Research Group, which studies shopper behavior. Beemer's research shows that 59% of shoppers last month showed up at stores with specific lists of items they were limiting themselves to buying. The historical average over the 29 years he's been surveying: 33%. Also, more people are reporting plans to shift their shopping from chains to independent stores, where they think price haggling is more accepted.

And he finds that half of women shoppers have no opinion of this season's spring apparel lines, simply because they haven't bothered to look closely at them. Better to postpone buying decisions for now. ""That's unusual because winter to spring is always the most dramatic seasonal fashion change,"" Beemer says.

Despite April sales figures that came in a little bit better than expected, department stores and specialty chains are getting hit hard as more money shifts to discounters like Wal-Mart (nyse: WMT - news - people ), Costco (nasdaq: COST - news - people ) and BJ's Wholesale Club (nyse: BJ - news - people ). Wal-Mart, which kicks off industry earnings announcements Tuesday, is expected to announce it made 75 cents per share for the April quarter, up from 68 cents a year ago, on a 7% jump in sales to $92.4 billion.

Analysts also think that off-price chain TJX Companies (nyse: TJX - news - people ), which operates TJ Maxx, Marshall's and Bob's Stores, is poised to nudge profits up to 40 cents a share from 37 cent last year, on a 6.6% increase in sales.

The rest of the landscape looks bleak. Big department stores Macy's (nyse: M - news - people ), which reports on Wednesday, and J.C. Penney (nyse: JCP - news - people ), which goes on Thursday, are both expected to show a 4.5% decline in sales, according to consensus estimates. Analysts expect Macy's to lose two cents a share and J.C. Penney to drop more than 50% to 49 cents a share. Penney's full-year outlook calls for a 31% drop in profits, to $3.29 a share.

The outlook isn't much better for upscale retailer Nordstrom (nyse: JWN - news - people ), where profit is expected to drop to 50 cents a share from 60 cents, on a slight dip in sales. Nordstrom reports Thursday.

Lehman Brothers economist Drew Matus sees a fundamental slump in consumer spending lasting through the first quarter of 2009, save for a modest early summer push spearheaded by government rebate checks (don't believe everyone who denies an intent to spend those checks, he argues, since people tend to answer such surveys with socially acceptable answers). That doesn't bode well for the next back to school and holiday pushes.

Other than discounters, the only retailers it pays to own right now, it seems, are those fashion houses staying a step ahead of their competitors. With more consumers focused on deals than on the latest trends, there's only room for sales growth for those stores that are truly getting the trends right.

Among those are Urban Outfitters (nasdaq: URBN - news - people ), the Philadelphia-based chain expected to push quarterly profit to 22 cents a share from 17 cents a year ago when it reports on Thursday, on a 23% jump in sales.

""There just aren't many specialty retailers catering to the 20-to-35-year-old consumer that they go after. And their track record of being on the fashion curve is [among] the best in retail,"" says J.P. Morgan Chase retail analyst Brian Tunick.

Tunick also encouraged by the full-year prospects of J. Crew (projecting earnings of $1.86 a share in 2008 from $1.54 last year) and Abercrombie & Fitch (nyse: ANF - news - people ) (to $5.70 a share from $5.20), both of which are known for increasingly fresh apparel concepts.",This week's quarterly earnings reports are only the beginning for most stores.
"There was a time when I empathized with those on the other side of the abortion debate. They felt abortion was murder – and no matter how wrong I knew they were, I understood that believing such a thing would mean fighting to make abortion illegal.

Related: Planned Parenthood president keeps cool in face of congressional grilling

But I don’t understand anymore. There are too many holes in their logic, too much magical thinking and outright lies to leave room for meaningful debate. How can you find common ground if you’re not even living on the same planet?

Those intent on destroying access to abortion live in a dream world where they are right and just, even has they are continually provided evidence to the contrary and confronted with their deceptions. Never has this been more on display than in the last few weeks as Republicans have tried to defund Planned Parenthood, and Carly Fiorina’s campaign doubles down on the lie that there’s a video of Planned Parenthood providers talking about “harvesting the brain” of a live fetus.

As has been pointed out over and over, the video that Fiorina claimed existed simply does not, and so her campaign released a different video, complete with spliced and edited audio and video, to keep the lie going. And while the GOP claims that their obsession with Planned Parenthood is about donated fetal tissue – despite every completed state investigation clearing the nonprofit organization of any wrongdoing – Republicans earlier this week questioned Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards about which affiliates provide the most abortions and grilled Richards about her salary. Last time I checked abortion was legal, as was having a paying job.

But I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. Fantastical self-deception is necessary if you want to make abortion illegal. How else could you convince yourself that denying women abortions is good for them, even as that lack of access harms and even kills them?

The fantasy world that anti-choicers live in is one where women don’t really need abortions to save their life, even though women routinely have life-threatening pregnancies. It’s a world where women can’t get pregnant from rape, or if they do should look upon the forced pregnancy as a “gift”. A world where there are only two kinds of women – women who get abortions and women who have children – even though over 60% of the women who get abortions are mothers. (This particular delusion is so ingrained that when Naral Pro-Choice America president Ilyse Hogue went to a Capitol Hill hearing while pregnant with twins, someone from the opposition asked if her stomach was “real.”) Perhaps the most dangerous fantasy, though, is the anti-choice claim that if Roe v Wade is overturned women won’t be arrested for having abortions – even though this is already happening while the procedure is legal.

In some cases, as with Fiorina, these aren’t self-deceptions but knowing lies, made to provocate and rally people behind the cause by any means. And the power of these lies are dependent on the widespread, manic self-righteousness that makes anti-choicers unable – or unwilling – to separate fact from fiction. It was only three years ago, for example, that an article about $8bn, 900,000 square foot Planned Parenthood “abortionplex” went viral with people deriding the move, including a Facebook post from a Louisiana Congressman. It turned out to be an Onion article.

The gaffe would be funny if American women’s lives and health weren’t on the line. Most of us can’t afford to live in a dream world – we live in the real world, where access to contraception, healthcare and abortion are necessary for our freedom and lives. There is a right and a wrong here. Just not the ones most Republicans think.","Those intent on destroying access to abortion live in a dream world where they are right and just, even as they are continually provided evidence to the contrary"
"RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — The Tonga flag-bearer who became an unexpected sensation at the Rio Games after marching shirtless into the opening ceremonies has lost his chance for a gold medal in the men’s taekwondo heavyweight division.

Pita Taufatofua, ranked 157th in the world, had an unfortunate pairing in the first round with the division’s No. 2 seed, Sajjad Mardani of Iran. Mardani demolished Taufatofua 16-1 amid fans chanting “Tonga!” in the arena.

Taufatofua described his opponent’s attacking leg as “a nightmare” and said his slow start in the fight cost him.

Taufatofua said he wasn’t expecting the enormous reaction to his appearance in the opening ceremony and hinted that he might have something special — but quick — planned for the closing celebrations.

Follow the Daily News Sports on Facebook. ""Like"" us here.

“Don’t blink or you’ll miss it,” he warned.",The Tonga flag-bearer who marched shirtless into the opening ceremonies has lost his chance for a gold medal.
"Dean Karnazes finishing his historic Run Across America in 2011. His message to Greeks: 'You are better than you think and you can go further than you think.' Photograph: Mike Disciullo/Bauer-Griffin/Eroteme.co.uk

Dean Karnazes is not a man to shy away from challenges: like Pheidippides, the original marathoner who delivered the news of the Greek army's victory over invading Persian forces, he doesn't give up.

Seven years ago, he ran 50 marathons in 50 consecutive days from one coast of the United States to the other. Before that he spent three days and three nights running 350 miles – the last night ""sleep running"" as he went. He's crossed all four of the world's great deserts, including Death Valley, the hottest place on Earth. And he's run through arctic temperatures to get to the south pole, the coldest place on Earth. In 2015, he hopes to traverse the world by clocking up marathons throughout the year in 204 countries.

But now the Californian has his sights on crisis-hit Greece, the land of his forebears, where he arrived this week on a mission of endurance and hope.

""I come with a message,"" he said on the first day of his first ever visit to the Greek capital.

""And that is that you are better than you think and you can go further than you think. The only limits you have are you own preconceived notions of what you can't, and can do.""

On Friday, the 51-year-old ultra-marathon runner – described by some as the fittest man on the planet – takes that message to the Peloponnese, one of the poorest regions in a nation that now holds the unenviable position of being the unhappiest in Europe.

There he will run a marathon from his ancestral village, high in the mountains of Arcadia, to the Messinian plain in what will be a triple-pronged effort to promote sports tourism to the debt-stricken country, highlight the perils of child obesity – a growing problem in Greece – and raise awareness of the benefits of the Mediterranean diet to which he subscribes religiously.

""Hardship and adversity make you stronger,"" he insisted with his parents, both second-generation Greek-Americans, looking on. ""Change is never easy but the Greeks have clearly realised that they couldn't keep going down the same path. As painful as it has been, there has been somewhat of a cleansing of the economy and with that has come hope.""

Although fascinated from a young age by endurance and discipline – the very virtues Greece now needs most – the athlete readily acknowledges that he also has ""certain gifts"".

Almost uniquely, scientists have found that he does not accumulate lactic acid, which enables him to run seemingly forever without enduring muscle pain or cramps.

""My biomechanics are unique,"" said Karnazes while enthusing about one of his most recent ""jaunts"", a 75-mile, 14-hour run from San Francisco to Healdsburg, the wine capital of northern California, to attend a friend's party. ""For a long-distance runner it's the perfect body alignment.""

But the Greek-American, who will be met at the finishing line on Sunday by Antonis Samaras, the prime minister of Greece, also admits that it took time and effort ""to manifest"" his gifts. ""I wasn't always the perfect athlete … I used to eat a lot of junk food but have changed over the course of two decades,"" said the former business executive. ""I now eat only healthy, natural foods.""

Karnazes, who turned to running on his 30th birthday – challenging himself after a night of heavy drinking to run 30 miles – hopes his own tale of personal transformation will inspire Greeks.

""A lot of younger Greeks often reach out to me for advice and I am seeing a lot of optimism among them,"" he said, adding that he hoped Greece would become a prime destination for ""active tourism"".

""There is a message of hope for people in what I have done. They can change for the better."" In Greece, the land of Pheidippides, helping change – like crossing the world – would be his biggest dream yet.","The ultra-marathon expert, described by some as the fittest man on Earth, is running from Arcadia to Messinia to highlight child obesity in Greece"
"The reception honoring Presidential Rank Award finalists comes at a good time.

Honoring the finalists, members of the Senior Executive Service (SES), provides a bit of relief during this period of generally low federal employee morale and specifically congressional efforts to curtail the civil service protections and bonuses of senior executives in the Department of Veterans Affairs.

About 100 SES members, including two from the VA, will be honored during the reception, sponsored by the Senior Executives Association Professional Development League, in the ornate State Department reception rooms Thursday evening.

The finalists were nominated for the 2013 Presidential Distinguished and Meritorious Rank awards, which were suspended by the Obama administration for budgetary reasons. Under federal law, Meritorious Rank Award winners get a monetary prize equal to 20 percent of salary. The monetary prize for Distinguished Rank Award winners is 35 percent. Most senior executive pay ranges from $121,749 to $181,500 a year.

Last month, Office of Personnel Management Director Katherine Archuleta announced the reinstatement of the awards. Nominations for 2014 honorees are due Thursday. The 2013 finalists are eligible to be renominated this year.

Though no individuals will be award winners for 2013, NASA certainly is the big winner among agencies. It is a much smaller organization than many agencies, yet it has far more finalists, 18, than any other agency except the Defense Department. Defense has 34 finalists. But it also had about 758,000 employees, compared to NASA’s 17,900, according to 2012 OPM data.",Presidential Rank Award finalists will be honored at a State Department reception Thursday.
"So much for peeing in peace.

As if women didn’t have enough to worry about when using public restrooms, now we’ve gotta watch out for transphobic bathroom patrols.

A Connecticut woman with an adorable pixie cut was harassed in a Walmart restroom by a customer who assumed that because Aimee Toms, 22, was sporting short hair and baseball cap, then she must also be sporting a penis.

Connecticut woman says she was harassed in Walmart bathroom

And so what if she was? There are plenty of things that piss me off more in a public ladies room than what someone is packing in their underwear. So can we please not add self-righteous bathroom monitors to this already overlong list of pee peeves?

1. PEE ON THE SEAT

We’ve all occasionally sprinkled when we tinkled, but there’s no excuse for not taking two seconds to wipe up after yourself. There’s nothing worse than entering a stall and seeing splatter, except ...

Ladies, please... Let’s just leave the stall as clean as we found it, OK?

The only thing worse than the pee-pee dance while waiting in line for a stall is the flushdance once you’re inside. Why do automatic flushers always seem to either flush before you’ve finished (and sometimes even before you’ve sat down) or they decide not to flush at all when it’s time to leave? Then you’re forced to bounce back and forth in front of the sensor to try and turn it on.

We’ve all been there — you place the paper cover on the seat, but the automatic flusher sucks it down before you’ve had a chance to sit. You pull out another protector, place it on the seat, and the mad process repeats. So you give up and hover anyway. In heels.

It sucks to be left hanging when there’s no hook on the door for your purse. You can’t lay it on the dirty floor, so you’re forced to awkwardly hold it on your lap or dangled over your shoulder while you squat.

The last thing you want to do while simultaneously hovering over the toilet and awkwardly cradling your purse is to also have to reach out and hold the stall door closed, because of course the latch is broken — or nonexistent.

We’ve all suffered the despair of seeing not a single square left on that cardboard tube — which is why many of us carry pocket tissues, just in case. If you want to go all Neighborhood Watch on the women’s room, you’d honestly be doing a better service to patrol the toilet paper rolls so that no ladies are left high and not-so-dry.

What’s more awkward than a small child’s head suddenly peering at your squatting self from under the door to see if your stall is available? It’s not cute. Haven’t kids ever heard of knocking? Or personal space?

9. WATER ON THE SINK COUNTERS

I assume that the same women who are too busy to wipe their pee off their toilet seats are also the ones who can’t be bothered to mop up any water they splash while washing their hands. I always seem to get an awkward wet spot on my pants or my shirt after leaning against the counter to reach the faucet. Thanks, girls.

We’ve established that the ladies room is often a rather disgusting place despite some of our best efforts — so it’s incredibly frustrating when you can’t even wash it away properly because the dispenser is out of soap.

BONUS PEEVE: When there’s no paper towels, and the electric dryer (if it works) takes forever to dry your hands.",So much for peeing in peace. Now we've gotta watch out for transphobic bathroom patrols.
"Culture Connoisseurs consistently offer thought-provoking, timely comments on the arts, lifestyle and entertainment.

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You must be logged in to recommend a comment.",COLUMN | Behind the choice of Obama or Romney is a real debate about the kind of capitalism we want.
"THE juxtaposition of shows by William Zorach (1889-1966) and Turku Trajan (1887-1956) at the Zabriskie Gallery (29 West 57th Street) is apt in many ways. Both men were immigrants - Zorach from Lithuania and Trajan from Hungary - and both were sculptors who also painted. But while the one achieved considerable success in his lifetime, the other died in poverty, having failed to sell one work.

Zorach's fame as a sculptor was closely connected with the ''truth to materials'' movement, which started in France as a reaction to Rodin and the studio system in general. Regarded at first as the ''esthetic left wing'' of sculpture and later as modern academism, the style derived its inspiration variously from folk, tribal and pre-Columbian art, as well as from Cubism, and yielded imagery subordinate to the shape and character of the materials from which it was made.

Though this show includes five bronzes, some of which look to be translations of wood carvings, it focuses on Zorach's early years (1912-22), when he was working as a painter. Cezanne, Matisse and Cubism all influenced him, but evidently to little avail. There are several quite attractive watercolor landscapes - ''A Tree in Spring'' (1915), for example, where distant mountains rimmed in purple preside over green fields similarly treated, and a 1916 study of a schooner that evokes Van Gogh's fishing boats. But overall, the impression is of lostness.

Zorach was prone to ''abstracting'' figures and landscape with Cubist facets, and he also tried to combine Cubism with Fauve color, as in the oil of a stylized woman and child in bright red, silhouetted against a yellow sunset. However, the forms of Yosemite, executed in both oils and watercolors, seem to have released an Expressionistic energy in him. Perhaps it was this that led him ultimately to sculpture.

With the modernist revolution now processed by hindsight and by historians into inevitability, it is sometimes difficult to appreciate the gropings of its lesser adherents. Yet Cubism must have seemed, to all but the most brilliant and intuitive aspirants, as obscure as the Theory of Relativity, and it's no wonder that Zorach, like many others, never really got below its surface. The show indicates that the artist was both an emotional and a pragmatic personality for whom painting alone was too cerebral an activity. Though he continued to make watercolors - note the conventional 1926 view of Grenada - it is apparent that he needed the solidity of sculpture and the ritual of its craftsmanship to anchor him.

Had Trajan been born a little earlier and remained in Europe, he might have helped revive the heroic aspects of sculpture, in the manner of Bourdelle. If he had lived much later, he would probably have benefited from the permissiveness of late modernism. As it was, he belonged nowhere and was unable either to impose his own vision or to submit to anyone else's.

Though his tragedy, which included the humiliation (for a professional) of showing once in the Washington Square Outdoor Art Exhibition, is familiar, the man himself and the way in which he survived remains a mystery. Still he is known to have been somewhat mystical, and if the head - squarish and with deepset eyes and a tight mouth -that recurs in his art can be seen as a kind of selfportrait, he may well have been obstinate to the point of willfulness.

As a painter of still lifes on paper, in a mixture of gouache, pastel and possibly oil, Trajan worked impressionistically in slashing strokes of rather pasty colors and left parts of the ground exposed.

As a sculptor, he alternately modeled, using a kind of cement, and painted his forms. One of the two heads here is dabbed arbitrarily with many colors, the other has a yellow face, rusty red hair and is varnished overall.

Two obviously imaginary works, ''Pagliacci'' and ''Helen of Troy,'' are touched only here and there with color. They are the most interesting pieces in the show, the first being a kneeling figure in doublet and ruff with winglike forms framing a face that resembles a gargoyle. Technically a high relief, the second figure stands wearing a long dress and a cloak and leans at an angle as if resting on a cane. The face -again with deep-set eyes and a determined mouth - is most haunting.

There is neither a sense of time nor of place in the work (nothing is dated), nor is it clear whether or not the artist received formal training. Not to minimize its cruelty, the neglect that Trajan experienced seems not to have been gratuitous. He obviously could not and would not participate in his time. But he was no primitive either, and so his art lacked the childlike charm and eccentricity of, say, an Eilshemius, which, with luck and a nod from Marcel Duchamp, might have got him into art society through the back door. (Through July 10.)

Other shows this week include: Kay Rosen/Kay Walkingstick (Urdang, 29 West 57th Street): Kay Rosen shows two large diagrams ruled in black and red ink on paper and a ''Notation'' in colored graphic tape on matte Mylar. In a complicated way, the drawings chart the progress of people walking up and down staircases in selected art institutions. Though the investigation is a perfect instance of scientific pointlessness, its results are not unpleasing - columns of short black lines, diagonal and horizontal, that are punctuated by red bars. The drawings look like the kind of herringbone tweed a computer might weave.

Kay Walkingstick's canvases seem less sexual in connotation than they were, perhaps because the reviewer was seeing them for the first time out of a feminist group context. Until recently, Miss Walkingstick - the name is Cherokee - has worked on two layers of canvas, applying a thick mixture of encaustic and acrylic with her fingers. As the earlier works here show, the effect is of coarse, dark animal hide incised with one or two slits and scored with lines. Now that the artist is working on paper glued to board and is laying on thinner pigment with a knife, the paintings have acquired a greater, more mysterious power. Though smaller than before, they seem to have maintained - even gained - scale. Their leaden complexions, tinged with green, red, brown and blue, are of a rich, enameled quality, and the lozenge-shaped openings, treated in subtly contrasting hues, now look more like objects floating in space than lesions. This is intense and very promising work. (Through June 27.)","THE juxtaposition of shows by William Zorach (1889-1966) and Turku Trajan (1887-1956) at the Zabriskie Gallery (29 West 57th Street) is apt in many ways. Both men were immigrants - Zorach from Lithuania and Trajan from Hungary - and both were sculptors who also painted.  But while the one achieved considerable success in his lifetime, the other died in poverty, having failed to sell one work.   Zorach's fame as a sculptor was closely connected with the ''truth to materials'' movement, which started in France as a reaction to Rodin and the studio system in general. Regarded at first as the ''esthetic left wing'' of sculpture and later as modern academism, the style derived its inspiration variously from folk, tribal and pre-Columbian art, as well as from Cubism, and yielded imagery subordinate to the shape and character of the materials from which it was made."
"Why did the PM think Warsi was right for the chairman's role? (Photo: PA)

Baroness Warsi, co-chairman of the Conservative Party, has been notable by her absence since news of the ""Cash for Cameron"" affair first broke. Instead it has fallen to a tag team of Francis Maude and Michael Fallon to go from studio to studio explaining why this is a ""bit of nonsense"" (in Maude's words) which simultaneously the Conservative party leadership takes seriously.

Warsi's co-chairman, Lord Feldman – Andrew Feldman, ennobled by his close friend David Cameron – has not been seen either. This is less surprising, as Feldman is the Cameroon's fund-raising lynchpin and keeps a low profile. He was interviewed for the Financial Times recently as part of a profile on Cameron's first two years as PM. Feldman explained that his friend was good at his job and works tremendously hard, but does look a ""little tired"" (in contrast to many millions of Britons who commute, work to keep their heads above water, do not have access to two grace and favour homes and look completely knackered).

""Cash for Cameron"" has underlined the absence of a proper old-style Tory party chairman. Matthew Barrett (""Where's the Party Chairman?"") spotted this yesterday, when Fallon and Maude were doing the 10,000 metres media relay. He suggested that Cameron needs to get himself a chairman to lead from the front pronto.

Equally, that person would have seen it as part of his or her job to protect the party leader from donors and insulate him from potential scandal in the first place. ""We are in a mess on Cruddas,"" a senior Tory told me yesterday, ""because we haven't got a strong party chairman who is experienced in the ways of politics as well as being experienced in the ways of the world.""

The absence of such a person at the top of CCHQ under Cameron has been entirely deliberate. Cameron and George Osborne decided that Conservative strategy – for the general election and in government – would instead be driven by and defined overwhelmingly by their close relationship.

Osborne's reasons for not wanting someone in post in the mould of Peter Thorneycroft (1975-81), Cecil Parkinson (1981-83), Norman Tebbit (1985-87), Kenneth Baker (1989-1990) or Chris Patten (1990-92) are obvious. Having a big beast at CCHQ would cut across his relationship with Cameron and weaken his control of the Cameroon project.

What is extraordinary is that the Prime Minister should have gone along with this so willingly when it is not in his or his party's interests. Margaret Thatcher would not have dreamt of giving Nigel Lawson the Treasury brief and making him general election supremo in charge of party direction, even though she rated him very highly. Far better to let him concentrate full-time on the economy, and have a party big-beast chairman with a direct route to the PM who could give unvarnished advice, regardless of whether it was at odds with what the Chancellor had been saying.

Francis Maude (2005-2007) was the closest the Cameroons got to having someone in post with clout – but he is an uber-moderniser and was always unlikely to be robust with Cameron and Osborne on strategy, other than to suggest that they go further and faster on initiatives such as the A-list for candidates.

After that it was Caroline Spelman, and then Eric Pickles. Whatever the strengths of Pickles, he was not remotely in the same league as Osborne in terms of influence with the Tory leader.

Then came the decision to split the post. The last time that was done was when Liam Fox and Lord Saatchi were joint chairmen under Michael Howard. Even though both were sharp operators, the Tory party found it was not a happy experiment.

But when Cameron split the role it was even worse. He chose two figures with very little experience of politics. One was his friend, party fundraiser Feldman, the other was Baroness Warsi. It was never clear what her qualifications were for the post. If the hope was she would grow into the job then those hopes have not been justified.

It looked rather as though Cameron and Osborne wanted to advertise the party's commitment to diversity, whilst putting their ultra-loyal money-man and friend in alongside Warsi so that he would do every piece of their bidding.

One cannot imagine Feldman or Warsi ever saying, with a mix of charm and well-intentioned menace: ""Prime Minister, I regret to say that we do seem to be getting badly off beam with a lot of the people we need to vote for us if you are to carry on with the job of being such an excellent PM after the election. I know the Chancellor and his friends from the SDP take a different view of this. They seem to think that the solution is tax cuts for the very poorest, who regrettably do not tend to vote Conservative anyway, an assault on grandmothers, tax breaks for the rich and contempt for millions of aspirational strivers who want their families to get on in life. There are alternatives to our current approach, and I think the party would rather like them to be explored. Just a suggestion, Prime Minister.""

Once again a design flaw in the original Cameron/Osborne project is causing significant problems for the Tories.","Baroness Warsi, co-chairman of the Conservative Party, has been notable by her absence since news of the ""Cash for Cameron"" affair first broke. Instead it has fallen to a tag team of Francis Maude and Michael Fallon to go from studio to studio explaining why this is a ""bit of nonsense"" (in Maude's words) which [...]"
"Research in Motion already has to deal with falling BlackBerry sales and a disappointing roll-out of its PlayBook tablet. Will it now have to fend off Carl C. Icahn as well?

Shares in the wireless device maker jumped as much as 7 percent on Tuesday amid speculation that the billionaire investor had taken a stake in RIM. The company’s stock traded at $23.01 by early afternoon, still up 6 percent.

Beset by the growing popularity of the iPhone and an armada of Android-based devices, RIM has been suffering for some time. The company’s stock has plummeted more than 60 percent so far this year, giving it a market value of just $12 billion.

It is not clear what Mr. Icahn would call on RIM to do. The company insists that it will forge ahead with new devices based on a next-generation operating system, rather than on more drastic courses of action like an asset sale.

At least one other activist investor, Jaguar Financial, is calling on RIM to consider strategic options that may include the sale of the company’s patent portfolio. (Analysts at Jefferies & Company are not very optimistic about the prospects of such a move, saying that it could fetch as little as $1 billion.)

Then again, Mr. Icahn, a longtime activist investor, has a record of spurring positive change at cellphone makers.

After his repeated prodding, Motorola agreed to split itself into two divisions, one that makes handsets and one that manufactures enterprise equipment. Last month, the handset maker agreed to sell itself to Google for $12.5 billion.

Mr. Icahn was not immediately available for comment.",Is Research in Motion in Carl C. Icahn's cross hairs? Shares of the BlackBerry maker jumped as much as 7 percent amid speculation that he had taken a stake in the company.
"SHOCKING footage shows the moment two dangerous fireworks explode under a pair of police vans – after being launched by a gang of mindless thugs.

The disturbing video shows the powerful rockets erupting under the Greater Manchester Police vans in Oldham.

The incident happened on Bonfire Night in what looks like a residential area – although the exact location is not known.

Posted on Oldham Latest News Facebook page on Sunday, the video has now been handed over to authorities.

The social media page’s administrator said he published the video to highlight the anti-social behaviour which occurs around November 5.

He also called for the laws around the sale of fireworks to be tightened.

In his post, he said he believed a gang of youngsters fired the rockets.

He said: “It’s out of order. It’s disgraceful and disgusting. The reason we put the video up is to make people aware that this is what kids are doing.

“We’re just trying to have some community spirit and raise awareness.

“It’s an absolute disgrace and just shows why they shouldn’t be selling fireworks to just anyone.”

We pay for your stories! Do you have a story for The Sun Online news team? Email us at tips@the-sun.co.uk or call 0207 782 4368",SHOCKING footage shows the moment two dangerous fireworks explode under a pair of police vans – after being launched by a gang of mindless thugs. The disturbing video shows the powerful rockets eru…
"That made him a hot commodity in basketball hot-bed Chicago, but in an unlikely place: Perspectives Charter School. It is a contradiction to urban public schools that produce high-caliber players and have a reputation for being crowded or run-down.

Perspectives is modern, down to the architecture of its Joslin campus building that is shaped like an isosceles triangle in the Downtown South Loop area.

But Perspectives, with a high school enrollment of about 200, has no gymnasium and plays in the off-the-radar Blue Division of the Chicago Public League, a place for start-ups and foundering programs that are no match for teams from the powerful Red Division.

From this little-known school, Davis made it to Kentucky, the Final Four and NBA draft charts as the projected No. 1 pick if he chooses to declare. He is just a freshman, but his immediate impact reverberated across the country. He won the Oscar Robertson Trophy as national player of the year and will lead NCAA tournament favorite Kentucky in its national semifinal against rival Louisville on Saturday.

""I thought I would do whatever I had to to help my team win,"" Davis said last weekend during the NCAA regional in Atlanta, ""but as far as awards rolling in, I didn't have plans on being this successful in college. I'm just thankful for it.""

Davis has nifty averages of 14.3 points, 10.1 rebounds and 4.6 blocked shots a game and holds the Southeastern Conference season record with 175 blocks, but the president and co-founder of Perspectives, Diana Shulla-Cose, raves about the development of his speaking skills because that is emphasized in the school's guiding principles, coined A Disciplined Life.

""I asked him once what about (the principles) resonated with him,"" she said in an interview this week. ""He said, 'A hard work ethic and accept only quality work.' He models it to the core.""

While his classmates spent some lunch periods trying yoga, learning how to dance Salsa or picking up tips on how to DJ, Davis, an honor-roll student, was outside, shooting baskets at the school's portable backboard and rim, the closest thing it has to a sports facility. The backboard is beat up and the net tattered.

To get the latest sports news from USA TODAY, including game results, columns and features, follow us on Twitter at @USATODAYSports.

""It's from Anthony dunking on it,"" said Perspectives senior Ronald Brown.

They call it Anthony's hoop.

Davis is a rare find on many fronts. He became a coveted prospect only two years ago, in contrast to other prospects spotted as early as sixth grade by college recruiters and scouting services fixated on youth basketball in search of the next rising star.

After his junior season Davis signed up with MeanStreets, a Nike-backed club co-owned by former Michigan and NFL football player Tai Streets. Around that time, Davis had interest from a Horizon League school and a few other mid-majors, says Jevon Mamon, a MeanStreets assistant and head coach at Perspectives' Calumet campus (the school has five campuses).

Amid a growth spurt, the lanky Davis needed confidence and a few post moves to suit his towering frame, according to Streets. Davis was accustomed to playing the guard position and seemed tentative about playing in the post. Streets never expected him to become the talk of the club circuit.

""We went to our first tournament and everyone said, 'Who is this kid?' "" Streets recalled. ""He was blocking shots. He was everywhere doing everything.""

Davis became an overnight sensation.

Kentucky, Ohio State, DePaul and Syracuse pursued him. Perspectives' Joslin campus coach Cortez Hale and athletics director Vinay Mullick fielded calls from schools all over the country wanting to schedule games.

Hale was in awe when Davis came back for his senior year measuring 6-10, up three inches from the year before.

""I said, 'How did you do that?' "" Hale said. "" 'I need to give that to my other players.' He said, 'I just slept, coach.' ""

Davis' teammates lacked experience, and the school went 7-18 with an upgraded schedule that included games against Chicago powers Whitney Young and De La Salle and games in Ohio and Massachusetts. ESPNU televised the game against Young, a coup for the school that opened in 1997 with 35 students. Davis averaged 32 points, 22 rebounds and seven blocked shots a game en route to becoming a McDonald's All-American.

The team played and practiced at the nearby Illinois Institute of Technology as well as a park district facility. Perspectives offers sports to attract students but athletics truly take a backseat to preparing students for college. Last year 97% of its seniors were accepted to colleges.

The concept of small public schools in Chicago was embraced by U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan while he was the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) chief executive officer. That was a boon for Perspectives and other small CPS schools. Perspectives is a tuition-free public school with open enrollment, unlike Chicago magnet schools that base admissions on grades and test scores.

Its scores on the Illinois Interactive Report Card show Perspectives has made gradual improvement each year with its test scores, though it still lags behind state percentages. Almost all of its students are from low-income homes.

One of the school's most important functions is being a safe haven, says Perspectives senior Manuel Whitfield, Davis' former teammate. ""We don't have fights. We don't have metal detectors.""

Davis' parents, South Side residents Anthony and Erainer, sent oldest daughter Iesha, 21, to Perspectives. Davis and twin sister Antoinette enrolled as sixth graders in Perspectives' middle school. The absence of a gymnasium didn't bother his mom because she was satisfied with their schooling.

""I didn't see it as a problem,"" Erainer said in a telephone interview Thursday. ""It was better than the other public schools.""

Davis' middle-school team practiced in a nearby church and that sufficed for the family.

""I wasn't going there because of basketball,"" Davis said Thursday. ""(Almost all) the kids graduate and go to college. My dream was always to go to college.""

Davis has not talked about his NBA plans, but Kentucky coach John Calipari typically advises potential first-rounders to enter the draft. In light of the millions he stands to make, Shulla-Cose said she would understand if Davis left early.

Feeling at home in the post

When Davis was recruited by Kentucky in summer 2010, the Chicago Sun-Times cited anonymous speculation in a story on its web site alleging boosters paid the family to secure Davis' arrival. The story was removed from the web site but the newspaper posted another citing unnamed sources from three universities who said Davis' father had put a price tag on his son's recruitment. Davis' mother declined to comment.

Officials at Kentucky and the family threatened to sue the newspaper. Sun-Times sports editor Chris De Luca said no suits were filed. Illinois has a one-year statute of limitation in libel cases.

It seems Davis put it behind him with the swiftness of one of his powerful swats. He arrived at Kentucky late last spring in need of establishing himself as a forward.

""I wasn't doing so good at first,"" he said. ""I didn't want to be in the post. But I kept working. Now I want the ball in the post.""

What sets Davis apart from other low-post players are his ball-handling skills and face-up game. All those years of playing the guard position became an asset.

""You have a guard-skilled, nimble player in a big man's body,"" Calipari said.

His shot-blocking as well as his unibrow have endeared him to Kentucky fans, some of whom have T-shirts that say ""Bow to the Brow,"" a salute to Davis' play and his dark, thick eyebrows. He encounters fans who bow in person, in photographs and videos.

""I kind of embrace it,"" said Davis, who turned 19 on March 11. ""I love it all.""

Back at Perspectives, they love it, too. Mullick sees a lesson in Davis' on- and off-court schooling. ""If you're good,"" he says, ""they'll find you.""",The former guard blossomed as a post player after growing 8 inches in four years at little-known Chicago charter school Perspectives.
"London is at the forefront of the tribal art market, where prices for art and antiques now range from a few hundred to several million pounds

In recent years, niche fairs have become an increasingly important feature of the art world calendar, both in London and globally.

Mutter the words “frieze” or “masterpiece” and the art world is sent into a flurry, anticipating what the world’s best dealers will bring to the table. But it is the smaller fairs, such as Tribal Art London, London Antique Rug and Textile Art Fair, and the one that started it all, the London Original Print Fair, which have hooked on to the ever-growing trend for a more concentrated, smaller-scale fair.

Tribal Art London has grown alongside this surge of niche fairs. Now in its eighth year, it started in a small Portobello Road gallery space before moving to Cork Street in 2009.

Last year it expanded to fill the Mall Galleries, while this year the fair boasts the largest number of exhibitors since it was first created.

Co-organiser and founder Bryan Reeves, a dealer in tribal art for more than 25 years, says that the present size of the event, with 18 dealers, provides the “right demand for the market, with 75pc of the dealers being UK-based”.

The London fair “reflects the market” because there are pieces for both “collectors starting out” as well as for more seasoned collectors.

With a refined number of dealers, this and indeed other niche fairs, can focus on delivering the best fair for their specialist market. Tribal Art London, therefore, succeeds in offering its clientele tribal masks, textiles, jewellery, arms and amour, many of which are museum quality with an excellent provenance.

The fair cleverly takes place just before the opening of Paris’s Parcours Des Mondes, which since 2002 has lead the international scene for tribal art. The placement of Tribal Art London in the calendar ensures that dealers from across Europe, America and elsewhere will be sure to make a stop at the ever-growing London fair on their collecting pilgrimage to Paris.

One of the fair’s exhibitors and a co-organiser of Tribal Art London, Adam Prout, has enjoyed watching the fair “grow and grow as it becomes more and more exciting”.

“Every year there is a different audience,” says Mr Prout, “and with that audience we gain different ideas for the next year.”

Mr Prout, who specialises in Native American and Australian among other tribal arts, says that there was “a need for so long” for a fair such as Tribal Art London which is more accessible in comparison to Parcours Des Mondes.

The tribal art market has been one of the most interesting sectors to watch evolve.

With the loss of tribal cultures and the need for careful restoration of wooden pieces, artworks in this industry have become increasingly rare. Fairs are a great way of ensuring the success of this booming section of the art industry.

The arrival of tribal art in the first half of the 20th century awoke something in the Western world. The rich and cultural diversity of these beautifully shaped objects captured the eye of the collector and art lover.

Picasso and Braque, to name two, were among the many artists who were so inspired by the abstractions of African sculptures and masks that tribal art carved the way for the birth of cubism.

Tribal art has even featured in some of the 20th century’s greatest literature: an image of tribal art appears in the pages of DH Lawrence’sWomen in Love, the European protagonists excited by the ritualisation and natural element of the art form.

Since the Sixties, when the tribal art market was redefined and considered a fine art, recognised masterpieces have emerged.

The rise in the tribal art market bears resemblance to the rise of the Chinese art market, with African buyers keen to buy pieces from their heritage, particularly as parts of sub-Saharan Africa are experiencing an economic growth.

In 2008, the famous Baga serpent figure, which was part of a private family collection in New York, was sold at Sotheby’s for £2.1m, which set a new record for tribal art.

The beauty of the tribal art market is that, although these incredible figures can be reached, tribal antiques can also be bought for a few hundred pounds or less.

Tribal Art London will run from 3-5 September 2015 at The Mall Galleries, London, with a private viewing on 2 September. For more information visit tribalartlondon.com.

Check out more tribal art at barnebys.co.uk","Why not try something different like the Tribal Art London fair, with its collection of exquisite pieces"
"For years, Defense Department contractors have been used in the fight against today’s asymmetric threats posed by our nation’s enemies. In stride, they have augmented America’s military might, serving in numerous capacities ranging from logistical support, intelligence, protective service details, training, advising, etc.

Americans are properly embracing military service members like never before, yet rarely is their news about those who fight right alongside them. Today, that group may soon intermix with the grave percentage of Americans unemployed.

The majority of U.S. forces fighting in places like Iraq and Afghanistan are not uniformed service members -- they are defense contractors and they comprise more than 52% of the entire force serving abroad.

The majority of American defense contractors I have met abroad had a minimum of a bachelor’s degree, while many had a master’s or Ph.D. They average a minimum of 15 years military background, often dominating in some form of U.S. Special Operations or Intelligence capacity. Most have a minimum of a Secret clearance and many maintain Top Secret.

Due to service and academic accomplishments, they should be sought after by hiring managers. With a struggling economy, like most Americans, finding a new career is not optimal. While it only makes sense to remain in current jobs, riding out this economic crisis, some Americans are being pushed out by the federal government -- U.S. defense contractors are some of those people.

With a Defense budget in jeopardy and a drawdown of U.S. forces serving abroad, thousands of defense contractors are placed in limbo.

Many of these heroic American patriots face the same demons as our own uniformed service members. They have witnessed first-hand accounts of the wars, causing mental anguish upon their return to the United States. Some have been injured, yet will not obtain VA assistance and, more disheartening, very few will receive any medical relief due to poorly managed Department of Defense contractor oversight. More than 1,688 have been killed.

These brave warriors have done exceptional work serving alongside their uniformed brethren. Love them or despise them, there is no question that if any true successes were accomplished fighting in Afghanistan or Iraq, they were not achieved by our military alone. Defense contractors are the epitome of “silent professionals” -- and they are rarely, if ever, spoken of.

Former President Bill Clinton dramatically reduced the size of our military force and many proud service members were literally kicked out of the career they loved for no reason other than forced reduction initiatives. I know because I am one of the many. Today, during one of America’s most trying economic times, the federal government would love nothing more than to reduce the size of our fighting force. This force does not consist of just uniformed service members, but our defense contractors, as well.

Today, defense contractors are our forgotten warriors. Many have risked everything to include their future. These are the men and women who would rather fight a war and risk their lives than stand at a welfare line. Soon, like many Americans, they may be faced to do the latter.

Kerry Patton is the co-founder of the National Security Leadership Foundation, a non-profit organization pending 501c (3) status. He has worked in South America, Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and Europe, focusing on intelligence and security interviewing current and former terrorists, including members of the Taliban. He is the author of “Sociocultural Intelligence: The New Discipline of Intelligence Studies” and the children's book ""American Patriotism."" You can follow him on Facebook.","With a Defense budget in jeopardy and a drawl down of U.S. forces serving abroad, thousands of Defense Contractors are placed in limbo."
"Editor's note: Roland S. Martin is a syndicated columnist and author of ""The First: President Barack Obama's Road to the White House."" He is a commentator for TV One cable network and host/managing editor of its Sunday morning news show, ""Washington Watch with Roland Martin.""

(CNN) -- Whenever there is an uprising among the people of this country in the form of protests and organized dissent, especially with a presidential election 13 months away, the discussion inevitably shifts to what it will mean for one of the nation's two political parties.

No matter how hard they've tried to suggest that they aren't partisan, the tea party is nothing more than a sub-group of the Republican Party. If there were a healthy number of tea party Democrats, then that would be true. But there isn't, so it's nonsensical to waste time not calling the tea party Republicans exactly what they are: tea party Republicans. From Day One the movement aligned itself with the GOP, and that is true today.

Yet the attempt by Fox News, conservative radio show hosts and the GOP presidential candidates to associate Occupy Wall Street protesters with the image of far-left radical hippies being in lockstep with the Democratic Party is wrong, shameful and pure intellectual dishonesty.

Being concerned about the nation's well-being, and the depths to which the big-monied interests are driving the nation's policies is not a partisan question; it is a moral one.

GOP presidential candidate wants to cheapen the discussion by suggesting Occupy Wall Street protesters hate capitalism. I sense they despise a nation that has come to be one in which Fortune 500 companies and big banks run ads talking about how great America is, but work hard to destroy America by shipping jobs overseas and engaging in shameful business practices that require the taxpayer to bail them out.

It's really simple, and insanely stupid, to examine the real anger of Occupy Wall Street as a bunch of young folks with nothing to do. If we recall March 2009 when the AIG bonuses came to light, every corner of this nation was angry with what we heard. Political ideology didn't matter. It was seen as a matter of right and wrong.

That's why the various leaders of Occupy Wall Street, no matter how local and decentralized, must look at their effort as not being a galvanizing force to put one party into office. Instead, it should be about candidates of both political parties, as well as independents, speaking to their needs and desires.

This tea party vs. Occupy Wall Street construct is a ridiculous one. From a media perspective, it's a cheap and easy narrative that, in the end, doesn't tell the full story.

As someone who is more enamored with studying the intricacies of the civil rights movement rather than memorizing key speeches of its leaders, what was clear from Day One was that it wasn't about getting a Democrat or Republican elected. It was always about ensuring full freedom and equality for African-Americans who were denied their rights as citizens.

At different points, Republicans and Democrats were allies of the civil rights movement, while at the same time some Republicans and Democrats were virulent opponents. It wasn't about party for civil rights leaders; it was about principle.

And that is exactly where we sit today. As I listen to the Occupy Wall Street protesters and watch as their protest spread across the country, similar to the lunch counter sit-ins that spread like wildfire across the South in 1960, the goals and ideals sound eerily familiar. While in the 1960s it was about race, the civil rights battlefront today is about class. It is about the widening gap between the rich and poor, and how the middle class is being pushed down to the poor, rather than being helped upward.

This struggle is the moral dilemma the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. frequently discussed. If folks would stop focusing on the last part of his ""I Have A Dream"" speech and read all of what he said at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom on Aug. 28, 1963, they would understand that.

So what if Russell Simmons, Kayne West and other celebrities have millions and are showing support for Occupy Wall Street? When Harry Belafonte, Dick Gregory, Sidney Poitier, Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Peter, Paul and Mary, Charlton Heston, Mahalia Jackson and other celebrities attended the 1963 March, no one said how dare those individuals with big bank accounts stood in solidarity with those with no bank accounts. When it comes to fairness, your values matter more than your tax bracket.

If labor unions and politicians want to stand in solidarity with Occupy Wall Street, that is a good thing. If individuals who work on or used to work on Wall Street want to show their support for the need to systemic changes to this system, more power to them. If self-identified Democrats and Republicans want to show their moral outrage, praise God.

Moral movements aren't supposed to be poisoned by politics. When they do, that's when their legitimacy is lost. If politicians want to use their voices in support, they should. But at no time should Occupy Wall Street be about getting one party elected to local, county, state and national office.

The time has come for men and women of conscience in this nation to stand up. It's vital that we elected individuals, regardless of party, who choose not to be an incestuous relationship with the rich in this country who are only about fattening their bottom lines while ignoring the plight of others.

As Dr. King said: ""An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.""

The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of Roland S. Martin.","Being concerned about the big-monied interests driving the nation's policies is a moral, not a partisan question, Roland Martin says."
"Colmar’s Musée Unterlinden, one of the most important smaller museums in France, has reopened after three years of renovation and expansion—just in time to double the pleasure of visitors thronging the city’s Christmas market.

Ensconced in the 13th-century cloister and chapel of a former Dominican convent, the Unterlinden is renowned for its collection of medieval and Renaissance art, crowned by the multipaneled Issenheim altarpiece (1512-16). But it had grown musty and outdated, and short of space for its swelling cache of modern and contemporary works.

Charged with the revamp, Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron, based in nearby Basel, opted for symmetry and simplicity instead of architectural braggadocio. Opened on Saturday, their extension combines a new, copper-roofed brick building with a converted 1906 municipal swimming pool and a new brick-walled courtyard—forming an ensemble that echoes the size and shape of the cloister, which it faces from across a newly uncovered stretch of the Sinn canal.

In the cloister, long walled-up windows were reopened and jerry-built partitions were cleared away, providing spacious galleries for the medieval and Renaissance collections, now presented chronologically, starting with early 15th-century Gothic works, followed by mid-15th-century Rhenish masters, including Jost Haller.

An entire gallery devoted to Colmar’s own late 15th-century Martin Schongauer is an eye-opener. The vivid color and realistic detail in the big array of paintings by “Martin the beautiful” is matched by a soaring oak-beamed ceiling with a patchwork of reused panels, many of them painted, dating from the 16th to 18th centuries. The ceiling was discovered by chance during the renovation, when two successive false ceilings were dismantled.

“It came as a complete surprise,” says museum director and chief curator Pantxika De Paepe. “We had no idea it was there.”

Still unfinished and scheduled to open for the museum’s official inauguration on Jan. 23, the cloister’s mezzanine floor will house two of the museum’s most prized works, Hans Holbein the Elder’s “Portrait of a Woman” (circa 1515) and Lucas Cranach the Elder’s elegant and mysterious “Melancholy” (1532).

In the newly oak-floored chapel, a lineup of carved wood and polychrome statuary now leads to the 12-foot-by-22-foot Issenheim Altarpiece, with its 11 painted panels by Mathis Grünewald and carved polychrome figures by Nicolas de Haguenau. The largest panels were originally mounted as pairs of unfolding wings covering the figure-filled base, but all are now clearly displayed in discreetly framed, separated sections.

The cloister is linked to the new addition by a long underground gallery, passing beneath the canal, which offers a relatively small group of 19th- and early 20th-century works, including a somber Monet “The Creuse Valley, Sunset” (1889), a radiant Robert Delaunay “Still Life with Parrot” (1907), a dreamlike Bonnard landscape (1920) and a small Renoir portrait of a young boy (1870-72).

The new building, with all-white walls and “floating” display panels, is strictly minimalist and contemporary, except for windows and doorways framed by Gothic ogive arches. Paintings and sculpture from 1930 to the present include works by Picasso, Léger, Vasarely, Otto Dix, Jean Dubuffet and Nicolas de Staël. The standout is a 1976 tapestry version of Picasso’s Guernica by Jacqueline de La Baume-Dürrbach, one of only three produced, as stipulated by Picasso; the other two are in the United Nations Security Council chamber in New York and the Takasaki Modern Art Museum in Japan. Until now, this one rarely left the Unterlinden’s reserves.","Renowned for its collection of medieval and Renaissance art, the Unterlinden museum in Colmar, France, has reopened after three years of renovation and expansion with new space for its swelling cache of modern and contemporary works."
"Forbes said the rich mainly got richer in 2012, with net worth rising for 241 members of its list and shrinking for only 66. Rising stock prices, a rebound in real estate values and rare art prices helped.

More members of the Walton family, the founders of Wal-Mart Stores Inc., moved up into the Top 10, displacing investor George Soros and Las Vegas Sands Corp. founder Sheldon Adelson. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who made his fortune with the financial data services firm Bloomberg LP, is also back with the top dogs at No. 10 with an estimated net worth of $25 billion.

Social media moguls took the biggest hit. Zynga Inc.’s Mark Pincus and Groupon Inc.’s Eric Lefkofsky dropped off the list entirely. Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg was the biggest dollar loser in Forbes’ latest ranking of the 400 wealthiest Americans. The company’s lackluster IPO in May resulted in a huge drop in market value that cut the value of his shareholdings almost in half, costing him $8.1 billion in net worth. That dropped Zuckerberg from No. 14 on the list to No. 36.

But although Zuckerberg lost more money than most people will make in many lifetimes, his net worth still totals an estimated $9.4 billion, according to the magazine.

Twenty newcomers joined the list, which required $1.1 billion in net worth for entry, up from $1.05 billion a year ago. Among the freshly minted are Shahid Khan, owner of the NFL’s Jacksonville Jaguars, at No. 179; Judy Faulkner, founder of health records firm Epic Systems, at No. 285; Andrew & Peggy Cherng, the husband and wife team behind restaurant chain Panda Express, at No. 239; and Twitter creator Jack Dorsey at No. 392.

There are 45 women on the list, up from 42 a year ago, including Oprah Winfrey at No. 151.

The top 10 people on this year’s Forbes 400 list are:

— Bill Gates, $66 billion

— Warren Buffett, $46 billion

— Larry Ellison, $41 billion

— Charles Koch, $31 billion

— David Koch, $31 billion

— Christy Walton & family, $27.9 billion

— Jim Walton, $26.8 billion

— Alice Walton, $26.3 billion

— S. Robson Walton, $26.1 billion

— Michael Bloomberg, $25 billion

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.","NEW YORK — Microsoft Corp. co-founder Bill Gates remains the nation’s richest man by far, as the tech and philanthropy giant took the top spot on the Forbes 400 list for the 19th year running, with a net worth of $66 billion."
"Kim Kardashian's bodyguard -- who is normally ready to pounce at the first sign of trouble -- may have been protecting 2 other Kardashians instead at the time Kim was robbed.

Kourtney Kardashian and Kendall Jenner hit the town when the 2 gunmen entered Kim's Paris apartment. There are reports ... her bodyguard, Pascal Duvier, was shadowing the 2 women since Kim had turned in for the night.

Ironically ... Kim posted a pic of Duvier shadowing her hours before the robbery, joking he was always in her shot.

Duvier was by Kim's side last week when a notorious prankster ran up and kissed her butt. Duvier had no problem taking the guy down.","Kim Kardashian's bodyguard, who's normally ready to pounce at the first sign of trouble, may have been protecting 2 other Kardashians at the time Kim was…"
"The Colosseum still looms large over Rome, despite the passage of time. (Richard I'Anson/LPI)

Italy is a country blessed with exquisite cities and Rome is the king of them all. There are just too many reasons to fall in love with Rome: the masterpieces around every corner, the scooter-driving Romans, the operatic piazzas, and the cocktail of provinciality and sophistication.

They say a lifetime is not long enough for Rome, there is simply too much to see. So the best plan is to choose selectively and leave the rest for next time. If you like to travel through history, here are the best historical Roman sights in a city packed to the brim with ancient wonders.

Colosseum The Colosseum is the most extraordinary of all Rome’s monuments. Beyond the structure’s size and solidity, there is a sense of gory history that resonates. It was here that gladiators met in mortal combat, and condemned prisoners fought off hungry lions. Originally used to hold games that lasted 100 days and nights, the Colosseum was abandoned in the 6th Century with the fall of the empire. Since then it has served as a fortress in the Middle Ages, been damaged several times by earthquakes and used as a quarry for travertine and marble. Two thousand or so years from its beginning and the Colosseum is still hauling in crowds. Do not let the lengthy queue scare you off. Pop down to the Palatine ticket office, buy your combined ticket there, and upon returning, march straight in. Since 2010, there is even more reason to visit the Colosseum – its underground passageways (where gladiators and beasts once awaited their fate) are now open to the public.

Palatine Palatine was ancient Rome’s version of California’s Beverly Hills. Romulus killed his brother Remus and founded Rome here in 753 BC, and from 500 BC, Rome’s most affluent citizens set up residence in the area. Upon entering the complex from Via di San Gregorio, head uphill until you come to the first recognisable construction, the stadio, probably used by the emperors for private games and events. Adjoining the stadium to the southeast are the scant remains of the complex built by Septimius Severus, comprising baths and a palace. On the other side of the stadio are the ruins of the huge Domus Augustana, the emperor’s private residence. Today the Palatine is a dreamy place to escape the crowds and have a picnic. It is a moss-green hill shaded by umbrella palms and dotted by imperial ruins.

Palazzo Massimo alle Terme A treasure trove of classical art, the light-filled Museo Nazionale Romano: Palazzo Massimo alle Terme is one of Rome’s finest museums, but receives only a smattering of visitors. The museum houses many gems including sculptures and marble friezes from the 2nd Century BC to the 5th Century AD, but the sensational mosaics and frescoes on the 2nd floor blow everything else away. These include richly coloured frescoes from an Augustanera villa, such as the cubicula (bedrooms) with religious, erotic and theatre subjects, and landscape paintings from the triclinium (dining room). Make sure to see the garden paintings from Villa Livia, one of the homes of Augustus’ wife Livia Drusilla. Excavated in the 19th Century and displayed in the museum in 1951, these stunning frescoes depict an illusionary garden with all of the plants in full bloom.

Pantheon Competition is fierce, but the Pantheon is surely ancient Rome’s most astonishing building. Considered the Romans’ most important architectural achievement, it was the largest dome in the world until the 15th Century and is still the largest unreinforced concrete dome ever built. Its harmonious appearance is due to a precisely calibrated symmetry – its diameter is exactly equal to the Pantheon’s interior height of 43.3m. Light enters through the oculus, an opening in the dome that also served as a symbolic connection between the temple and the gods. (Rainwater also enters but drains away through 22 almost-invisible holes in the sloping marble floor.)","A lifetime is not long enough to see all Rome has to offer. Start at the beginning of history, with ruins, frescos and churches that have stood the test of time."
"State Warriors who desperately need an big man to complment David Lee. The Warriors recently solicited an offer from the Houston Rockets for Andris Biedrins in exchange for Hasheem Thabeet and Jordan Hill. The New York Knicks may also be interested in the

Houston Rockets tried to move up in the draft but they couldn't seem to find a willing partner. With four first round picks over the next two years it should have been easy for general manager Daryl Morey to make something happen, but instead he moved up three

scored at least 1,000 points in each of his seasons as a Warrior. That was Carroll's last great season. He signed with the Houston Rockets in the offseason and his numbers declined from over 20 points per game to 12.7 as the Rockets lost in the first round

Morris, the 14th overall pick by the Houston Rockets, has compared himself to Carmelo Anthony -- already a bit of a stretch -- and when he was introduced to the Houston media after Thursday's NBA Draft, he acknowledged that comparison and then added this:""But","Collection of all USATODAY.com coverage of Houston Rockets, including articles, videos, photos, and quotes."
"U.S. markets are heading for an underwhelming year with stocks looking a little expensive and no central bank stimulus on tap, David Blitzer, managing director of S&P Dow Jones Indices, said on Wednesday.

""We're one quarter into the year. I think we're up almost 1 percent, including the dividend. We ain't going no place this year,"" Blitzer told CNBC's ""Squawk Box.""

""We do know [quantitative easing] still works. Call up anybody in Europe. Their stocks are doing well, but no QE and no great excitement in the first quarter, I think is the story in the U.S. right now,"" he said.

Read More Get ready for a market reset: Technician

The Federal Reserve's bond-buying program had positive effects on the economy and was the right thing to do at the time, but that does not mean it is still the solution, Blitzer said.

He also addressed S&P Dow Jones' decision to add Apple to the Dow Jones industrial average, saying it was driven not only by the tech giant's stock split, but Visa's, as well.

Shares of Apple were trading at about $700 prior to its stock split last year—a price that would have thrown off the index because it is weighted by stock price rather than market value. The company was simply too expensive to work within the Dow.

At the same time, Visa's stock split, and the resulting lower price per share, threatened the weighting of technology in the Dow.

Read MoreWill Apple's next blowout surprise be its dividend?

As for the absence of Google in the Dow—which, like pre-split Apple, is too expensive—Blitzer said the index cannot be expected to represent the entire U.S. market.

""It's 30 stocks. There are roughly 4,000 traded equities in the U.S. market of $15 or $20 million market cap or more, so to say, 'I've got 30 stocks that will tell you about 4,000 is a bit of a stretch.'"" he said.","U.S. markets will underwhelm this year with stocks looking a little expensive and no central bank stimulus on tap, David Blitzer tells CNBC."
"Kunal and Neha Kapur Nayyar

09/11/2015 AT 12:00 PM EDT

came to visit him for the first time, he had a few things on his mind that made him nervous.

""I was living in a loft divided only by curtains. Would the curtains freak her out?"" the

writes in his new book of essays,

, which is excerpted exclusively in the latest issue of PEOPLE.

But he wasn't just worried about himself.

""What if she had weird feet?"" he continues. ""I'm not proud to admit this, but weird feet are pretty close to a deal-breaker for me.""

Not that this fear was specific to Neha, who, as Nayyar describes her to PEOPLE, is a ""beautiful

""I should clarify that almost all feet are weird feet,"" he writes. ""Also the sound of people wearing flip-flops drives me batty. Flip-flops should be banned.""

But Nayyar was willing to push past his fear, which is good because less than three years later he and Neha would wed at

in their native New Delhi.

""I don't think I would have found Neha if I hadn't been willing to risk failure,"" he writes. ""You can't find love if you're not willing to lose it. You can't find the love of your life without risking breaking your heart. Dive in.""

Yes, My Accent Is Real –

returns Sept. 21 on CBS.","The actor shares an excerpt from his new book, Yes, My Accent Is Real, exclusively with PEOPLE"
"From about 150 euros, or $158 at $1.05 to the euro.

The NH Collection Torino Piazza Carlina opened last winter in a 17th-century palazzo that was, in the early 1900s, the home of Antonio Gramsci, the politician who co-founded the Communist Party of Italy. The 160-room hotel is part of the NH Hotel Group but offers slightly more luxurious lodging than is typical for the Spanish-based brand, known for its basic rooms and moderate prices. The historic five-story property has been given some modern touches, like the futuristic light installation and artistic photo-collage that greet guests at reception. But many period details have been preserved, including beautiful stone mosaics in a large central courtyard surrounded by arcades, which are suggestive of the covered walkways called portici that hug miles of boulevards and vast piazzas around the city.

Conveniently located in central Turin on the southeastern corner of Piazza Carlo Emanuele II, the hotel is equidistant from the Po River and the grand Piazza San Carlo. It’s a short walk to the train station, most museums and tourist attractions, as well as to the historic quarter’s many restaurants and aperitivo bars.

My third-floor room was a study in Italian minimalism. Neutral hues and natural wood floors served as the backdrop for simple furnishings: a plum-colored armchair, a desk and desk chair, two bedside tables and the bed, which was actually two double beds pushed together. The walls were free of decorations or art; the only flourishes were a pile of Italian fashion magazines beside the bed, an enormous framed mirror on one wall, and a tray of minibar treats temptingly arranged on the desk. The ceilings were unusually high, and light streamed through the tall windows and glass-paned French doors, which opened onto a narrow balcony facing the central courtyard.

Spacious and bright with white subway tile and hardwood floors, the bathroom had a generously sized, well-lit vanity and an array of NH-branded toiletries. There was also a bidet beside the toilet, a warming rack for towels and a large shower stall with sliding glass doors and both rainfall and hand-held showerheads.

On the top floor of the hotel, a wood-paneled atticlike space has been outfitted as a gym with equipment and cardio machines, some tucked in window alcoves. On the rooftop, two terraces offer panoramic views of the city, including the slim spire of Turin’s most recognizable landmark, the Mole Antonelliana. And off the lobby, a bar area is a cozy refuge with low-slung lounge chairs and a handsome cedar bar. In all public areas and rooms, there’s free Wi-Fi.

An elegant, two-room restaurant serves traditional Piedmontese cuisine at lunch and dinner, and a daily breakfast buffet (included in my rate) is offered beside the courtyard, with tables set up nearby in the sunny arcade. Room service is available around the clock (five-euro delivery fee), with a menu that consisted mainly of simple salads, sandwiches and pastas. Breakfast can also be served in the room, and my order — a tray laden with pastries and rolls, muesli with yogurt, cappuccino and fresh orange juice — arrived promptly.

A dash of history and tasteful design in a city-center location is a winning combination, whatever your political affiliation.

NH Collection Torino Piazza Carlina, Piazza Carlo Emanuele II, 15, Turin; 39-011-860-1611; nh-collection.com/hotel/nh-collection-torino­-piazza-carlina.

A version of this article appears in print on February 14, 2016, on page TR4 of the New York edition with the headline: Minimalism, With a Dash of History. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe","At the NH Collection Torino Piazza Carlina, tasteful design and a touch of history in a city-center location is a winning combination."
"From the very first moments of his cable-news-dominating show, Fox News host Bill O’Reilly sets a standard for himself: “Caution. You are about to enter the no-spin zone,” he warns his audience. That is: On “The O’Reilly Factor,” straight, hard facts roll up into obvious conclusions shepherded by the tall and dominant host.

This no-nonsense self-identification, though, doesn’t end with the beginning. Throughout his programs, O’Reilly sells himself as among the few who’ll play it straight “with the folks,” who doesn’t hew to ideological positions that might just cloud his status as a fact broker and who’s tough on everyone, as he enjoys reminding his loyal viewers. He signs off like this: “Please remember, the spin stops here because we’re looking out for you.” No other television journalist, of course, would ever cop to running a show where spin is countenanced. Or promoted. Yet in keeping with Fox News’s genius for branding — “Fair and Balanced” belongs in some kind of hall of fame — O’Reilly has plowed a singular path as truth-teller. It’s that very status that oftentimes drives memorable segments on “The O’Reilly Factor”; when the host feels that a guest is sidestepping an issue, O’Reilly dispenses with the mercy. In a 2008 interview with then-Rep. Barney Frank, chairman of the House Finance Committee, O’Reilly seized upon the cratering of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — and blamed the lawmaker for the problems:

O’REILLY: Oh, none of this was your fault! Oh, no. People lost millions of dollars. It wasn’t your fault. Come on, you coward! Say the truth.

FRANK: What do you mean coward?

O’REILLY: You’re a coward. You blame everybody else. You’re a coward.

FRANK: Bill, here’s the problem with going on your show. You start ranting. And the only way to respond is almost to look as boorish as you. But here’s the facts. I specifically said in the quote you just played that I didn’t think it was a good investment. I wasn’t telling anybody to buy stock. I said it wasn’t a good investment. Secondly, I wasn’t presiding idly over this. I was trying to get the regulations adopted.

FRANK: We got them adopted in May.

O’REILLY: Bottom line is you’re there two years. Bottom line is stock drops 90 percent.

The King of Cable News called upon Frank to step down from his committee chairmanship, an unsurprising move for anyone familiar with the O’Reilly oeuvre. Calling for the heads of people who screw up is a mainstay of O’Reilly’s standing as a force for accountability. Herewith a chart that breaks down some highlights of O’Reilly’s time as chief of the personnel guillotine:

The foregoing raises a question as O’Reilly slogs through bad publicity following a Mother Jones story alleging that he exaggerated his coverage of global conflicts: Do we judge him by our standards or his own? The “O’Reilly Factor” mantra — “[So and So] must go!” — attests to the brilliance of its host as an entertaining broadcaster. By choosing both unworthy and worthy officials for his resignation calls, he keeps viewers interested. Plus, there’s a simplicity in calling for people’s heads — a simplicity that runs counter to the mealy-mouthed and pointedly evenhanded analysis you’ll find in other places.

It’s also a simplicity that did not swamp O’Reilly’s coverage of the recent Brian Williams scandal. After reports surfaced that Williams had embellished stories about his coverage of the Iraq war and other dicey moments, O’Reilly said, “I’ve known Williams a long time. I’m not friends with him. I don’t particularly like his style — it’s not my style. But he’s not a bad man. He’s never done anything I’ve seen underhanded, personally.” In an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night show, O’Reilly again tacked away from his judgmental ways: “Anybody who is enjoying the destruction of this man — you got to look at yourself. And there’s a lot of people… happy his career is going down the drain. That disturbs me.” Even though O’Reilly went soft on Williams, he did use the anchor’s embellishments as the jumping-off point for an attack on the media: “All Americans who love their country should think about what has happened to Brian Williams, should think about other news agencies that are distorting the facts. We should all open that proverbial network window and yell out we’re mad as hell and we’re not going to take it anymore,” said O’Reilly on his Feb. 11 program. Mother Jones cited that segment in seeking to establish O’Reilly’s alleged hypocrisy vis-a-vis his own statements about covering the Falkland Islands war. Those statements post some problems for O’Reilly. As Mother Jones documented, O’Reilly claimed to have reported in “war zone” and “combat” situations in Argentina, even though he never set foot on the islands where hostilities between Argentina and the United Kingdom were actually taking place. Though the host concedes that he didn’t report from the Falklands, he contends that he encountered combat on the streets of Buenos Aires, where angry citizens ended up in violent clashes with security forces following the British war victory. Whereas O’Reilly wrote that “many were killed” in these protests, accounts of the violence in June 1982 don’t corroborate such a contention. That’s a stubborn factual discrepancy that can be wished away only in a high-spin zone. Nothing would be quite as delicious as watching O’Reilly defend his recollection against O’Reilly in an episode of “The O’Reilly Factor.” Surely the Erik Wemple Blog, Mediaite, Politico and many other outlets would write about the proceedings.

Erik Wemple writes the Erik Wemple blog, where he reports and opines on media organizations of all sorts.",By our standards or by his own?
"But in Britain, one year into its own controversial austerity program to plug a gaping fiscal hole, the future is now. And for the moment, the early returns are less than promising.

Retail sales plunged 3.5 percent in March, the sharpest monthly downturn in Britain in 15 years. And a new report by the Center for Economic and Business Research, an independent research group based here, forecasts that real household income will fall by 2 percent this year. That would make Britain’s income squeeze the worst for two consecutive years since the 1930s.

All of which has challenged the view of Britain’s top economic official, George Osborne, that during a time of high deficits and economic weakness, the best approach is to aggressively attack the deficit first, through rapid-fire cuts aimed at the heart of Britain’s welfare state.

Doing so, says Mr. Osborne, the chancellor of the Exchequer, secures the trust of the financial markets, and thereby ensures the low interest rates necessary for long-term economic growth.

That approach, and the question of whether it risks stifling an economic recovery that might itself help narrow the budget gap, lies at the root of the deficit debate in the United States. On one side is the go-slow strategy favored by President Obama. On the other is the more radical path championed by the Republicans. The two camps are no doubt closely watching Britain’s experiment.

On paper, at least, both countries face broadly similar deficit challenges. Britain aims to close a fiscal gap of about 10 percent of gross domestic product. The comparable figure in the United States is 9.5 percent.

In Washington, the Republican proposal recently sketched out by Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin calls for broad and significant cuts in social spending, including Medicare and Medicaid, and wide-ranging tax cuts.

On Wednesday, President Obama called for a more balanced approach, one that he said would combine some tax increases for the wealthy with selective spending cuts that he said would not break the “basic social contract” of programs like Medicare and Medicaid.

While severe in its approach to spending cuts, the British plan lacks the stark sweep of the Republican proposal. Britons will certainly feel pain at the local government level as money dries up for care of the elderly, youth programs and trash collection. But icons like the National Health Service have largely been spared.

Other notable differences suggest that even Europe’s most conservative party is markedly to the left of the mainstream Republican position in the United States, and in some ways is more liberal than the position Mr. Obama has taken.

To strike a political balance, the coalition government led by Prime Minister David Cameron of the Conservative Party, Mr. Osborne — himself a Conservative — has retained a 50 percent income tax rate on the wealthiest individuals. That is among the highest in Europe, and it imposes more of a burden on the rich than anything Mr. Obama or anyone else in Washington would find politically feasible.

But in Britain, the big worry now is not tax rates. Instead, the fear is that Mr. Osborne’s emphasis on cuts in social spending — which aim to achieve an approximate budget surplus by 2015 and are likely to result in the loss of more than 300,000 government jobs — might tip the economy back into recession.

Already the government has had to slash its growth estimate to 1.7 percent, from 2.4 percent, for this year, as consumer incomes are under pressure from high inflation, weak wage growth and stagnant economic activity.

“My view is that we are in serious danger of a double-dip recession,” said Richard Portes, an economist at the London Business School. “This is going to be a cautionary tale.”

Not all economists agree, of course. And this week’s slight improvement in the unemployment rate, to 7.8 percent from 7.9 percent, suggests it is still too early to declare a second slump inevitable.

No one would disagree with Mr. Portes that a deficit of 10 percent of G.D.P. is unsustainable in the long run. But, with the opposition Labour Party, he argues that moving so quickly in the face of weak economic growth is not justified.

Mr. Osborne proposes to slash the deficit to 1.5 percent by 2015. By comparison, the stark program Mr. Ryan offers does not project reaching that deficit target until 2021.

Besides the difference in speed, a crucial distinction is how each plan would reach its goal. Mr. Osborne’s plan calls for 75 percent of savings to come from spending cuts, and the rest from mostly indirect revenue and tax increases — an increase in the sales tax, for example.

Mr. Ryan, on the other hand, proposes to slash spending by $5.8 trillion but — in contrast to the British approach — would allow most of the spending reductions to be offset by $4.2 trillion in tax cuts, rather than applied to closing the deficit gap. In other words, while Mr. Ryan would lean heavily on spending cuts to close the deficit, he also hopes to spur the sort of supply-side economic growth most often discussed when Ronald Reagan was in the White House.","A year into Britain’s controversial austerity plan, retail sales have had the sharpest monthly plunge in 15 years and real household income is expected to fall 2 percent this year."
"The video above, a two-minute clip published on Wednesday by Agence France-Presse, captured an altercation in the West Bank between Palestinian protesters and Israeli security personnel. The video shows a group of perhaps eight Israeli undercover cops, garbed in Palestinian keffiyehs, standing among a crowd of other Palestinians.

They appear to be hurling rocks at Israeli security forces down the road near Beit El, an Israeli settlement outside the city of Ramallah. Then, suddenly, the undercover cops turn on the protesters, draw guns, and beat up a handful of Palestinian youth. One Palestinian male, in particular, receives an endless torrent of kicks and punches from both the undercover cops and Israeli soldiers. Accounts from observers, including the Jerusalem bureau chief of Reuters, indicated that the Israeli undercover operatives had possibly instigated the clashes with the security personnel, who later came rushing down and aided in the arrests of a number of Palestinians.

Footage in Ramallah shows undercover #Israeli police throwing stones at Israeli forces and inciting #Palestinian youth to do the same

— Luke Baker (@LukeReuters) October 7, 2015

Footage uploaded by the Shehab News Agency of the same incident appeared to show at least one Israeli police officer discharge a gun at point-blank range into the leg of a Palestinian protester already lying prone on the ground.

According to Ma'an News Agency, a Palestinian news service, 18 Palestinian youth were injured by rubber-steel bullets amid clashes in the environs of Ramallah on Wednesday. An Israeli army spokesman told the news agency that its forces responded to rock-hurling and molotov cocktail-throwing ""instigators with live fire.""

As my colleague William Booth reported earlier, the violence is part of a series of clashes that have gripped parts of Israel and the West Bank, as tensions soar between Israelis and Palestinians. Three separate lone-wolf knife attacks carried out by Palestinians on Jewish Israelis also took place on Wednesday.

The escalation was dubbed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as ""a wave of terror,"" though Israeli opposition groups criticized the Israeli leader for being unable to deal with the rising animosities. The current turmoil is just the latest articulation of the dire state of the collapsed peace process between Israel and its Palestinian interlocutors. Settlements like Beit El are considered illegal under international law and are frequent flash points where Palestinians protest what they see as their dispossession by the Israeli state.

The beleaguered Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas called for calm, stressed his opposition to violence and his support for ""a popular, nonviolent struggle"" for Palestinian rights.

According to Booth, the Palestinian Red Crescent reported that 970 Palestinians have been injured in clashes with Israeli security forces since Saturday, including 66 people who were shot.

This viral video of an Israeli soldier trying to arrest a Palestinian boy says a lot

The death of the two-state solution

Does Netanyahu really believe in a separate Palestinian state?

Ishaan Tharoor writes about foreign affairs for The Washington Post. He previously was a senior editor at TIME, based first in Hong Kong and later in New York.",It's the latest snapshot of an escalation of violence between Israelis and Palestinians.
"-- TMZ has learned, the actor was placed on a 5150 psychiatric hold last night after being taken to an L.A. hospital.

Sources tell us, Stahl -- who has long struggled with drugs, alcohol, and other personal issues -- was transported to the medical facility around 3:30 AM this morning by a friend ... it's unclear why.

Details about circumstances of the psychiatric hold are also unclear.

It's a huge bummer ... we spoke to Stahl just last month, and he told us he was finally focused on","Sad news for ""Terminator 3"" star Nick Stahl -- TMZ has learned, the actor was placed on a 5150 psychiatric hold last night after being taken to an L.A.…"
"NAIROBI — The Nigerian government announced Thursday that it had secured the release of 21 of the more than 200 Chibok schoolgirls who were kidnapped by Boko Haram militants in April 2014.

The mass abduction in northeast Nigeria thrust its Islamist insurgency into a global spotlight and underscored the challenges faced by security forces in battling the Islamist militants.

A government spokesman said the release of the 21 captives was part of ongoing negotiations between Boko Haram and Nigerian officials.

[Video purports to show captives, claims some killed by airstrikes]

It was “brokered by the International Red Cross and the Swiss government. The negotiations will continue,” the spokesman, Mallam Garba Shehu, said on Twitter.

Shehu added that the girls were “very tired coming out of the process.” Their names were not made public.

The International Committee of the Red Cross confirmed its role in the swap.

“Today we transferred 21 of the #Chibokgirls and handed them to the #Nigeria government authorities, acting as a neutral intermediary,” ICRC said on Twitter.

Although the world’s attention was drawn to the Chibok schoolgirls in 2014, thousands of other women and girls also have been abducted by Boko Haram in similar circumstances. Many of them were forcibly married to fighters and moved into what were effectively rape camps across northeastern Nigeria.

In August, Boko Haram posted a video apparently showing recent footage of dozens of the schoolgirls, saying some have been killed in airstrikes. In May, one of the missing girls was found wandering in the bush.

[Graphic: The brutal toll of Boko Haram’s attacks on civilians]

The government has quietly been negotiating with Boko Haram for months, according to officials. But with fighters dispersed across a vast stretch of northeastern Nigeria, including the dense Sambisa forest, it was unclear whether the girls were being held together or whether there was a viable point of contact within the insurgency.

Boko Haram has split in two factions over the past year, with the group holding the schoolgirls based mostly in southern Borno state and another group farther north, near the border with Niger. President Muhammadu Buhari, who was elected last year partly based on his pledge to defeat the insurgency and rescue the girls, has been criticized for not doing more.

In May, a pro-government vigilante group found one of the schoolgirls, Amina Ali, wandering in the Sambisa forest. She was taken to the capital, where she met Buhari and other officials in front of cameramen — a move that was criticized by many Nigerians.

Insurgents are not the only threat to the region. Northeastern Nigeria is beset by one of the world’s biggest hunger crises, with many on the brink of starvation.

As Nigeria battles Islamist terrorists, millions are at risk of starvation

They were freed from Boko Haram’s rape camps. But their nightmare isn’t over.

Today’s coverage from Post correspondents around the world",The girls were among more than 200 kidnapped in April 2014 in northeastern Nigeria.
"Tags: foreign affairs, north korea, piracy, terrorism, united states

Out of all the news about pirates last week, the most intriguing tidbit featured an unlikely combination of nations: In Somali waters, the United States Navy came to the aid of a North Korean vessel (and then airlifted the wounded to Yemen, the site of the 2000 terror attack on the destroyer U.S.S. Cole.)

The Navy considered it all in a day’s “maritime security operations,” but the government in Pyongyang was not about to let the good deed go without acknowledgment, as the secretive government has done with so many other things over the years.

Through its official news agency, North Korea said today, “We feel grateful to the United States for its assistance given to our crewmen.”

If that wasn’t odd enough, the statement goes on to hail the incident as a “symbol of cooperation” between two nations “in the struggle against terrorism,” according to The Associated Press. That’s right, the leader of the war on terrorism and a member of the Axis of Evil, working together at last.

Granted, North Korea’s words didn’t sound as warm as anything in the Thank You section of your local Hallmark store, but that shouldn’t be surprising. As a quick scan of a few other headlines from the Korean Central News Agency shows, sentiment is not their strong suit.

Still, it was one of several signs of warming between the two longtime antagonists, now that North Korea is dismantling its nuclear program on schedule and the New York Philharmonic is considering an invitation to play in the capital.

Not that North Korea has ceased to be an enormous worry, despite recent developments. South Korean officials stressed during Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates’ visit to Seoul on Thursday that the North, with its immense army and prickly world view, was still a threat to its neighbors.","Reading, watching, discussing and blogging the day's local, national, and international news at The New York Times on the Web."
"Let the guessing games begin! Apple has something up its sleeve for Tuesday, and in its typical zeal for fanning the flames, it tells us that ""Tomorrow is just another day. That you'll never forget.""

Monday, Apple put that headline on its website, along with the subhead, ""Check back here for an exciting announcement from iTunes."" Below it were images of clocks for California, New York, London and Tokyo set for 7 a.m. PT 10 a.m. ET, 3 p.m. London time and midnight in Japan.

Tim Bajarin, an analyst with Creative Strategies, was expecting an iPad software update for November, which had been promised earlier in the year, to bring multi-tasking and folders to the tablet computer.

""But this sounds music-related,"" he says. Could it be the long-rumored approval by the surviving members of the Beatles to allow its catalog to be sold in iTunes, after all these years?

""That's a strong possibility,"" he says. ""That would be a very big deal.""

Gene Munster, an analyst with Piper Jaffray, thinks Apple is updating its Mobile Me subscription program to include back-up of your iTunes music collection. Apple bought the now-defunct music service LaLa at the end of 2009, and ever since, it was expected to follow up with a way to back up your music collection online and access it from any of your Apple mobile devices. What held it up was finishing up a new data center in North Carolina, says Munster, who believes the center is now ready for operation.

""People get nervous all the time about their music purchases, and having them backed up,"" he says. MobileMe has not been a wild success--Munster thinks the service, which charges $99 yearly, has about 3-5% of the 150 million iTunes audience--""there's a lot of room to grow,"" he says.

We've reached out to other analysts to get their take on what tomorrow's announcement might be.

Readers, do you have any predictions?

UPDATE:The Wall Street Journal, citing anonymous sources, says Apple will announce an alliance with the Beatles Tuesday. However, this isn't the first time an iTunes/Beatles deal has been predicted in the press, only to fizzle. So stay tuned.

UPDATE: The New York Times reports a Beatles deal for iTunes as well.",Stay tuned: Big announcement from Apple Tuesday - USATODAY.com
"NEW YORK — It was a chilly night on Broadway when Orion Venture Maximillian Fitz Griffiths emerged from the stage door of the Music Box Theatre, shuffled past fans waiting to meet the stars, and began his nightly walk to his temporary flat.

He wore a T-shirt, no jacket, but the cold didn’t bother him. It’s no wonder. For his Broadway debut in the musical “Pippin,” Griffiths wears a skimpy vest and a pair of red leathery shorts that could make a Chippendales dancer blush.

“I had them put one more seam on the bottom,” the longtime Boston street performer said, laughing. “Now they don’t ride up my leg so much.”

Dealing with a Broadway wardrobe is not the only first for Griffiths, who spent much of his life on the road in his family’s traveling circus. At 25, he’s finally got a bank account and a place to stay that isn’t on wheels. Griffiths is one of seven acrobats in the revival of “Pippin,” which originated this season at the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, opened on Broadway last Thursday, and earned an impressive 10 Tony Award nominations on Tuesday, including one for best revival of a musical. The show has generated considerable buzz for its cast and its Tony-nominated director, ART artistic director Diane Paulus. In his review, New York Times critic Ben Brantley called the musical’s acrobats “pretty astonishing.”

Jennifer Taylor for The Boston Globe

Orion Griffiths, a longtime Boston street performer, is one of seven acrobats in the revival of “Pippin.”

Many Bostonians would recognize Griffiths. He’s performed to thousands at Faneuil Hall as part of the Sardine Family Circus. And the ART sold out the more than six-week run of “Pippin” that ended in January. But for Griffiths, the show is more than a big break. It’s a complicated break, giving him a chance to move into the spotlight but forcing him to alter his life. This is the first time Griffiths has left the family behind. It has also meant delaying his dream of competing in the world’s premier circus festival in Monte Carlo.

Which is why, when Griffiths was invited to join “Pippin” without an audition — he’s that good — he, at first, dismissed the idea.

“I’m a circus performer” is how Griffiths remembered responding at first to the offer.

He eventually changed his mind and joined the production, which stars Patina Miller, Matthew James Thomas, Terrence Mann, and Charlotte d’Amboise. Though Griffiths has fewer than a handful of lines, he’s onstage for much of the two-plus hours of the musical.

Gypsy Snider, the veteran circus director in charge of “circus creation” for the “Pippin” revival, calls Griffiths her “saving grace.”

“Orion’s kind of a legend in the circus world,” said Snider, who hired Griffiths for the show last year. “He’s one of those performers who is so multitalented, who really knows how to sell the merchandise on the stage. He has a rare and wonderful talent.”

When he talks of the circus life, Griffiths doesn’t mean Ringling Bros. or Big Apple. His universe is about the smaller troupes that began emerging in the 1970s: talented, close-knit crews inspired by European circuses that drew on showmanship and athleticism to capture audiences on street corners.

Griffiths’s skills perfectly suit “Pippin,” which uses the circus motif to reshape the Bob Fosse-directed 1970s musical about a young prince searching for the meaning of life. In the show, even seasoned Broadway stars have learned to flip, fly on a trapeze, or ride a unicycle. As Pippin’s grandmother, Andrea Martin has brought down the house by dangling in the air with a muscled circus performer.

But for those who know him, Griffiths has pulled off the biggest trick.

For most of his life, home was Holland, Spain, Alabama, California, England, or just about anywhere the Sardine Family Circus rolled into town. His parents, John and Pauline, founded the troupe in the mid-1980s. Typically, they stayed on the road, never in one place for more than three to six months.

“I climbed on the roof of a train.’’

That’s how older sister Vicky begins the story of the accident that changed their lives.

Griffiths as a child in Amsterdam. For most of his life, home was Holland, Spain, Alabama, California, England, or just about anywhere the Sardine Family Circus rolled into town.

The Sardine Family Circus was in Austria, performing, when the the 9-year-old girl decided to play in the old railroad station. It was a snowy day in October, and she hit a live wire, shot into the air, and had 75 percent of her body burned. Doctors had to amputate her right arm, and Vicky stayed in the intensive care unit in a medically induced coma for six months.

Only a few months after she got out of the hospital, John Griffiths taught his daughter how to ride a unicycle again. Then he heard about the Shriners Hospitals for Children, where Vicky could get free treatment.

That’s how the family ended up in Massachusetts. To date, Vicky has had 52 operations, the most recent two months ago. And it was in the parking lot of the Shriners Hospital for Children in Springfield that Orion Griffiths met his future wife.

Karly O’Keefe, 12 years old at the time, spotted Orion, then 14, doing handstands from her house, near the parking lot. She came out one day and did somersaults.

“I remember being admitted and Rion telling me about this girl he had just met and how pretty she was,” said Vicky, using the family’s nickname for Griffiths. “Once I was discharged, I met all of the O’Keefe family. Really awesome people.”

These days, Springfield is the closest thing Griffiths has to home. Vicky and sister Keleigh, each married, remain there. So does the O’Keefe family. And it was Karly who urged Griffiths to realize just what the “Pippin” offer meant when he wavered.

“I thought: Oh my God, this is huge. I don’t know why you’re looking past this. You need to think about this,” said Karly, who had married Orion last May. “And he did.”

When he was young, Griffiths remembers, he often looked at the other kids, with their toys and bedrooms and television sets, and thought, “Why can’t my life be like this?” The only life he knew was the circus.

“But by the time I’d reached 15,” he said, “I had such an overpowering love for the life, I couldn’t think of any other way.”

The Griffiths children were all skilled, but it was Orion, born to British parents in Holland in 1987, who pushed a little harder.

“Anything he ever touched, he had to be perfect,” John Griffiths said by phone from San Francisco, where he, Pauline, and two of their children live in the family RVs. “Regardless of what our program was at the time, he always got up at 5 or 6 o’clock in the morning and worked out for a couple of hours.”

John Griffiths remembers the boy scrawling a message wherever he could when he was just 4 or 5.

“On walls, on his schoolbooks, on a foggy window, he’d write, ‘Rion is the best,’ ” he said.

In those days, the Sardine Family Circus was 10 strong, the eight children and two parents playing streets, city festivals, and occasional tent shows. They were never anywhere for long, and while the children didn’t have much formal schooling, they developed a work ethic and focus beyond their years. The big change came in the mid-1990s, when Vicky had her accident. Three siblings headed off on their own. By the time the Sardine Family Circus moved to Springfield permanently in 2003, the Griffithses were down to five children in the troupe.

As John and Pauline stepped back from performing, Orion developed a three-person act with his sister Meisje and brother Alex. In the show, Meisje, a contortionist, would be largely silent. Alex, a masterful unicyclist, generally played the clown. Orion served as ringleader, charming the audience, playfully mocking those not paying proper attention and building suspense as they worked toward their best tricks.

“He makes a show out of everything and everybody,” said Paula Davis, a retiree from California who came upon Griffiths performing alone last summer in San Francisco. “He did tricks, he would tell jokes, and at first there was hardly anyone there, but he pulled everyone that walked by in with his sense of humor.”

Griffiths was living in San Francisco with his family last year when Snider called him.

She had hired six acrobats for “Pippin” and needed one more. But Snider was having a difficult time. “Finding a big guy who is also a talented acrobat, who can flip, who can hand-mount, it almost doesn’t exist,” said Snider.

Her family had founded the Pickle Family Circus back in the 1970s in San Francisco, so Snider began calling people she knew there.

“Instantly, Orion’s name came up,” said Snider. “In fact, one of the acrobats I had already hired said, ‘Oh my God, I trained with that guy and he’s amazing.’ ”

When Griffiths told his father about the offer, John got upset.

“I cannot deny it,” he said. “I hang on to my kids. But when it became a reality, I did everything I could to help him out. Got him to airports. Made sure he had money. Not that I was happy about it. The fact of the matter is this is not the apex of where Rion can go. If he were the star of the show, I would agree, and Rion is the star of every stage he’s on. That’s where he belongs.”

The father isn’t the only one torn.

Griffiths misses his family. He also isn’t ready to give up his street act.

Earlier this year, after “Pippin” wrapped at the ART and before rehearsals began in New York, he and Karly drove an RV to Florida so he could play to the crowds in Key West. He plans to find a spot in New York this summer where he can put on a show.

On the street, he’s reminded of what he misses the most in “Pippin”: the chance to take a solo bow.

“The proudest part of circus performing is the bow,” said Griffiths. “You gave something which is something you worked your whole life on, your act, the crowd accepts it and is now giving it back to you. It’s like the payment. Your bow is getting paid by the crowd.”

Though he’s getting paid by the Broadway production, Griffiths isn’t changing the way he operates. He doesn’t drink or smoke, and he avoids sugar. While some cast members have rented pricey apartments near the Midtown theater, he and Karly found a place in the Bronx for $1,200 a month. She works as a nanny for Andrew Cekala, the 12-year-old Weston boy who is in the cast.

Performing in “Pippin,” Griffiths said, has been exhilarating. He loves being onstage, and he’s proudest of the moment, right after intermission, when he shows off his specialty, the rolla bolla. That act requires him to balance on a narrow board atop stacked, moving cylinders.

It is a highlight of his street show, and it wasn’t originally in “Pippin.” Then, one day during a rehearsal, Snider asked the acrobats to demonstrate their chops.

“I said, ‘Orion, just do it like you’re on the street,’ ” she remembered. “He just entertained the whole cast. People were just laughing and actually were really touched. It was so endearing. He started talking about his family and that he would never leave them. And of course, in many ways, he is leaving his family. But he really needed us to understand that he’s not the one who deserts people. It was just so moving.”

When he left San Francisco, Griffiths made a promise to younger sister Meisje. He would one day reunite with his siblings and they would perform again as the Sardine Family Circus. It is a promise his father expects him to keep.

“For me, it’s not a hope,” said John Griffiths. “It’s a question of when. Whether Pauline and I will still be alive to watch it, it will happen. They’ve got too much power when you put them together.”","It was a chilly night on Broadway when Orion Venture Maximillian Fitz Griffiths emerged from a stage door, shuffled past fans, and began his nightly walk to his temporary flat. He wore a T-shirt, no jacket, but the cold didn’t bother him. It’s no wonder. For his Broadway debut in the musical “Pippin,” Griffiths wears a skimpy vest and shorts that could make a Chippendales dancer blush. A Broadway wardrobe is not the only first for Griffiths, a longtime Boston street performer and circus acrobat. At 25, he’s finally got a bank account and a place to stay that isn’t on wheels. “Pippin,” which originated this season at the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, earned an impressive 10 Tony Award nominations on Tuesday."
"Since responding to the NSA revelations, Obama as rejected the idea that more safeguards were needed. Photograph: Bobby Yip/Reuters

Barack Obama insisted on Friday that the NSA reforms he has proposed would have happened all along and that his views on surveillance programs had ""not evolved"". But since the president first responded to Edward Snowden's revelations in June he has rejected any suggestion that more safeguards were required.

In his first remarks since the Guardian and the Washington Post's revelations, Obama gave a frank rebuttal to privacy concerns. ""Nobody is listening to your telephone calls,"" the president said when asked about the NSA.

He said surveillance programs were ""fully overseen not just by Congress but by the Fisa court, a court specially put together to evaluate classified programs to make sure that the executive branch, or government generally, is not abusing them"".

He said the NSA programs made ""modest encroachments on privacy"" and were under ""very strict supervision by all three branches of government"".

""We've got congressional oversight and judicial oversight,"" he said. ""And if people can't trust not only the executive branch but also don't trust Congress and don't trust federal judges to make sure that we're abiding by the constitution, due process and rule of law, then we're going to have some problems here.""

Obama added: ""In the abstract, you can complain about Big Brother and how this is a potential, you know – you know, program run amok. But when you actually look at the details, then I think we've struck the right balance.""

Obama defended the NSA program in an interview with Charlie Rose. The president insisted the NSA was ""transparent"".

""What I can say unequivocally is that if you are a US person, the NSA cannot listen to your telephone calls, and the NSA cannot target your emails … and have not,"" Obama said.

Asked by Rose if the method of telephone and data collections ""should be transparent in some way"", the president responded: ""It is transparent. That's why we set up the Fisa court.""

The president said he was confident the necessary system of checks and balances was in place, but conceded the public might not fully be aware of this. ""What I've asked the intelligence community to do is see how much of this we can declassify without further compromising the program.""

Speaking to Rose he revealed he had set up an ""oversight board"" to examine issues of privacy, compiled of independent citizens and ""including some fierce civil libertarians"". Obama said he would be meeting with the oversight board, but did not give any further details.

Two months after the initial NSA revelations, Obama accepted the NSA had ""raised a lot of questions for people"" in an interview on NBC's Tonight Show, but insisted surveillance programs did not target US civilians.

""We don't have a domestic spying program,"" Obama said. ""What we do have is some mechanisms that can track a phone number or an email address that is connected to a terrorist attack. … That information is useful.""

He said the NSA was ""a critical component to counter-terrorism"".

""It's not enough for me, as president, to have confidence in these programs. The American people need to have confidence in them as well,"" Obama said in a speech at the White House, hours after the Guardian revealed that an NSA loophole did allow for warrantless searches of databases for US citizens' emails and phone calls.

The president said he had consulted with Congress, the privacy and civil liberties oversight coard and had directed his national security team to ""be more transparent and to pursue reforms of our laws and practices"".

""And so today I'd like to discuss four specific steps, not all-inclusive, but some specific steps that we're going to be taking very shortly to move the debate forward.""

Obama pledged to re-examine section 215 of the Patriot Act, potentially reigning in bulk surveillance, and suggested appointing a privacy advocate to monitor to the doings of the Fisa court. He also announced a new website to ""inform"" Americans about bulk surveillance and pledged greater transparency.",A brief history of the president's position on NSA reforms since first commenting on the surveillance revelations in June
"A recently published study that manipulated Facebook News Feeds has sparked outrage among users who are criticizing the ethics behind the experiment, which was conducted by Facebook and several universities.

Researchers tweaked the feeds of 689,003 users to show a disproportionate number of positive or negative statuses for one week in January 2012. They found that the emotions of others on your News Feed can affect your mood, and published the results in the journal PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences). However, the researchers did not inform users that they were manipulating News Feeds, and many questioned the study's ethics.

Legally, Facebook is allowed to do this. As soon as users sign up for the social network, they agree to give up their data for analysis, testing and research. In this case, however, it's not the research people are criticizing — it's the manipulation of data without users' prior consent or knowledge.

Psychologists often follow the practice of obtaining ""informed consent"" from study participants before conducting experiments, according to The Atlantic. One could argue that Facebook's user agreement provides enough informed consent, but it doesn't mention data manipulation, and many are perturbed at the idea that the social network can mess with their News Feeds without their knowledge.

The study has troubling implications for Facebook's ability to manipulate the user experience for a variety of ends http://t.co/6RRw65aa4g

— Greg McNeal (@GregoryMcNeal) June 28, 2014

May be time to start looking for an alternative to Facebook......what else can they manipulate? http://t.co/JpOaZwQbYK

— Rob Cerroni (@realretroguy) June 29, 2014

Shame on @facebook for cynically misinterpreting informed consent. Shame on PNAS for publishing the study.http://t.co/3Q3SrnMdRI @PNASNews

— Chris Patil (@DoNotGoGently) June 29, 2014

The American Psychological Association, a scientific organization that represents U.S. psychologists, has several definitions for ""informed consent"" in its code of conduct, depending on what kind of research professionals are doing.

Standard procedure is as follows: ""When psychologists conduct research ... they obtain the informed consent of the individual or individuals using language that is reasonably understandable to that person.""

Facebook's data-use policy runs nearly 10,000 words, but it does mention that user information can be studied.

However, the APA has a different definition of informed consent when studies involve trickery. When conducting ""deceptive"" experiments, psychologists must ""explain any deception that is an integral feature of the design and conduct of an experiment to participants as early as is feasible.""

The Facebook study does not mention telling the 689,003 users that they were, in fact, participants — even after the experiment was over.

For its part, the social network defended the study.

“None of the data used was associated with a specific person’s Facebook account,” a Facebook spokesperson told Forbes. “We do research to improve our services and to make the content people see on Facebook as relevant and engaging as possible. A big part of this is understanding how people respond to different types of content, whether it’s positive or negative in tone, news from friends, or information from pages they follow. We carefully consider what research we do, and have a strong internal review process.""

But not everyone involved is as unconcerned.

Susan Fiske, a Princeton University psychology professor who edited the study for publication, told The Atlantic, ""I'm still thinking about it and I'm a little creeped out."" Facebook reportedly manipulates user's News Feeds all the time — something Fiske discovered when she asked the study's authors about the ethics behind what they had done.

That knowledge has some people worried about what other liberties Facebook has been taking with user data.

""Who knows what other research [Facebook] is doing?"" http://t.co/X6qnmE2H2v

— Matt Ford (@fordm) June 28, 2014

Have something to add to this story? Share it in the comments.",A recently published study that manipulated Facebook News Feeds has sparked outrage among users who are criticizing the ethics behind the experiment.
"Shoppers are increasingly depending on their mobile devices to act like credit cards, and that means cellphone carriers should start acting more like credit card companies when it comes to fraud and error protection, says a leading consumer advocate.

At issue is what happens if a merchant makes an error or if your phone is lost or stolen, Consumers Union said in a new report. Depending on how the money is taken from your account, the answer is very different, according to a report by the non-profit advocacy group Consumers Union. The group is urging wireless companies to upgrade their consumer safeguards for fraud and errors and include them in their contracts.

As Consumers Union issued its call for action, Starbucks was announcing the expansion of its popular mobile payment app — adding an Android version and increasing the number of locations at which it can be used. That announcement highlighted the dynamic growth of this type of payment and drew greater attention to the inconsistent protection offered to consumers.

“As more Americans start using mobile phones to make purchases, we need to make sure that consumer protections keep pace with all the new technological advances,” Michelle Jun, senior attorney for Consumers Union’s Defend Your Dollars campaign said in a statement. “Consumers shouldn’t have to worry that a lost or stolen mobile phone or billing error could turn into a costly financial headache.”

A spokesman for ATT Wireless said the company would not comment on the report and suggested the answer ought to come from the industry’s trade association, the CTIA. The CTIA responded by saying an answer ought to come from the carriers. Sprint said it had nothing to say about it right now. Of the largest carriers, only Verizon Wireless had something to say.

Verizon would not address the report specifically, but a spokesman did discuss the issue.

“Before we bring a product into the marketplace, we’re working to ensure security, privacy, safety and ease of use — combining the work of the finest security experts in the financial and mobile telecommunications industries to devise the best possible anti-fraud measures,” Verizon Wireless spokesman Jeffrey Nelson said.

Consumers Union said more than $16 billion in mobile payments were made in the U.S. last year and that’s projected to soar to more than $214 billion within four years.

Consumers Union said it sent letters in May to 18 wireless carriers asking that they increase protection for consumers who use their phones to pay.

Credit cards and debit cards include fraud protection — stronger for credit cards — but gift cards and prepaid accounts do not. So, if the transaction is through a credit card or debit card linked to the phone, the group said the protections would be the same as just using the card.

“Consumers making mobile payments linked to wireless phone accounts, prepaid cards, or gift cards run the risk of losing funds to fraudulent or erroneous charges,” Consumers Union said.

In a review of the contracts of the 18 carriers the group sent letters to, this what they found:

Consumers Union wants the carriers to limit a consumer’s liability to $50 for erroneous charges made after a wireless device is lost or stolen, to allow withholding of payment during a dispute and to allow consumers to limit how much money can be charged directly to their wireless accounts.

Jun said the the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is going to have to create consumer protections for mobile payments.

“In the meantime, wireless carriers should provide strong mobile payment safeguards in their contracts so consumers don’t lose money to mistakes or fraudulent charges,” she said. “Other mobile payment service providers should adopt similar protections.”",What kinds of consumer protection exists for shoppers who pay with a wave of their phone? That depends.
"Someone is trying to catch a glimpse of a young woman’s underwear. Oh wait, it’s the entire internet.

One of Calvin Klein’s new underwear ads captures model Klara Kristin, photographed from below by hotshot UK photographer Harley Weir. The viewer gets a peek under her silky slip to see some patterned undies (and most of her rear end).

The image, part of the brand’s Spring 2016 advertising campaign that bears the caption “I flash in my Calvins,” has garnered more than 40,000 likes on Instagram — and a firestorm of controversy.

The ad has been panned on social media and beyond for being perverted and sexist, for glamorizing unwanted sexual attention, and for romanticizing pedophilia-loving peeping Toms who prey on underage women.

@CalvinKlein awful ad. Your concept looks predatory. This ""upskirt"" photo invites men to do this to women. Disrespectful.

— Lexistential (@lexistential) May 11, 2016

On the other hand, the ad’s defenders point out that Kristin, best known for her role in a 3-D movie about sex, is actually 23. They also say that this is nothing new, because Calvin Klein is known for its salacious ads.

Notably, Paper magazine editor Peter Davis has downplayed the scandal, saying, “A peek up actress Klara Kristin’s skirt to glimpse her CK panties is not kiddie porn — it’s sexy and sex sells. And Klara isn’t 15.”","Someone is trying to catch a glimpse of a young woman’s underwear. Oh wait, it’s the entire internet. One of Calvin Klein’s new underwear ads captures model Klara Kristin, photogr…"
"CLINTON, N.Y. – Drug charges against Jon Bon Jovi's 19-year-old daughter have been dropped, a central New York prosecutor said Thursday.

Stephanie Bongiovi was found unresponsive by medics after she apparently overdosed on heroin in a Hamilton College dorm early Wednesday. Town of Kirkland police charged Bongiovi, of Red Bank, N.J., and fellow student Ian Grant, also of Red Bank, with possession of a small amount of heroin and marijuana.

Oneida County District Attorney Scott McNamara said he was dismissing the charges against both students. Under state law, someone having a drug overdose or seeking help for an overdose victim can't be prosecuted for having a small amount of heroin or any amount of marijuana.

The so-called Good Samaritan 911 law signed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo in July 2011 was designed to reduce overdose deaths by encouraging people to call 911 without fear of being arrested for drug possession. Similar laws have been passed in several other states.

Bon Jovi, 50, is scheduled to perform at a concert to benefit Hamilton's scholarships and arts programs in Times Square on Dec. 5. He has not commented on his daughter's overdose.

He has four children, Stephanie and three sons.",A central New York prosecutor says drug charges against Jon Bon Jovi's 19-year-old daughter have been dropped.
"Rene A. Wormser, a lawyer who specialized in estate planning and wrote six books on the subject, died yesterday at his home in Greenwich, Conn. He was 85 years old.

Mr. Wormser was a partner and a founder in 1930 of the New York law firm of Wormser, Kiely, Allessandroni, Hyde & McCann. He was chairman of the advisory committee of the University of Miami's Institute on Estate Planning, which he helped establish. He was also adjunct professor in the graduate program of the University of Miami Law School.

From 1945 to 1955, he was a member of the faculty and the advisory committee of the Institute on Federal Taxation of New York University, and was chairman of its estate planning section. He organized and conducted a course in estate planning at the university's graduate school and taught estate planning at the Practising Law Institute in New York.

He was the author of ''Your Will and What Not to Do About It''; ''Personal Estate Planning in a Changing World,'' which went through nine editions after its initial publication by Simon & Schuster in 1942; ''Wormser's Guide to Estate Planning,'' and ''Planning and Administration of Estates.''

Mr. Wormser also wrote ''The Law,'' published by Simon & Schuster in 1949 and reissued in paperback in 1962 as ''The Story of the Law,'' covering the subject from ancient times through the Nuremburg trials.

In 1953 and 1954, Mr. Wormser was general counsel to a special Congressional committee investigating tax-exempt foundations. He drafted the final majority report, which provided the basis for another book, ''Foundations, Their Power and Influence.'' From 1969 to 1971, he was a member of an advisory committee to the Commissioner of Internal Revenue on tax-exempt organizations.

Mr. Wormser was a native of Santa Barbara, Calif. He graduated from Columbia College in 1917 and the Columbia Law School in 1920. He is survived by his wife, the former Ella Madge Ward, and two daughters, Angela of Fairfield, Conn., and Elissa of Copake, N.Y. His brother, Felix E. Wormser, a mining engineer and former Assistant Secretary of the Interior, died in Greenwich on June 29.

Illustrations: phtoof Rene A Wormser","Rene A. Wormser, a lawyer who specialized in estate planning and wrote six books on the subject, died yesterday at his home in Greenwich, Conn. He was 85 years old.   Mr. Wormser was a partner and a founder in 1930 of the New York law firm of Wormser, Kiely, Allessandroni, Hyde & McCann. He was chairman of the advisory committee of the University of Miami's Institute on Estate Planning, which he helped establish. He was also adjunct professor in the graduate program of the University of Miami Law School."
"Do you think there’s a picture that could sum up Brendan Rodgers better than this? Granted, he’s not sitting cross-legged, but sitting down, offering education - not training, because as you know you train dogs, not footballers - to a young player, earnestly, imparting knowledge. The essence of the boss who’s your friend first, employer second.

He might have been telling Sterling that he’ll be given a rest this weekend, as he’s trying to be careful of running the young lad ragged so early in his career. As Andy Hunter’s preview for this game says:

The Liverpool manager said: “Some managers would take a stance of ‘I don’t care’ because they might only be in a job for three, four or five years and so make sure he plays as much as he can for you. But I have welfare for the boy. That is vital for me.

“I think it is critical that, in 10 years’ time, he is approaching his peak as opposed to having played his best games. If he gets to 28 and has got too many miles on the clock and is burned out, that is something we will have to look at. He is a big talent. He broke into the team at 17. As a club, we have managed him quite well but it is hard when you are such a good player and you keep performing. Both your club and your country need you.”

Of course, it hardly matters what Sterling, or anyone else does, because Mario Balotelli will probably be the headline, whether he does anything or not. If he doesn’t touch the ball at all and Liverpool win 7-0 some will opt for the headline ‘Balotelli disappointing as Liverpool win’, before frowning articles wondering whether he has the attitude to succeed again in the Premier League.

Undermining the point somewhat by continuing to discuss Balotelli, he might well be at the perfect club, because as we saw from how Luis Suarez was treated, despite his assorted transgressions, Liverpool fans will basically support anyone who plays in red. And whether on a moral level you think that’s OK is, in terms of Balotelli’s game, basically irrelevant, because unconditional love is the thing that both those who know him and armchair psychologists suggest is the way to get him performing. If the Liverpool fans backed a man who was found guilty of racial abuse and bit a chap, then they’ll probably get behind someone who sulks a bit and loses his thread every now and then.

Liverpool v Villa seems to be one of those quintessential Premier League games, largely because both teams have been part of this whole money-drenched farrago from the off, and has seen some pretty memorable moments. For example, Ronny Rosenthal unluckily crashed that shot against the woodwork all those years ago in this fixture, an occasion that celebrates its 24th anniversary next Friday. Presumably there will be some sort of ceremony to commemorate it before this game, black armbands for the loss of a goal, the works.

Villa, for so often a dreary puddle of nothing who were just competent enough to never go down, not competent enough to really challenge, not stupid enough to be really entertaining, have actually been pretty life-affirming this season, because a team whose summer signings included Joe Cole, Kieran Richardson and Philippe Senderos absolutely should not be near the top of this nascent Premier League. That’s just stupid. But it does confirm what we already know, is that this game makes absolutely no sense and isn’t confined by anything as prosaic as logic. And that’s the sort of thing that keeps us coming back, keeps us interested, keeps us obsessed. Long may ludicrous stuff like this continue.

And boy, are Aston Villa giddy about being here for this one. OMG! Can’t believe we’re here!

We're here! #AVFC #LFC #AVFCLIVE pic.twitter.com/FlRXRY6he3",Minute-by-minute report: A first-half goal from Gabriel Agbonlahor was enough to give Aston Villa a surprise 1-0 victory over a lacklustre Liverpool at Anfield.
"HIGH-END hotels are proliferating in Istanbul, and with them come ever more upscale spa services in the guise of traditional hammams, a welcome addition for anyone who has ever felt trepidation about entering a Turkish bath.

After all, hammams are places of steamy intrigue, full of shadowy movement and unreliable light, where an assembly line of large, damp attendants wearing only bikini underwear vigorously uses well-worn kese cloths to scrub dead skin off strangers. It is an intriguing scene to be sure, but one with a certain “eeew” factor.

Even so, a Turkish bath is an unforgettable experience and that’s why tourists in the Old City line up to pay anywhere from the equivalents of $35 to $65 to pour themselves into a musty beauty called Cagaloglu (Yerebatan Caddesi 34, Cagaloglu; 90-212-522-2424; www.cagalogluhamami.com.tr), or to squeeze into the smaller but charming Cemberlitas (Vezirhan Caddesi 8, Cemberlitas; 90-212-522-7974; www.cemberlitashamami.com.tr), just steps from the Grand Bazaar.

While relatively inexpensive, their popularity brings other costs. In these tourist hammams, service can feel rushed, the massage perfunctory and the facility so crowded that it can be difficult to carve out enough space to lie down on the central navel stone. But it’s worth asking: At several times the cost, are luxury hammams worth the price?

At the Laveda Spa in the Ritz-Carlton Suzer Plaza, Elmadag, Askerocagi Caddesi 15; 90-212-334-4444; www.ritzcarlton.com), the menu of services for the separate men’s and women’s hammams is as delectable as a fancy restaurant menu. You can really splurge with the Sultan’s Royal Six-Hands Massage (50 minutes, 500 Turkish lira, or $420.16 at 1.19 lira to the dollar), the Citrus Detox Reviver (2.5 hours for 420 lira) or the Caviar treatment (90 minutes, 400 lira).

And depending on how long you lingered at your Turkish breakfast buffet, you could easily be tempted by treatments like the Revitalizing Honey Cocoon (70 minutes, 190 lira) or the Coffee Form Body Wrap (70 minutes, 190 lira).

The Traditional Turkish Hammam (30 minutes, 110 lira) runs about double what it costs to be buffed and scrubbed at Cemberlitas, but the experience can be stretched out to last for hours with access to the hot tub, sauna and lounge. Instead of mildewy odors, there are pleasant aromas of orange and eucalyptus. Instead of stiff, scratchy towels, there are fresh, soft cotton pestemels, or Turkish bathhouse wraps, and fluffy robes.

The spa zone is immaculate, with no shortage of uniformed attendants who only seem to be around when you need them. The hammam space itself is a jewel, all lined in marble with the colorfully tiled individual washing stations and curlicue fixtures.

During a recent visit, soft arabesque music wafted overhead as the attendant, Fatma, gently removed a customer’s wrap and motioned her to recline on the warm surface. Fatma loofahed and soaped and shampooed. Then came a brief but adequate body and foot massage. Afterward Fatma led her client to a low divan in a beautifully decorated antechamber, with small copper-topped tables and colorful carpets. She applied moisturizer neck to toe and left the visitor to revel in her own thoughts: Would the Sultan be arriving soon?

The Ritz has been joined by some swank newcomers in the race for spa dollars, euros and rubles.

Birgul Akgul, manager at the Day Spa by Estée Lauder in the W Istanbul Hotel in Besiktas (Suleyman Seba Caddesi 22; 90-212-381-2121; www.whotels.com), said that while W does not have a formal hammam space, it does offer a range of 90-minute hammam-like services. ”People can come here for a whole body exfoliation, after which we do a body masque, wrap them in a hot blanket that is very good for helping the body detox,” she said. One package named Prelude to Seduction costs 225 lira.

But the most exciting addition to the hammam scene is just down the road at the elegant new Four Seasons Hotel Istanbul at the Bosphorus Ciragan Caddesi 28; 90-212-381-4000; www.fourseasons.com). The hotel, a converted Ottoman Empire mansion, features three Turkish baths, one for men, one for women and one for couples.

A 45-minute hammam service of body scrub, foam massage and shampoo costs 180 lira per person, while Bosphorous Under Your Feet, an hourlong foot massage, goes for 170 lira.","High-end hotels are proliferating in Istanbul, and with them come ever more upscale spa services in the guise of traditional hammams."
"There’s more to thanking the people who deal with your smelly clothes and sheets than tossing some spare change on the dresser on your way out the door.

(EDITOR’S NOTE: This weekly feature offers tips, from basic to advanced, for the road. Some of our advice will be painfully obvious to seasoned travelers, but reflects questions from readers. Send your questions or tips to BadLatitudeTV(at)gmail.com. Note: If you’re someone who hates video but can’t seem to NOT click on the “Play” icon, please click here instead. — Spud Hilton)",60-second tip: Do you tip hotel housekeeping?
"Talk about a not-so-warm welcome for the president of the United States and the leader of your party.

Just hours before President Obama is scheduled to arrive in Rhode Island, the Democratic nominee for governor in that heavily Democratic state fired off some of the toughest anti-Obama language of the season.

“He could take his endorsement and really shove it, as far as I’m concerned,” said Frank T. Caprio, who is locked in a three-way race that includes former senator Lincoln Chafee, who is running as an independent.

Mr. Caprio has not received Mr. Obama’s endorsement in the race, and White House officials confirmed on Sunday that he would not be getting it today. Mr. Obama, a former senator, and Mr. Chafee, who served as a moderate Republican in the Senate, are close.

But to Mr. Caprio, that relationship amounts to “Washington insider politics at its worst.” He accused the president, who is holding a fundraiser in the state today, of treating Rhode Island “like an ATM machine.” And he insisted he had no need of a presidential nod.

“I will wear as a badge of honor and a badge of courage that he doesn’t want to endorse me as a Democrat because I am a different kind of Democrat,” Mr. Caprio told radio station WPRO-AM in a morning interview.

Polls show Mr. Caprio and Mr. Chafee in a tight race, with the Republican, John Robitaille, consistently third in the three-way contest.

Mr. Obama is scheduled to arrive in Warwick, R.I., at about 4 p.m. Eastern time.","Frank T. Caprio, a Democrat, has not received Mr. Obama's endorsement in the Rhode Island governor's race and made clear in strong language that he isn't seeking it."
"ISLAMABAD – A Pakistani official says a factory building under construction in an industrial area on the outskirts of the eastern city of Lahore has collapsed, killing at least 10 workers.

Rescue official Jam Sajjad Hussain says dozens of other laborers remain trapped under the rubble. He says emergency teams are using heavy machinery to pull out bodies and survivors. State-run Pakistan Television said nearly 100 people were working inside the building when it caved in on Wednesday evening.

The TV said the 10 bodies were retrieved from the rubble.

The cause of the building collapse was not clear but it comes over a week after a magnitude-7.5 earthquake hit Pakistan, killing 273 people and damaging nearly 75,000 homes across the country.","A Pakistani official says a factory building under construction in an industrial area on the outskirts of the eastern city of Lahore has collapsed, killing at least 10 workers."
"He’s asking members of Congress to stop calling him to offer condolences but nothing more for the death of his only child, Chris­topher Michaels-Martinez, who was killed in the rampage Friday in Santa Barbara, Calif.

“I don’t care about your sympathy. I don’t give a s--- that you feel sorry for me,” Richard Martinez said during an extensive interview, his face flushed as tears rolled down. “Get to work and do something. I’ll tell the president the same thing if he calls me. Getting a call from a politician doesn’t impress me.”

Saying that “we are all to blame” for the death of his 20-year-old son, Martinez urged the public to join him in demanding “immediate action” from members of Congress and President Obama to curb gun violence by passing stricter gun-control laws.

“Today, I’m going to ask every person I can find to send a postcard to every politician they can think of with three words on it: ‘Not one more,’ ” he said Tuesday. “People are looking for something to do. I’m asking people to stand up for something. Enough is enough.”

Martinez is the latest tragic figure to raise the mantle of gun control. Previous massacres and spasms of violence have produced urgent calls for new restrictions.

But these poignant appeals — most recently from former Arizona congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, who survived a 2011 assassination attempt in Tucson, and the Sandy Hook families whose 20 children were gunned down in their Newtown, Conn., elementary school in late 2012 — have failed to translate into action by Washington. Nor have they significantly changed public opinion about further regulation of weapons.

Martinez vowed that he’s not going away. He said his training as a lawyer explains, in part, why he has not retreated from public view as many parents do after such a tragedy.

“We are tough people,” Martinez said of himself and Christopher’s mother, Caryn Johnson Michaels, a deputy district attorney in San Luis Obispo. (The couple separated when Christopher was young.) “Caryn was in charge of the sex-crime unit. We fight.”

At a memorial service organized by the University of California at Santa Barbara later in the day, Martinez was the only parent who spoke, but he also read statements from the parents of David Wang and James Hong, both computer-engineering majors.

For two hours leading up to the service, nearly 20,000 students, faculty, college alumni, local political figures and neighbors poured into the university’s soccer stadium. As the UCSB Young Artist String Quartet played, the stadium’s 17,000 seats filled and several thousand additional people, mostly students, sat on the grass field.

A dozen or more people at the venue wore orange vests with a sign that said “counselor” so that people who needed help could easily reach out and get it.

“It’s time to stop the gun violence. Our children deserve a land free from fear,” Martinez read from the statement from the Wang family, which went on to say, “Let us pray for all the people who lost their loved ones, including the family of the killer.”

Hong’s family asked Martinez to read a statement where the father recounted a dream he said he had the night before. “I saw my son in a dream last night. . . . [He said] my time at UCSB was the happiest time of my life. . . . I wanted to stay here forever with everyone. I know there are great injustices in the world and policies that could be improved. I can’t help with this anymore, but you can.”

Martinez wrapped up the statements from parents, asking the crowd to stand and shout “so loud they will hear you in Washington. Say it with me, ‘Not one more!’ The stadium thundered as the members of the crowd repeatedly shouted, clapped and stamped their feet on the metal bleachers. He repeated his call for people to send postcards to politicians but acknowledged that a Twitter ­campaign using the hashtag ­#NotOneMore might be more in keeping with the college crowd.

Janet Napolitano, the University of California president and former secretary of homeland security, called the shooting an “unfathomable tragedy” and encouraged the crowd to remember and celebrate the unique qualities of each of the students who were killed.

“All died much too young,” Napolitano said. “It’s important that we don’t let the arithmetic of this tragedy define them. Their individuality should not be obscured.”

A male student a cappella group, called BFOM (Brothas From Otha Mothas), sang a version of Billy Joel’s “And So It Goes” as everyone left the stadium after the service.

The families of the other victims remained largely out of public view ahead of the memorial service at the university. Two of the victims, Veronika Weiss and Katie Cooper, were members of UCSB’s Delta Delta Delta sorority, and on Tuesday the sorority issued a statement in response to their deaths.

“Words will never be able to express the pain and sorrow in our hearts from experiencing the loss of our two beautiful sisters,” the sorority said. It added: “In the wake of this tragedy, we are committed to appreciating the value of life and to emulating the amazing attributes that Veronika and Katie shared so generously with us. We are grateful for and hold close to heart those who survived on Friday, including one of our own.”

Martinez, 60, vaulted into the spotlight Saturday when he crashed a Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office news conference at which deputies spelled out the details of the knifing and shooting attacks by Elliot Rodger, the 22-year-old who killed six people before shooting himself.

After the news conference, Martinez told reporters to train their cameras on him as he delivered a biting, 80-second speech attacking “craven” politicians and the National Rifle Association.

While Martinez said he is angered by the public’s willingness to accept mass murder as a way of life in America, he said he is not mad at Rodger’s parents.

“As bad as I feel about this, at least people come up to me and say, ‘I’m so sorry for you,’ ” he said. “Who will say that to them? No one is going to say that.”

Martinez said he hopes to meet with Rodger’s father, Peter Rodger, a Hollywood director and photographer, and enlist him in his fight to change gun laws. Peter Rodger and his attorney did not respond to a request for interviews.

“I’ve been told that the shooter’s father has said he wanted to devote his life to making sure that doesn’t happen again. I share that with him,” Martinez said. “He’s a father. I’m a father. He loved his son. I love my son. His son died. My son died.”

Martinez also said he is not angry with either the mental-health system or the sheriff’s deputies, who in April visited Elliot Rodger’s apartment after his family notified them, concerned about dark, brooding videos he had posted on YouTube.

The videos didn’t threaten violence, however, and Rodger was able to convince the deputies that he was depressed but neither suicidal nor homicidal, so they did not search his apartment, where he had already stockpiled an arsenal of weapons, including three semiautomatic handguns.

Martinez said that as a criminal-defense lawyer, he has seen the system from the inside and knows how difficult it is for parents to get help for their adult children when they are mentally ill.

He said he also recognizes that police have too few powers to intervene because the mentally ill cannot be involuntarily committed unless they prove to be an immediate threat to themselves or others.

“They don’t have the tools they need,” he said. “I don’t have the answers, but we should ask them what they need and we should give it to them. It’s a lack of will to find solutions. That’s what I’m upset about. This is a problem that can be solved.”

Martinez reserved his anger for the NRA, saying he has no understanding for the group’s position on automatic and semiautomatic weapons after a series of mass murders involving such weapons.

“I’m angry with the leadership of the NRA who always want to characterize this as if it’s a lone madman. That it’s an act of nature we have to tolerate,” he said. “I am angered by how they have worked to normalize this.”

The NRA did not respond to requests for comment.

“I understand this is a complicated problem. I have friends who are in the NRA. I grew up on a farm. I hunted. I killed animals. I understand guns,” Martinez said. “But assault rifles and semiautomatic weapons? There is no need for those except in war.”

He said his son — whom he described as “brave,” “competitive” and “extremely kind” — was also interested in guns but did not own any. He played paintball, expressed a desire to go to a shooting range and thought about following in the footsteps of his father by enlisting in the Army before college. An English major at UCSB, he planned to go to London next year and to law school after graduation, according to his father.

“He was very physically adventurous,” Martinez said. “He loved to argue. That’s probably why he wanted to become a lawyer, like his parents.”

Martinez said he is consulting with experts to help develop a clear message and a specific course of action that the public can undertake with the aim of preventing similar tragedies in the future.

“There’s no playbook for this. We don’t know what we are doing,” he said. “I just know I have to keep fighting until something changes. The most precious thing in the world has been taken from me. What else can I do?”

Alice Crites and Julie Tate in Washington contributed to this report.",He calls for a public campaign demanding ‘immediate action’ from Washington to end gun violence.
"Tampa, FL (SportsNetwork.com) - Baltimore Blast goalkeeper William Vanzela has been named the MISL Player of the Week for the 11th week of the 2013-14 regular season.

Vanzela, who also claimed the award in the fifth week of the MISL season, allowed only three goals as the Blast took a pair of victories during the weekend.

The Blast goalkeeper leads the league with a 4.84 goals-against average and .844 save percentage. He added to those totals this past weekend, making 11 saves in Baltimore's 10-5 win over the Syracuse Silver Knights on Friday, and 12 saves in a 17-2 defeat of the Rochester Lancers on Saturday.

Following are the 2013-14 MISL Player of the Week winners:

Week 1: Ian Bennett, Milwaukee Wave.

Week 2: Nick Vorberg, Milwaukee Wave.

Week 3: Stefan St. Louis, Missouri Comets.

Week 4: Carlos Munoz, Milwaukee Wave.

Week 5: William Vanzela, Baltimore Blast.

Week 6: Max Ferdinand, Baltimore Blast.

Week 7: Kenardo Forbes, Syracuse Silver Knights.

Week 8: Vahid Assadpour, Missouri Comets.

Week 9: Marcio Leite, Milwaukee Wave.

Week 10: Peter Pappas, Pennsylvania Roar.

Week 11: William Vanzela, Baltimore Blast.","Tampa, FL (SportsNetwork.com) - Baltimore Blast goalkeeper William Vanzela has been named the MISL Player of the Week for the 11th week of the 2013-14 regular season."
"On the 150th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, and just days before the anniversary of John F Kennedy’s assassination, a Guardian editorial praised 'the wise ones', the sort of big thinkers who produced the works and ideas we still admire today:

This Friday is the 50th anniversary of the deaths of John F Kennedy, Aldous Huxley and CS Lewis, as well as the centenary of Benjamin Britten. Reputations may fluctuate, but the great composer, the near great president, and the two English intellectuals in search of spiritual enlightenment had some things in common. They all confronted what is evil in mankind and they all offered a message of hope … In their different ways they were wise – and we still need their wisdom.

Kennedy, Britten, Huxley and Lewis were all undoubtedly brilliant and wise, and their words (or in Britten’s case, music) will continue to enlighten generations to come. But we see room for revision here.

First of all, there are no women on that list. Second, though “we still need their wisdom”, we inhabit a different time than these intellectual readers – Britten was born a century ago. Different times that require a different kind of wisdom. The world has certainly produced “wise ones” since Kennedy, but we often fail to recognize the sagacity of our contemporaries because we’re still indebted to the minds of the past.

In the 21st century, we’ve rewritten the rules of what it means to be wise. You could consider spiritual leaders like the Dalai Lama and literary heavyweights like Salman Rushdie and JK Rowling. But don’t count out tech titans like Steve Jobs or new warriors in the fight for women’s equality such as Sheryl Sandberg. Don’t be afraid to nominate some unconventional choices – just present a good case for their inclusion.

And of course, if you learned more from your grandmother or high school football coach than you have from any public figure of the last 50 years, we would love to hear more about them as well. Simply fill out the form below for a chance to have your entry featured on the Guardian:","We’ve produced some great minds in the past few decades. Conventional or otherwise, tell us who you think they are"
"A federal appeals court ruled yesterday that four reporters must answer questions about their confidential sources on stories they produced about former nuclear scientist Wen Ho Lee.

The journalists reported in 1999 that Lee, who had worked at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, was a suspect in the theft of nuclear secrets for China. Lee alleges he was the victim of illegal government leaks to the media and has filed a lawsuit saying his reputation was ruined by disclosures of the investigation.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit found that although journalists have a qualified privilege to protect anonymous sources, it was outweighed by two key factors in Lee's case: The reporters had information central to his lawsuit, and Lee's attorneys had sufficiently exhausted their efforts to find the alleged leakers by interviewing government officials.

Information about the alleged leakers ""goes to the heart"" of the lawsuit Lee has filed under the Privacy Act, the court said. ""If he cannot show the identities of the leakers, Lee's ability to show the other elements of the Privacy Act claim, such as willfulness and intent, will be compromised.""

The decision came the day after the Supreme Court rejected appeals from two reporters in another case. Judith Miller of the New York Times and Matt Cooper of Time magazine face going to jail or revealing their sources to a special prosecutor.

The back-to-back decisions against journalists' use of confidential sources have alarmed press advocates and First Amendment specialists.

""A really bad week for reporters,"" said Lucy Dalglish of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. ""Journalists need to know that when they promise confidentiality now, they may be making the most serious decision in their life.""

Aly Colon, who teaches journalism ethics at the Poynter Institute, a journalism think tank in St. Petersburg, Fla., said: ""Any reporter who offers confidentiality needs to consider that jail is a real possibility now.""

Miller and Cooper face surrendering in coming weeks for a stint in jail that could last 18 months. Many experts believe the only way they could avoid incarceration is to comply with a court order to identify sources to a grand jury investigating whether government officials illegally leaked to the media the identity of a covert CIA operative in 2003. A judge will consider their punishment today.

The reporters in the Lee case are H. Josef Hebert of the Associated Press, James Risen of the New York Times, Robert Drogin of the Los Angeles Times, and Pierre Thomas, formerly of CNN and now at ABC. They face fines of $500 a day. The court ruled that there was insufficient evidence to hold in contempt a fifth journalist, New York Times reporter Jeff Gerth.

The Associated Press said it would seek a review of the decision by the full nine-member appeals court.

Lee was indicted on 59 counts alleging he mishandled nuclear weapons data and eventually pleaded guilty to one count. In his lawsuit, he alleges that leaks about the investigation harmed his reputation.

After the ruling, Lee Levine, lawyer for Hebert and Drogin, said he feels a duty to warn journalist clients that they face a qualitatively different risk when they agree to take information in exchange for keeping sources anonymous.

""It's the latest example in a long string of examples now of courts in this country casting substantial doubt upon something reporters and their lawyers thought was settled long ago -- that reporters have the ability to make and keep promises to their sources,"" Levine said.

Charles Tobin, who represented Thomas, agreed. He said all reporters may want to consider discussing with sources the possibility that they would be subpoenaed.","Get Washington DC, Virginia, Maryland and national news. Get the latest/breaking news, featuring national security, science and courts. Read news headlines from the nation and from The Washington Post. Visit www.washingtonpost.com/nation today."
"Washington (CNN) -- There are political upstarts, rebels with and without a cause, and then there's Ted Cruz.

The first-term Republican senator from Texas has achieved the rare notoriety of having almost everyone in Washington mad at him, at least for now.

His legislative maneuverings led to last year's 16-day government shutdown, and he almost single-handedly scuttled this week's congressional approval of a year-long debt ceiling extension that denies fiscal conservatives a key negotiating tool until after the November elections.

Democrats dislike Cruz for his right-wing social and economic policies such as vehement opposition to gay marriage and President Barack Obama's signature health care reforms.

Cruz's Republican colleagues, especially those in the Senate, are angry because he forces them to choose between conservative purity and political pragmatism, a particularly tough spot in an election year.

To Cruz, a tea-party favorite who arrived in Washington just over a year ago, it's all about telling the truth -- as he sees it.

Election-year logic explains GOP dysfunction

Cruz: Politicians are lying to the people

Washington politicians -- including fellow Republicans -- don't want to be honest with America about their unwillingness to tackle tough issues like the rising federal debt, Cruz said Thursday in an interview with conservative talk radio host Mark Levin.

""People don't like to be lied to,"" he said to explain historically low approval ratings for Congress, adding that forcing Republican politicians to tell the truth ""makes their head explode.""

Others, including fellow legislators, say Cruz puts his personal agenda of galvanizing a right-wing political movement ahead of what's best for his party as a whole as it tries to reclaim control of the Senate and retain its House majority in November.

Kevin Madden, a GOP strategist and CNN political commentator, said Cruz's tactics seek to position him as a conservative champion on social issues as well as economic issues.

Madden cited a new proposal by Cruz intended to strip the federal government's power to legalize gay marriage by shifting that issue to state control.

""Social conservatives are looking for a voice inside the legislative process on (the gay marriage) debate and Ted Cruz is now stepping up,"" Madden said. ""And I think Ted Cruz sees this as an opportunity to become a social conservative champion because I think he has put together a pretty strong profile as an economic conservative champion in other debates.""

However, such right-wing positions increasingly differ from the American mainstream, which can make Cruz a liability for the Republican Party, according to Madden.

""If he's positioning himself as the face of the party, and he's moving against public tide and public sentiment, it makes Republicans look once again like they are out of step with the American people,"" Madden said, adding: ""That's what's happening to Ted Cruz.""

Panel: Cruz creating headaches for McConnell, GOP

New kid on the block

In less than 14 months, Cruz has quarreled publicly with Democratic senators, staged a 21-hour filibuster against the health reforms known as Obamacare -- at one point reading the Dr. Seuss classic ""Green Eggs and Ham"" -- and enraged GOP leaders by pushing strategies that backfired on the party.

Last October, Cruz's insistence on linking provisions dismantling Obamacare to needed government spending authority caused the government shutdown. It ended with Republicans getting nothing but blame for what most Americans considered a needless political crisis.

Wary of a similar debacle, Republican leaders shifted from a two-year strategy of wringing concessions out of the need to raise the federal borrowing limit.

After previously saying they would target the debt ceiling deadline in late February for more deficit-reduction demands, they decided against creating another example of Washington gridlock and dysfunction.

This week, House Republicans failed to agree on attaching various provisions sought by conservatives to a debt-ceiling plan that allows the government to borrow what it needs through March of 2015.

House Speaker John Boehner, a past proponent of forcing concessions over the issue, gave up and pushed through a ""clean"" proposal that passed with support from 199 Democrats and only 28 Republicans.

GOP leaders in Senate then sought a politically expedient strategy for the measure disliked by the party's conservative base. They urged their caucus to let it come up without objection so Republicans could simply vote ""no"" while Democrats passed it.

Cruz had other ideas. He tried to filibuster the measure, which forced a 60-vote majority in order for it to proceed. That meant at least five Republicans had to join the 55-seat Democratic caucus to prevent a showdown that could roil financial markets over the possibility of a U.S. default in coming weeks.

Texas junior Sen. Ted Cruz

Texas junior Sen. Ted Cruz

Texas junior Sen. Ted Cruz

Texas junior Sen. Ted Cruz

Texas junior Sen. Ted Cruz

Texas junior Sen. Ted Cruz

Texas junior Sen. Ted Cruz

Texas junior Sen. Ted Cruz

Texas junior Sen. Ted Cruz

With the vote held open for far longer than usual, Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and top deputy John Cornyn of Texas eventually provided the final two Republicans votes needed to overcome the Cruz filibuster bid.

Other GOP senators then changed their votes to provide political cover for McConnell and Cornyn, and all 12 Republican senators who helped Democrats stave off the filibuster then opposed the debt ceiling plan on the final vote. Needing only a simple majority for final approval, it passed with purely Democratic support.

Cruz railed against that kind of politicking in the interview Thursday with Levin, accusing fellow Republicans of being dishonest.

""The single thing that Republican politicians hate and fear the most ... is when they're forced to tell the truth. It makes their head explode,"" he said, calling the debt-ceiling vote ""the perfect example.""

His GOP colleagues, which he called establishment Republicans, wanted ""a perfect show vote"" in which they opposed the debt ceiling plan without being held accountable for enabling Democrats to pass it by helping them overcome the filibuster bid, Cruz said.

""They wanted to be able to tell what they view as their foolish gullible constituents back home they didn't do it, and they're mad because by (my) refusing to consent to that, they had to come out in the open and admit to that,"" he said.

It was unusually harsh and direct criticism of party colleagues, the opposite of the political mantra often cited by GOP icon Ronald Reagan that ""thou shalt not speak ill of another Republican.""

Republican anger at Cruz for the debt-ceiling maneuver had been obvious but muted.

Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said his colleagues thought ""this wasn't a good strategy in light of the fact that the House showed it didn't have the ability to pass a debt ceiling with Republican votes.""

Graham and other veteran GOP legislators, including McConnell and Cornyn, face primary challengers from the right this year, and the debt-ceiling vote provided ammunition for opponents to attack their conservative credentials.

For Cruz, bucking what he calls the Washington establishment, including Republicans, is all that matters.

""If we wait on the entrenched politicians in Washington to make the case to stand up, hell will freeze over before that happens,"" he told Levin. ""This is nothing new. That's true of entrenched power. It's always been true of Washington.""

About his GOP detractors, Cruz said that ""every one of those senators who's angry, when they go back home, they tell their constituents they're doing everything they can to stop (the rising debt ceiling), but they don't actually want to do what they're saying.""

Such a public rift with his party can hurt Republicans and Cruz, said Marc Lamont Hill, a CNN political commentator who hosts ""Huff Post Live.""

""Ted Cruz seems to be uncontrollable by the Republican Party,"" Hill noted, adding that polls show Cruz ""moving in the wrong direction"" among potential GOP presidential contenders in 2016. ""People are dissatisfied with folk like Ted Cruz, who don't seem viable anymore because they're not willing to play ball.""

Madden, the GOP strategist, conceded that with Cruz's ability to ""drive a lot of headlines and get a lot of attention,"" Republican leaders will continue to see him ""as a challenge.""

CNN's Jake Tapper contributed to this report.",Texas tea partier Sen. Ted Cruz seeks to galvanize a conservative political movement.
"The owner of a 73-floor tower in Los Angeles that ranks as the tallest building in the United States west of the Mississippi River is building a glass slide to hang off the exterior of the structure, and will invite visitors to ride the attraction.

Starting in June, thrill-seekers will be able to ride the “Skyslide” at the US Bank Tower, getting on at the 70th floor and looking down at the pavement nearly 1,000 feet (305 meters) below as they sit down and slide for 45 feet (14 meters) to an outdoor platform at the 69th floor, according to the building’s owner, Singapore-based OUE Ltd.

The glass on the fully enclosed slide will be only 1¼ inches (3.2 cm) thick, the company said.

Tickets to the slide, which is part of a larger attraction called OUE Skyspace LA featuring an observation deck for visitors, are slated to go on sale on March 18.

Thomson Reuters leases space in the US Bank Tower.

The builders of Wilshire Grand Center, a skyscraper under construction in downtown Los Angeles, say their 73-story structure, once completed, including a spire at its top, will become the tallest building west of the Mississippi. That tower is set to open next year.",Don’t look down! The owner of a 73-floor tower in Los Angeles that ranks as the tallest building in the United States west of the Mississippi River is building a glass slide to hang off the e…
"is now the devil ... so says

-- the guy she used to bang.

Take a close look at this video ... Drake is singing ""Days In the East"" -- Monday night in Toronto during his OVO Fest -- when a fiery 6 appears, followed by an image of Rihanna, followed again by a 6, then another Rihanna and a 3rd 6.

It's unclear what turned Rihanna from

into a satanic symbol. Drake has trashed her here and there, but it's one thing to have beef with your ex, and another to call her out as the devil.","Rihanna is now the devil ... so says Drake -- the guy she used to bang.Take a close look at this video ... Drake is singing ""Days In the East"" --…"
"A couple of years ago, I was invited to give a lecture on aspects of Goya's work at the Studio School in New York. Since that time, I've noticed a growing popular fascination with the artist. Last year, Julia Blackburn published Old Man Goya, a very personal account of the painter's life. Robert Hughes and Evan S. Connell have recently completed books on Goya: Hughes's was published this month. Last summer, I ran into the producer Saul Zaentz, who told me he was working on a movie project about Goya, and controversy has recently surrounded the Black Paintings with the claims by Spanish art historian Juan José Junquera that Goya did not paint those astounding late works. For a man who has been dead for 175 years, Goya is remarkably present among us still.

In June, I spent three weeks in Barcelona as a guest of the Institució de les Lletres Catalanes. I was working on an essay about Los Caprichos, Goya's collection of 80 prints first published in 1799, but was also drawn to the painting The Third of May (El Tres de Mayo), the artist's famous depiction of Napoleon's soldiers executing rebellious Spanish peasants in 1808. El Tres de Mayo is so well known that even people who have forgotten the title remember its central character - the agonised young man in a white shirt and yellow trousers who kneels before raised rifles with his hands in the air.

Last month, I made a pilgrimage to the Prado in Madrid to see the original and discovered more than I had expected - a hidden image that nobody has ever discussed or written about. It is a large work, 268cm by 347cm, and familiar as the image was, I first had to adjust to its scale. Fortunately, there was a chair near the wall, and I sat down to get a broad view at my leisure. Every once in a while, I would stand up and walk toward various parts of the canvas for a closer look. When I study a painting, I let myself float in the image. I jot down thoughts as they come to me and make primitive drawings to feel the paintings's configurations in my own hand. It always takes time.

After about an hour, I began to examine the shadowy space in the lower left-hand corner, an ambiguous area that puzzled me. In the foreground, bloody corpses lie on top of one another, but above those bodies are two strange people. The uppermost figure is cloaked and appears to be an older woman. Beneath her is another person, darker and more vague, a being whose contours vanish into darkness.

Who are they? What are they doing there? They are more like ghosts than living people, smoky mourners who seem to rise out of the earth. I kept staring at them, trying to make out the outlines of their bodies in relation to the hill and to the dead men lying below, and while I looked, I began to see new shapes and shadows beneath the lower spectre - what could have been an arm, another head, mouths, and faces.

I told myself that I had looked too long at this section of the painting and was seeing things the way children see images in shadows or clouds. And then, to my utter astonishment, I saw Goya's face staring out at me. It's a simple rendering - large eyes, flat nose and open mouth, but it includes the artist's signature leonine hair flowing out from around his jawline. I turned away, thinking I had really gone crazy. After a moment, I looked back. He was still there.

I left the room, went to look at the Black Paintings for a while, returned, parked myself in front of the spot - and saw him again. I was already late to meet my husband, daughter and a friend in the museum café. I flew downstairs and dragged my three witnesses up to the painting, planted them in front of the nearly invisible self-portrait and asked them to look. They all saw it. There is a fleck of white paint in Goya's left eye that allows the spectator to orient himself and identify the face.

Upon my return to New York, I told a friend, Nicole Krauss, a young novelist and art writer, about the hidden face. The next day, she went off on a tour for art aficionados in France and met the English Goya scholar, Juliet Wilson-Bareau. Nicole mentioned my revelation to her, and Wilson-Bareau confirmed that no one had ever written about it.

It is entirely possible that other visitors to the Prado have seen Goya's image in El Tres de Mayo and simply accepted it as part of the painting, but the fact that over the course of 189 years no art historian has ever men tioned the phantom face is peculiar. Goya chose to haunt his own canvas, and that choice changes the painting's meaning. He painted it six years after the executions took place and buried himself within his depiction of the bloody event as a wraith-like grieving presence. He implicates himself in the story, becoming another ghost of the many who died that day - the ghost of memory that insists that the senseless murders never be forgotten.

Siri Hustvedt is a novelist. Her most recent book, What I Loved , is published by Sceptre","Goya's masterpiece has always stunned its admirers, but Siri Hustvedt claims it holds an even more amazing secret."
"“If every boss was Paula Reid, the Secret Service would never have a problem,” an ex-agent told The Washington Post about the rising star who runs the Miami office that oversees South America.

At 46, special agent Reid — who was with more than a dozen underlings in Cartagena, Colombia, doing advance work for President Obama’s trip to the mid-April Summit of the Americas — acted swiftly to get 11 allegedly errant colleagues out of that country and to investigate what happened.

In other words, this woman who always wanted to be in law enforcement is now working to uncover and address the mess of nearly a dozen men run amok.

“She’s the ultimate boss for that whole region,” one agent told The Post. “You did it in her house, so you better know she’s going to come down hard.”

Although intensely private, Reid is interested in diversity recruiting. “The general public is intrigued to see a black female in my position,"" she told the online newsletter “Women for Hire.” “They always need to confirm that I really am a special agent. I enjoy being a role model for women and minorities.”

By now the details of the Colombian prostitute debacle are familiar: A shouting match erupted at the Hotel Caribe over payment after one agent gave a woman about $30 and she loudly demanded considerably more money. Other agents — who collectively raised about $225 in dollars and pesos to try to quiet her — had been carousing with a number of prostitutes after a night of boozy club-hopping that ended in various hotel rooms.

Marriage vows? A job that requires total concentration (free from hangovers and sex-romp insomnia) that might impede an agent's ability to take a bullet to keep a protectee safe? Missing in action, it would seem.

Which brings us to Reid, a 21-year Secret Service member who was staying at a different hotel but after arriving at the Caribe, quickly told superiors of “egregious” agent misconduct involving ladies of the night, some of whom may be minors.

The scream-fest triggered what The Post called “the public uncovering of the most wide-reaching scandal at the agency in decades, according to government officials involved in the case.”

With a Secret Service spokesperson by her side, Reid told The Post, “I am confident that as an agency we’ll determine exactly what happened and take appropriate action.”

Moreover, “despite this current challenge facing the Secret Service, my job is to keep Miami personnel focused on our core protective and investigative missions. Anything less is counterproductive to the many critical functions we perform each day.”

As a woman who once joined a race-discrimination lawsuit against the Secret Service but later dropped out of the complaint, Reid knows she runs the risk of job backlash from macho co-workers who may resent the firings and resignations of those involved.

There is also that not insignificant matter of bilateral finger-pointing going on from Capitol Hill to Cartagena, and all the media chatter in between.

Fortunately, Reid has admirers within the service. “The epitome of what a female agent should be,” a current colleague who has worked with Reid told The Post. “I wouldn’t be surprised if she becomes director one day.”

It could happen. It should happen. And if she were ever nominated, Reid could probably bank on bipartisan support from women in the House and Senate who know all about sexual impropriety among their male colleagues.

Last summer, when then-Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) was caught sexting photos of himself to several young women while his wife of 11 months was pregnant with their first child, Rep. Candice Miller (R-Mich.) had this to say about the reaction of female lawmakers:

“I’m telling you, every time one of these sex scandals goes, we just look at each other, like, ‘What is it with these guys? Don’t they think they’re going to get caught?’ ”

Reid, who has never married but says she is very close to her family, grew up in Southern Maryland and earned a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice from the University of Maryland in 1988. She thought about becoming a lawyer or investigator before she attended an NAACP job fair that focused on law enforcement jobs for minorities.

She left her position at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to join the Secret Service, and for more than two decades, she quietly rose in the ranks. Along the way, she has sought to recruit other women and minorities.

“I can’t imagine not being in law enforcement,” she told Women for Hire as part of her outreach efforts. And yes, women are definitely up for the rigors of the job. “Women would not be remotely considered if we couldn’t do it physically — and we can.”

Annie Groer is a former Washington Post and PoliticsDaily.com reporter whose work has also appeared in the New York Times, Town & Country, More and TheAtlantic.com, She is at work on a memoir.","The Secret Service's Paula Reid, who always wanted to be in law enforcement, is now working to uncover and address the mess of nearly a dozen men run amok."
"Kris Humphries (l.) and the Brooklyn Nets rebound from a tough loss to the Knicks by beating DeMar DeRozan (r.) and the Raptors in Toronto Wednesday night.

TORONTO — For the first half on Wednesday night, the Nets suffered from a severe, raging Knick hangover. They somehow looked worse than the decimated, slumping Raptors, which is no easy feat. The Nets couldn’t crack the Toronto zone, couldn’t shoot, couldn’t take care of the basketball and couldn’t defend in the paint. They stunk at every facet of basketball and managed to fall behind by 11 points to a bad NBA team missing six guys from its roster. “We didn’t get anything going, couldn’t get stops,” Deron Williams said. “These types of games are dangerous. They got guys happy to see minutes.” Williams lectured his teammates as they headed out for the third quarter trailing by eight, about movement, about screens, about beating the zone. Then, given more space and time, Joe Johnson and C.J. Watson started hitting three-pointers — eight-for-eight between them, in the second half. Before long, the cream rose. Or the dregs settled. Either way, the Nets came back for a key 94-88 victory at the Air Canada Centre that snapped a five-game losing streak and handed Toronto its sixth straight loss. To be fair, the Nets were playing their second game, on back-to-back nights, following a painful loss to the Knicks. They were on the road without their injured starting center, Brook Lopez, while resting Jerry Stackhouse. They appeared dazed, flat and confused, committing 11 turnovers and shooting just 36.1% in the first half. “We had our heads down a little bit,” Avery Johnson said. “Those games (against the Knicks) are not the easiest to come back after. This victory is just as important as last night. Our guys were under immense pressure and I’m glad they responded.” Joe Johnson finished with 23 points and four assists after sleepwalking through the first two quarters. During one tell-tale moment following a timeout, Joe Johnson headed toward the bench when he was supposed to be on the court. “Joe, where you going?” Avery Johnson screamed. Joe Johnson got his act together, as the Nets pulled away in the fourth quarter by 13 points, then as they held on for dear life against a team that had every right to forfeit this one instead of showing up for this game. “It was amazing what a couple of shots do, if you knock down a couple,” Joe Johnson said. “For any scorer, getting an easy basket, getting a couple to fall, you can hit anywhere on the court you want.” Everything is relative in the NBA, and the Raptors are truly more threadbare than the Nets. Toronto was without its own center, Amir Johnson, suspended for one game for throwing his mouthpiece at referee David Jones during a loss in Portland. Johnson’s OCD-like behavior — his insistence on grabbing the basketball after everybody’s free throws — had led to a technical and then the expulsion. With that suspension and injuries to five players — Andrea Bargnani, Alan Anderson, Landry Fields, Linas Kleiza and Kyle Lowry — Toronto needed to scramble just to field the minimum eight active players. The Raptors called up rookie Quincy Acy from the D-League, and he made it to the arena as the team’s ninth man just before tipoff. “It’s definitely a tough situation, but they’re not going to cancel the games,” Toronto coach Dwane Casey said. The coach had told his reserves, “You want more playing time, you got it.” The Nets have their own injury problems, or at least one big one. Lopez stayed behind again in New York for more rehab work. His absence, in part, allowed the Raptors to score 54 of their 88 points in the paint, plus 10 more from the free throw line. “The threes are what gave us energy,” said Andray Blatche, who has been starting at center instead of Lopez. “It wasn’t pretty at all. It was a dogfight, ugly win.” The Nets were just happy to leave their losing streak behind in Canada, for another team to nurture.","The Nets required a trip to a different country on Wednesday night to find a team that is playing worse basketball. There, in Canada, they unearthed the decimated, slumping Raptors, who put up a decent fight before succumbing to a roster with a few more healthy bodies."
"On Tuesday, Mrs. Clinton plans to attend a meeting in Honduras of the Organization of American States. Members of the group want to make an even clearer break with the past by moving to readmit Cuba, which the organization expelled in 1962, citing its alliance with the Communist bloc. Mrs. Clinton has fended off calls for Cuba to be offered membership until Havana moves to accept the group’s democratic principles. On Sunday, she reiterated that the United States would oppose the efforts of several Latin American countries to immediately reinstate Cuba.

“We believe that membership in the O.A.S. comes with responsibility, and that we must all hold each other accountable,” she said. Cuba, for its part, has said it has no interest in returning to an organization that the official newspaper Granma referred to recently as “that decrepit old house of Washington.”

The measures proposed by Cuba, while incremental, came in response to overtures from the United States, and may blunt criticism that Washington is not moving fast enough. There had been speculation that Mrs. Clinton might skip the meeting in Honduras if there was no compromise on Cuba, but American officials signaled that she was now likely to go.

President Obama began his outreach to Cuba two months ago by lifting restrictions on travel by Cuban-Americans, and on the remittances those living in the United States send home.

Earlier this month, the Obama administration signaled its willingness to reopen a higher-level channel with Havana by proposing meetings on migration. Those efforts appear to have gained momentum after a summit meeting in April in Trinidad at which Mr. Obama told Latin leaders that “the United States seeks a new beginning with Cuba.”

The migration talks date back to the 1990s, when Cuba and the United States tried to curtail a flood of refugees who fled the island, often on flimsy rafts. President George W. Bush halted them in 2003, largely suspending regular communication with Havana. He cited Cuba’s policy on exit visas, its treatment of repatriated Cubans and surveillance of dissidents.

Given the rise in human smuggling from Cuba, not only via the Florida Straits but elsewhere in the Caribbean, American officials said it was in the interest of both countries to resume the talks.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A4 of the New York edition with the headline: Cuba Agrees To U.S. Talks In New Sign Of a Thaw. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe",Latin America is impatient to see the United States repair its half-century-old breach with the government in Havana.
"Burger King is bringing back its 15-cent chicken nugget promotion, battling it out with McDonald’s Corp. (MCD) over the price of one of the most popular fast-food menu items.

Starting today, Burger King will sell 10 chicken nuggets for $1.49, about half the regular price of $2.99, according to a statement from the chain, which is owned by Restaurant Brands International Inc. (QSR) The burger seller ran the same promotion in October for about a month until supplies waned. McDonald’s sells 50 Chicken McNuggets for $9.99, or 20 cents per nugget.

“They’re competing aggressively with McDonald’s, and they’re doing it as a very low price to draw people in,” said Darren Tristano, executive vice president at Chicago-based research firm Technomic Inc. “The goal is to steal share from the other burger brands around them.”

McDonald’s 50-piece nugget promotion is a local option for franchisees, who can determine their own timing on the deal, Lisa McComb, a spokeswoman, said in an e-mailed statement. The restaurants that will be offering the deal will mostly likely do so as a Super Bowl promotion, she said.

The fast-food industry is relying more heavily on discounts to drive foot traffic as consumers flock to fast-casual restaurants like Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc. The risk of cutting prices to drive sales is that customers will only buy the discounted items and abandon the chain once prices go up.

“They’re buying that moment’s traffic,” said Malcolm Knapp, a restaurant-industry consultant in New York. “They’re not building loyal customers who will come back for other things.”

Burger King’s previous chicken nugget promotion helped the company post a 3.6 percent gain in same-store sales in the U.S. and Canada for the third quarter. McDonald’s had a 3.3 percent drop in U.S. sales during the same period.

Burger King’s parent company completed its acquisition of Canadian coffee-shop chain Tim Hortons last month, forming the world’s third largest fast-food company and changing its name to Restaurant Brands International. The new parent company is based in Oakville, Ontario.

McDonald’s, based in Oak Brook, Illinois, has seen sales at its more than 14,000 U.S. restaurants fall in seven straight months through November. The world’s largest fast food chain is cutting down on menu items and offering more customizable burger options as it revamps domestic operations.

To contact the reporter on this story: Craig Giammona in New York at cgiammona@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Nick Turner at nturner7@bloomberg.net Kevin Orland

Press spacebar to pause and continue. Press esc to stop.","Burger King is bringing back its 15-cent chicken nugget promotion, battling it out with McDonald’s Corp. over the price of one of the most popular fast-food menu items."
"WASHINGTON, May 28— Pharmacists are virtually ignoring laws p ermitting the substitution of less expensive generic formulations f or brand-name drugs, according to a comprehensive study recently r eleased by the National Center for Health Services Research, an arm o f the Department of Health and Human Services.

Although pharmacists could have passed on to consumers savings of about 25 percent, or an average of $1.25, for each prescription, they rarely did so, according to a six-year, four-state survey sponsored by the center.

''Although the potential for substitution appears great in each state studied, the actual experience has been disappointing,'' said Dr. Theodore Goldberg, a professor at Wayne State University School of Medicine and director of the study. He found that the percentage of substituting generic for brand-name drugs was consistently low: 8.6 percent in Vermont, 7.4 percent in Michigan, 5.1 percent in Wisconsin and 2.6 percent in Rhode Island.

The statistics did not surprise Richard Penna, a spokesman for at the American Pharmaceutical Association. ''Pharmacists do not have any financial incentive to dispense generic drugs,'' he said. Over the next five to 10 years, though, there will be substantial increases in generic sales as state laws are simplified and pharmacists become accustomed to handling generic drugs, he added.

Sales of generic drugs are already rising. While sales of all drugs are increasing at an annual rate of 12 percent, the $4.5 billion generic drug market is moving ahead at 14 percent a year, according to Dee Fensterer, spokesman for the Generic Pharmaceutical Association.

A ttic ventilators can save on cooling bills, but one brand sold by Sears, Roebuck & Company may set the roof on fire, according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission. The commission, in cooperation with the manufacturer, Emerson Electric Company, recently announced a recall of 11,500 electric motors housed inside the roof-mounted ventilators.

Consumers have been complaining since last September that the ventilator's motor was causing fires, according to Emerson. No injuries have been reported.

The $70 ventilators, sold through Sears stores and catalogues in 1980 and 1981, have a light-gray molded polyvinyl hood and an identification plate on the electric motor. The model number is 758.648360.

Emerson will arrange for a serviceman to replace the motor free of charge. For details, call 1-800-325-4130 or the commission at 800-638-8326.

I F you are shopping for insurance, or if someone is trying to sell you insurance, expert and impartial help is necessary. The National Insurance Consumer Organization has just published a 1982 edition of its ''Taking the Bite Out of Insurance: How to Save Money on Life Insurance.'' It is available for $6.25 from NICO, 344 Commerce Street, Alexandria, Va. 22314. The 44-page book offers simple, straightforward recommendations by its author, James H. Hunt, a former State Insurance Commissioner of Vermont, and has a forward by Ralph Nader, who helped found the research and lobbying group two years ago.

Medicare is another convoluted topic. To make things easier, the State of New York Insurance Deptment has recently issued a guide for older persons who want to buy supplemental coverage. ''Medicare Supplemental Insurance in New York State'' is free from the Publications Unit, New York State Insurance Department, Agency Building One, Empire State Plaza, Albany, N.Y. 12257. The book, which is printed in large type, explains the gaps in Medicare coverage, suggests supplemental coverage and gives comparative information on policies offered by insurance companies within the state. YOU may never have been tempted by the national advertisements o ffering diamond pendants for $12 or emerald earrings for $5, but youm ight have wondered how the companies could be so generous.

The Federal Trade Commission was also curious and has issued a bulletin stating that consumers get pretty much what they pay for. One advertisement described a diamond as ''17 facet round, weighing .25 points.'' Sure enough, the technical description was correct, but the commission noted few consumers probably realized that a .25-carat diamond is only the size of a pinhead. Likewise, the gold chains may be so fragile that they are liable to break under normal use and probably are impossible to repair.

The commission bulletin also defined a few jewelry terms that companies legitimately use to enhance products. ''Solid gold,'' for instance, means only that the object is not hollow. ''Gold plated'' may mean that the jewelry has a seven-millionths-of-an-inch layer of 10-karat gold, the lowest-quality gold that can be offered for sale in this country.

Susanne Patch, a spokesman for the Federal regulatory agency, could not divulge whether the commission was investigating the mail-order gem business, but she said no complaints have been issued yet. Michael deCourcy Hinds","Pharmacists are virtually ignoring laws p ermitting the substitution of less expensive generic formulations f or brand-name drugs, according to a comprehensive study recently r eleased by the National Center for Health Services Research, an arm o f the Department of Health and Human Services.   Although pharmacists could have passed on to consumers savings of about 25 percent, or an average of $1.25, for each prescription, they rarely did so, according to a six-year, four-state survey sponsored by the center.   ''Although the potential for substitution appears great in each state studied, the actual experience has been disappointing,'' said Dr. Theodore Goldberg, a professor at Wayne State University School of Medicine and director of the study. He found that the percentage of substituting generic for brand-name drugs was consistently low: 8.6 percent in Vermont, 7.4 percent in Michigan, 5.1 percent in Wisconsin and 2.6 percent in Rhode Island."
"When Jade King became pregnant, she probably didn’t bet on delivering one of the United Kingdom’s biggest newborns.

George King was born six weeks ago, weighing in at 15 pounds, 7 ounces, Science World Report reported. A newborn baby is usually half that size.

Reports say Jade’s baby was the second-biggest baby to be delivered vaginally in the United Kingdom.

George, who lives in London, with his parents, Jade and Ryan, wears clothes made for a 6-month-old. He is more than 26 inches tall, certainly taller than your average 6-week-old.

Doctors didn’t realize exactly how big George was until they saw his head and then his shoulders became stuck. More than 20 doctors assisted in the delivery, according to the Science World Report.

His parents called him a ‘miracle baby,’ because he was without oxygen for five minutes, lowering his chances of survival. He stayed in the hospital for more than four weeks before going home, and now he has since gained another pound.

Click for more from Science World Report.","When Jade King became pregnant, she probably didn’t bet on delivering one of the United Kingdom’s biggest newborns.George King was born six weeks ago, weighing in at 15 pounds, 7 ounces."
"And the third president -- and author of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson, observed: ""I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever in religion, in philosophy, in politics, or in anything else where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent. If I could not go to heaven but with a party, I would not go there at all.""

Today, that independent spirit is alive and well, if under-represented in our political debates.

The fact is that 41% of Americans describe themselves as independents -- as opposed to Democrats or Republicans -- according to an April Washington Post/ABC News poll. Independents are the largest and fastest-growing segment of the electorate. Back in 1945, they made up 15%.

Take a look at the growth trends in some of the states where voters register by party.

In Iowa, the first caucus state, the number of registered independents grew 52% between 1990 and 2010.

In New Hampshire, independents can vote in the Republican primary and now make up 42% of the local electorate.

In the pivotal swing state of Florida, the number of independent voters increased more than fivefold since 1990 -- from roughly 430,000 to 2.4 million.

And in California, our nation's largest state, the number of independent voters rose from 1.5 million to more than 3.8 million since 1990.

The two parties would kill to have these kind of recruitment numbers. And the growth of independent voters has occurred precisely as the two parties have become more ideologically polarized than at any time in our recent history.","As we celebrate Independence Day at the start of a long hot campaign season, it is worth remembering that patriotism is not the same thing as partisanship.Our first president, George Washington"
"by Liz McNeil and Nicole Sands

""I was there to see my friend go from recreational drug use to using to keep it together. Her struggle was not unlike that of so many others: desire and will at odds with desire and will, to remain sober, to get high."" Brown's upcoming memoir titled Every Little Step hits stands June 13.

Sign up for news alerts and special offers

Copyright © 2016 Time Inc. All rights reserved.

Don't miss a single story from PEOPLE!",A source close to the Houston family opens up about Bobby Brown's reports following his 20/20 interview with ABC News' Robin Roberts
"Greece's government pressed ahead Wednesday with its plan to put austerity measures to voters after European creditors rebuffed its latest proposal for a new aid program. But finance ministers were still discussing the country's situation and nothing seemed set in stone.

Many European officials had ruled out any deal with Greece before a referendum called by Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras for Sunday. He is asking Greeks whether they want to accept creditors' reform proposals in return for rescue loans.

Tsipras on Wednesday defiantly said the referendum would go ahead and called on the people to vote ""no."" In a televised address to the nation, he said a ""no"" result would not mean that Greece would have to leave the euro, as many European officials have argued.

Rather, Tsipras claimed, it would give the government a stronger negotiating position with creditors.

""There are those who insist on linking the result of the referendum with the country's future in the euro,"" Tsipras said. ""They even say I have a so-called secret plan to take the country out of the EU if the vote is `no.' They are lying with the full knowledge of that fact.""

The hastily called referendum is based on creditor reform proposals made last week as part of a negotiation with the Greek government. But they were later updated and are now no longer on the table as the European part of Greece's bailout program expired at midnight Tuesday.

The head of a top European intergovernmental institution told The Associated Press that any such referendum would fall short of international standards.

The Council of Europe, an independent body that monitors elections and human rights, has no enforcement capacity. But the declaration of its chief, Thorbjorn Jagland, that the referendum would not meet international standards was a major blow.

Such standards call for at least two weeks' notice to allow for discussion, a clear question to be put to voters for consideration, and international observers invited to monitor the vote.

Greece's Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras attends an emergency parliament session for the government's proposed referendum in Athens on June 27. (Petros Karadjias/Associated Press)

This vote, Jagland said, ""has been called on such a short notice. That this in itself is a major problem."" He said the question put to the people was ""not very clear"" and said the Council of Europe, which monitors votes, had not been invited to do so.

Eurozone finance ministers were to discuss Greece's new offer made Tuesday night. Tsipras sent a letter to creditors saying his government was prepared to accept their proposals, subject to certain amendments.

Some European countries - including Germany, the largest single contributor to Greece's bailout - said the proposal wasn't good enough and that a deal remained impossible in any case before the referendum.

""We will wait for the referendum,"" Chancellor Angela Merkel told the German Parliament. ""There can be no negotiations on a new aid program before the referendum.""

But French President Francois Hollande urged an accord before then.

Hollande said it was the responsibility of other countries that use the shared currency to keep Greece in the eurozone.

""We have to be clear. An accord is for right now, it will not be put off,"" he said. ""If it doesn't happen, we would have to wait for a referendum, but there is always a risk"" of turbulence and a ""leap into the void.""

Hollande, a Socialist who has been one of the few remaining EU allies of Greece's leftist government, criticized ""intransigent comments"" and ""vetoes or roughness,"" in an apparent reference to Germany's tough stance.

""It is our duty to keep Greece in the eurozone,"" he said. ""That depends on Greece ... but it also depends on us.""

Pensioners try to get a number to enter a bank in Athens on Wednesday. About 1,000 bank branches around the country were ordered by the government to reopen Wednesday to help desperate pensioners without ATM cards cash up to 120 euros from their retirement checks. (Daniel Ochoa de Olza/Associated Press)

Hopes that Tsipras was softening his position - after refusing for five months to accept the proposed spending cuts - boosted markets Wednesday.

Greece is in a financial limbo now that its bailout program has expired, cutting it off from vital financing and pushing it one step closer to leaving the euro. It also has become the first developed country to fail to repay a debt to the International Monetary Fund on time. The last country to miss an IMF payment was Zimbabwe in 2001.

As long as it is in arrears on the IMF payment, Greece cannot get any more money from the organization.

The country has put limits on cash withdrawals to keep banks from collapsing after Greeks rushed to pull money out of ATMs following the referendum call at the start of the weekend.

In Athens, crowds of anxious elderly Greeks thronged banks for hours from before dawn Wednesday, struggling to be allowed to withdraw their maximum of 120 euros ($134) for the week after the government reopened some banks to help pensioners who don't have bank cards. Greeks are now limited to daily ATM withdrawals of 60 euros ($67) and cannot send money abroad without special permission.

With many elderly Greeks unable to access any money without bank cards, the government said about 1,000 bank branches would open for three days starting Wednesday to give them access to some cash.

But a seeming last-minute decision to serve customers on an alphabetical basis led to chaotic scenes of confusion and anger, with many pensioners waiting hours from before dawn to be eventually told they would have to return Thursday or Friday.

Others were told their pensions had not yet been deposited and they would therefore have to return later in the week.

""It's very bad,"" said retired pharmacy worker Popi Stavrakaki, 68. ""I'm afraid it will be worse soon. I have no idea why this is happening.""

Meanwhile, many ATMs had run out of 20 euro notes, meaning the maximum they would dispense per day was one 50 euro note per bank card, effectively cutting the amount of cash Greeks have access to.

Capital controls will remain in place until at least next Monday.","Greece's government has made new concessions in talks with its creditors, though some European officials said they were still not good enough and that a deal was nevertheless impossible before a Greek referendum on Sunday."
"The United Nations’ refusal to accept responsibility for the devastating cholera outbreak that has claimed more than 9,000 lives in Haiti has been branded a “disgrace” by the organisation’s own human rights special rapporteur.

Human rights groups working with victims had reacted with jubilation earlier this year following the UN’s first tacit admission that it was to blame for the outbreak after doggedly refusing to address how its peacekeepers brought the disease to Haiti in 2010.

However, in a scathing report (pdf) to the UN general assembly, the organisation’s special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, Philip Alston, said that flawed and unfounded legal advice provided by the UN lawyers was preventing it from accepting responsibility for the outbreak.

“The UN’s explicit and unqualified denial of anything other than a moral responsibility is a disgrace,” Alston said. “If the United Nations bluntly refuses to hold itself accountable for human rights violations, it makes a mockery of its efforts to hold governments and others to account.”

Alston accused the UN’s Office of Legal Affairs (OLA) for coming up with a “patently artificial and wholly unfounded legal pretence for insisting that the organisation must not take legal responsibility for what it has done”.

The criticism comes as the administration of the outgoing UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, is moving to provide compensation for the first time to victims of the outbreak. The UN plans to make cash payments from a proposed $400m (£328m) cholera response package, the New York Times reported.

Alston added that the OLA’s approach “has been cloaked in secrecy: there has been no satisfactory official explanation of the policy, no public attempt to justify it, and no known assessment of its consequences for future cases. This goes directly against the principles of accountability, transparency and the rule of law that the UN itself promotes globally.”

Peacekeepers who were relocated from Nepal to Haiti in 2010 in the wake of a major earthquake imported the deadly cholera bacterium with them. Studies have found that the UN troops could have been screened for the illness, and the disaster averted, for as little as $2,000.

Alston said the UN’s legal position appears to be largely explained by the approach of the US, the main contributor to the UN’s peacekeeping budget. “Despite numerous requests to do so, the United States itself has never publicly stated its legal position on the responsibility of the UN for causing cholera in Haiti,” he added.

“Instead, it seems to have pressed the UN to adopt the position frequently taken by lawyers in the US that responsibility should never be accepted voluntarily, since it could complicate future litigation. But this rationale is completely inapplicable to the UN, which enjoys absolute immunity from suit in national courts and whose reputation depends almost entirely on being seen to act with integrity.”

The special rapporteur said that the current stance of the UN’s lawyers ensures that it would never admit its responsibility for introducing cholera. “And avoiding legal responsibility hinders the UN from learning lessons and making sure that the fatal mistakes made in Haiti are not repeated elsewhere.”

Ban’s office said in a statement earlier this year that the organisation had decided to step up its efforts to fight cholera in one of the world’s poorest countries. A reference to the UN’s “involvement in the initial outbreak” was greeted as a breakthrough by groups working with cholera victims.

Ban appeared to have been bounced into making a clearer recognition of responsibility than ever before by the advent of a draft report by Alston into how the UN handled the crisis. Alston had also been one of five experts working for the UN who earlier this year wrote a heavily critical letter to Ban in which the secretary general’s resistance to accepting any responsibility was torn apart.",Human rights special rapporteur says UN’s refusal to accept responsibility for 2010 outbreak ‘makes a mockery’ of efforts to hold others to account
"Rivera confessed to police on videotape that he shot Taylor after the NFL player confronted them at his bedroom door with a machete. In the confession, Rivera also said the group didn’t realize Taylor would be home with a knee injury instead of playing a Redskins game against Tampa Bay.

“He lost his life defending and protecting his family,” said Assistant State Attorney Reid Rubin in a closing statement. “They kicked the door in and they shot him and killed him, for no good reason.”

Testifying in his own defense last fall, Rivera claimed the confession was false and improperly coerced, and that someone else in the group shot Taylor with a 9mm handgun. A jury convicted him of second-degree murder and armed burglary. He was originally charged with first-degree murder but was ineligible for the death penalty because he was 17 at the time of the killing.

In a brief statement, Rivera told members of Taylor’s family he was sorry for the killing and that Taylor was “a good man.”

“I live with his death every day. I’m going to have to deal with the consequences,” he said.

Several Rivera family members pleaded for leniency, noting that Rivera was still a minor at the time and that he had never been in trouble with the law before. But Rubin said Rivera had committed perjury in his testimony and tried to influence the testimony of others in his case.

“He’s a sophisticated, manipulative criminal. There’s no good reason to believe he will change,” Rubin said.

Rivera could have gotten life behind bars. His lawyers are planning to appeal his conviction.

Taylor, a first-round pick by the Redskins in the 2004 draft, was a hard-hitting Pro Bowl safety who had previously starred at the University of Miami. He was shot during the November 2007 confrontation in the upper thigh, damaging his femoral artery and leading to massive blood loss. Taylor was 24 when he died.

His girlfriend at the time, Jackie Garcia Haley, and their then-18-month old daughter were in the room with Taylor when the confrontation occurred. Garcia Haley, in a statement read by Rubin, said Taylor’s death was difficult to bear — particularly for their daughter, also named Jackie.

“You only get one dad and hers is gone. It breaks my heart to pieces to go through each day and each milestone without him,” she said.

The gun was never found. Police said it was stuffed in a sock and thrown into the Everglades.

Several witnesses at Rivera’s trial testified that Taylor often kept large sums of cash in the house. One of the other men charged in the slaying, 25-year-old Jason Mitchell, attended a birthday party a few weeks earlier for Taylor’s half-sister, who testified Taylor gave her a purse containing $10,000.

The half-sister, Sasha Johnson, lived in Fort Myers and knew Rivera. In his testimony, Rivera said the group thought they could steal between $100,000 and $200,000 in cash by burglarizing Taylor’s house.

Follow Curt Anderson on Twitter: http://twitter.com/Miamicurt

Copyright 2014 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.",A Florida man who prosecutors say fired the fatal shot in the 2007 killing of Washington Redskins star Sean Taylor has been sentenced to more than 57 years in prison.
"President Obama meets with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu during the U.N. General Assembly Session on September 21.

Editor's note: Aaron David Miller is a public policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and served as a Middle East negotiator in Democratic and Republican administrations. His new book ""Can America Have Another Great President?"" will be published by Bantam Books in 2012.

Washington (CNN) -- The open mike I-wish-I-hadn't-said-that moment when French President Nicolas Sarkozy called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a ""liar"" and Barack Obama didn't disagree is a tale as old as the hills for American presidents and secretaries of state.

For decades, American presidents and diplomats have been locked in uneasy relationships with Israeli prime ministers from the Likud Party. One example: ""Who's the f---- superpower here,"" a frustrated Bill Clinton exploded to his aides after his first meeting with Netanyahu in 1996.

It's a good thing for Obama that the open mike caught Sarkozy with the ad hominem attack on Netanyahu rather than the president.

""I can't stand him. He's a liar,"" Sarkozy said. Obama was heard to say, ""You're tired of him -- what about me? I have to deal with him every day,"" according to a French website.

I'm sure many people would have loved to have heard more of what Obama thinks. There's no doubt that Obama is frustrated and angry in the extreme with what he perceives to be Netanyahu's recalcitrance when it comes to Arab-Israeli peacemaking.

Indeed if there was a cartoon bubble over the president's head, I guarantee you his sentiments would have matched or even exceeded, Sarkozy's. When it comes to ""Bibi"" Netanyahu, our somewhat detached and cool president is hot and very combustible. When Netanyahu was dismissively lecturing the president during their press conference last June in Washington, the look on Obama's face was somewhere between mortification and raw anger. If looks could kill, we would have had a new Israeli Prime Minister by now.

U.S.-Israeli relations on any number of issues are extremely close, even intimate; and the Iran nuclear challenge will almost certainly make them even closer. But the Arab-Israeli peace issue seems to bring out the worst in both sides, and it has for years now.

Kissinger and Rabin went at it in 1975 over a second Sinai disengagement agreement (Kissinger recalled our Middle Eastern ambassadors as part of his so-called reassessment of the U.S.-Israeli relationship). President Jimmy Carter and Prime Minister Menachem Begin had a huge flap over settlements during the Camp David summit. President George H.W. Bush believed then-Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir misled him on settlements during their first meeting in 1989; and the relationship really never recovered. And Secretary of State James Baker wrestled with Shamir as well during the run-up to the Madrid peace conference in 1991.

So Barack Obama is only the latest in a line of frustrated American presidents and secretaries of state. They have had to deal with a close ally who can also be withholding and maddening when it comes to protecting Israel's political and security interests in a conflict in which they have much more to lose than the American mediator if things don't turn out right.

But President Obama's Bibi problem is different in several respects from his predecessors -- a fact that all but guarantees that tensions with the Israelis on this issue are not going to subside anytime soon. The 2012 election has kept them in a box. Indeed, the president's speech at the U.N. General Assembly last month notwithstanding -- more a campaign speech than one that addressed the Israeli-Palestinian issue -- if Obama is re-elected, buckle your seat belts. It's going to be a wild ride with the Israelis.

First, the others -- Kissinger, Carter, Bush 41, and Baker, unlike Obama (so far), all succeeded. Their fights with their Israeli counterparts were productive; indeed they all had a strategy -- and sufficient will and commitment on the part of Israelis and Arabs to do serious diplomacy. At the end of the day, despite the tensions, everybody went home a winner. Even Bill Clinton managed to hammer out two agreements with Netanyahu, though neither was completely implemented.

Second, part of the reason these three succeeded was that despite the toughness and the tension, there was a third ""T"" -- a modicum of trust that allowed each side to work with the other in something other than a zero-sum game environment. They built a mutual stake in the other's success. Former Secretary of State Baker will tell you that he had plenty of struggles with Shamir, but the two worked out a good personal relationship -- no leaks, respecting mutual red lines and so on.

President Obama has yet to do that, and neither has Netanyahu. On the Arab-Israel issue, the president believes Bibi is a con man, and Netanyahu thinks the president wants somebody else as prime minister. The president is almost certainly persuaded that Netanyahu is buying time, playing American politics and hoping that the next president is a Republican who won't be so focused on pressing Israel on the peace process. If the administration could find a way to engineer regime change in Israel, it would.

Indeed, the key folks that deal with the peace process at State and at the White House are veterans of dealing with Netanyahu (Hillary Clinton and Dennis Ross). They have seen the movie before, and they had hoped not to be in the sequel.

Finally, there's the president himself, who clearly believes he knows best how to run the peace process. Obama doesn't just have a Bibi problem, he's got an Israel problem. Obama is not anti-Israel, but unlike his two predecessors -- Bill Clinton and George W. Bush -- he's not in love with the idea of Israel.

He falls somewhere north of Jimmy Carter on the pro-Israel spectrum and south of George H.W. Bush. Here the president's coolness and detachment works against him. His early tough rhetoric against settlements and his commitment to fix the peace process whether or not Israel agreed created a pretty rocky foundation for gaining the trust and confidence so critical on the Israeli side, if a president wants them to do politically tough things later.

Yes, Mr. President, Israelis can be frustrating. Just ask Kissinger, Carter, and Baker. And this Israeli prime minister may simply not be willing or able to do the deal you want him to do. But if there's any chance of it, you're going to have to find a better way to deal with him, figure out how to stabilize the relationship, and find a better balance than pandering to Netanyahu on one hand, or trying to punish him, on the other.

And in the meantime, stay away from any live mikes.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Aaron Miller.","Aaron Miller says U.S. presidents have long had problems with Israeli prime ministers, but antagonism between current leaders is worse."
"Groups that help male sex abuse victims have seen Web traffic and hotline calls increase since the Sandusky scandal broke.

(CNN) -- Advocates and therapists for survivors of male sex abuse say the recent scandals at Penn State and elsewhere may help men who were abused as children, and boys being abused today, step out of the shadows and get the support they deserve.

They also hope society can become better educated about the issue.

""The allegations have kick-started a public dialogue about sexual violence and the community's responsibility,"" says Jennifer Marsh, who directs hotlines at RAINN, the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network. ""It's a conversation we have to have and can't shy away from.""

If increased Web traffic and calls to hotlines are any indication, the tide for men and boys may, in fact, be turning.

National organizations like RAINN, MaleSurvivor and 1in6 -- a reference to research estimates that one in six men have been sexually abused as children -- all report increased attention since the story about former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky first broke in early November, setting off what seemed like a domino effect of allegations at Syracuse, The Citadel, the Amateur Athletic Union and elsewhere.

RAINN saw a 54% increase in traffic to its online hotline in the week after the Penn State story made headlines. Though RAINN does not ask the gender of hotline visitors, Marsh says the organization has anecdotally seen ""a significant increase of male visitors.""

The experience of two organizations that specifically exist for the benefit of men and boys may be even more telling.

Words matter in Penn State perjury case

MaleSurvivor, which provides resources, information, discussion boards and recovery retreats, received nearly 135,000 online visits in November, a dramatic jump from its monthly average of 100,000.

Likewise, website traffic at 1in6 has boomed from an average 475 visits a week to as many as 1,200, according to a founding board member.

Calls to the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) also have gone up, both locally and nationally, by 20% to 30% since the recent wave of stories broke, says David Clohessy, the organization's executive director.

Both hope and desperation could be driving the increase, he says.

Survivors of clergy sex abuse who didn't come forward before -- or did but didn't feel heard -- may see the overwhelming attention and outrage and believe this is their time to talk. And they may be motivated by the realization that society has not progressed as much as they had hoped.

""There's an assumption that surely, after all these [Catholic Church] lawsuits and payouts and scandals, surely no institution ignores child sex abuse these days,"" Clohessy says. ""So when they see the stories out of Syracuse, Penn State and The Citadel, they might think, 'My gosh, I better come forward.' ""

Another motivation to speak up now, Clohessy says, is thanks to the wonders of the Internet.

The stories in the news have prompted men, who may have put aside thoughts of their former abusers for years, to search online for their abusers' names. Clohessy says these men are finding out that maybe the teacher who officials vowed would never teach again is now offering private music lessons in his home, or the coach who was ousted has a wife running an in-home day care center. Betrayed by false promises and outraged, some of these men are compelled to act.

Coming forward for any survivor of sexual abuse is complicated, and it's only more so for men and boys, experts say.

Men may have a harder time seeing themselves as ""survivors"" or ""victims."" Even identifying what they experienced as ""abuse"" can be a stretch for some, says Jim Hopper, a clinical psychologist who's worked in the field for 20 years. And strolling into, or calling a hotline affiliated with, a ""rape"" or ""sexual assault"" crisis center? That may be years off, if that day ever comes.

It's for this reason that 1in6, which Hopper helped found, avoids using labels. With pages like ""Sorting It Out for Yourself,"" 1in6's website offers a safe entree for men to explore whether something that might have happened to them as children is affecting them today -- whether it's fear of intimacy, drug dependency, pornography or sex addiction, Hopper explains.

The 1in6 stated mission is ""to help men who have had unwanted or abusive sexual experiences in childhood live healthier, happier lives.""

Jim Struve, a psychotherapist in Salt Lake City, has worked with male sex abuse survivors for 35 years. He helped organize the first conference exclusively for male survivors, which brought 450 people from 14 countries to Atlanta in 1989. He served on a committee that would establish the National Organization Against Sexual Victimization of Males, which later merged with and became known as MaleSurvivor. He's facilitated 35 weekend recovery retreats for the organization since 2003.

Like Hopper, he says language matters.

""How males are asked about abuse influences their answers,"" he says. ""If you ask most males, 'Were you sexually abused?,' they will answer, 'No.' But if you ask them behavioral/descriptive questions like, 'What age was your first sexual experience?' 'How old was your partner?' or 'Was this sexual experience consensual?' ... men will often describe situations that are abusive, while not defining them as abuse.""

One in eight rape victims is male. One in six men were sexually abused as children. These are facts that experts like Struve say need to be heard, repeated and accepted.

Male survivors ""have been in the shadows,"" says Struve, who runs therapy groups for male survivors both at his private practice and through Salt Lake City's Rape Recovery Center. His groups are filled to capacity with waiting lists.

""Most men think 'I'm the only one.' But that's dramatically shifted,"" he says, as more men face their past and realize they're not alone.

The surge of recent stories also has given hope to those not working exclusively with men.

""We feel very optimistic about the fact that we're at a time in our history when so many male survivors will come forward,"" says Megan O'Bryan, president and CEO of the Cleveland Rape Crisis Center. ""Ten years ago, we wouldn't have been in that place.""

It was nearly 10 years ago that the Catholic Church sex abuse scandal in Boston blew wide open, spawning an abundance of similar allegations across the globe.

While that story certainly grabbed headlines, the publicity may not have spoken to men in the same way the allegations at big university sports programs have.

These recent stories reach a wider audience, including the sorts of men who flip first to the sports page, tune into ESPN or worship at the altar of football or basketball.

And that may help account for the increase in accusations and calls to organizations, SNAP's Clohessy says.

""In my experience, many people, including many survivors, seek out the entertainment news and sports news and deliberately turn away from the horror that is often in the 'news news' section,"" he says. ""Anytime child sex crimes make it into entertainment programs or sports programs, it does, in fact, bring more survivors of abuse forward and forces them to think about what they've experienced.""

Another way in which men appear to be coming forward is through the legal system.

Take, for instance, the influx of calls to the attorney referral line offered by the National Center for Victims of Crime, a Washington-based resource and advocacy organization that helps crime victims rebuild their lives.

Requests for referrals in the area of child sex abuse have tripled since the Penn State story broke, says Mai Fernandez, the organization's executive director. And while some callers have acknowledged that the statute of limitations in their states will probably prevent them from suing, she says men are adamant that they must do something.

They'll say things like, ""If I can't sue the guy, I want to expose him in some way so he can't hurt others,"" she says.

Kelly Clark, a Portland, Oregon, attorney specializing in child sex abuse cases, says he's seen several significant developments specifically triggered by the news.

He says he's gotten about 40 calls from people who want to explore their legal options. Of those, he says about a dozen live in states where they're still within their statute of limitations. He's also received a flood of calls from former and existing clients in need of emotional support. News reports showing people initially more concerned about the Penn State sports program and its legendary coaches than about the victims left them reeling, Clark says. And then they saw Sandusky's denials.

""When child abuse survivors see denials of credible allegations, it tends to send them into orbit because the thing they've fought their whole lives to overcome is the fear that people won't believe them.""

The spotlight has, indeed, stirred a wider conversation. Male survivors may be looking inside themselves and reaching out, just as advocates look and plan ahead.

Like so many other organizations, Childhelp, which helps abused and neglected children, has felt the fallout. Calls to its hotline have gone up, but so has the group's determination to do something in response to what's in the news, says Daphne Young, the group's public relations director.

While initial conversations had already started with the Foundation for Global Sports Development -- a nonprofit previously known as Justice for Athletes -- Childhelp has ramped up the partnership to launch a campaign called ""Blow the Whistle on Child Abuse,"" a crisis intervention and prevention plan for young athletes, their parents, coaches and educators.

The goal is to roll out the campaign in April, Young says. She also says the organization is taking on legislative initiatives, including one that would make it against the law to witness child abuse in action and not intervene and report it.

Other groups are also putting forth proactive measures. The National Sexual Violence Resource Center's website now has on its homepage links specifically tied to the Penn State scandal, including a collection of resources and articles on child sex abuse, including literature about prevention and risk reduction, answers to common questions and a piece about bystander training.

That men are calling hotlines and visiting websites in greater numbers also signifies an increased need for services tailored to them, such as additional male support groups, says Karen Baker, the center's director.

""They're examining things that happened in their own lives. ... There's a lot of soul searching,"" she says. ""Men are calling in. They're reading about it in the news, and it's triggering them.""

She and others say the swift and serious response from authorities, and from those who've come out in support of survivors, is emboldening men and suggesting that times are changing.

""When this kind of story broke with the Catholic Church, it was perceived as still being swept under the rug. This time, there's outrage and heads are rolling,"" she says. ""In that regard, maybe this is going to be a blessing for some people. Maybe it'll be the tipping point.""",Advocates and therapists for survivors of male sex abuse say recent abuse scandals may help abused men and boys get the support they deserve.
"VIDEOPart of an Australian television report on the mystery of Israel’s “Prisoner X” broadcast on Tuesday.

VIDEOPart of an Australian television report on the mystery of Israel’s “Prisoner X” broadcast on Tuesday.

Last Updated, 2:53 p.m. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported on Tuesday that a man referred to in Israel as “Prisoner X,” who was jailed and died under mysterious circumstances in 2010, might have been an Australian-born Israeli who worked for Israel’s secret service, the Mossad.

According to the ABC, an unnamed source “with connections to Israel’s security establishment” claimed that the prisoner — whose detention and suicide at the high-security Ayalon Prison outside Tel Aviv was briefly reported on an Israeli news site in December 2010 despite a gag order — was named Ben Alon. That same month, the network reported, a man from suburban Melbourne, Ben Zygier, who had emigrated to Israel 12 years ago and changed his name to Ben Alon, died in Israel.

Although the Australian state broadcaster published video and a complete transcript of the 28-minute report online, Israeli news sites removed articles describing the ABC investigation after editors were summoned to an emergency meeting by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office, Reuters reported.

The Israeli media/censor killed press coverage of the ██████ █ affair today. Want to know what it’s about? http://t.co/cdV7N7BS

— Michael Omer-Man (@MikeOmerMan) 12 Feb 13

As the Israeli journalist Noam Sheizaf explained in a post for the Tel Aviv news blog +972, reporters in Israel have been trying to skirt the gag order for more than two years. On Tuesday, he reported:

The Israeli media published short stories based on the Australian piece this morning. Usually, the Israeli military censor allows Hebrew stories on secret issues if they are based on foreign sources. The assumption is that the information has already been made available, so there is little point in keeping it secret. Around noon the stories on the dead prisoner disappeared from the Haaretz, Globes and Walla sites.

An urgent meeting with the editors of the Israeli papers was later called by the Prime Minister’s Office. The so-called “editors’ committee” is an informal Israeli institution in which newspapers editors were given access to secret information in exchange for refraining from publishing it. According to a report in Haaretz, the meeting was called regarding an affair which “severely embarrasses” a government institution or person.

Trevor Bormann, the ABC journalist who led the investigation broadcast Tuesday on the network’s current affairs program “Foreign Correspondent,” explained what Israeli journalists are up against in his report:

Foreign Correspondent has obtained details of a gag order issued in late June 2010 under the case name “Israel versus John Doe.” In it, Judge Hila Gerstl, of the Petach Tikva District Court bans any public mention or hint of Prisoner X, Mr X, cell number 15 in Ayalon Prison, the conditions there, or anything about being held in that cell. As an indication of how sensitive the issue was, the judge ruled that even mention of the existence of the order was prohibited.

Concerns about censorship, and the reported secret detention of an Israeli citizen who somehow managed to hang himself in a high-security prison, prompted a stream of questions for Israel’s justice minister on Tuesday in the Knesset, Israel’s Parliament, Haaretz reported.

“I cannot answer these questions because the matter does not fall under the authority of the Justice Minister,” Yaakov Ne’eman, the justice minister, said. “But there is no doubt that if true, the matter must be looked into.”

As Mr. Bormann noted in his ABC report, relations between Israel and several other nations became strained in early 2010 when it emerged that “Mossad had used the identities of dual nationals living in Israel, including four Australians,” on forged passports used by suspects in the assassination of a Hamas official in Dubai.

During its investigation, Mr. Bormann added, ABC producers lodged a freedom of information request with Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade asking for any documents relating to Ben Zygier, also known as Ben Alon. In response, he reported:

D.F.A.T. told us there were documents relating to his imprisonment and death but we weren’t entitled to see them because their release could have a substantial adverse impact on the proper and efficient conduct of consular operations. But curiously in their response to me D.F.A.T. referred constantly to a Mr. Allen. When I asked for clarification, a department official told me that Ben Zygier, also known as Ben Alon, also carried an Australian passport bearing the name Ben Allen.

Writing on Twitter, Israeli bloggers and journalists have tried to draw attention to the Australian report, sharing a copy of program posted on YouTube and photographs of the man identified as Ben Zygier by the ABC.

All Israeli media sites are now trying to hint to their readers about the Prisoner X story, following the removal of items by censorship

— noam sheizaf (@nsheizaf) 12 Feb 13

Apparently this is prisoner X: https://t.co/QV7MLDmX context http://t.co/DWUyAm4j

— noam sheizaf (@nsheizaf) 12 Feb 13","The Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported on Tuesday that a man referred to in Israel as ""Prisoner X,"" who was jailed and died under mysterious circumstances in 2010, might have been an Australian-born Israeli who worked for Israel's secret service, the Mossad."
"A man and a woman, both grey-haired, stand in front of the Montreal Forum with serious expressions on their face. The woman's looking a little over to her left, while the man, holding a hockey stick, stares right ahead. The title of this painting? Canadiens Gothic. And it's one of a new series of free-spirited paintings by artist Brandy Saturley.

The series, People of Canada, isn't your traditional set of portraits. Saturley has asked Canadian ""couples"" — defined loosely as spouses, siblings, friends, or even a beloved pet and its owner — to send her ""their best photos of themselves as citizens of Canada."" She makes selections from the submitted selfies and transposes them onto iconic Canadian scenery.

""When I was younger I was always drawing... I specifically loved to draw portraits. I was always fascinated with people; their mannerisms, their eyes, their unique beauty. When I began painting, I left portraits behind for a while and over the past few years I have returned to the faces that hold so much mystery.""

Enticed by the power of portraiture, Saturley wants to explore and showcase the rich diversity of Canadians through focussing on the relationships we have. When choosing which photo submissions to turn into paintings, she asks the subjects a series of questions.

""[I] find that their responses about one another often help fill out their personality,"" she says, and it's true: the portraits shine with a story of each pairing, their home, their landscape, and their passions, with warmth, occasional quirkiness and a great deal of character.

Take Futurebrights. Sadie and Sacha, 7 and 5, answered questions about a few of their favourite things (Lego, soccer, Captain Jack Sparrow), and Saturley fleshed out the portrait of the smiling kids on a Vermilion Lakes dock with these treasures.

With an initial goal of creating 20 portraits in total (six are complete so far), Saturley will be accepting submissions until the end of 2017 and may well surpass that goal as word of the project spreads.

""The beauty in creating new work is being open to the experiences, avenues and connections created; this thing just keeps on growing,"" says Saturley.

For six years, Victoria-based Saturley has focussed her work on what she calls the ""Canadian conscious"" with exhibits such as #ICONICCANUCK, I See Mountains, and The 99 (99 Paintings for Canada). In fact, it was her travels exhibiting her artwork across Canada that inspired her to involve the public in the creation of People of Canada.

Saturley often tours her work — in 2017, her exhibit Canadianisms: A Five Year Retrospective Exhibition will be installed in Sherwood Park and Okotoks, Alta. — and she hopes to bring People of Canada, once complete, across the country.

""Perhaps it will have many homes over the years to come. I hope to tour it so that all the people who have taken the time to submit a photo will have the chance to come out and see the final exhibition,"" says Saturley.

""This project is about connecting to all Canadians, no matter where they live [or] how they live.""

Are you creating art for, about, or because of Canada 150? Share your paintings, photography, music, poetry, or local event with us at 2017@cbc.ca",Your ordinary photo. Her offbeat imagination. Brandy Saturley is whisking Canadians away in a vibrant new art project for Canada 150.
"The annual office holiday party season is among us, bringing with it the dreaded office gift exchange. Gifts for co-workers are some of the most difficult and hair-pulling to plan since you must to balance the wire-thin line between too personal and too generic.

There are plenty of rules to follow when it comes to office gift-giving. Since you might not know everyone's religious affiliation, it's better to stick to seasonal or un-holiday related gifts as opposed to accidentally getting a ""Merry Christmas"" sweater for your Jewish cubicle-mate. And try to learn a little something about them before splurging on their gift. For instance, even though a personalized coffee mug works well as a holiday present, if they don't drink coffee, you won't come out looking too great.

It's also important to keep presents at work lighthearted and whimsical, but stay within the NSFW bounds (pajamas come to mind). And though everyone loves chocolate, it's probably not the most memorable choice for a gift.

And the most important thing to remember when it comes to office gift-giving is to not to spend an extravagant amount of money -- getting a colleague an MP3 player when they get you a stack of pencils is bound to make the workday awkward for everyone.

The best rule of thumb for office presents is to get your colleague something to use at work since that's where you see them and know them the best. Places like ThinkGeek and the MoMAStore offer lots of creative and innovative desk accessories. And Etsy is a great place to start for unique and personalized items that won't break the bank.

So before you draw names for this year's office Secret Santa, take a look through these 20 gift ideas for some holiday inspiration. What ideas do you have this year for co-worker gifts? Share them in the comments below.",Don't let the office gift exchange get you down this holiday. Use these creative and whimsical gift ideas that won't break the bank and get a few laughs.
"Kinder Morgan Inc. KMI said Sunday it will bring all the assets of its sprawling empire of oil and gas pipelines and storage under one roof in a sweeping reorganization that will create an energy giant worth $44 billion.

The company, which owns 80,000 miles of pipelines and 180 storage facilities across the U.S., said on its website it will offer minority shareholders in its three affiliated holding companies $4 billion in cash and about $40 billion in new shares in Kinder Morgan Inc. that will be publicly traded, effectively scrapping the tax-efficient structures known as “Master Limited Partnerships” that it has used to spectacular effect in exploiting the U.S.’s energy boom.

The deal is the second-largest in the history of the energy sector, after Exxon’s acqusition of Mobil in 1999. In large measure, it’s a response to concerns that the company had outgrown the Master Limited Partnership model, and needed to simplify its financial and organizational structure to carry on growing. Unifying the share structure will enable the company to use its stock as an acquisition currency, while the creation of a single company will enhance the quality of its debt, bringing down borrowing costs.

The combined company will assume around $27 billion in debt held by the individual partnerships, bringing the total transaction value to over $70 billion.Kinder Morgan said that it had talked to credit ratings agencies ahead of the deal and expects its debt to be classed as investment grade.

“In the opportunity-rich environment of today’s energy infrastructure sector, we believe this transaction gives us the ability to grow KMI for years to come,” Chairman and chief executive Richard D. Kinder said in a statement.

The minority shareholders in Kinder Morgan Energy Partners L.P. KMP , Kinder Morgan Management LLC KMR and El Paso Pipeline Partners L.P. EPC will receive a premium of 11%, 16.5% and 15.4% on Friday’s closing prices, respectively, for their shares.

Kinder said that KMI shares will likely pay a dividend of $1.72 this year, rising to $2 next year, and by 10% a year for the five years after that.",Second-biggest energy deal ever will put the company in a position to take advantage of a continuing boom in the U.S.'s oil and gas sectors.
"Michael Clarke celebrates reaching his century against England in the third Ashes Test. When he scores big runs the team do well. Photograph: Philip Brown/Reuters

When I played in the Australia team the captains were all nerds. Allan Border was a nerd, Mark Taylor was a nerd, Steve Waugh was definitely a nerd and Ricky Ponting too. The incumbent is a bit different. Michael Clarke is a Julio.

That was how we categorised ourselves in the dressing room – you were either a nerd or a Julio. Julios have got to look perfect – the hair has got to be perfect, they've got to have the right gear on, it's all about their appearance. The nerds weren't bothered about how they looked. The result was all and if you looked a mess it didn't matter as long as you achieved what you wanted to achieve.

In that sense ""Pup"", Julio though he may be and a very different character to the men I played under, is just the same as those Australia captains of the past. He may be a very modern guy, a metrosexual, but on the field he plays it tough and expects the best from himself and his team-mates. The only time Steve Waugh thought about his clothes was when he was trying to work out what was clean and what was dirty – I used to be his room-mate and, particularly in the days before he was captain, he was horrendously messy – but they have that hunger to win in common.

The first time I came across Michael in Aussie colours was on his Test debut in Bangalore on our tour of India in 2004. From the moment he came into the national side he was always a fairly confident guy – and he scored 151 in the first dig so it was well placed – but he always had a lot of respect for the older players and was willing to learn.

It wasn't a bad set of teachers he had either. Ponting, Shane Warne, Adam Gilchrist and Matthew Hayden, to name just a few, were all in there. That kind of environment is pretty special. In particular Warnie, who is such a good reader of the game and would've made a great captain, has passed a lot of his knowledge on to Michael.

To have that sort of schooling makes a huge difference to a young player. When I first came into the set up you had players like Border, Steve and Mark Waugh, Ian Healy, Craig McDermott and David Boon – all guys that I really looked up to when I was coming through the ranks. To play alongside them is something quite remarkable and you absorb a huge amount just from watching them at close quarters and in the conversations that you have.

At the time Pup first came in I'm not sure that we immediately thought: ""This guy is captaincy material"", because there were so many senior players and he was starting out. But when you think back he always had that potential and by the time Ricky retired he was the obvious choice. He has developed into a great captain. There's quite a contrast in style with Alastair Cook. While Cook is very structured in his approach to the game, Pup adjusts a lot quicker to the match situation. It's one of his real strengths.

I wouldn't really say that he's a student of the game, with his head buried in cricket books. I've known players who have been cricket, cricket, cricket – there's a reason why we call Mike Hussey Mr Cricket – and Michael isn't in the same league on that score. He's not a real stickler for the history of the game either, though he recognises that it is important, puts a bit of time and effort into it and treats it with respect. Generally he tries to be more of an all-round package. It'll be very interesting to see when he hangs up his boots whether he goes into commentating or coaching, or whether he goes off and does something completely different.

An Australian prime minister once said that his job was the second most important job in the country – behind being captain of the cricket team. It's not a job you take on lightly. And with Pup being the prize wicket in the batting order as well as the captain there is a lot on his shoulders. But that is what he enjoys – he enjoys being the focus, the centre of attention, the one that is expected to go out there and do a job. Some people get in that position and wilt. They can't handle it. Michael, on the other hand, seems to thrive on it.

When he scores big runs the team do well. He's the man who sets the standards for his team-mates – and he'll need to set the bar high again at Durham.","Glenn McGrath: Great Australia captains such as Allan Border, Steve Waugh and Ricky Ponting have all been nerds but Clarke is a Julio"
"B.J. Novak knows how to make grownups laugh, but now he wants to help parents make their kids giggle too.

“I would always read books to my friends’ kids when I would visit them and it struck me how much power the kid has over the reader. They basically just hand you a script and you have to read every word. I thought there must be something funny in that,” Novak explains to PEOPLE.

“So I thought it would be funny if kids saw [a] book as playing a prank on the reader and has them saying all these ridiculous and funny things.”

The result of the actor’s idea is his new children’s tome, The Book With No Pictures, which is already a big hit with his young fans.

“I’ve done live readings of my work for adults but I’ve never had a reading as boisterous as this,” the former The Office star says of reading his book to 200 kindergarten, first and second graders at a school in Queens on Thursday. “It was really, really fun.”

But the love doesn’t stop there. Even younger kids are appreciating his book though it has no pictures.

“My favorite response was a 2½-year-old kid I read it to. I thought he would be too young for it but I wanted to show his mom what the reaction would be,” says Novak, who released the book’s cover Friday.

“When I was done, I read him a very popular picture book that I thought would be more for him and as soon as we finished the picture book he pointed to The Book With No Pictures and said, ‘Again!’”

Novak says that his “simple” book is also full of important “hidden messages” he hopes young listeners will take away.

“I really wanted to get kids thinking that the written word is their ally not their enemy and it creates a great experience between the parent and the kid,” he says.

“I think a lot of parents think they are not funny and are scared to read a funny book, but I’ve tested it with so many parents and I think this is fool-proof. No matter how you read it, you’re funny.”

Besides his love of words, there’s another reason Novak was inspired to write The Book With No Pictures, which is scheduled to be released this fall.

“I’m a perfectionist,” he says. “And I can’t draw so this was a chance for me to really do everything myself.”","""No matter how you read it, you're funny,"" the former The Office star tells PEOPLE of his new children's tome The Book With No Pictures..."
"France has declared three days of national mourning after at least 84 people were killed in the city of Nice when an attacker drove a lorry into a large crowd celebrating the country's main national holiday.

Speaking from Nice on Friday, French President Francois Hollande said around 50 people are in critical condition, still ""between life and death"" after the attack.

Police have identified the suspect on Friday as Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, a 31-year-old man, who is originally from Tunisia. Authorities said he was married with three children.

IN PICTURES: A night of carnage in the French Riviera

Authorities said Bouhlel, who works as a driver in Nice, rented the lorry he used in the attack five days ago. Bouhlel was known to French police, but not intelligence officials.Â

The suspect was shot dead on Thursday night, after ramming the lorry through the festive crowd for two kilometres, sending hundreds of people fleeing in terror and leaving the area strewn with bodies, including many children.

Speaking after an emergency meeting on Friday, Prime Minister Manuel Valls said the period of national mourning would begin on Saturday.

Valls also confirmed that a measure extending the country's state of emergency, which has been in force since the November 13 Paris attacks, would go before parliament next week.

""Times have changed, and France is going to have to live with terrorism, and we must face this together,"" he said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for what was the third major attack to hit France in the past 18 months.

Hollande said the incident had ""all the elements to be called a terrorist attack"" and vowed to fight similar threats.Â

""Nothing will make us yield in our will to fight terrorism,"" he said in the early hours of Friday.

READ MORE: Hollande and world leaders condemn Nice attack

""We will further strengthen our actions in Iraq and in Syria. We will continue striking those who attack us on our own soil,"" Hollande added, in reference to France's involvement in a coalition of nations carrying out air strikes against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) group.

As condolences poured in from around the world, more details emerged about the attack that began shortly after the end of a firework display for Bastille Day.

Footage showed a scene of horror up and down the promenade, with broken bodies splayed on the asphalt - some piled near one another, others bleeding on to the roadway or twisted into unnatural shapes.

Some people at the promenade had tried to escape into the water, local MP Eric Ciotti said on Friday, giving new details of the horrifying last minutes of the attack.

""A person jumped on to the truck to try to stop it,"" Ciotti told Europe 1 radio.

""It's at that moment that the police were able to neutralise this terrorist. I won't forget the look of this policewoman who intercepted the killer.""

Al Jazeera's David Chater, reporting from Nice, said people in the city were ""absolutely distraught"".

PEOPLE AND POWER: Backlash - France's New Hard Line on Terror

""This was a horrific attack. The lorry was driven at speed; it was swerved around the road and it was used to crash, maim, kill and injure,"" he said.

""All the families who'd gathered on this road, they had just finished seeing the Bastille Day fireworks, and so it was an extraordinarily calculated attempt at mass murder and an attempt that did succeed.""

Timeline of recent attacks in Europe

The Paris prosecutor's office opened an investigation for ""murder, attempted murder in an organised group linked to a terrorist enterprise"". The investigation was being handled by France's intelligence agency and judicial police.

Police also said investigations were under way to find out if the driver acted alone or if he had accomplices at the scene.

A witness told the Associated Press news agency he saw the driver emerge from the lorry shooting, after ramming into the crowd.

""There was carnage on the road,"" Wassim Bouhlel, a witness, told AP. ""Bodies everywhere.""

In a video viewed more than 2,500 times on Facebook, a trembling Tarubi Wahid Mosta told of the horror on the promenade, where he took photos of an abandoned doll and pushchair and came home with a victim's dog. ""I almost stepped on a corpse. It was horrible. It looked like a battlefield,"" he said. In a series of posts he described his sense of helplessness when faced with the carnage. ""All these bodies and their families ... they spent hours on the ground holding the cold hands of bodies dismembered by the truck. You can't even speak to them or comfort them.""

Source:Â Al Jazeera and agencies",France declares three days of mourning after at least 84 are killed when an attacker drives lorry into crowds in Nice.
"Anyone who’s tried to reduce the amount of sodium in their diet knows how hard it can be to lower levels down to the government’s recommended limit of 1,500 milligrams a day for whites 51 and older, all African Americans and others with certain chronic health conditions such as

reasons. Heck, it’s hard to even get sodium levels down to the

-- especially if you ever, ever eat out in a restaurant.

In the meantime, there’s been some debate among experts about what can be expected from cutting back on salt, which makes the matter confusing for the public.

just published in the American Journal of Hypertension suggests the

gains are minimal, at least for the general population -- and the body seems to fight back against the changes.

Pooling data from 167 studies, the scientists concluded that the average reductions in blood pressure were:

For whites with normal blood pressure: -1.27 points for systolic blood pressure (the higher, first number of a blood pressure reading) and -0.05 for diastolic pressure (the lower, second number).

For whites with high blood pressure: -5.48 (systolic) and -2.75 (diastolic).

The drops in blood pressure were higher for blacks and Asians, but the data were worse so the scientists are more tentative about the numbers.

That’s from eating a diet with an average of 2,760 mg of sodium (not exactly low if you go by the government limits listed above) compared with an average of 3,450.

At the same time, the studies noted changes in certain molecules in the blood. All of the following went up:

Renin (released by kidneys when blood pressure falls or blood salt levels fall low, to help constrict blood vessels and raise blood pressure again)

Aldosterone (made by the adrenal glands when salt levels fall low, triggering more salt to be reabsorbed by the kidneys)

It’s almost as if the body is saying “salt / blood pressure levels falling – I’ll do what I can to ramp them up again.”

Blood cholesterol and triglyceride levels also rose.

The authors write: “Due to the relatively small effects and due to the antagonistic nature of the effects … these results do not support that sodium may have net beneficial effects in a population of Caucasians.” However, they did say that Caucasians with elevated blood pressure –as opposed to the population at large -- could benefit from sodium reduction “as a supplementary treatment.”

They add that the benefit might be greater in blacks and Asians, but the data weren’t firm enough to know that for sure.

If you’re interested in other options toward lowering blood pressure, check out

. She reviews the evidence for measures such as the

(rich in produce and low-fat dairy), cutting back on alcohol, reducing

and upping the amount of

in your diet. The last one is based on a suggestion that the ratio between potassium and sodium may be more important than the exact level of sodium.

Oh, and don’t forget the blood-pressure-lowering power of","Anyone who’s tried to reduce the amount of sodium in their diet knows how hard it can be to lower levels down to the government’s recommended limit of  1,500 milligrams a day for whites 51 and older, all African Americans and others with certain chronic health conditions such as  hypertension  and chronic  kidney disease ."
"SuperFan badge holders consistently post smart, timely comments about Washington area sports and teams.

If your comments or those of another user measure up, please let Post editors know.

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You must be logged in to recommend a comment.","American Ryan Lochte edged Michael Phelps for gold in the 200-meter individual medley at the world championships Thursday, setting the first world record since high-tech bodysuits were banned at the start of last year. (July 28)"
"“A Bronx Tale the Musical” gets off with a bang as a mobster’s bullet is pumped into a shlub’s head.

If only this whole show was as killer.

Doo-wop and 1960s pop form the musical language of this diverting but indistinct show co-directed by Robert De Niro and longtime Broadway pro Jerry Zaks.

Chazz Palminteri’s book is a carbon copy of his 1989 solo play that became a ’93 movie directed by and starring De Niro.

The autobiographical saga is set a half-century ago in the Bronx, where the author — called Calogero — was taken under the wing of Sonny (a charismatic Nick Cordero), a dazzling and deadly wise guy, much to the chagrin of the boy’s loving, hard-working father Lorenzo (a sweetly sincere Richard H. Blake).

Puppy love between Calogero (Jason Gotay) and Jane (Coco Jones), a black girl from the other side of town, adds drama to the show’s overly abrupt and jerky second act.

Songs by Alan Menken and Glenn Slater, who did “Sister Act” together, are easy on the ears. While there are crowd-pleasing tunes including “I Like It,” which is sung by a 9-year-old Calogero (the big-voiced Joshua Colley) and one earwig (“One of the Great Ones,” a catchy tune about love) the show lacks breakout numbers that would make it really special or memorable.

Perhaps unavoidably, “A Bronx Tale” conjures other musicals, including “Jersey Boys,” “West Side Story” and, thanks to a dice-throwing number “Guys and Dolls.” As a result, a show about a hometown teenager finding himself lacks its own identity. That’s exacerbated by the fact that like the one-man play, the musical leans heavily on Calogero telling his story directly to the audience. It makes the show feels like a retread, not something freshly re-imagined.

Direction by De Niro and Zaks is hit and miss. On the plus side, Sonny’s henchman, guys with colorful names like obese JoJo the Whale and acne-scarred Frankie Coffeecake (the extreme makeup will put you off this particular pastry for a long time), are introduced with a flash, as if they’re posing for mug shots.

During their romantic duet “Out of Your Head,” Gotay and Jones turn away from each other to sing to the audience when they should only have eyes for each other.

Fans of either the play, the movie or both are apt to find “A Bronx Tale the Musical” entertaining. But as far as being one of the great ones? The musical still has work to do.","Robert De Niro and Jerry Zaks direct Chazz Palminteri's “A Bronx Tale the Musical."""
"Country music needs more guys like David Nail, the ones who just love songs. Nail has several gems on his second album, including one he wrote with two members of Lady Antebellum and another he rescued from an old Keith Urban album. He sings about them on Songs for Sale, with its harmonies from Lee Ann Womack, and on the title track, a road-tripping relation to Marc Cohn's Walking in Memphis. Radio's been slow to accept single Let It Rain, but that's not even the best track here. What is? Listen and let your dreams run wild. — Brian Mansfield

>Download:The Sound of a Million Dreams, Half Mile Hill, Let It Rain

Gym Class Heroes, The Papercut Chronicles II* * * HIP-HOP/POP

A look at what's worth adding to your playlist, plus more sound recommendations.

""You can keep a level head and have fun, too,"" GCH frontman Travie McCoy says early on in this sequel to his group's second album (the one that introduced the Supertramp-swiping Cupid's Chokehold). Travie and his band sound as if they're having a blast, too, as they bounce back and forth among metallic guitar riffs, hip-hop verses and sweetly melodic pop-rock choruses. Maroon 5's Adam Levine (Stereo Hearts), isn't the only guest here: There are also collaborations with OneRepublic's Ryan Tedder and Danish singer Oh Land. — Mansfield

Betty Wright and The Roots, Betty Wright: The Movie* * * R&B

To slightly paraphrase the funky, frisky track Tonight Again, ""Light up a candle, Betty Wright's got business to handle'' - and this time she's no mere cleanup woman. After a decade away from recording, during which she mentored and produced for others, the '70s soul siren is creating her own hot mess again, backed by The Roots and with help from Lil Wayne, Joss Stone and, most notably (on Baby Come Back), Tower of Power's Lenny Williams. Some songs hark back to the slow-jams era, others incorporate contemporary sounds; in both cases, the tougher and feistier she is, the better. — Jerry Shriver

>Download:Tonight Again, Grapes on a Vine, Whisper in the Wind, Baby Come Back

Howie D., Back to Me* * ½ POP

With his solo debut, 38-year-old Backstreet Boy Howie Dorough proves that sometimes a teen idol can age gracefully by simply not trying too hard to grow up. Back to Me is youthful in spirit but not sophomoric, mixing buoyant dance-pop with adult-contemporary-friendly ballads and midtempo numbers — in other words, nothing that far afield of Backstreet fare. If there are no revelations here, there's also nothing Dorough need be embarrassed about. — Elysa Gardner","Other notable releases include albums from Betty Wright, backed by The Roots, and a solo effort from Backstreet Boy Howie D."
"As Soviet tanks rolled into Berlin in the spring of 1945, Adolf Hitler and his new wife Eva Braun escaped from their underground Führerbunker through a secret tunnel.

Behind them, they left the bodies of two doubles murdered to fool the Allies into believing that the Nazi leader had taken his own life rather than admit defeat.

By the time victorious Red Army troops entered the bunker, Hitler was on board the last Luftwaffe plane to fly out of Europe, heading south on the long journey that would eventually take him to Argentina.

Or at least that’s the story.

The idea that senior Nazis escaped the collapse of the Third Reich to live out their days in the sweltering jungle of South America has long been a staple of fiction and “counterfactual” alternative histories.

This weekend, however, reports that archaeologists were examining three recently discovered stone buildings in the jungle of Argentina’s northern Misiones province seemed at last to provide evidence that the notion could have a base in fact.

“Apparently, halfway through the second world war, the Nazi air forcedevised a secret project of building hideouts so that the highest-ranking Nazis could escape after their defeat – inaccessible sites in the middle of deserts, in the mountains, on a cliff or in the middle of the jungle like this,” Argentinian archeologist Daniel Schavelzon told the Buenos Aires daily Clarín on Sunday.

Schavelzon, who finances his digs with contributions from private funders, told the newspaper that he believed the ruins he was exploring in Teyú Cuaré national park were exactly that: a bolthole for Nazis on the run.

But the truth is a little more mundane. For a start, the dilapidated buildings were not recently “discovered” – they have actually been open to the public for decades, along with other ruins which date back to the 17th and 18th century settlements established by Jesuit missionaries – and which give the region its name. Not far from the “Nazi” site are the remains of San Ignacio Miní, a Baroque monastery which is one of the area’s most-visited tourist attractions.

At least 10 years ago, the local tourist board erected a sign on the path to the Teyú Cuaré site, saying that the ruins were originally part of a Jesuit site.

Below that, the sign makes the astounding claim: “In the 1950s they were refurbished and inhabitated by Hitler’s most faithful servant, Martin Bormann.”

The idea that Hitler’s deputy somehow escaped to Argentina is an integral part of the Nazis-in-South-America myth, and a key element of Ira Levin’s novel The Boys from Brazil and the 1978 movie of the same name.

The Bormann story is based on files sold by Argentinian police officers to Hungarian historian Ladislas Farago in the 1970s, but those files are widely held to be fakes. In 1998, DNA tests showed that bones recovered in Berlin were Bormann’s, confirming reports that Hitler’s secretary had been killed while fleeing the bunker on 2 May 1945.

In an interview with the Guardian, Schavelzon admitted that evidence linking the Teyú Cuaré ruins to a supposed Nazi safe haven plan is slim.

“There is no documentation, but we found German coins from the war period in the foundations,” he said.

But does a handful of old German coins sufficient proof of a secret Nazi hideway plan in northern Argentina?

“That was just speculation on my part,” Schavelzon said. “The press picked it up and magnified it.”

And the discovery of second world war-era German coins in Misiones seems less surprising when you consider that Argentina has long been a destination for European immigrants, and that the country’s population includes about 3 million people of German descent.

One of the largest and oldest German communities is in the northern province of Misiones, founded by a large influx of German immigrants who arrived in the early 20th century.

Argentina did, of course, give refuge to some of the worst Nazi criminals, including Auschwitz doctor Josef Mengele and Adolf Eichmann, one of the main architects of the Holocaust.

Thousands of former SS officers and former Nazi party members were welcomed with open arms by Argentina’s then-president Juan Perón, who sent secret missions to Europe to rescue them from Allied justice between 1945 and 1950.

But they settled in comfortable suburban homes outside Buenos Aires, like the cozy chalet Eichmann lived in with his family at 4261 Chacabuco Street in the middle-class northern suburb of Olivos, where many other Nazi officers also settled.

Not in the steamy, damp, pre-Amazon jungles of northern Argentina.

Uki Goñi is the author of The Real Odessa: Smuggling the Nazis to Perón’s Argentina.",Reports that archaeologists were examining stone buildings in the Argentinian jungle seemed to give new life to a second world war myth. Here’s the real story
"As international negotiations continue over Iran's controversial nuclear program, Russia will likely try to spoil the deal, Hermitage Capital CEO Bill Browder, a critic of the Russian government, told CNBC on Monday.

Officials from global powers, called the P5+1, and Iran are in talks to lift some or all economic sanctions in return for the country abandoning its nuclear ambitions. Negotiations are expected to resume on Wednesday, with the deadline for reaching an agreement set for March 31.

If that agreement goes through, Iran could wind up selling its oil freely on the international market, which is already facing oversupply, Browder said in an interview with ""Closing Bell.""

Since Russia, an oil producer, is already suffering from low crude prices, President Vladimir Putin has no financial interest in letting the deal happen, he added.

""He also likes to be the international spoiler on anything going on. He likes to be poking everybody between the eyes on these types of things,"" said Browder, who is also the author of ""Red Notice: A True Story of High Finance, Murder and One Man's Fight for Justice.""

""It's in Putin's economic interest and in his interest in being important to mess this thing up if he can.""

Read More No Iran deal as talks hit abrupt end for the week

Oil prices have slumped about 60 percent since June. Weak global demand, booming U.S. shale production and OPEC's refusal to cut its output are thought to be the main reasons for the price drop.

Browder doesn't know exactly how Putin will try to spoil the negotiations, but he said history is a guide.

""The way he intervenes in these situations is he'll come around the backdoor with some type of offer to Iran to say listen if you go along with this deal, we're not going to do this with you.""

Read More Iran talks success and failure—both risky: Eurasia","Here's why Russia will likely try to spoil an Iran nuclear deal, a critic of the Russian government told CNBC Monday."
"In 1683, a vast Ottoman army camped outside the gates of Vienna. For centuries thereafter, the siege and final decisive battle that took place would be cast as a defining moment in a clash of civilizations -- that time the forces of Islam were halted at the ramparts of Christendom.

Yet look just a little bit harder, and that tidy narrative falls apart. The Ottoman assault had been coordinated in league with French King Louis XIV. And perhaps more than half of the soldiers seeking to capture the Austrian capital were Christians themselves. There were Greeks, Armenians, Hungarians, Bulgarians, Romanians, Serbs, all fighting alongside Arabs, Turks, Kurds and others in the Ottoman ranks.

One of the main figures leading the Turkish charge was Imre Thokoly, who was a Protestant born in what's now Slovakia and who was an avowed Hungarian nationalist. Tens of thousands of Hungarian peasants who were angry at the rapacious behavior of the Catholic Church, and the imperial Habsburg dynasty in Vienna had rallied to Thokoly's banner.

It reflected, writes British academic Ian Almond in his 2009 book ""Two Faiths, One Banner: When Muslims Marched With Christians Across Europe's Battlegrounds,"" how ""little use terms such as 'Muslim' and 'Christian' are to describe the almost hopelessly complex web of shifting power-relations, feudal alliances, ethnic sympathies and historical grudges"" that shaped much of European history.

That sense of nuance fades over centuries, and certainly wasn't apparent last year when another Hungarian nationalist -- the country's current Prime Minister Viktor Orbán -- cited the legacy of the Ottoman conquest to justify keeping Syrian refugees from passing through Hungary's borders.

""I have to say that when it comes to living together with Muslim communities, we are the only ones who have experience because we had the possibility to go through that experience for 150 years,"" Orbán told reporters last year, apparently referring to the period of dynastic warfare and mayhem that was sparked by the initial Ottoman invasion in the 16th century.

Orban has hardly been alone with this sort of grand, historical rhetoric. A host of Eastern European leaders, representing various right-of-center, nationalist governments, echoed Orbán's line, painting the migrant influx as an existential threat, an ""invasion"" of people whose cultural identity is wholly alien to Europe. A coalition of far-right activist groups in the region last week warned of ""Islam conquering Europe"" and announced plans for joint protests.

Further west, from France to the United States, conservative politicians -- including Republican presidential candidates -- also have gestured at a clash of civilizations when proposing bans on refugees or even halting Muslim migration altogether.

[More European nations are barring their doors to migrants]

""Today, words such as 'Islam' and 'Europe' appear to have all the consistency of oil and water,"" Almond writes. But, he goes on, ""the fact remains that in the history of Europe, for hundreds of years, Muslims and Christians shared common cultures, spoke common languages, and did not necessarily see one another as 'strange' or 'other.'""

The starkest proof of that lies in the battlefield, where Muslims and Christians died next to one another over many centuries.

It wasn't just the Ottomans who had multi-confessional armies. Muslims and Christians fought on all sides of the struggles in medieval Spain, where the last Muslim kingdom was snuffed out only in 1492. The Grand Catalan Company, an infamous mercenary outfit, ended up employing thousands of Turks even after it had been paid to fight them.

Frederick II, a 13th-century king who became the Holy Roman Emperor, deployed thousands of Arab Muslim archers and warriors during his wars with rival factions in Italy, including the armies of the pope. Chroniclers at the time documented the presence in the emperor's ranks of elephants bearing wooden towers bristling with Saracen, or Muslim, soldiers.

The Crimean War of the mid-19th century, a conflict a bit closer to our modern moment, saw a similar mishmash of identities and loyalties. Algerian soldiers were conscripted into the French army; Tatar Muslims were in the Russian ranks; all sorts of Christians -- including Cossacks, Romanian militias and Greek doctors -- were in the service of the Ottomans.

The point is not to romanticize this past -- which, in any event, was rather bloody and brutal. But it's worth bearing in mind these historical footnotes when thinking about the ideological divides and political rhetoric of the present.

""Strategically choosing when to talk about religious differences and when to keep quiet is the oldest trick in history,"" Almond writes. It's a pretty useful tactic in politics, too.

When the West wanted Islam to curb Christian extremism

A brief guide to when mercenaries go bad

Ishaan Tharoor writes about foreign affairs for The Washington Post. He previously was a senior editor at TIME, based first in Hong Kong and later in New York.","History undermines talk of a ""clash of civilizations."""
"A former Transportation Security Administration employee was charged with two counts of grand theft for allegedly stealing electronics from luggage, authorities in Florida said Thursday.

A Continental Airlines employee Monday caught Nelson Santiago-Serrano, 30, stealing an iPad from a suitcase in Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, according to the Broward County Sheriff's Office.

Santiago-Serrano was released on a $4,000 bond Tuesday, the office said.

Over the past six months, Santiago-Serrano told authorities he stole $50,000 worth of computers, GPS devices and other electronics from luggage he screened, took pictures of them to post for sale online and sold the items often by the time his shift ended.","A former Transportation Security Administration employee was charged with two counts of grand theft for allegedly stealing electronics from luggage, authorities in Florida said Thursday.A"
"Chevy’s next car is a self-driving, six-passenger convertible that’s only available in Florida.

Don’t expect to go very far in it, though, the open-top transport is part of the refurbished Test Track exhibit in Walt Disney World’s Epcot theme park.

First opened in 1999, the Chevrolet-sponsored attraction has been fully reengineered with state of the art equipment to offer visitors the virtual experience of designing, testing and marketing a car of their creation.

After designing their car, truck or crossover on a computer, guests will bring it with them to the test track through the use of RFID technology, where it’s capability, efficiency, responsiveness, and power will be evaluated while they go for an actual ride that encompasses several different surfaces and reaches speeds of up to 65 mph.

A computerized racing simulation follows, along with the production of a commercial for the vehicle.

Aside from the marketing opportunity the attraction offers Chevrolet, the company hopes the experience will inspire kids to enter the world of automotive design and engineering.

The new Test Track opens to the public on December 6th.","Chevy’s next car is a self-driving, six-passenger convertible."
"Verizon Communications Inc. on Thursday reported declining revenue and plunging subscriber growth, and said it is assessing whether it will need to renegotiate its acquisition of Yahoo Inc. after a major data breach.

Verizon’s Chief Financial Officer Fran Shammo described the recently announced breach of 500 million Yahoo accounts as “extremely large.”

He said the company is assuming that it will have a “material impact” on Yahoo, suggesting that the carrier will look to renegotiate the deal though he gave no indication Verizon intended to walk away.

Mr. Shammo said Verizon lawyers had their first call with Yahoo’s lawyers this week and said evaluating the impact of the breach is “going to be a long process.”

The carrier, which has sought to develop new revenue streams via acquisitions, in July said it would buy Yahoo’s Web assets for $4.83 billion in cash, the biggest of a recent string of digital acquisitions. For New York-based Verizon, the deal is a key component of a digital media and advertising empire the nation’s biggest wireless carrier is trying to build in hopes of taking on Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Facebook Inc.

At the same time, Verizon’s wireless business is sagging as competitors gain strength. The carrier reported its second straight quarterly revenue decline after six years of growth. It also posted a 66% drop in net retail postpaid wireless subscribers from a year ago, down to 442,000, which is also 28% lower than in the previous quarter.

Shares, which were up 9% this year before the results, dropped 2.7% in early Thursday trading.

“We are executing in a very challenging competitive environment,” Mr. Shammo said on a call with analysts.

Verizon, which has been facing rising competition from smaller rivals like Sprint Corp. and T-Mobile US Inc., has warned that earnings may plateau in 2016 as it works through changes it has made to keep its wireless plans in line with competitors. Sprint this week reported strong subscriber growth for the quarter.

On its wireless business, the carrier had a net loss of 36,000 postpaid phone customers compared with gains of 430,000 a year ago, a sign that a healthier Sprint and an aggressive T-Mobile are inflicting pain on their larger competitor. Postpaid churn, or the rate at which customers canceled service, rose 11 basis points to 1.04% from a year ago.

Mr. Shammo blamed some of the slowdown in subscriber growth on the recall of Samsung Electronics Co.’s new Galaxy Note 7 over issues with its batteries.

“We were off to a really good start with the Samsung Note 7,” Mr. Shammo said. “And then unfortunately there was a total recall of that phone which has definitely impacted our growth because historically Verizon has always been the number one leader in high-end Samsung phones.”

For the September period, revenue slipped 6.7% to $30.94 billion, below estimates for $31.09 billion, according to Thomson Reuters. Verizon posted a profit of $3.6 billion, down from $4 billion last year.

On Thursday, the company backed its forecast of earnings for 2016—excluding a 7-cent per-share dent from the work stoppage during a union strike—to remain flat with 2015.

Verizon has been shifting its wireless customers to noncontract plans that have a cheaper monthly service rate but require customers to pay full price for their device, usually in installments. The percentage of phone activations on installment plans rose to 70% from 67% in the second quarter. Verizon said it expects that rate to remain consistent in the fourth quarter.

Write to Ryan Knutson at ryan.knutson@wsj.com and Anne Steele at Anne.Steele@wsj.com","Verizon Communications reported declining revenue and plunging subscriber growth, and said it is assessing whether it will need to renegotiate its acquisition of Yahoo after a major data breach."
"New rumors about a second generation Apple Watch could lead to slower sales of the first version of the high-end wearable device, according to one analyst.

Apple Watch sales have already slowed since an estimated 1 million units were sold in its first weekend, S&P Capital IQ analyst Angelo Zino said in an interview with CNBC. Sales may pick up before the holiday season, but that increase may still disappoint, he said.

Consumers could be holding out for an upgraded version of the device, Zino said. He expects a second version to launch sometime next year.","New rumors about the next Apple Watch could cause slower sales of the first version of the high-end wearable devices, one analyst said."
"PARENTS and babies seem to love infant walkers, parents for the baby-tending and entertainment value of these wheeled seats and babies for being able to scoot around the house in them long before they can walk and even before they can crawl. Many parents believe that infant walkers foster the development of the motor skills needed for walking and provide mental stimulation by allowing the baby to explore a broader environment.

But in recent years, walkers have come under increasing attack as safety hazards, responsible for as many as 25,000 visits a year to hospital emergency rooms for the treatment of injuries like skull fractures, concussions, broken limbs and burns. Many experts have been pressing for a ban on infant walkers, which can be found in up to 92 percent of homes with infants.

Now a researcher at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland has found that contrary to common parental beliefs, infant walkers are likely to impair -- not foster -- an infant's motor and mental development. Dr. A. Carol Siegel, an experimental psychologist and postdoctoral fellow at the university, tracked the motor and mental skills of 109 infants 6 to 15 months old to determine the developmental effects of spending part of each day in a walker. The study was conducted at the State University of New York at Buffalo with Dr. Roger V. Burton, a developmental psychologist, and has not yet been published.

In an interview, Dr. Siegel emphasized that all the babies she studied had been within normal ranges on tests but that those who used walkers had been relatively delayed in their motor and mental development. The babies were not followed long enough to know whether the ones who used walkers eventually caught up.

Infant walkers are seats hanging from frames that allow a baby to sit upright with the legs dangling and feet touching the floor. They have tray tables in front and wheels on the base. Infants are typically placed in walkers between the ages of 4 and 5 months, and use them until they are about 10 months old.

Dr. Siegel said she had undertaken the study after she had watched a niece navigate in a walker and had recalled an experiment done in the 1960's involving kittens fitted with conical collars that prevented them from seeing their limbs. When the collars were removed, the kittens were unable to visually guide their legs for a time; for example, they could not hit a dangling ball of string with their feet. Dr. Siegel wondered whether infant walkers, especially those with trays that block babies' views of their feet, would have a similar deleterious effect.

Half the babies in the study did not use walkers. The other half spent, on average, two and a half hours a day in a walker. Some of them spent as little as 30 minutes in a walker but others spent as long as six and a half hours. Most of the babies studied came from relatively affluent homes and had parents who had some education after high school.

Dr. Siegel divided the infants into three groups according to their age at the outset of the study -- 6 months, 9 months and 12 months -- and assessed their motor and mental skills at the start of the study and again three months later. She determined when and for how long the babies used walkers and tested their language, memory, perception and motor skills with the Bayley Scales of Mental and Motor Development, a well-accepted measuring device. She also asked the parents to record when the babies mastered various skills like crawling and walking.

On average, infants who did not use walkers sat at 5 months, crawled at 8 months and began to walk in their 10th month, while babies who used walkers that blocked their views of their feet first sat near the end of their 6th month, crawled at 9 months and walked at almost 12 months. Babies whose walkers permitted them to see their feet sat and crawled at an age midway between the other two groups. In addition, babies in walkers showed some abnormalities in posture and gait when they first started walking, although these abnormalities soon corrected themselves.

Mental skills were also less developed among the babies who used walkers. Mental scores averaged 113 for those using walkers that blocked views of the feet, while babies who did not use walkers had an average score of 123. Babies using walkers that allowed them to see their feet averaged 116, between the other two groups. The average score on this test nationally is 100. The higher scores of the babies in the study reflected their relatively high socioeconomic backgrounds.

''While parents tend to think of walkers as an enriching experience for their babies, I see them as deprivation,'' Dr. Siegel said. ''Infants learn by exploring objects in their environment. They drop things, then go after them by reaching, rolling on the floor or crawling. But while a baby in a walker could motor over to things, she can't get to the things she wants to obtain. If she drops something, she can't pick it up. And if babies use a walker after they start to crawl, it deprives them of the ability to freely explore their environment, and this can adversely affect cognitive development.''","PARENTS and babies seem to love infant walkers, parents for the baby-tending and entertainment value of these wheeled seats and babies for being able to scoot around the house in them long before they can walk and even before they can crawl. Many parents believe that infant walkers foster the development of the motor skills needed for walking and provide mental stimulation by allowing the baby to explore a broader environment.    But in recent years, walkers have come under increasing attack as safety hazards, responsible for as many as 25,000 visits a year to hospital emergency rooms for the treatment of injuries like skull fractures, concussions, broken limbs and burns. Many experts have been pressing for a ban on infant walkers, which can be found in up to 92 percent of homes with infants."
"updated 10:36 AM EST, Fri December 21, 2012 | Filed under:

(CNN) -- After days of intense backlash from users over changes to its terms of service and privacy policy, photo-sharing service Instagram has backtracked. On Thursday, Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom said the company was switching one section of its updated terms of service back to its original text.

""Because of the feedback we have heard from you, we are reverting this advertising section to the original version that has been in effect since we launched the service in October 2010,"" said Systrom in a post announcing the change.

On Monday, the Facebook-owned app updated its terms of service to say companies could pay Instagram to use members' images in ads without compensating the photographers. Instagram claimed the update was to allow the company to experiment with possible future advertising options, and was not part of any current plan to sell images.

""Going forward, rather than obtain permission from you to introduce possible advertising products we have not yet developed, we are going to take the time to complete our plans, and then come back to our users and explain how we would like for our advertising business to work,"" Systrom said in Thursday's post.

Opinion: Instagram users should wise up

It is not a complete reversal. Many of the other changes to the terms of service and privacy policy remain. The company still needs to work on ways to integrate ads into its free service, but for now it will tinker behind the scenes instead of prematurely sending users into a panic over the possibility that their likeness could show up in advertisements on the network.

The old advertising section that has been reinstated still says the company can place ads on the service and that ""the manner, mode and extent of such advertising and promotions are subject to change without specific notice to you,"" leaving the company with some wiggle room for future changes.

This announcement comes two days after another mea culpa post by Systrom, in which he apologized for the confusion and reassured Instagram users that they still owned their images and that the company was hearing the feedback loud and clear.

The severity of users' reactions to the change seemed to catch Instagram off guard, though the cycle of a policy change announcement followed by user backlash and then an apology is familiar territory for its parent company, Facebook.

Most popular Tech stories right now","After backlash from users over changes to its terms of service and privacy policy, photo-sharing service Instagram has backtracked."
"Louis-Dreyfus and Hale, a heartbeat away from having actual power.

Selina Meyer was a big deal, once. She was an influential senator. She was on the covers of national magazines, including the one whose website you’re reading right now. She ran for President, won the New Hampshire primary and almost got the nomination. Instead, her opponent did, and she became his vice president.

Now she’s in charge of cornstarch. Marginalized by the White House, Selina (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) has to channel her passion for environmental issues into a campaign to replace plastic with cornstarch utensils in government buildings, one small project the distant, unseen POTUS permits her. Except when he doesn’t–as when she’s advised not to use the corn-cutlery at a fundraiser, so as not to anger the oil industry (plastics come from petroleum). “You can use celery,” an aide suggests, “as a kind of shovel.”

The unpleasant things people have to shovel in Washington when they don’t have enough power are the stuff of Veep, HBO’s new political comedy (debuting Sunday) from British satirist Armando Iannucci. Like his UK series The Thick of It and the spinoff movie In the Loop, Veep is filthy and funny, with a keen eye for humiliation–though its early episodes are too sitcommy and predictable in their targets to qualify as great satire. Still–after a week in which the political media debated dogs, Ted Nugent and whether Mitt Romney should have eaten a cookie–you can’t say a show about the triviality of politics doesn’t feel timely.

Iannucci’s British satire was about how the mighty abase themselves–how the pols in a minor UK minister’s office tried to get attention and respect for their department, as if they were the emissaries of a forgotten, powerless country. It depicted government as a collection of mini-fiefdoms, each of which was mostly devoted to raising the profile and media stature of a particular figure—a recurring theme also in Veep, in which Selina’s staff talk constantly about “relaunching” her or having her introduce “2-point-me.” The Thick of It was scathingly funny, almost poetic in its use of obscenity to show how the characters dealt with the pressure cooker of power, but it also had a note of sadness: success, in its political world, was a lonely, dispiriting business.

Veep, in the three episodes sent to critics, plays zanier, more snarky than sardonic. It’s largely a workplace comedy, not just about the frustrated Selina but her staff. Anna Chlumsky is especially winning as Selina’s loyal chief of staff Amy, a relatively decent operative who sees her place threatened by the devious Dan (Reid Scott), whom Selina hires because “He’s shitty me… I need a shit.”

Arrested Development’s Tony Hale is comfortingly twitchy as ever-present assistant Gary, a sort of walking Siri to whom Selina outsources her memory. Mike (Matt Walsh) is the press spokesman, a tired Washington lifer who’s hit his plateau and relies on stories of a fictitious dog to get him out of office late nights, antagonized by Jonah (Timothy C. Simons) a puffed-up White House staffer who uses his Pennsylvania Avenue credentials as a cudgel. Selina sometimes berates her people, and they often let her down, but they share a kind of trench-war, exhausted familiarity. “What would you say were the two biggest campaign mistakes that we made?” she asks Mike, in a moment of reflection. “You looked tired a lot,” he says without pausing, “and the hat.”

It’s a picture of the Vice Presidency as exile–the old idea of the office as a functionary job “not worth a bucket of warm shit.” (The old John Nance Garner quote is usually cleaned up these days to read “spit,” but Iannucci is not one for sanitizing political talk.) More-powerful recent VPs like Al Gore and Dick Cheney, and to a lesser extent Joe Biden, may make that image seem a little dated, but it’s understandable: it allows Iannucci to transpose a little bit of the dynamics of The Thick of It to America.

Still, the Vice Presidency is not the same as a British cabinet department, especially with the backstory Iannucci chose to give Selina. She’s not a party hack given the job to reward loyalty or to kick her upstairs–we’re meant to assume that she was a plausible threat to the President in the campaign (she apparently came much closer to the nomination than Biden did in 1988 or 2008) and a major political player. But Louis-Dreyfus’ Selina does little to indicate that: she mainly seems bumbling and overwhelmed. She must have has a gift for using power once, but we mostly see her flail at her staff to save her from herself. After one particularly bad gaffe, she stammers at her underlings to bail her out: “I need you all to make me have not said that. I need you to make me un-said it.”

It’s actually a really funny line! And Louis-Dreyfus delivers it beautifully. But it, and her sitcommy (though expertly sitcommy) performance does not fit the character, the situation or the larger satire. (She’s great in the right role, but her delivery here feels very much like Elaine on Seinfeld; unlike with, say, Kelsey Grammer on Boss, I never forgot who I was watching in Veep.) The way the premise is set up, we have to see Selina at least as a plausible President—someone who, at least once upon a time, had power, potential and respect—but early on she seems far less politically and personally competent than Parks and Recreation’s Leslie Knope.

Of course, Leslie Knope was also a caricature in Parks’ first episodes, and she and the show matured into one of TV’s best comedies. And there’s a lot to like in Veep. Iannucci’s larger vision of power and how it works is an interesting pairing with the dark vision of power on Game of Thrones: to him, politics is the art of humiliation and indignity, DC a city full of people who ask you how you’re doing and do not care about the answer.

Veep’s characters are most interesting when they are faking, which is much of the time, as when Selina has to pay tribute to a sexual-harassing senator, nicknamed “Rapey Reeves,” who welcomed her to the senate by grabbing her boob. And it has a great ear for the trivialities of modern politics: Selina’s plan to buy a dog is even nixed because it conflicts with the First Family’s planned acquisition of the First Dog “or FDOTUS.” You can’t exactly argue the verisimilitude of a political dog controversy this week.

(As for the show’s ideology—there’s not really much of one. If I had to guess, I’d say Selina’s a Democrat, on the basis of her environmental focus and hints about her legislative past from politicians she talks to. But that’s all incidental here, anyway: Veep is almost all politics and almost no political issues.)

Many of Veep’s early storylines, though, are wackily broad (a subplot about a stomach-flu outbreak that’s ends up, scatologically, pretty much where you’d guess) or reflexively cynical (pols are vain, phony, self-interested, &c). That last is a hard criticism to make, because there’s pretty much no picture of Washington so bleak that people won’t accept it. And who can blame them?

But the fact that Veep’s jaundice is plausible doesn’t make it original, which is the mark of HBO’s best series–the ability to take a familiar setting or genre and offer a surprising insight on it. (If you’re doing an ambitious show about the Vice Presidency, you should have enough fresh material not to go right away to a the-President-might-be-incapacitated storyline.) Veep doesn’t do that, though it’s still an acerbically entertaining show that I’ll keep watching for now because of the strong cast, because of its gift for the obscene bon mot (a Selina speech edited for political concerns by the White House is said to be “pencil-fucked”), and because I hope it will grow into something more distinctive.

I’m not so naive as to expect Washington to change for the better. But I’m still idealistic enough to believe that TV can.","Veep is filthy and funny, but also broad and predictable; and Julia Louis-Dreyfus doesn't quite fit her character. Still, you can't say a show about the triviality of politics doesn't feel timely."
"MENA, Ark. – The search for a missing Arkansas Forestry Commission pilot and airplane has resumed despite snow and ice that have hampered the search and officials hope to use helicopters in the search.

The commission says the search resumed Saturday for Jake Harrell and the plane he was flying when he disappeared while searching for wildfires in western Arkansas last week.

The commission says recent snow may make the aircraft difficult to see -- but they're planning to use helicopters Saturday afternoon to help in the search of a wide area in western Arkansas that includes about 950,000 acres.

Officials continue to focus the search along the normal flight path from Oden to Wickes that was Harrell's intended flight path.",The search for a missing Arkansas Forestry Commission pilot and airplane has resumed despite snow and ice that have hampered the search and officials hope to use helicopters in the search.
"The dollar is set to fall 5 percent in the next few months, the Federal Reserve isn’t raising interest rates anytime soon and U.S. economic data is only going to get worse.

That’s what Morgan Stanley chief global currency strategist Hans Redeker told clients in a note published Thursday, citing in-house indicators showing U.S. domestic demand is set to fade in the coming months. It didn’t take long for markets to prove him prescient. The greenback fell 1.3 percent Friday, capping its worst week since April, after the Commerce Department said U.S. second-quarter gross domestic product advanced at about half the rate economists had forecast.

“We are quite pessimistic about, first, the outcome of the U.S. economy,” Redeker said in an interview on Bloomberg Television Friday, before the GDP report’s release. “When you look at our internal indicators, which capture domestic demand very well, they are suggesting that the demand strength is going to fade from here.”

The greenback had rallied in recent weeks on mounting speculation the Fed will hike rates in the coming months following better-than-expected data on jobs, retail sales and industrial production. Dollar bulls’ hopes were dampened Wednesday after a lukewarm policy statement from Fed officials that signaled only a gradual pace towards tighter monetary policy. They were dashed after Friday’s GDP print, which showed a 1.2 percent annualized increase in the April-June period, less than the 2.5 percent median forecast of economists surveyed by Bloomberg.

Derivatives traders are now betting there’s only about a 1-in-3 chance of a rate hike this year, down from more than 50 percent at the beginning of the week. July data on payrolls and manufacturing, set for release next week, will give investors a clearer read on the path of Fed policy through the end of the year.

Further dollar strength will be limited as policy divergence between the U.S., Japan and Europe slows, according to Steven Englander, global head of Group-of-10 currency strategy at Citigroup Inc.

“The dollar still benefits when U.S. growth looks OK, but call it a limping divergence trade, not the kind of divergence trade we were talking about last year or the year before,” Englander said Friday on Bloomberg Television.","The dollar is set to fall 5 percent in the next few months, the Federal Reserve isn’t raising interest rates anytime soon and U.S. economic data is only going to get worse."
"Michigan State needs a win Saturday at Iowa to enter the Bowl Championship Series title game picture.To reach the title game, the Spartans, fifth in the BCS rankings, need the following: They must finish unbeaten and need Auburn, No. 1 in the BCS rankings, or BCS No. 2 Oregon to lose.Finally, MSU would have to vault ahead of No. 3 Boise State and No. 4 TCU in the BCS rankings, a likely scenario. Neither Boise State nor TCU is a member of one of the six major conferences that receive automatic bids; no team outside those leagues has finished higher than fourth in the final standings since the BCS' inception in 1998.All season, MSU has talked about winning the Big Ten and earning a Rose Bowl berth. Asked whether the national title game has crossed the Spartans' minds, safety Marcus Hyde said, ""Yes sir. But you have to stay in the moment.""After Iowa, MSU closes the season with home games vs. Minnesota (1-7) and Purdue (4-3) and a visit to Penn State (4-3). MSU doesn't play perennial power Ohio State.By Marlen Garcia

By Marlen Garcia, USA TODAY

State football fan, propped his 3½-year-old son, Colm, on his shoulders and quickly handed him a disposable camera.

Perched above a crowd of fans eager to high-five Spartans football players, the little boy happily snapped shots as players triumphantly entered the visitors locker room after beating Northwestern 35-27 in Evanston, Ill., on Saturday to stay undefeated.

""I hope it never stops,"" said Madden, who is a faculty library assistant at Michigan State. ""I've seen so many bad seasons.""

This could become the most memorable one in decades for the fifth-ranked Spartans, though that hinges heavily on beating No. 19 Iowa on Saturday in Iowa City. Michigan State is 8-0 (4-0 in the Big Ten) for the first time since 1966.

""It will have an impact on us for the rest of the season, good or bad,"" senior linebacker Greg Jones said Tuesday.

A win at Iowa (5-2, 2-1) would escalate talk about Michigan State entering the Bowl Championship Series title game picture.

""We've got an edge to us,"" Michigan State coach Mark Dantonio said. Such swagger was hard for outsiders to fathom in the preseason when the Spartans did not receive a vote in the top 25 polls.

Michigan State finished 6-7 last season, and Dantonio dismissed or suspended 15 players in the aftermath of a November fight in which some players were involved and others lied to Dantonio about being there. The bond between remaining players tightened.

""Adversity brings people together,"" said Dantonio, 54. ""I didn't know how many games we'd win, but I knew we had a special group.""

More hardship hit the Spartans this season. Dantonio had a mild heart attack Sept. 19, hours after an exhilarating overtime win against Notre Dame. Later he was hospitalized for a blood clot.

Dantonio's health didn't seem to be in question against Northwestern as he joined his team on the field after coaching from the press box in two previous games. He joked Tuesday about not wanting to get hit on the sideline and emphasized he wants a sense of normalcy for the team. Nevertheless, he is cautious.

""We made the decision five minutes before we went out (on the field) based on how I felt,"" he said. ""I felt like I could. But I felt like, 'Should I?' I wanted everybody, my wife in particular, to feel OK with it.""

Dantonio declined to answer more questions about his health during the Big Ten teleconference, and his wife of 20 years, Becky, declined an interview request after the Northwestern game.

""He would just rather have people not be talking about him as much, but that's sort of his nature,"" junior quarterback Kirk Cousins said. ""At the same time it was a very serious issue, one that has a great effect on the program and the way things are operating. He's done a great job of making sure when he was gone that things were still run very smoothly.""

Dantonio came back with a slightly altered approach. ""He's a bit more laid-back in the pregame,"" Jones said. ""He smiles a little more. He doesn't seem as tense. I feel that helps the team; we don't feel as tense. When the game has started, he's fully engaged and ready to go.""

Offensive coordinator Don Treadwell was in charge during Dantonio's recovery, but many players tried to make it easy for him. ""It caused players to step into a greater leadership role,"" Cousins said.

As far back as he can remember, Cousins has received lessons in making good decisions. That comes with being the child of a pastor, or ""PK,"" short for pastor's kid as classmates called him. Cousins' father, Don, now has a ministry consulting firm.

There is a lesson, passed on when he was 5, that sticks with Cousins.

""My dad said, 'Kirk, when you make good decisions, good things happen. When you make bad ones, bad things happen.' If I did something wrong, he'd say, 'Was that a good decision?' I'd say, 'Well, no.' And something bad would happen, like a timeout or I'd get sent to my room.""

Cousins believes taking such lessons to heart helped put him on course to be a winning quarterback at Holland (Mich.) Christian High School. He shined as a leader, but as a senior he was only 5-11 and lean, said his high school coach, Tim Lont.

""Kirk developed late. He wasn't heavily recruited. He didn't have standout stats to say, 'Everybody wants this guy.' ""

He was impressive enough to get offers from mid-major schools. Michigan State wanted him for depth, not to be first string, Lont said.

Said Cousins, ""I didn't know if I'd play a down for Michigan State.""

Cousins sat out his first season as a redshirt and played five games in 2008. Last season he moved up to No. 1 on the depth chart in a tight race with Keith Nichol, now part of a deep receiving corps.

Cousins, 6-3 and 202 pounds, has passed for 1,948 yards and 14 touchdowns with four interceptions. Prime targets B.J. Cunningham and Mark Dell combined have caught 64 passes for nearly 1,000 yards.

The running game is formidable behind Edwin Baker and Le'Veon Bell with 779 and 574 yards, respectively. On defense, Jones seems on his way to repeating as an All-American, leading the team with 69 tackles.

Among these standouts, punter Aaron Bates holds his own. Against Northwestern, he helped Michigan State rally with a fake punt on fourth-and-11. He hit Bennie Fowler with a 21-yard pass, and Cousins threw a TD pass to Dell on the next play.

In the overtime win against Notre Dame in East Lansing, Bates engineered a play called ""Little Giants."" Dan Conroy lined up to attempt a 46-yard field goal, but Bates, acting as holder, took the snap and connected with Charlie Gantt for the win.

""I tell him if he's giving quarterback lessons,"" Cousins quipped, ""I'd love to attend.""

Lighthearted digs come naturally and frequently when a team is rolling.

""We've had fun,"" Dantonio said. ""We're trying ... to not put pressure on ourselves. Our guys need to play loose, and they need to expect to win, and they need to play confident. That's half of it, maybe more.""

Under Dantonio, Michigan State is 30-17 in four seasons. Since 2000, the Spartans have had winning records in the Big Ten twice, in 2003 and 2008.

In the past it seemed Michigan State ""would have a big win and then self-destruct,"" said Glen Mason, a Big Ten Network analyst who coached at Kansas in the 1990s and had Dantonio on his staff. ""There were some who thought that was going to happen (this season), and here they are.""

Between football and basketball, the Spartans have in recent years dominated rival Michigan, major-college football's winningest program. They beat Michigan 34-17 on Oct. 9.

Typically this time of year, fans gear up for men's basketball. Under coach Tom Izzo, the Spartans have made six Final Fours in 12 years, including the last two, and won the 2000 title.

Now the football team has students and alumni frenzied about the possibilities. Apparel and merchandise sales at the school's online store have skyrocketed. October online sales are up 234% with a gross revenue of $195,905 compared with October 2009, according to athletics department spokesman John Lewandowski. Since July 1, 2010, online store sales are up 157% over the same period in 2009, he said.

The team's feel-good appeal hit a snag when senior cornerback Chris L. Rucker, the most experienced member of the secondary, was arrested the morning after the Michigan game and charged with driving while intoxicated. He pleaded down to misdemeanor reckless driving and has served a 10-day jail sentence scheduled to end today. Rucker had been on probation relating to the fight in November. He is suspended indefinitely.

Otherwise, the Spartans are enjoying a season similar to the one Iowa had last year. The Hawkeyes were undefeated until their 10th game. Iowa beat MSU 15-13 when Ricky Stanzi threw a TD pass as time expired.

""Last year, we were coming out of games saying, 'I can't believe how we lost,' "" Cousins said. ""Now, it's a reversal of fortune.""

You share in the USA TODAY community, so please keep your comments smart and civil. Don't attack other readers personally, and keep your language decent. Use the ""Report Abuse"" button to make a difference.","Ryan Madden, a die-hard Michigan State football fan, propped his 3 1/2-year-old son, Colm, on his shoulders and quickly handed him a disposable camera."
"July 10, 2014: In this photo, Iraq war veteran Darin Welker, 36, holds one of his ducks at his home in West Lafayette, Ohio. (AP/Coshocton Tribune, Trevor Jones)

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ohio – An Army veteran who was wounded during the Iraq War is worried a citation will result in him losing his 14 pet ducks, which he says are therapeutic.

Darin Welker, of West Lafayette, was cited with a minor misdemeanor June 23 for having the ducks in his yard. He is scheduled to appear in Coshocton Municipal Court for a hearing Wednesday and could face a $150 fine.

Welker, 36, is afraid he won't be permitted to keep the ducks, which he says help him with depression and post-traumatic stress disorder and keep him more active.

The village of West Lafayette, about 80 miles east of Columbus, banned residents from keeping fowl and other farm animals in 2010.

West Lafayette Mayor Jack Patterson declined to comment on Welker's predicament and referred questions to village police Chief Terry Mardis, who couldn't be reached for comment.

Welker told the Coshocton Tribune that he's had the ducks since March. He said they motivate him to get out of the house so he can feed and clean up after them.

""They're quite a relaxing animal, and they help comfort me in different situations,"" Welker recently told the Tribune as he held one duck like a baby and stroked its neck. ""(Watching them) keeps you entertained for hours at a time.""

Welker served a year in Iraq with the Army National Guard in 2005 and said he came home with a major back injury that required surgery in 2012.

The Department of Veterans Affairs paid for the back surgery but declined to pay for physical therapy recommended by his surgeon and did not provide him with counseling, he said. That's partly why he has come to rely on the ducks, he said.

Welker said he's planning to tell the judge how much the ducks have helped him. He said he has a letter from the VA's mental health department recommending he be allowed to keep them.

The 14 ducks live in a penned-in area in Welker's backyard, which also has kiddie pools so they can swim.","An Iraq War veteran in Ohio is facing a $150 fine or worse after getting a citation for his pet ducks, which he says are therapeutic."
"New boy Sam Jackson laughed: ""The first day, I hadn't met the crew or anything like that and they were like, 'Sam, we're going to get you into bed and you basically start having a w***'.

""The director was saying, 'Could we get some more noises, please?.'

""It had to be quite aggressive and quick. We had a giggle over that. It was definitely an ice-breaker.""

His character Alex Henley is a gay, outlandish flirt who even locks lips with macho Nick Levan, played by Sean Teale.

And after arriving at Roundview college he cops off with another SIX blokes.

But while Sam took the racy scenes in his stride, he's adamant that his family and football pals won't be tuning in to the E4 cult hit.

The actor joked: ""I'm locking myself in my room and not letting anyone watch it.

""I'm going to go round to my gran's and turn off the TV!

""I didn't tell my football friends that my character was gay and they thought I was going to be getting with lots of girls. I'll probably get ripped for it, but I can handle the banter.""

The sixth series looks set to be the raunchiest yet, with the first episode — to be aired on January 23 — seeing the gang partying with scantily clad extras in Morocco.","JACKSON had hands full on first day at work in bed scene for some, er, quality time alone"
"Updated MAR 03, 2015 8:12p ET

Jameis Winston met with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, hoping to make a good impression on the team considering taking the Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback with the first pick in the NFL Draft.

The Bucs confirmed the former Florida State star was in town Tuesday to sit down with club officials who will be involved in deciding whether to draft Winston. Another quarterback option being considered by the Bucs is Marcus Mariota, the 2014 Heisman winner from Oregon.

Neither Winston nor club officials spoke to the media. However following the daylong visit, the team's website posted a video of the 21-year-old answering questions inside One Buc Place.

""I just want them to know I am human and I'm a great person and this smile isn't fake,"" Winston said.

""I just want to show them I can be the face of this franchise one day,"" the quarterback added, ""and actions speak louder than words.""

While it's not unusual to conduct predraft interviews at club facilities, it's rare to bring in a potential pick nearly two months in advance.

The Bucs have the top pick for the first time since 1987. Upgrading at quarterback is a priority after going 2-14 last season and missing the playoffs for the seventh straight year.

Winston won the Heisman Trophy and led Florida State to a national championship as a red-shirt freshman in 2013. He also made headlines off the field, including an allegation of sexual assault that didn't result in any criminal charges.

""It's not really important for me to be the first pick, but it is important to me to be picked,"" Winston said, adding that he was blessed during his ""years at Florida State to win the national championship and just be a winning quarterback.

""I would love to be (drafted) here.""","The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are meeting quarterback Jameis Winston on Tuesday, according to multiple reports."
"The World Health Organisation hopes the first ever public health treaty will stop the estimated five million annual deaths caused by smoking from doubling by 2020, once it is passed into law by all the 168 countries that have signed up. Â Â ""I encourage all countries to become party to the treaty. This can result in millions of lives saved, and that is where the real success of this treaty resides,"" said WHO Director General Lee Jong Wook. Â ""Its entry into force is a demonstration of governments' commitment to reduce death and illness from tobacco use,"" he added.Â

The WHO regards tobacco as the only legal product that eventually kills half its regular users, fuelling the second leading cause of death in the world.Â

Costly habit  ""This means that out of 1.3 billion smokers, 650 million will die prematurely,"" it added in a statement.Â

Tobacco-related ill-health is thought to sap $200 billion from rich and poor countries. Â Â The cost of treating illness due to smoking is estimated to rise to $6.5 billion in China alone, according to the UN's health agency. Â Â Despite three years of strong opposition from tobacco multinationals, as well as governments with substantial tobacco industries or farming, the treaty concluded in 2003 advocates bans on advertising and sponsorship, as well as sales to minors.Â

""Its entry into force is a demonstration of governments' commitment to reduce death and illness from tobacco use"" Lee Jong Wook Director-General, WHOThe Framework Convention on Tobacco Control also includes public smoking restrictions, larger health warnings on cigarette packs and promotes taxation as a way to cut consumption and fight smuggling. Â Â Treaty parties must now pass the measures into national law within three to five years, although health officials acknowledged that several countries have already implemented many of them.Â

""Its entry into force is a demonstration of governments' commitment to reduce death and illness from tobacco use""

Lee Jong Wook Director-General, WHO

Tighter restrictions  Vera Luiza da Costa e Silva, head of the WHO's tobacco-free initiative, said the convention would ""leave fewer loopholes for the tobacco industry, which currently finds ways to circumvent national laws"".  ""The difference for global tobacco control is that countries party to the convention will be able to implement these measures, especially those with cross border implications, in a coordinated and standardised way,"" she added.   The treaty is expected to have an impact on direct sponsorship for public and sports events.   The McLaren Formula-1 motor racing team on Tuesday announced a major long term sponsorship deal with a whisky firm from August, which could herald the end of its decades-long association with cigarette companies.   A tobacco advertising ban is due to be implemented in the European Union in August.

Anti-tobacco campaigners urged the United States to ratify the treaty. ""We are calling on our government to join with the global community in prioritising people's lives over the profits of giant corporations,"" said Kathryn Mulvey, head of the US-based advocacy group Corporate Accountability International.","A landmark treaty aimed at cutting deaths and illness caused by smoking has come into force from Sunday, after 57 countries ratified international restrictions on tobacco producers and smokers."
"Many of Julie Taymor’s signature touches in Broadway’s “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark” would be cut or altered in the producers’ new creative plan, which includes scaling back the villainess Arachne, dropping the “Deeply Furious” number of shoe-wearing spider-ladies, and reshaping the Geek Chorus of narrators, according to three people who work on the show and were briefed Thursday on plans.

The producers announced Wednesday that Ms. Taymor was stepping aside from the $65 million production because of schedule conflicts, though she will still be billed as its director and a script writer. Taking over to reshape the show will be the theater and circus director Philip William McKinley (Broadway’s “Boy From Oz”) and the playwright Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa.

Friends and colleagues of Ms. Taymor have said she was forced out because she would not make extensive changes that the producers wanted.

The producers have now decided that they will shut down the show sometime this spring, but only for a short period, and they want artists with fresh perspectives to oversee the changes.

According to the three people aware of the producers’ plan, who spoke anonymously because it is confidential, the central love story of Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson will be enhanced, and Arachne — who now dominates Act II — will have her stage time reduced.

The producers also want to cut “Deeply Furious,” which has been widely denounced by theater critics. The show’s composers, Bono and the Edge of U2, are writing at least two new songs, one of which will be for the start of Act II; the second may replace “Deeply Furious.”",Producers will cut some of Julie Taymor’s signature touches as they reshape the Broadway show “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark.”
"Washington (CNN) -- From rising rhetoric between the president and top Republicans over the economy to a marquee Senate campaign showdown, politics are heating up in the summer sun and could boil over in the week ahead.

1. Economic tug of war

With budget showdowns looming, President Barack Obama continues to try to take his case directly to the American people.

The president travels to an Amazon distribution center in Chattanooga, Tennessee, on Tuesday and will again speak on the economy, which remains the top issue on the minds of Americans. The White House touts the address as the first in a series of policy speeches on Obama's ""better bargain for the middle class.""

John King: Obama thinks he's getting the upper hand

""Tuesday's speech will focus on manufacturing and high-wage jobs for durable economic growth, and the president will discuss proposals he has laid out to jump-start private-sector job growth and make America more competitive, and will also talk about new ideas to create American jobs,"" White House press secretary Jay Carney told reporters.

The Chattanooga address follows similar speeches last week where the president's tone was sharper and more partisan than many had expected.

Obama: I won't 'twiddle my thumbs' waiting for GOP

""If the Republicans don't agree with me, I want them to lay out their ideas. If they have got a better plan to create jobs, rebuild our infrastructure, to make sure that they have great ports all along the Gulf, come on, let me know what your ideas are,"" the president said Thursday in Jacksonville, Florida.

Congressional Republican leaders are pushing right back at the president -- with deadlines to continue funding the federal government and raising the nation's debt ceiling as well the date for implementing a crucial part of Obamacare on the horizon.

Obama touts economic agenda; GOP says he's 'all sizzle, no steak'

""Look, this president is a terrific campaigner. We all recognize that. He has got a way with words, too. But at some point campaign season has to end and the `working with others' season has to begin,"" Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell said on the Senate floor Thursday morning.

""His speech turned out to be all sizzle and no steak, that's assuming there's any sizzle left after you've reheated this thing so many times,"" House Speaker John Boehner chimed in later.

With one week left before the congressional summer recess, both Democrats and Republicans will ramp up the rhetoric over the strong possibility of a government shutdown in the autumn. Both sides are pointing fingers in a heated blame game, and the fight will continue into the August recess as the action moves to lawmakers' home states and districts.

2. Marquee Senate showdown begins

What could ultimately be the most expensive and bitter Senate battle in the 2014 midterm elections formally begins Tuesday when Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes kicks off her Democratic challenge to McConnell, who's running for a sixth term in the Senate.

In a preview of how nasty things could get, Grimes blames McConnell for greatly contributing to the gridlock in Washington, saying in a video previewing her rollout that the Senate Republican leader is ""the biggest part of the problem. He's wasted decades blocking legislation that would have helped Kentucky and our country. And over the last few years he's done it for the worst possible reason -- out of spite.""

Web wars start in crucial 2014 Senate race

Even before announcing her candidacy this month, Grimes had already come under attack, both by an Internet ad put out by the McConnell campaign that poked fun at the amount of time she was taking to make a decision, and by a pro-McConnell independent group that went up with an ad that called her ""Obama's cheerleader in Kentucky.""

McConnell is known for taking the fight to his political opponents, and he quickly welcomed Grimes to the race by linking her to the president, who is unpopular in Kentucky, a red state in presidential elections.

""Accepting the invitation from countless Washington liberals to become President Obama's Kentucky candidate was a courageous decision by Alison Lundergan Grimes, and I look forward to a respectful exchange of ideas,"" McConnell said in a statement this month.

In her video, Grimes fired back, saying, ""I don't scare easy.""

Next weekend both Grimes and McConnell will attend the annual Fancy Farm picnic in the rural western tip of Kentucky. The picnic is famous as a traditional political gathering that attracts statewide candidates.

Also expected to attend that gathering is Matt Bevins, a Kentucky businessman who a few days ago formally launched a conservative primary challenge to McConnell, adding more political fire to an already combustible race.

Conservative challenger takes on McConnell

3. House GOP to make another statement

Pegged to the scandal involving Internal Revenue Service targeting some political groups for special scrutiny, the GOP-controlled House of Representatives will vote on a series of bills in the week ahead to curb the power of the IRS and other federal agencies.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor packaged 10 measures for floor votes and dubbed the final week before a monthlong summer recess as ""Stop Government Abuse"" week.

Republicans to make big push on oversight legislation

In addition to the IRS, another chief target of the Republican legislative push is Obamacare, which the House GOP has continually tried to roll back.

One bill sponsored by Rep. Tom Price, R-Georgia, would prohibit the IRS from implementing any provisions of the health care law. Since the IRS is the agency that would enforce the mandate that individuals must carry health insurance, this legislation essentially hamstrings the program. This bill is the latest in a string of more than three dozen times House Republicans have tried to repeal entirely or change parts of the health care law.

House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi criticized the effort, saying, ""It is only fitting that Republicans would waste the last week at work this summer voting for the 40th time to repeal the Affordable Care Act and continue their record of no jobs bills, no budget agreement and no solutions for the middle class.""

Many Republicans expressed outrage after IRS employee Lois Lerner was placed on administrative leave but is still being paid, which the current law allows. A GOP bill sponsored by Rep. Mike Kelly, R-Pennsylvania, would change that law and allow federal agencies to suspend employees who are under investigation without pay. Other Republican bills would limit bonuses for federal workers and impose a ban on any new IRS conferences until new changes are in place.

One topic the House won't address before its five-week break is immigration reform. The Senate passed a bipartisan comprehensive immigration bill last month, but Boehner said instead the House will take a ""step-by-step"" approach but has not given any details yet on when it will vote or what specific measures will be taken up on the floor.

4. Scandals from coast ...

It's the tabloid political blockbuster of the summer: Amid falling poll numbers and a rising ""sexting"" count, New York mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner had a horrible week.

Opponent: Weiner is immature, disconnected from the truth

But the former seven-term Democratic representative, who resigned from Congress two years ago following a similar scandal, has so far resisted calls to end his bid for a second chance in politics.

All eyes will be on Weiner in the days ahead. Will Weiner's poll numbers continue to plunge? Will more women who had inappropriate online relationships with Weiner speak out? Will Weiner's wife, Huma Abedin, a longtime top adviser to Hillary Clinton, continue to support her husband's bid for political redemption?

Weiner acknowledged Sunday that campaign manager Danny Kedem has left his team.

A lot of questions remain, and as of now, Weiner's still giving answers.

Weiner says he has no response to Sidney Leathers

""But there's going to reach a point fairly soon that I'm going to say I think I've said enough about it, and I'm going to keep just talking about other things,"" Weiner told reporters Friday.

On the left coast, it's a similar story as another former Democratic congressman is facing calls to quit. San Diego Mayor Bob Filner is dealing with an explosion of sexual harassment allegations.

Filner said Friday he will take a two-week hiatus for ""intensive counseling."" His move came one day after fellow Democrats called for his resignation.

Amid calls to resign, embattled Filner to enter clinic

Saying he had apologized to his staff, the citizens and the ""women I have offended,"" the mayor said, ""It is simply not acceptable to explain away my conduct as the product of the standards of a different generation.""

On Thursday, the San Diego County Democratic Party voted 34-6 to ask the mayor to step down. Seven women have said they were targets of the mayor's advances.

A group has begun a campaign aimed at getting more than the 100,000 signatures needed to try and recall Filner, who was a five-term congressman before being elected mayor last year.

CNN's Tricia Escobedo, Craig Broffman and Deirdre Walsh contributed to this report","From rising rhetoric between the president and Republicans over the economy to a marquee Senate campaign showdown, politics are heating up in the summer sun."
"Kate Gosselin's got a new gig hawking coupons.

Kate Gosselin’s gone from reality TV royalty to coupon queen.

The “Kate Plus 8″ star has scored a new job since her TLC show got the ax — blogging about coupons for CouponCabin.com.

“No matter how much money you have, it’s just smart to use coupons,” she told E!. ”It’s like free money in your pocket.”

Gosselin said she’s been clipping coupons for years, before she had any of her kids, but she’s been more scissor-happy since becoming a mom.

“One week, I remember saving more than half my grocery bill that week with coupons,” she said. “I was beyond thrilled.”

Gosselin’s first blog post, about shopping for the holidays, debuts on Nov. 22. It’s a welcome gig — in September, a month after her show got canceled, she told People magazine, ”I’m freaking out. Big time.”

“I’ve never quit a job in my life without having something else lined up,” she said. “I don’t know what’s next.”","Kate Gosselin's got a new gig hawking coupons. Kate Gosselin’s gone from reality TV royalty to coupon queen. The “Kate Plus 8″ star has scored a new job since her TLC show got the ax — blogging about coupons for CouponCabin.com. “No matter how much money you have, it’s just smart to use coupons,” she told E!. ”It’s like free money in your pocket.” Gosselin said she’s been clipping coupons for years, before she had any of her kids, but she’s been more scissor-happy since becoming a mom. “One week, I remember saving more than half my grocery bill that week…"
"The video begins innocuously enough. A blue Toyota Prius rental car pulls into the parking garage of the Washington navy yard at 7.53am on 16 September, then a man wearing a blue striped shirt with a backpack over his shoulder enters building number 197.

Suddenly, the mundane events of an ordinary Monday morning turn to images of horror. In the next clip the man is captured walking down a corridor, apparently calmly, with a Remington 870 shotgun in his hands. He pokes the barrel of the gun, sawed off for maximum impact, into the offices he passes at the start of the one-hour rampage that would end with the killing of 12 random victims, four wounded survivors and his own death.

The man is Aaron Alexis, 34, the shooter in the Washington navy yard tragedy who was trapped in the delusion, FBI agents said, that he was controlled by Extremely Low Frequency (ELF) electromagnetic waves. Stills images released by the bureau give clues to that delusion, and that he was prepared to die in carrying out his actions.

Etched into the left side of the receiver of the gun was the expression: ""My ELF weapon!"" Alongside it was the phrase: ""Better off this way!"" On the other side of the receiver the sentence had been scratched: ""Not what y'all say!"" And on the barrel itself was written: ""End to the torment!""

The FBI released the video footage along with the still pictures of Alexis's movements and the shotgun and a new timeline of the carnage in the navy yard, It said the intention was to provide ""greater understanding of the recent movements and activities of the deceased shooter"". The video also provides a shockingly intimate window into the navy yard disaster as it unfolded.

In the final clip of the released footage, Alexis is seen running down a stairwell and entering a lower corridor, more urgently now. He enters the hallway, takes cover behind a wall, as a stream of people can be seen running at the end of the corridor; then he begins running towards them.

As the investigation into the navy yard rampage has progressed, the extent of Alexis's mental health problems have become apparent as well as numerous holes in safety procedures through which he fell. Earlier this week it was revealed that the federal contractors who carried out a background check on him in 2007 were aware that he lied on his application form and that he had covered up a previous arrest and charge for a firearms offence; yet Alexis was still granted secret security clearance in the navy.

The new details released by the FBI show Alexis's movements leading up to and during the rampage. Fifteen minutes after he entered the parking garage, he entered building 197 and went up the elevator to the fourth floor. He visited the men's bathroom, leaving his backpack and clipboard in a cubicle there.

At about 8.15am Alexis crossed the hallway into the 4 West area of building 197. He carried the Remington shotgun which he had bought just two days earlier at a gun shop in northern Virginia. That same day he also bought a hacksaw for using in sawing-off the barrel and stock.

His first victim was shot at 8.16am in the 4 West area, and a minute later calls started flooding in to 911 emergency lines. Over the next hour he moved to the first floor and the third floor, where he was shot and killed by officers at 9.25am.

FBI agents have carried out forensic examinations of the contents of the backpack, the Toyota Prius, and the Residence Inn in south-west Washington where he stayed from 7 September. In the course of their searches they discovered a roll of purple duct tape in the backpack which Alexis used to wrap the end of the sawed-off stock. They also found several documents stored on items of electronic media that included a phone, laptop and thumb drives.

Those documents have given investigators a sense of his state of mind at the time of the shootings, yielding clues to his intentions. In one of the documents, Alexis had written: ""Ultra-low frequency attack is what I've been subject to for the last three months, and to be perfectly honest that is what has driven me to this.""

Valerie Parlave, assistant director in charge of the FBI's Washington field office, said that the electronic documents indicated that ""Alexis was prepared to die during the attack and accepted death as an inevitable consequence of his actions."" She added that there was no evidence that he had targeted specific individuals – his victims were randomly selected.

The electronic communications did not indicate, Parlave said, that Alexis had been in touch with anyone before the rampage to alert them to what was to come.

The FBI said that it was aware that ELF electromagnetic waves were the subject of conspiracy theories. In a statement on its website, the bureau said: ""ELF technology was a legitimate program for naval sub-tonal submarine communications; however, conspiracy theories exist which misinterpret its application as the weaponization of remote neural frequencies for government monitoring and manipulation of unsuspecting citizens.""","FBI releases video and says Alexis did not target specific individuals, as investigators continue exploring his background"
"Earlier this year, actress Elizabeth Olsen was asked about her interest in fashion in an interview with Elle Girl. It was a valid question for the 22-year-old, who happens to be the younger sister of twins Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, designers of the clothing lines the Row and Elizabeth and James. The actress said she had no interest in working in fashion like her older sisters, but did give a little insight into her style evolution.

""I used to be strictly Annie Hall in high school,"" Olsen said. ""I would wear the hat and suspenders and all the button-up shirts and masculine pants.""

Olsen has come a long way from dressing up like Annie Hall, evolving into a fashion-wise, elegant movie star. She appears alongside Hugh Dancy in the new film ""Martha Marcy May Marlene,"" which opened last week.

Olsen attended a premiere for the film during the 55th BFI London Film Festival in a baby pink sequin boat-neck blouse and tiered tulle and lace skirt, both from the Chanel spring 2011 couture collection. She finished the pink ensemble with shiny, pointy-toed champagne heels by Christian Louboutin. Her pairing of the sequin and tulle textures was sophisticated and playful.

With holiday parties approaching, you'll need to start thinking about your winter party wardrobe. Olsen's look may make for fun gala or premiere attire, but her mixed textures can be the perfect inspiration when planning your holiday looks.

For a sequin top that sparkles, try the sequin tee from Topshop.com for $90, sequined knit top from Forever21.com for $19.80 or the one shoulder asymmetric sequinned top from Zara.com for $69.90. Or you can try a fun pattern with the Vince Camuto sequin animal boxy blouse for $78 from Dillards.com or Tiffany top from Alloy.com for $36.90.

For a textured skirt similar to Olsen's, try the long maxi lace skirt for $24.99 from Needsupply.com, Asos midi skirt in check for $71.88 from Asos.com or the Asos mesh and chiffon maxi skirt for $89.85, also from Asos.com. For a shorter version, get the Christin Michaels Florence skirt for $40 from Zappos.com.

There's a lot to do to prepare for the holiday season, but at least sartorially, you'll be ready.

Have an outfit you're dying to buy but need a frugal alternative? Email us a picture. We're up for the challenge.

Frugal Fashion: Jessica Alba at the Clinton Foundation Gala

Frugal Fashion: Rachel Zoe at the Veuve Clicquot Polo Classic

Frugal Fashion: Uma Thurman in Chanel at Paris Fashion Week

Photos, from top: Elizabeth Olsen attends the ""Martha Marcy May Marlene"" premiere during the 55th BFI London Film Festival at the Vue West End on Oct. 21 in London. Credit: Tim Whitby /Getty Images For the BFI.

Blouses, from left: Sequin tee, $90 / Topshop.com; Sequined knit top, $19.80 / Forever21.com; asymmetric sequinned top, $69.90 / Zara.com; Vince Camuto sequin animal boxy blouse, $78 / Dillards.com; Tiffany top, $36.90 / Alloy.com.

Skirts, from left: Long maxi lace skirt, $24.99 / Needsupply.com; Asos midi skirt in check, $71.88 / Asos.com; Asos mesh and chiffon maxi skirt, $89.95 / Asos.com; Christin Michaels Florence skirt, $40 / Zappos.com.","Elizabeth Olsen attended the premiere of ""Martha Marcy May Marlene"" during the 55th BFI London Film Festival in a baby pink sequin boat neck blouse and tiered tulle and lace skirt, both from the Chanel spring 2011 couture collection. Olsen has come a long way from her high school days dressing up like Annie Hall, evolving into a fashion-wise, elegant movie star."
"Shoni Schimmel of Louisville (c.) gets in Brittney Griner's face during Sunday night's game.

OKLAHOMA CITY — From the opening tip of the season, there was only one question in women’s college basketball: How do you stop Brittney Griner?

Louisville found the answer Sunday night, pulling off one of the biggest upsets in the history of the tournament. Considered a lock for the Final Four — and prohibitive favorites to win a second straight championship — Griner and her Lady Bears got bounced 82-81 by fifth-seeded Louisville in an NCAA regional semifinal.

“I’m just sad,” Griner said. “I didn’t do what I needed to do to get my team to the Elite 8 and just disappointment in myself.”

Baylor (34-2) had won 32 straight games and 74 of 75 behind Griner, among the greatest players ever in her sport. But the 6-foot-8 star didn’t make a basket until the second half, then committed a foul with 2.6 seconds left that gave Louisville a chance to win. Monique Reid made those two foul shots, rescuing the Cardinals (27-8) after they squandered a 17-point lead in the last 7 1/2 minutes.

The win made it quite a day for the school — hours earlier, the men’s team from Louisville beat Duke 85-63 to reach the Final Four. Reid and the Cardinals will play Tennessee in the regional final on Tuesday for a berth in the Final Four. Odyssey Sims scored 29 points, including two free throws with 9.1 seconds to go that put Baylor ahead 81-80. Sims had one more chance to save the season, but she was off-target and late on a desperation heave.

Sims dropped to the floor after her miss, pulling her jersey over her face and kicking her legs as she lay flat on her back. Griner squatted near her and slapped the floor with both hands before pulling Sims up to her feet. It was a stunning end of a remarkable college career for Griner, the second-highest scoring player in NCAA history.

Griner, who had averaged 33 points in Baylor’s first two games in the tournament, didn’t make a basket until she converted a putback with 15:20 left in the second half.

She wound up with 14 points and 10 rebounds, making only four of her 10 shots and being a relative non-factor for her considerable stature. Louisville surrounded Griner as she has been most of her career, and her teammates were unusually unable to hit outside shots and relieve the pressure.

The Lady Bears had been practically invincible for the past four months, winning 32 straight games mostly by double digits. It’s no surprise that the Louisville women were a 24-point underdog to Baylor in Las Vegas casinos, according to gambling expert R.J. Bell of Pregame.com. Odds on Louisville to win outright were 75-1, paying $7,500 on a $100 wager, Bell said.

It was Sims who eventually led Baylor’s attempted comeback from a 17-point deficit in the final 7 1/2 minutes, after Louisville’s barrage of 3-pointers finally came to an end. Sims hit a pair of free throws and then got a steal in the backcourt for a layup that got Baylor back within a dozen, and the Lady Bears put together a 19-4 run to get within striking distance in the final 2 minutes.

Louisville coach Jeff Walz was called for a technical foul for arguing after he watched a scoreboard replay of an offensive foul whistled against Bria Smith, with a Baylor defender sliding under her after she took off. Sims hit the resulting free throws and then a runner to get the Lady Bears within 78-76 with 1:49 to play. After a Megan Deines layup off a baseline inbounds play, Sims answered with a 3-pointer to cut it to one with 35.8 seconds left.

She then hit two free throws to put Baylor ahead after Jude Schimmel fumbled an inbounds pass under her own basket, Griner picked it up and passed it to Sims. The Lady Bears still couldn’t close it out. Antonita Slaughter hit seven 3-pointers for 21 points and Shoni Schimmel had five 3s.

As a team, Louisville was 16 for 25 to tie the NCAA tournament mark reached by four other teams and make the most ever in the regional semifinals or beyond.

“Every 3 they hit made it that much tougher,” Baylor coach Kim Mulkey said. “You keep thinking they’re going to start missing some and they never did.”

Three Cardinals starters fouled out, starting with Shoni Schimmel with 4:21 left, with a 23-14 foul disparity in the game. “These kids followed the game plan to perfection. I gotta give all the credit to them,” Walz said. “They believe in what we do as a coaching staff.”","Louisville shot its way to one of the biggest upsets in the history of the women’s NCAA tournament, stunning Brittney Griner and Baylor on Sunday night."
"The 12-year-old suspect arrested in connection to celebrity ""swatting"" incidents at Ashton Kutcher and Justin Bieber's homes may not face criminal charges because of his youth and the non-violent nature of the offense, authorities said.

Instead, the case may be handled by the Probation Department, which seeks to divert young offenders into programs that set them on the right path.

The boy has been linked to three swatting incidents -- two involving celebrities and a third involving a bank.

The Los Angeles Police Department, which investigated the case with the Long Beach Police Department and FBI, said they have strong evidence linking the boy to several incidents that prompted a SWAT response, hence the term ""swatting.""

Police Lt. Marc Reina said the boy used a computer program that allowed him to make TTY calls used by people who are hearing impaired. The boy set up a fake account and began making the calls via message to the LAPD, he said.

He has not yet been charged by prosecutors, who are trying to determine how the matter should be handled.

DIstrict Attorney's spokesman Sandi Gibbons said that the case is being reviewed, but may fall under the control of the Los Angeles County Probation Department because of the boy's age and non-violent nature of the alleged crimes.

Bieber's home was targeted Oct. 10, when Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies received a report claiming a gunman had fired shots and was threatening to harm police when they showed up. The message was received through a TTY device typically used by the deaf to type text over the telephone.

Deputies were unaware it was Bieber's residence and arrived in force. They searched the home and interviewed people on the property, who told them that no call had been made to authorities and that the pop star was away on tour. They determined the incident was a hoax.

A week earlier, Los Angeles police dispatched several units and tactical officers to Kutcher's home on Arrowhead Drive after they received a report through a TTY device from a woman who said she was hiding in a closet because there was a man with a gun inside her residence, according to sources familiar with the case.

But after interviewing workers who were briefly held at gunpoint at the actor's home, as well as contacting Kutcher himself, LAPD investigators determined the incident also was contrived.

Celebrities, fans fight to save Henry's Tacos

Suspected Grinch accused of criminal re-gifting

Dec. 21, 2012: NASA dispels 'end of world' theories with video

Photo: Ashton Kutcher. Credit: Peter Tym / For The Times","Ashton Kutcher swatting: The 12-year-old suspect arrested in connection to celebrity ""swatting"" incidents at Ashton Kutcher and Justin Bieber's homes may not face criminal charges because of his youth and nature of the offense, authorities said."
"Malaysia Airlines has been criticised for a ""bucket list"" promotion in the wake of the MH370 and MH17 disasters. (AAP)

Disaster-tainted Malaysia Airlines says it has changed the name of a ticket-sale promotion that invoked an ""inappropriate"" death reference by asking travellers which places were on their ""Bucket List"".

The flag carrier, which has been devastated by the loss of 537 people in two air tragedies this year, had offered prizes including free round-trip flights to Malaysia from Australia and New Zealand in a contest called ""My Ultimate Bucket List"".

A ""bucket list"" refers to things someone wants to do before dying, or ""kicking the bucket"".

""Malaysia Airlines has withdrawn the title of a recent competition running in Australia and New Zealand, as it is found to be inappropriate at this point in time,"" a statement by the airline said yesterday.

""The competition had been earlier approved as it was themed around a common phrase that is used in both countries. The airline appreciates and respects the sentiments of the public and in no way did it intend to offend any parties.""

The contest was renamed ""Win an iPad or Malaysia Airlines flight to Malaysia"", the carrier said.

The airline faced accusations the original competition title was in poor taste.

Customers who booked travel between September 1 and December 31 were asked to tell the airline which destinations were on their ""bucket list"".

The most creative answers were to go into a draw, with 12 round-trip economy class tickets up for grabs.

The carrier is scrambling to attract bookings, which have plummeted due to its two disasters.

MH370 mysteriously vanished on March 8 with 239 passengers and crew aboard, inexplicably diverting from its Kuala Lumpur-Beijing course. The Malaysian government believes it went down in the Indian Ocean, but no trace has been found.

MH17 went down on July 18 - believed to have been hit by a surface-to-air missile - in rebellion-torn eastern Ukraine, killing all 298 aboard.

Even before the disasters, Malaysia Airlines had lost huge sums of money for years as it failed to rise to increasing industry competition.

It said last week it would slash 6000 jobs and scale back its route network as it struggles to survive.

Do you have any news photos or videos?","Malaysia Airlines has renamed a contest with free flights to Australia and New Zealand as a prize after it referred to travellers' ""bucket list""."
"If you browse HealthKit, Apple's health-tracking app, you might think that its female users don't menstruate.

The app, after all, includes dozens of metrics like blood type, body temperature and exercise, but not a single way to track one's period.

When HealthKit debuted in the spring, critics quickly pointed out this oversight as yet another example of how the male-dominated tech industry can't see beyond its own experiences.

Apple finally remedied the omission on Monday at its annual Worldwide Developers Conference by announcing the inclusion of reproductive health in an upcoming version of the app. While Apple hasn't provided more details on its features, the change is a welcome improvement, and one that many users are likely to enjoy.

Hydration, UV exposure, and REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH added to Health. Period/fertility trackers? TODAY IS LADY POWERRR #Apple #WWDC

— Xeni Jardin (@xeni) June 8, 2015

Period trackers are in fact very popular. Women commonly use them to boost their chances of getting pregnant, though others use them as a contraception aid. Either way, collecting data about one's period can provide a woman with powerful information.

Organizing this data digitally, and analyzing it alongside other health metrics, may eventually provide patients and doctors with a comprehensive picture of their reproductive health.

Trackers help solve a simple problem, which is that a woman's cycle can be unpredictable and difficult to recount from memory. Dr. Nathaniel G. DeNicola, who practices obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Pennsylvania Health System, says that a menstrual cycle can be anywhere from 21 to 35 days long and can fluctuate depending on the type of contraception she's using.

DeNicola, also a senior fellow at the Penn Social Media and Health Innovation Lab, tells Mashable that one of the most important vital signs for his patients is the date of their last period, which can help determine a due date.

""More and more women pull out their phone,"" he says.

There's no evidence to show that using a tracking app leads to improved predictions for due dates, but DeNicola says it can be a more reliable tool than a pen and paper.

He also warns patients against believing claims that apps are a proven form of birth control when used to track a woman's fertility. The so-called rhythm method, which uses temperature and other factors to gauge fertility, has a 25% failure rate, and DeNicola says no app can dramatically improve those odds.

Hans Raffauf, chief operating officer for the reproductive health app Clue, says he is excited for the possibility of pulling dozens of metrics from Apple's app to consider alongside menstruation data. ""If a woman is an active runner, does that have an affect on her cycle we can measure?"" says Raffauf.

Only access to large amounts of data would help Clue answer this and similar questions, but Raffauf sees the potential.

The potential for revenue is also considerable. Clue's own market research shows that period and pregnancy tracking apps are the second-largest by sales among health apps. Clue, according to Raffauf, is downloaded an average of 10,000 times a day.

Period tracking, though, isn't just about fertility. Specific information about a woman's cycle can help a physician make a diagnosis or evaluate treatment for endometriosis, a condition that affects the tissue lining the uterus. And if a post-menopausal woman experiences bleeding and tracks those symptoms, it can alert her doctor to the possibility of uterine cancer.

DeNicola welcomed the addition of reproductive health to HealthKit, saying that no field would want to be left out of the phenomenon of patient-generated data.

DeNicola says that the more patients and doctors use these apps, the more they'll reflect the unique needs of women.

""Inevitably,"" he says, ""there will be things we haven’t thought of yet.""

Have something to add to this story? Share it in the comments.",Apple finally remedied a big omission on its HealthKit app.
"JERUSALEM, Feb. 23— The Israeli Parliament took up the question today of intimidation of Western journalists by Palestinian and Syrian terrorists in Beirut and Damascus.

Two prominent Israeli politicians, Eliahu Ben-Elissar, chairman of Parliament's Defense and Foreign Affairs Committee, and Yehuda Ben-Meir, Deputy Foreign Minister and a leader of the National Religious Party, denounced what Mr. Ben-Elissar called ''a long chain of acts of terror, intimidation and blackmail that has led to the state of near-terror in which Western journalists live and work in Lebanon and Syria, and because of which Israel is presented in the Western media in a twisted and distorted fashion.''

Mr. Ben-Meir, speaking for the Government of Prime Minister Menachem Begin, said it was ''time to break the conspiracy of silence and tell the truth about the systematic attacks by Syria and the P.L.O. against the media and against freedom of speech using murder, threats, kidnapping and terror.''

The Deputy Foreign Minister went on to quote at length from an article on the subject by John Kifner, Beirut correspondent of The New York Times, which was published by The Times on Monday. Charges Are Repeated

Mr. Ben-Elissar, however, repeated charges made last week by his close associate, Zev Chafets, director of the Government Press Office, that The Times had acted improperly in deleting, from an earlier interview with Mr. Chafets, criticisms of The Times itself for failing to report the detention last summer of five American correspondents in Lebanon. The group of reporters included Mr. Kifner and another Times correspondent.

Mr. Ben-Elissar asserted that ''they were given a sheet of paper to write a last message to their loved ones.'' One of the Times correspondents said this was not true.

Mr. Ben-Elissar scoffed at a statement by Craig R. Whitney, deputy foreign editor of The Times, that ''it is the policy of The Times to report difficulties encountered by its correspondents in pursuit of stories only when the difficulties themselves become news, and we did not consider this such a case, then or now.''

Mr. Ben-Elissar said that on at least two occasions, The Times had reported on difficulties encountered by foreign correspondents in Israel. He did not say what incidents he had in mind.

Over the objections of Communist legislators, Parliament voted to refer the matter to the Defense and Foreign Affairs Committee for further discussion. This was a way of removing it from the floor and avoiding a full debate. The Communists wanted it removed from the agenda entirely.","The Israeli Parliament took up the question today of intimidation of Western journalists by Palestinian and Syrian terrorists in Beirut and Damascus.   Two prominent Israeli politicians, Eliahu Ben-Elissar, chairman of Parliament's Defense and Foreign Affairs Committee, and Yehuda Ben-Meir, Deputy Foreign Minister and a leader of the National Religious Party, denounced what Mr. Ben-Elissar called ''a long chain of acts of terror, intimidation and blackmail that has led to the state of near-terror in which Western journalists live and work in Lebanon and Syria, and because of which Israel is presented in the Western media in a twisted and distorted fashion.''   Mr. Ben-Meir, speaking for the Government of Prime Minister Menachem Begin, said it was ''time to break the conspiracy of silence and tell the truth about the systematic attacks by Syria and the P.L.O. against the media and against freedom of speech using murder, threats, kidnapping and terror.''"
"Texas right-hander Victor Gonzalez has been suspended for the first 72 games of next season following a positive test under baseball's minor league drug program, and Seattle left-hander Joe Pistorese and free-agent outfielder Anderson Caro have been banned 50 games each.

Gonzalez, who is with the Dominican Summer League Rangers 2, was disciplined for a positive test for metabolites of Stanozolol, the commissioner's office said Friday. He was 0-2 with an 8.18 ERA in one start and five relief appearances this season.

Pistorese, a 17th-round draft pick this year who was 6-0 with a 1.28 ERA at Class A Everett, tested positive for an amphetamine.

Caro had a second positive test for a drug of abuse and will serve the penalty when he signs with another major league organization. He was 1 for 32 for the DSL Royals, who released him on July 9.

There have been 83 suspensions this year under the minor league program, including 32 for drugs of abuse.",3 minor leaguers suspended for positive drug tests
"SEOUL (Reuters) - North and South Korea have been secretly trying to set up a summit by mid-year, news reports said on Tuesday, but the South insisted the destitute North would not be offered any payment as an enticement.

South Korean President Lee Myung-bak has said he wants a firm commitment from Pyongyang to rejoin six-party disarmament talks and scrap its nuclear arms programme before agreeing to what would be only the third summit between the states still technically at war.

A senior U.S. State Department official arrives in Seoul on Tuesday for discussions aimed at prodding the North back to nuclear talks after the mercurial state last week raised tensions by firing artillery toward a disputed sea border with the South.

""The leaders of the South and North must meet only on the premise that there won't be any payoff for agreeing to hold the summit,"" Lee's spokesman quoted him as saying at a cabinet meeting. ""We'll never back down from this principle.""

Analysts say pressure is mounting on the North to end its year-long boycott of the six-way nuclear talks, where it can win aid to prop up its broken economy by reducing the threat it poses to North Asia, which makes up one-sixth of the global economy.

Lee has been critical of the two previous summits where the North won pledges for billions of dollars of aid from the South, while Seoul received little in return as the North built up its conventional military forces, missile arsenal and nuclear plans.

If Lee lands a summit on his terms, it could show he was right in ending the South's nearly decade-long policy of giving unconditional aid to the North and instead linking handouts to progress Pyongyang makes on ending its atomic ambitions.

This in turn could help support his conservative ruling Grand National Party in local elections this June and the group's candidate to succeed Lee as president when his single, five-year terms expires in early 2013.

Lee, a former construction CEO, has also promised North Korea massive amounts of aid to rebuild its dilapidated infrastructure if it scraps its nuclear weapons plans.

North and South Korean officials have been secretly meeting in Singapore and the North Korean city of Kaesong to try to set up a summit, but hit a snag over South Korean prisoners from the 1950-53 Korean War still held in the North, news reports said.

""North Korea prefers June 15, which is the 10-year anniversary of the first summit, but we feel there would be special meaning in making a breakthrough on denuclearization on the 60th year of the (June 25) outbreak of the Korean War,"" the Chosun Ilbo newspaper quoted a government source as saying.

Unification Minister Hyun In-taek told a forum with foreign reporters: ""The overall situation is that 2010 is mutually a very important year, and it would be a good thing to discuss peace and stability on the Korean peninsula through a summit meeting.""

In a sign of the difficulty of brokering a complex summit, the two Koreas in talks on Monday were unable to make any breakthrough in a dispute over operations at a factory park that is their last major joint economic project.

North Korea in recent weeks has called on the United States to hold talks on replacing the ceasefire that ended the Korean War with a treaty, while also making military threats to U.S. ally South Korea.

Analysts see this is a ploy by Pyongyang to win concessions to lure it back to the bargaining table and put pressure on Washington for direct talks on a peace deal that can help open the door to international finance for the North.

(Additional reporting by Christine Kim; Editing by Jon Herskovitz)","SEOUL (Reuters) - North and South Korea have been secretly trying to set up a summit by mid-year, news reports said on Tuesday, but the South insisted the destitute North would not be offered any payment"
"UNIONDALE, N.Y. — As the Islanders’ final home game of 2014 began, Tom LoFaso stood poised in the next-to-last row of Section 329 surrounded by dozens of his orange-and-blue-clad brethren.

With a team-colored Santa Claus hat over his favorite 1997 pin-covered Islanders baseball cap and wearing a white No. 91 John Tavares All-Star jersey, LoFaso, 24, could not wait to stampede from his perch. When Anders Lee obliged with a tip-in goal eight minutes into the game, against the Washington Capitals last Monday, LoFaso’s opportunity arrived.

“Watch this,” he said before bolting down the stairs to the section’s base, where, like an orchestra maestro, he prepared to lead more than 16,000 Islanders fans in their favorite chant this final season at Nassau Coliseum.

“Yes! Yes! Yes!” the fans bellowed in unison with arms raised high. The arena-shaking chant started sporadically last season before catching on during the Islanders’ opening-night victory over Carolina in October.

“We just did it again when they scored the first goal that night and it became a thing,” LoFaso said. “Now we have the whole arena doing it. It’s really cool.”

The Islanders, 26-11-1 heading into Sunday’s game at Edmonton, have 14 victories in 18 home games and certainly are giving LoFaso and friends many reasons to celebrate. The top two rows of the fans’ section and the arena itself — where members of the so-called Blue and Orange Army stand for the entire game — are emblematic of the Islanders’ rabid fan base.

“We’re like a family up here because we’ve been together for so long,” said Tom Ballantyne, 22, part of the Section 329 crowd since the 2006-7 season. “We’re not just jumping on the bandwagon. Like this team, we’ve grown up together.”

Section 329 does not have an official membership list, but LoFaso said that as many as 60 fans congregated there, singing and chanting and wearing Islanders scarves.

Most are too young to remember the last time the Islanders won a playoff series, in 1993, not to mention the four straight Stanley Cups of the early 1980s.

For Jeremy Musella, a 22-year-old Hofstra senior, the gatherings are amusing and life-affirming.

“We may get carried away saying stuff with varying levels of appropriateness, but it’s all in fun,” he said. “The best part is we’re all friends because of how much we love hockey. I can’t imagine anything bringing this many people together like this has.”

All plaudits are music to the ears of LoFaso, who is enjoying every game to the fullest before the Islanders move next season to Barclays Center in Brooklyn, where the group hopes to have a new home section.

“I take it one game at a time,” LoFaso said. “I’m not even thinking about the playoffs or next year. All of that is a long way off.”

With the Islanders battling Pittsburgh atop the Metropolitan Division, players and coaches laud their fans and the home-ice advantage they help generate.

“You can feel the emotion in the building — it’s terrific,” Islanders Coach Jack Capuano said. “We’ve got a passionate fan base, and I’m as passionate as they are.”

The fans in Section 329 have chants for forwards Josh Bailey, Kyle Okposo and Frans Nielsen. Bailey’s, sung to the theme of the DJ Ötzi version of the Bruce Channel song “Hey! Baby,” is a particular favorite. The words have been changed to “Heeey Josh Bailey! — Ooo! Ahh! We wanna know! Will you score a goal?”

When Bailey does score, the last two lines become: “What do you know, you scored a goal.”

Bailey, 25, who scored a career-high 16 goals in 2009-10, enjoys the cheering.

“You can definitely hear them on the bench when they get it going,” Bailey said, laughing. “It’s awesome. As long as I’ve been here, they’ve been helping us. They bring great spirit to the games.”

This generation of Islanders fans had a playoff taste in May 2013, when the team reached the postseason for the first time since 2007, losing to the top-seeded Penguins in a six-game opening-round series.

LoFaso recalled a late goal by Casey Cizikas to cement a Game 4 win that sent the Coliseum faithful into full frenzy.

“I still don’t know how, but I wound up in a dogpile at the other end of the section,” he said. “I never celebrated a goal that hard. It was pandemonium.”

A similar scene ensued Monday as the Islanders-Capitals game reached overtime. The Islanders had a 4-on-3 power-play in the extra session when defenseman Johnny Boychuk scored on a slap shot from the point. The arena erupted. Islanders players raised sticks and arms at center ice, saluting the crowd.

Lee, 24, who played hockey at Notre Dame, said he appreciated the advantage of fan support.

“They are loyal and passionate and they are funny,” he said. “We need that.”

“If you want to get to the big dance, you have to play hard, disciplined hockey and win at home,” he said. “Right now, we are, and the sixth man — our fans — they are a big part of it.”

A version of this article appears in print on January 4, 2015, on page SP8 of the New York edition with the headline: Raucous Advantage for Isles in Soon-to-Be Former Home. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe","Many of the singing, chanting fans in Section 329 of Nassau Coliseum are too young to remember the Islanders’ last victorious playoff series, in 1993."
"By Elizabeth McAlister Associate Professor of Religion, Wesleyan University

Vodouists in the Haitian diaspora are praying on their knees today, just as Catholics and Protestants are. Why did this devastating earthquake have to happen in Haiti, a country already so vulnerable that people live on a dollar a day, where on a good day, the government cannot employ or educate or provide health care for the majority? In Port-au-Prince, they are coping by searching and rescuing, sharing resources, crying, and praying. In Vodou most ritual is about finding balance, putting yourself into equilibrium with the spirits, with your family, and with yourself. In Haiti things are way out of balance. We might say that spirits of death have launched a coup d'état.

My friend and colleague, the artist, educator, and priest of the spirits, Erol Josué, has been praying and crying in Brooklyn. Through Twitter, Facebook, and his cell phone he has learned of at least twenty dead friends in several Port-au-Prince congregations. He told me today that for him, as a spirit-worker, this event is both scientific and symbolic. This is indeed a natural disaster for Josué. But the land in Haiti is a person, he said. We consider it a woman, our mother. ""Haïti Chérie,"" as the well-known ballad goes. She wants to know, 'who will make me beautiful, put clothes on me, and take care of my children?' When you mistreat her, and uproot her trees, when you give her too much responsibility, she is like a woman with cancer. The tumor metastasizes, and explodes.

For Erol Josué, the earthquake was mother nature, the land of Haiti, rising up to defend herself against the erosion, deforestation, and environmental devastation that have been ongoing for the last few decades. ""Everybody was smashed to the ground,"" said Erol. ""Rich and poor. But look how symbolic this is. The Palace is smashed, the legislative building, the tax office, and the Cathedral. The country is crushed. We are all on our knees."" This Vodou priest is not speaking about divine retribution, as has Pat Robertson. God is not punishing us for disobedience. Erol is speaking about a giant natural rebalancing act, a reaction against human dealings with the ecosystem.

For the last 25 years I have had the privilege of studying and writing about the Afro-Creole religion in Haiti, the traditions known as Vodou (Anglicized as voodoo). It is a worldview that encompasses philosophy, medicine, justice, and the arts, in a cosmic scheme where the fundamental principle is that everything is spirit. Said the famous painter and Vodou priest André Pierre, ""The first magician is God who created people with his own hands from the dust of the earth. No one lives of the flesh. Everyone lives of the spirit."" We humans live in the material world, and other spirits--called lwa, or mystères, ""mysteries""--dwell in the unseen realm. God created the spirits to help govern humanity and the natural world. The ancestors and the recently dead are with them. Unfortunately, there are far too many recently dead crossing over to join the spirits this week.

When you cut a tree, in Vodou, you are supposed to ask the tree first, and leave a small payment for the spirit of the tree. For years nobody has asked, or listened, or paid the land when making policies or laws in Haiti. Farmers have given up since imported rice undercut their local prices. Whole villages left the provinces, and migrated to the capital, leaving the land behind and swelling the capital city to bursting. The people running the country--from within and from without--have abused Our Mother. She is doing what is natural, like a horse throwing a rough rider.

This interpretation, this theology, is the poignant parable of an exhausted and grieving spiritualist. Others, who may read this and disagree with great force, will not necessarily share it. But Vodou works through spiritual revelation, and this is the revelation Erol gives me today. Vodou has no single spokesperson and no inerrant text. It has God, the angels, and the spirits in the unseen realm. And now there are thousands and thousands of souls, who are being carried, each by a spirit of the dead, into Guinea, the world of the ancestors. It seems fitting to close with the first and last lines of the poem ""Guinea"" by Jacques Roumain: It's the long road to Guinea Death takes you down Here are the boughs, the trees, the forest Listen to the sound of the wind in its long hair Of eternal night . . .

There, there awaits you beside the water a quiet village, And the hut of your fathers, and the hard ancestral stone Where your head will rest at last.

(Translation by Langston Hughes, 1958)

Elizabeth McAlister is author of ""Rara! Vodou, Power and Performance in Haiti and its Diaspora."" Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002.

Learn more about Afro-Creole religion in Haiti at Patheos.com.

By Elizabeth McAlister | January 15, 2010; 9:16 AM ET Save & Share: Previous: Haiti and earthquake theology | Next: Catholic bishops too powerful?

The most important issue at hand is not blame, my faith is better than yours, they live somewhere you're not supposed to live or they got money & warnings years ago but the simple fact is that people are dead, dying, starving, needing medical attention, food, & water.

Nature is predictable & unpredictable all the way around. Where can you live on earth without an element of nature having the last word? Floods, snow, rain, hurricanes, electric storms, cyclones, draught & earth quakes ultimately rule us small humans in life on a planet that may not be able to keep up with our demands.

If Haitians were born into poverty who is to blame? If greed, politics, and governments received aid money but did nothing for the populace who is to blame? What countries profited from the clear cutting? Who purchased products from this country of $1 a day living?

WHO IS TO BLAME? I AM

I flushed the toilet this AM after a healthy breakfast, washed dishes, cleaned my closet of the wood hangers I no longer like because they take up to much room for my fat & skinny clothes, emptied the trash, took a nap with a book, had fruit for lunch, cleared my hall closet of old towels, refilled kleenex containers, got on the internet, spent an hour on the phone with a friend, took a shower, blow dried my hair, started a load of laundry, paid some bills, thought about traffic in the rain, walked my dog, steamed veggies & baked chicken for dinner, now it's time for me to get in my warm big bed with lots of covers.

WHO IS TO BLAME? I AM

Posted by: laca7 | January 17, 2010 9:37 PMReport Offensive Comment

God if he/she/it exists or Mother Nature give us the gift of rational thinking. Living on an earthquake fault and/or in flood/hurricane/tsunami zones violates rational thinking. The taxpayers of the USA should not have to continue supporting this stupidity. Rebuilding New Orleans is a mistake as will be rebuilding Port au Prince.

Posted by: ccnl1 | January 17, 2010 6:46 PMReport Offensive Comment

Well, CCNL, I think part of your problem (as well as the common ones of those you quote) ...is that trying to cram the living world, and natural events, into a good/evil/control paradigm of what 'God' is... Or is not...

Is that it goes nowhere.

Even in the lushest forests, trees fall.

The gentlest Mother still shakes fiercely with any birth.

The most bountiful,life-giving seas will storm, foam, and rage, and lush plains also give rise fierce whirlwinds.

This is the way of things. This is the life of the world...

You don't ignore these things until the Earth shakes, build slab concrete and overpopulation, and then call those who live there 'evil' because they have some of their own spirituality, then wonder where 'goodness' is when the structures fall.

Earthquakes, nor Mother Earth, nor 'God' actually cause mass casualties.

Now, there's not much one can do about the Earth shaking. But we've long had the knowing how to make *fact* that there is shaking, and storms, and other things, especially in certain places, something that doesn't have to result in anything quite like this.

The *cause* of this humanitarian disaster... Came long before the earthquake. Long, long, before.

By our human standards, anyway.

Posted by: Paganplace | January 17, 2010 1:42 PMReport Offensive Comment

To the more important facts of life considering the horror of the earthquake in Christian/Pagan Haiti:

If there is a god:

From Father Edward Schillebeeckx (famous contemporary theologian), Church: The Human Story of God, Crossroad, 1993, p.91 (softcover)

""Christians must give up a perverse, unhealthy and inhuman doctrine of predestination without in so doing making God the great scapegoat of history.

Nothing is determined in advance: in nature there is chance and determinism; in the world of human activity there is possibility of free choices. Therefore the historical future is not known even to God; otherwise we and our history would be merely a puppet show in which God holds the strings. For God, too, history is an adventure, an open history for and of men and women.""

Posted by: ccnl1 | January 17, 2010 8:32 AMReport Offensive Comment

If there is a god:

From Father Edward Schillebeeckx (famous contemporary theolgion), Church: The Human Story of God, Crossroad, 1993, p.91 (softcover)

""Christians must give up a perverse, unhealthy and inhuman doctrine of predestination without in so doing making God the great scapegoat of history"" .

""Nothing is determined in advance: in nature there is chance and determinism; in the world of human activity there is possibility of free choices.

Therefore the historical future is not known even to God; otherwise we and our history would be merely a puppet show in which God holds the strings.

For God, too, history is an adventure, an open history for and of men and women.""

Posted by: ccnl1 | January 16, 2010 11:41 PMReport Offensive Comment

""""Once we jolt the arrogance out, that our faith is the only way, then we may find true freedom from the bondage of arrogance.

It'd surely be a good thing. The sanctimonious are circling about this tragedy like vultures, and, well. It's sickening. Robertson's only the loudest.

Posted by: Paganplace | January 15, 2010 7:59 PMReport Offensive Comment

Vodou, Paganism, Atheism, Wicca, Maya, Toltec, Hopi, Shinto, Oloriyo and all the other earth based traditions serve similar spiritual needs of humanity as do Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Bahai, Sikh, Zoroastrian, Jainism and other faiths. Each society has its own equilibrium.

Once we jolt the arrogance out, that our faith is the only way, then we may find true freedom from the bondage of arrogance.

Posted by: mikeghouse | January 15, 2010 5:57 PMReport Offensive Comment

""""Vodou, paganism, atheism, wicca, and all the other earth based traditions serve the same spiritual needs of humanity as do the Abrahimic and Dharmic faiths.

I'm not sure I'd say 'the same,' since it seems some feel there are 'needs' not involving... Caring for the land, and each other...

But when needs get like *this,* everyone knows what to do.

Posted by: Paganplace | January 15, 2010 5:23 PMReport Offensive Comment

""""However, the government of Haiti had been warned by the offices in the Government of the United States that there was the possibility of an earthquake in their area back in 2008.""""

While having for years before had all funding and even loans to *do* anything about it choked off?

Posted by: Paganplace | January 15, 2010 5:20 PMReport Offensive Comment

""""But the land in Haiti is a person, he said. We consider it a woman, our mother. ""Haïti Chérie,"" as the well-known ballad goes. She wants to know, 'who will make me beautiful, put clothes on me, and take care of my children?' When you mistreat her, and uproot her trees, when you give her too much responsibility, she is like a woman with cancer. The tumor metastasizes, and explodes...""""

My Gods, but if that doesn't sound like old aisling poems about Ireland...

Posted by: Paganplace | January 15, 2010 5:17 PMReport Offensive Comment

are haitians like nigerians, consume everything but produce nothing... that is why haiti is so poor...

Posted by: DwightCollins | January 15, 2010 4:49 PMReport Offensive Comment

A simple question to those who are drawing conclusions about Vodoo traditions. Where does this arrogance come from? What makes you believe that your way makes sense and others don't?

Heck, it makes sense to the believer not you or I. What you believe is not what I believe and vice versa.

We have to refresh our minds; the right wingers amongst the missionaries were biased bunch of people, in their eagerness to convert, they called other beautiful traditions in a derogatory way. Can they look down upon Christianity, Islam, Judaism and other faiths?

Vodou, paganism, atheism, wicca, and all the other earth based traditions serve the same spiritual needs of humanity as do the Abrahimic and Dharmic faiths.

Posted by: mikeghouse | January 15, 2010 4:44 PMReport Offensive Comment

I believe in one all powerful God, and I believe in accepting by faith the existence of God. However, the government of Haiti had been warned by the offices in the Government of the United States that there was the possibility of an earthquake in their area back in 2008.

God gave man the ability to think, judge and make decisions in an autonomous manner. We can see things as they may evolve if we look and question how things work. This is a gift science has evolved into and works to a certain degree for some things, not so well for other things. If this earthquake were a punishment from God, why was there warning before it happened. The disaster of was going to happen as a result of tectonic activity in that part of the world regardless.

It is disappointing that religious leaders should take this as an opportunity to make fools of people who this past year have proven that the level of education in this country and the connection with the real world and the small communities of this country is way out of balance.

Posted by: robert63 | January 15, 2010 4:10 PMReport Offensive Comment

Pat Robertson was lambasted because he said Haitians made a pact with Satan to defeat the French and was therefore cursed. Erol Josue states that Mother Nature exacted her vengeance on Haiti for mistreating the environment? I'm not sure, but I doubt this article will help dissuade the Pat Robertsons of the world... This mixture of nature worship and paganism is exactly what Pope Benedict warned against last week in his cautions about modern environmentalism.

Posted by: SUMB44 | January 15, 2010 1:56 PMReport Offensive Comment

Regardless of your faith or beliefs, in reality it's probably not useful to attribute effects to causes, where the only linkage between cause and effect is a personal interpretation.

That being said, even if you can't logically and scientifically attribute an earthquake to ecological devastation and poor agricultural practices, or to demon-worship for that matter, you can attribute the poverty of Haiti and the level of destruction to overpopulation, crowding, and poverty.

Regardless of whether you call it superstition or reasonable practice expressed through a poetic worldview, the idea of respecting the earth leads to living a respectable life. When you see consequences in this world from the actions you take in this world, you can articulate your discovery however you wish, and transmit that articulation however other people will best understand. If they understand that everything is spirit, you tell them about deforestation and ecologic destruction as the reward of people who offend the spirits of the forest, trees, wildlife, and the land itself. If you get a good result from this means of expression, it doesn't matter if it's the spirits, or good advice, which saves the landscape.

If people had lived more traditional lives in greater harmony on the land, when the 7.0 quake occurred, they would not have been overcrowded in shoddy construction on a barren set of hillsides. In an earthquake, a grass hut will certainly collapse but it won't crush anyone. A tent won't crush anyone.

Though the earthquake would have come in any case, the ancient ways are ancient because people who follow them will survive better than those who do not. This doesn't mean you cannot change to newer better ways... but ask if perhaps the old respectful ways and beliefs might have a truth hidden in them that is as invisible as the lwa.

Posted by: thardman | January 15, 2010 1:32 PMReport Offensive Comment

The alchemistry in Haiti is oddly ready to harm people with poisons and even death at a whim, with no moral compass about it at all, whatsoever. When what goes on there gets away, the will to use poison potions on people doesn't stay behind in Haiti.

Was this quake from bad mining practices? What Country is behind it? It has been the top question for days.

Posted by: dottydo | January 15, 2010 1:25 PMReport Offensive Comment

The reason there is so much strife between religions, is because so few people respect the religions of others. I would expect that Voudou, like Christianity, Judaism and Islam, is experienced and lived in a variety of ways. To see it as satan worship or evil, is just childish rantings of people with closed minds.

Posted by: paris1969 | January 15, 2010 1:15 PMReport Offensive Comment

Voodoo is not Satan worship in the sense that most people think of when they say ""Satan worship."" It is a syncretism between monotheism (with Judeo-Christian leanings) and animism. This is not unusual in the history of humanity. It is similar to the Native Americans' traditional religions, most of which have a concept of a Great Spirit along with spirits of animals, trees, rocks, rivers, etc. The ancient Greeks and Romans worshipped many gods (mostly nature gods) but also revered Zeus (Jupiter) as the All-Powerful God over all.

From the Christian point of view, though, all of these religions violate the command from God to ""have no other gods before Me."" The Apostle Paul told the New Testament Christians that the gods of the people around them were not gods at all but rather demons in the service of Satan. Thus, Voodoo is Satan worship, but at several removes. By these criteria, most of humanity could be labeled Satan worshipers -- including most Christians, who often worship the gods of money, power, greed, gluttony, pride, etc. Such criteria may be helpful within a Christian church, to let the Christians understand how utterly lost people are without Christ. However, it is very unhelpful to point the finger at people and accuse them of being Satan worshippers. And

Posted by: dmm1 | January 15, 2010 1:09 PMReport Offensive Comment

If more individuals practiced the respect for Mother Earth as urged in Vodou, the world would be a better place for all of us. Sadly, it wouldn't prevent earthquakes, but it would mitigate myriad other ""natural"" disasters that are at least in part human-made: for example, the destruction of wetlands are coastal areas leading to the devastation from Hurricaine Katrina. My heart goes out to Haïti Chérie and her people.

Posted by: CellBioProf | January 15, 2010 12:39 PMReport Offensive Comment

This article validates what Pat Robertson declared. Voodoo is satan worhip with sacrifices offered to satan. Half of the population of Haiti practices Voodoo.

God is very opposed to satan worship as He has shared many times in His Word. There are consequences, such as living way below your potential.

Repent and call upon Jesus and He will give you life.

Posted by: randfb | January 15, 2010 12:39 PMReport Offensive Comment

This article validates what Pat Robertson declared. Voodoo is satan worhip with sacrifices offered to satan. Half of the population of Haiti practices Voodoo.

God is very opposed to satan worship as He has shared many times in His Word. There are consequences, such as living way below your potential.

Repent and call upon Jesus and He will give you life.

Posted by: randfb | January 15, 2010 12:38 PMReport Offensive Comment

""Voodoo is evil and satanic. This article is BS."" Posted by: MM55 | January

If you knew anything about voodou, you would know what you just wrote is BS. And truly beside the point.

Posted by: racheljean | January 15, 2010 12:19 PMReport Offensive Comment

Voodoo is evil and satanic. This article is BS.

Posted by: MM55 | January 15, 2010 11:49 AMReport Offensive Comment

Deforestation and other bad ecological practices have done major damage to land and soil of Haiti that is true. However: The fault triggered the earthquake miles below the surface. Whether Haiti was a totally barren toxic waste dump or a pristine virgin forest untouched by “man kind”, the ground still would have shook just the same.

Posted by: rexreddy | January 15, 2010 11:35 AMReport Offensive Comment","The vodoo priest is not speaking about divine retribution, as has Pat Robertson.  God is not punishing us for disobedience. It's a natural rebalancing act, a reaction against human dealings with the ecosystem."
"A young girl looks on at French soldiers patrolling at the Roissy Charles de Gaulle airport, in Roissy, north of Paris, Saturday, Jan. 17, 2015. France ordered 10,000 troops into the streets Monday to protect sensitive sites — nearly half of them to guard Jewish schools — as it hunted for accomplices to the Islamic militants who left 17 people dead as they terrorized the nation. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus) (The Associated Press)

FILE - In this Dec. 15, 2014 file photo thousands of participants of a rally called 'Patriotic Europeans against the Islamization of the West' (PEGIDA) gather in Dresden, eastern Germany. The group said Sunday Jan. 18, 2015 it is calling off a rally planned next week in the city of Dresden because of a threat against one of its organizers. The group calling itself PEGIDA, or Patriotic Europeans against the Islamization of the West, has organized rallies every Monday in the eastern German city. Last week's event drew the biggest crowd yet, with police estimating some 25,000 people attended. It called on supporters to instead hang flags out of their windows and light candles on Monday evening. Banner reads : Nonviolent and United against Faith Wars on German soil. AP Photo/Jens Meyer) (The Associated Press)

PARIS – French police have released three women arrested Friday and will continue to interrogate nine others who were detained in an anti-terror sweep connected to last week's attacks in Paris that has put Europe on high alert.

Paris prosecutor spokesman Denis Fauriat said the nine suspects will have their interrogations prolonged by 48 hours, a step allowed under France's tough anti-terror laws.

Police in France, Germany, Belgium and Ireland have arrested dozens of suspects in recent days as part of the crackdown on terrorism sparked by last week's bloody spree in and around Paris, in which brothers Said and Cherif Kouachi and their friend Amedy Coulibaly killed 17 people at the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, a kosher grocery, and elsewhere.

Fallout from the attacks has spread around the world. Demonstrations in support of the murdered Charlie Hebdo journalists have been held in countries from the United States to Brazil, and violent protests against the magazine's depictions of the Prophet Muhammad have taken place in Niger, Pakistan and Algeria.

French authorities banned an anti-Islamist demonstration in Paris Sunday, and a German group protesting what it calls ""the Islamization of the West"" called off a rally planned in the eastern city of Dresden on Monday after a terrorist threat against one of its organizers.

Meanwhile, Italy's interior minister said that nine suspected jihadis have been expelled from the Mediterranean country since December, and vowed more expulsions in a heightened crackdown on terrorism.

In Belgium, police on Thursday launched a vast anti-terrorism sweep in and around Brussels and the eastern industrial city of Verviers, which left two suspects dead. Police say the suspects were within hours of implementing a plan to kill police.

On Saturday, soldiers fanned out to guard possible terror targets in Belgium while police in Greece detained at least two terrorism suspects.

Authorities say there was no apparent link between the foiled plots in Belgium and the terror attacks in Paris.

President Francois Hollande said France was ""waging war"" on terrorism and it showed on the streets of Paris and elsewhere, where 122,000 police and well-armed troops have been deployed to protect the country.

Two of the three terrorists responsible for the attacks in France were buried over the weekend. Said Kouachi was buried in Reims in eastern France and his younger brother Cherif was buried in a suburb of Paris. Both were given anonymous graves in a bid to prevent their tombs from being turned into shrines for radicals.

There has been no word on burial plans for Coulibaly, the third Paris gunman who murdered five people before he was killed by police Jan. 9.",French police released three women from questioning but continued Sunday to interrogate nine other people detained in an anti-terror sweep connected to last week's attacks in Paris that have put...
"SANTIAGO, Chile – A 6.4-magnitude earthquake rocked the region around Valparaiso, Chile on Saturday, the U.S. Geological Survey reported.

There were no immediate reports of injuries or serious damage from the strong quake that occurred at 7:32 p.m. Eastern Time, but electricity and telephone service was interrupted in some areas. Three aftershocks were registered in the area shortly thereafter.

The seismological service initially reported the initial quake's magnitude as 6.6, but later downgraded it to 6.4.

A preliminary report showed the quake was centered in the Valparaiso area about 11 miles west-northwest of a community called Hacienda La Calera, around 73 miles from the capital of Santiago. It had a depth of about 19 miles.","A 6.4-magnitude earthquake rocked the region around Valparaiso, Chile on Saturday, the U.S. Geological Survey reported."
"Pawnee, Indiana, the fictional setting of the NBC comedy Parks and Recreation, which stars Amy Poehler as peppy bureaucrat Leslie Knope, does not exist. That’s because it’s, well, fictional.

But on the Internet, Pawnee has a life of its own, and it’s more robust than many real-life municipalities. On the official City of Pawnee site, bare-bones web design straight out of the ’90s shows off pictures of the city’s parks. (In typical local-government fashion, multiple pages are under construction or out of order.) Every member of Pawnee’s city council — characters who rarely appear on the show for more than a few minutes — has their own biography. The site is full of the low-budget charm you’d expect from a town whose motto is “First in friendship, fourth in obesity.”

And it doesn’t stop there: Ron Swanson, Leslie’s curmudgeonly lumberjack of a mentor played by Nick Offerman, has a website devoted to grilling. There’s a website for Leslie’s city council campaign that features an extensive political platform and downloadable campaign song. And for every flashy business idea Tom Haverford (Aziz Ansari) dreams up, you can be sure there’s a flashy website, too.

These sites are how NBC brings Pawnee to life in a non-TV medium. The network is no stranger to digital extensions of its programs — content for the web and mobile devices outside of a show’s main episodes — but in the past year, its efforts have ramped up. While Parks and Recreation isn’t the network’s leader in ratings or social-media engagement, it’s a prime example of how episodic television can use the Internet to transform the weekly fan experience into a 24-hour one.

“The show is on 30 minutes a week,” says Robert Hayes, executive vice-president of digital media at NBC Entertainment. “[The web] gives us a platform to extend the characters’ storyline beyond that, not only as the season goes on, but between seasons. The whole objective is to have a relationship with the fans. I don’t think we realized how powerful it could be, or has become.”

(VIDEO: WATCH: Vice President Joe Biden’s Cameo on Parks and Recreation)

If these web extras seem steeped in Parks lore, that’s because they come straight from the source. NBC employs embedded digital writers who work with the show’s regular writing staff to create additional material, while digital producers review scripts months in advance to scout for opportunities. Careful consideration goes into deciding what gets the push: When producers noticed that Tom Haverford’s apparel rental company Rent-a-Swag would make multiple appearances throughout the season, they made it a priority, creating a Pinterest page showing off dozens of looks. Before producers launched Ron Swanson’s Grilling webpage, they made sure they stayed true to one of the show’s most beloved characters.

“The fans really loved it because it was something they could believe was possible,” says Joya Balfour, a supervising producer for NBC.com who oversees digital content for a handful of shows, including Parks. “We are careful when we do these deeper extensions that they all make sense, that the fans would say, ‘Of course he would do that.’”

Social media also plays a huge role across NBC’s digital initiatives, and Parks is no exception. In fact, Parks’ most popular digital incarnation is its official Tumblr, which catalogs the show’s most shareable moments in bite-sized bits, like Tom and Donna’s rallying cry for self-pampering, “Treat Yo Self!” , which became a viral meme last year (the #treatyoself hashtag is still active on Twitter). But social media content also fleshes out Pawnee’s colorful characters. In one episode this past October, Leslie’s beau Ben Wyatt (Adam Scott) pops in a mixtape during a cross-country drive. While viewers only hear a bit of what’s on the CD in the episode, by the time it aired, a complete Spotify playlist of “Benji’s Cool Times Summer Jamz Mix” was already live and waiting for fans.

“Ten, 20 years ago, you would just talk at the water cooler about that great quote from Cheers last night,” Balfour says. “Now it’s, ‘Did you share that meme that Parks posted on their Tumblr last night?’ That’s how it’s translated now.”

(VIDEO: TV Tonight: Parks and Recreation Goes Big and Goes Home)

Interacting with audiences isn’t just about getting them in front of a TV, or even a particular site. Whether you’re watching The Walking Dead or The X Factor, it’s increasingly about bringing a program’s content to whatever feeds and screens the audience is paying attention to, according to Matthias Puschmann, a founding partner and managing director of VAST MEDIA, a Berlin-based agency that analyzes digital and social extensions of television programs.

“We’ve seen a lot of activity in the online sphere of promoting new formats or engaging audiences, trying to turn them into real ambassadors for their shows,” Puschmann says. “Broadcasters are engaging with audiences and creating social buzz at the same time people are posting and commenting.”

Though Puschmann says he’s noticed a surge of shows creating digital content in the past two to three years, NBC’s interest in creating online worlds actually has some history, dating back to the early years of The Office. In 2006, between the second and third seasons of the show, NBC debuted a handful of Office webisodes, short videos that focused on the show’s supporting characters (and were co-written by Parks co-creator Michael Schur. The experiment wasn’t the first use of the format, but it was a turning point for the team behind it.

“That was this seminal moment when we realized there was this fan base out there that really was searching and wanting more content than we could give them,” Balfour says. “They would just eat it up.”

From there, experimentation continued: Multiple sites like the official Dunder Mifflin and Princess Unicorn doll pages popped up, while character-themed blogs and Twitter accounts were launched as social-networking sites got big. Some of the efforts came from cast members themselves — actor Rainn Wilson wrote his Dwight Schrute character’s blog in the beginning — while others, like a regular Dunder Mifflin newsletter that’s gone out each month for several years, come from writers.

(VIDEO: WATCH: The Dunder Mifflin Ad that Aired in Scranton During the Super Bowl)

So why do NBC and other networks continue to put so much effort into the details? “Ultimately, it’s about driving ratings,” Hayes says. “The goal is to reinforce your enthusiasm about the show and ultimately watch the show.”

But digital initiatives aren’t always about quickly converting captive eyeballs into dollars. On sites like the City of Pawnee page or the Knope 2012 campaign, ad placement is minimal. With the exception of one ad at the top of the main Parks site, there’s not much directing you back to more official NBC content. And while many of the sites have an e-commerce component, too, the items offered — Ron Swanson’s barbecue sauce, for example — are amusing concepts in and of themselves. These extensions are about building a strong connection with fans — and having a good time doing so.

And if the success of ABC Family’s Pretty Little Liars is any indication — a show that despite unremarkable ratings maintains an incredibly loyal and active social media following — learning how to keep new and old fans entertained online might just be one of the best investments you can make in today’s ever-evolving television landscape.

“You can definitely identify the shows [where] fans would appreciate and want to engage with extra material,” Balfour says. “That’s why we’re putting it out there. It’s just that whole fun factor. What more can I get? What can I share with my friends?”

MORE: The Office Closing: Seven Unforgettable Moments",The digital strategies behind TV shows like NBC's 'Parks and Recreation' are a balanced mix of creativity and commerce
"President Barack Obama speaks at a bipartisan meeting of congressional leaders as House Speaker John Boehner looks on, Nov. 16, 2012 in Washington.

“The ground of liberty,” wrote Thomas Jefferson, “is gained by inches.” Wise counsel, yes, for patience amid the tribulations of political life, which is inherently contentious and can never leave everyone happy about everything.

There are moments, though, when the hour has to be seized if we’re to gain those inches, and for President Obama, this is such a moment.

In terms of the fiscal issues facing the country, every day that passes slowly but inexorably erodes the re-elected President’s leverage over the process that a majority of voting Americans just charged him with leading. House Speaker John Boehner has suggested that 2013 is the year to settle the pending questions of taxing and spending, but 2013 is all that nearer to congressional elections and all that farther from Obama’s victory. The clock is not the President’s friend.

(MORE: Why We Should Go over the Fiscal Cliff)

To say the least, columns offering advice to a man who just joined Wilson, FDR and Clinton as a two-term Democratic President are of limited utility. He knows politics, and by his own admission, his opponents have made him a “better President.” So he knows that power, like affection, is fleeting.

It’s the rest of us, I think, who need to insist that Washington face the issues that were delayed from the summer of 2011 until now. Obama can’t do this alone, and one suspects that even he knows this by now.

But he can begin to lay the rhetorical groundwork that puts the pressure — and thus the political blame — on the Republicans if we go over the cliff. President Obama has a relatively recent precedent for this: Bill Clinton managed to defeat the Republicans over a threatened government shutdown in the mid-1990s. And we know that the 42nd President stands ready to offer as much counsel as the 44th needs.

MORE: Why Obama’s Second Term Isn’t Doomed",Delaying an agreement on the fiscal cliff only makes the re-elected president's ultimate task more difficult
"Think of ways to improve global health and you might suggest increasing the number of vaccinations, finding new drugs or employing more doctors.

But biologist and genetics entrepreneur Linda Avey, believes the answer is data. Lot of data.

Dr Avey is the co-founder of personal genomics company 23andMe.

She believes that sensors and test give us the ability to collect data about our bodies that has until now been invisible. This, coupled with advances in computer technology that allow us to store and process massive amounts of data, will have a transformative effect on health care, she says.

The Alzheimer’s researcher envisages a day when all of us routinely collect information about our bodies, allowing doctors to spot vital changes and diagnose disease much earlier than before.

If you would like to comment on this video or anything else you have seen on Future, head over to our Facebook page or message us on Twitter.",How the blistering pace of technological change could have a profound impact on healthcare.
"By Haya El Nasser, USA TODAY

A controversial amendment that would require the

to ask for the first time whether people are in the USA illegally is headed for a Senate vote Wednesday.

Proposed last week by Republican Sens. David Vitter of Louisiana and Bob Bennett of Utah, the amendment would exclude illegal immigrants from the population count used to allocate congressional seats after the 2010 Census. It also would require the Census to ask people whether they are citizens.

""Illegal aliens should not be included for the purposes of determining representation in Congress, and that's the bottom line here,"" Vitter says. If enacted, the amendment to an appropriations bill would stop funding of the 2010 Census unless the changes are made.

The amendment comes less than six months before 2010 Census questionnaires are mailed to 135 million households. About 425 million forms have already been printed, according to the bureau. Some are in different languages; others are duplicates that will go to houses that do not respond to the first mailing.

The Census Bureau is launching an outreach campaign to persuade Americans that next year's national head count will be a simple, painless process.

The ""Take 10"" campaign promotes the idea that the Census form has only 10 questions and should take just 10 minutes to answer. Adding questions would require designing new forms. ""It's operationally impossible,"" says Steve Jost, Census associate communications director. ""The forms are printed, folded. We have bilingual forms. ... We're printing 1.5 million forms a day.""

By law, the Census is taken April 1. State population counts must be submitted to the president the following Dec. 31 so that seats in the House of Representatives can be apportioned.

Since the first Census in 1790, the bureau has routinely asked in various surveys whether people are native-born or foreign-born, but it has never asked about legal status.

Immigrants often are the hardest to count because many mistrust government, especially if they are in the USA illegally. Crackdowns on illegal immigration at the border and at work sites have made outreach for next year's Census even more challenging.

Some Latino groups such as the National Coalition of Latino Clergy and Christian Leaders are calling for immigrants to boycott the Census unless laws are changed to give those here illegally a chance to gain legal status.

""Already the public fears that the Census is too intrusive,"" says Arturo Vargas, executive director of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials, which opposes both the amendment and the boycott.

""Asking about citizenship status ""would raise more questions in the public mind about how confidential the Census is,"" Vargas says.

You share in the USA TODAY community, so please keep your comments smart and civil. Don't attack other readers personally, and keep your language decent. Use the ""Report Abuse"" button to make a difference.",A controversial amendment that would require the Census Bureau to ask for the first time whether people are in the USA illegally is headed for a Senate vote Wednesday.
"Photo: Mike Kepka, The Chronicle

A garbage trucks with Recology, San Francisco trash collection service, prepares to dump a load of trash at the Transfer station, nick named ""The Pit"", on Friday Sep. 11, 2009 in San Francisco, Calif. Recology is now talking about changing there landfill location to Yuba County - located about 40 miles north of Sacramento.

A garbage trucks with Recology, San Francisco trash collection service, prepares to dump a load of trash at the Transfer station, nick named ""The Pit"", on Friday Sep. 11, 2009 in San Francisco, Calif. Recology

Bulldozers crush garbage before itês loaded onto large trucks that take the material to landfills. Recology's transfer station is one of the busiest places for the company. San Francisco is preparing to award a new landfill contract to Recology, the garbage company that picks of the city's rubbish, recyclables and compostable Wednesday July 20, 2011.

Bulldozers crush garbage before itês loaded onto large trucks that take the material to landfills. Recology's transfer station is one of the busiest places for the company. San Francisco is preparing to award

Marcus Tiger, center, Alfredo Guzman, right, and Maurice Lige, left, assemble compost bins and get them ready for delivery at the transfer station in San Francisco, Calif., Monday, November 21, 2011. Recology is about to hit one million tons of compost since they began in 1996.

Marcus Tiger, center, Alfredo Guzman, right, and Maurice Lige, left, assemble compost bins and get them ready for delivery at the transfer station in San Francisco, Calif., Monday, November 21, 2011. Recology

Sweeper Joaquin Rivera moves trash onto the dump floor at the Recology Transfer Station 501, Tuesday July 26, 2011, in San Francisco, Calif. The San Francisco Board of Supervisors are expected to approve a controversial contract to send tons of San Francisco trash by way of train to Yuba City.

Sweeper Joaquin Rivera moves trash onto the dump floor at the Recology Transfer Station 501, Tuesday July 26, 2011, in San Francisco, Calif. The San Francisco Board of Supervisors are expected to approve a

Robert Reed, of the Recology Waste Zero, finds phonebooks in the piles of recycle, Monday January 31, 2011, in San Francisco, Calif. The recycling plant processes 750 tons of glass and paper combined a day. It's unknown how much of that are yellow pages and phonebooks, but it is thought of as an environmental problem.

Robert Reed, of the Recology Waste Zero, finds phonebooks in the piles of recycle, Monday January 31, 2011, in San Francisco, Calif. The recycling plant processes 750 tons of glass and paper combined a day.

Seagulls pick their way through the transfer station at Recology. Recology's transfer station is one of the busiest places for the company. San Francisco is preparing to award a new landfill contract to Recology, the garbage company that picks of the city's rubbish, recyclables and compostable Wednesday July 20, 2011.

Seagulls pick their way through the transfer station at Recology. Recology's transfer station is one of the busiest places for the company. San Francisco is preparing to award a new landfill contract to

Movers and shakers oppose ending trash monopoly

San Francisco's Democratic, Republican and Green parties are rarely on the same side of a political tussle. The Chamber of Commerce doesn't play well with the San Francisco Labor Council and the San Francisco Tenants Union is almost never an ally of the city's Building Owners and Managers Association.

But these groups and almost every other maker and shaker in the city oppose Proposition A on the June 5 ballot, a measure that could end Recology's 80-year monopoly on garbage collection in San Francisco by forcing the first competitive bid on that contract since the Depression era.

""This is so clearly a bad measure that every group in the city has come out against it,"" said Steve Falk, president and CEO of the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce.

But while Falk and others see that overwhelming opposition as a vote of confidence in Recology, backers of the measure say it's just another example of the political and economic clout the waste disposal company has developed over its decades of working with city leaders.

""Luke Skywalker had an easier time blowing up the Death Star than we have going against the garbage company,"" said Tony Kelly, a Potrero Hill activist who joined former judge and city Supervisor Quentin Kopp to put the initiative on the ballot. ""As well connected as Recology is, it's not difficult to call in all the relationships they've collected over the years.""

Proposition A would end a system voters approved in 1932 that gave Recology and its predecessors, Norcal Waste Systems, Sunset Scavengers and Golden Gate Disposal, a monopoly on trash collection.

The city would be required to split the garbage contract into five separate pieces, covering residential and commercial trash collection, recovering and processing of recyclables, transportation to disposal sites outside the city and disposal of any remaining wastes.

The same company wouldn't be allowed to hold all the contracts. The Board of Supervisors would set all garbage rates and the city would be required to own the garbage-processing and transfer stations.

It's the specter of increasing city involvement in the garbage business that worries many of the measure's opponents.

""Our members don't want to see the politicization of the rate setting,"" said Ken Cleaveland, a vice president of the building owners association, which represents commercial property owners across the city.

For others, it's a matter of ""If it's not broke, don't fix it."" Recology's crews collect the garbage regularly and have helped put San Francisco on the forefront of the growing environmental effort to keep trash out of landfills by an increasing emphasis on recycling and composting.

""This is a measure in search of a problem,"" said Falk. ""Our rates are right in the middle of the pack for Bay Area communities and the company has a close working relationship with the city."" But Proposition A doesn't threaten service, said Kelly. Recology could still bid for the contracts and the city could insist on maintaining the current standards.

What the measure would ensure is that the city gets the best deal possible for its valuable garbage contracts, which Kelly and Kopp have suggested could bring as much as $50 million in franchise fees for the city, a figure opponents dispute.

""This isn't public power,"" Kelly said. ""All we want to do is handle trash collection the way the city handles every other franchise.""

But those arguments haven't found an audience. Proposition A supporters have raised little money and Kelly glumly said, ""There's no campaign at all.""

It's a different story on the other side. A $100,000 contribution from Recology has helped put ""Don't Mess with Success"" billboards across the city and paid for a professional campaign. Teams of supporters, including workers from the employee-owned company, have knocked on doors, handed out literature and made their pitches to the Democratic clubs and other neighborhood organizations that are at the heart of the city's grassroots politics.

The opposition's list of supporters includes seven of the 11 members of the Board of Supervisors, all four of the city's state legislators, 15 Democratic clubs and organizations and a variety of the city's ethnic, environmental, labor and good government groups.

Having a heavily unionized company with a good reputation and deep roots in the city was a huge plus going into the campaign, but it's not enough to win, said Gale Kaufman, the Sacramento political consultant running the campaign.

""It doesn't matter what the politics are,"" she said. ""If people thought there was a problem, there would be money on the other side.""

John Wildermuth is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. jwildermuth@sfchronicle.com","[...] these groups and almost every other maker and shaker in the city oppose Proposition A on the June 5 ballot, a measure that could end Recology's 80-year monopoly on garbage collection in San Francisco by forcing the first competitive bid on that contract since the Depression era.  [...] while Falk and others see that overwhelming opposition as a vote of confidence in Recology, backers of the measure say it's just another example of the political and economic clout the waste disposal company has developed over its decades of working with city leaders.  Proposition A would end a system voters approved in 1932 that gave Recology and its predecessors, Norcal Waste Systems, Sunset Scavengers and Golden Gate Disposal, a monopoly on trash collection.  The city would be required to split the garbage contract into five separate pieces, covering residential and commercial trash collection, recovering and processing of recyclables, transportation to disposal sites outside the city and disposal of any remaining wastes.  Teams of supporters, including workers from the employee-owned company, have knocked on doors, handed out literature and made their pitches to the Democratic clubs and other neighborhood organizations that are at the heart of the city's grassroots politics.  The opposition's list of supporters includes seven of the 11 members of the Board of Supervisors, all four of the city's state legislators, 15 Democratic clubs and organizations and a variety of the city's ethnic, environmental, labor and good government groups."
"As Sen. Barack Obama strode onto the stage in the cavernous ballroom Saturday night, the audience jumped up, shouting, singing and clapping along with his campaign theme song, Stevie Wonder's ""Signed, Sealed, Delivered, I'm Yours.""

That full-throated welcome from the huge, overwhelmingly African American audience at a Congressional Black Caucus dinner was tinged with growing confidence that victory -- and history -- may be within reach.

Recent polls show Obama opening up a lead over Sen. John McCain, both nationally and in some key battleground states, particularly on economic issues. The consensus among many analysts was that Obama held his own in last week's debate, which focused mainly on foreign policy, an issue considered one of his Republican rival's strengths. And Obama's black supporters continue to maintain a disciplined, united front, eschewing internal debates that could undermine his candidacy.

""I'm just feeling very strong and confident,"" said Kevin White a commissioner from Hillsborough County, Fla., who attended the caucus dinner.

""I am not ready to declare victory, but in my heart I'm starting to feel it,"" said Godfrey Jacobs, a public health consultant from Baltimore. ""I think back in the primaries there was a point where you could sense momentum. I'm sensing that momentum again.""

Jacobs and others quickly qualified their comments, noting their concerns about overconfidence and that, in the end, too many white voters will not vote for a black man.

Jesse L. Jackson agreed that the campaign was moving Obama's way but warned against complacency. ""While we've got [McCain] against the ropes, we have to keep on pressing,"" he said.

Corey Ealons, a spokesman for the Obama campaign, said: ""I would add that people should not rest on their laurels. They are the final link in the chain in getting this done.""

Former congressman Major R. Owens (N.Y.) said he was ""upbeat"" about Obama's chances, pointing to what he viewed as mistakes by McCain, including his choice of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate. ""McCain's been very good to us,"" Owens said.

Spokesmen for the McCain campaign did not respond to requests for a comment on this article.

Otha Davis, a retired Los Angeles police detective, said he was ""hopeful but scared.""

A few weeks ago, Davis had watched nervously as Obama's lead in the polls faded after Palin's nomination and under withering attacks from the McCain campaign. Davis railed at television commentators and complained to his friend Linnie Bailey, a politically active black woman from Riverside, Calif., that Obama needed to fight back. Bailey would talk him down.",Follow 2008 Elections & Campaigns at washingtonpost.com.
"Brandeis International Business School students took first, second, and third place in the weeklong game against Ivy League students to see who would be the most successful Wall Street-style tycoon.

Ansarada, an Australian data company used by global investment banks to distribute documents to potential investors securely, created the mergers and acquisitions game and unleashed it among a select group of finance students, dubbing it an event for “Legends in the M&Aking.”

Xiaomin Han, the 26-year-old first place winner.

While the “M&A Game” app is widely available, the competition was open only to students from Brandeis, Columbia University, the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, and Yale University.

Players create an avatar, name their holding company, and choose from qualities they want to possess in negotiations, such as charisma, or, yes, deception. Players then begin making quick decisions based on opportunities they are presented to buy and sell companies based on their bottom line performance. Success can bring with it the chance to own private jets and yachts.

Xiaomin Han, the 26-year-old first-place winner, said she haggled and cajoled her way to the number one spot during the buying and selling competition, seizing quickly on offers as they popped up and never paying top dollar for a company she wanted to buy.

She said she ended the competition with 150 in imaginary tech and telecom companies and capital of $45 trillion in her portfolio.

Han, a native of Shanghai, is a soft-spoken would-be business magnate. The Brandeis graduate student was an environmental studies undergraduate major at the University of Minnesota who admires entrepreneur Elon Musk. At one point, she said, she owned so many companies (400) that her iPhone began to slow, prompting her to sell some.

The final results from the M&L Game competition, with Brandeis finance students landing the top three spots ahead of their Ivy League competitors.

She said it helped that she checked the game on her phone every 10 minutes during her waking hours to look for new business opportunities. The game brought out the competitive streak in Han, who graduates Brandeis in May.

“You have to walk away from companies that aren’t the right price,” said Han, who likes solving math and physics puzzles and working out in her free time. She added that she continued to check her phone even while at the gym.

She said she didn’t think much about her opponents, most of whom she has never met, except when she checked the standings.

“This is something I find really, really fun,” she said. “It’s not about beating other people, but doing the best on my own and seeing how many things I can make possible.”

Her fellow Brandeis students, Angie Wu, 22 of Quincy, and Riddhish Rege, 23, a Mumbai native who lives in Boston, took second and third respectively.

Ansarada will host a winners reception on Friday in New York to award them $2,000, $1,500, and $1,000 for first, second, and third place, respectively. They will also be introduced to investment firm executives that will be in attendance and may be interested in recruiting them.

Adam Goodman, a director at Ansarada’s New York office, said all the participants could one day be clients of Ansarada. “Nice job, Boston,’’ Goodman said. “And it’s not often you’re going to hear a New Yorker say that.”","Brandeis students took first, second, and third place in a game to see who would be the most successful Wall Street-style tycoon."
"Sopheap Pich, Cambodia’s leading contemporary artist, says his woven bamboo-and-rattan installation at this year’s Singapore Biennale “references the cycle of building and destroying,” something he sees every day from his studio on the Mekong River, where the banks on one side are collapsing opposite massive new real estate projects on the other.

The 39-year old artist, who lives outside Phnom Penh, says his early works were inspired by Buddhist sculptures and human organs. But “Compound” — a 400 centimeter x 250 centimeter x 250 centimeter-group of cylindrical and rectangular shapes made of bamboo strips — marks a shift, he says. “It is about something outside now. Before I was more preoccupied with the human interior,” he says.

“Compound,” which took eight months to create, currently takes pride of place in the main foyer of the National Museum of Singapore.

Elsewhere, Mr. Pich’s work is gaining international renown. In San Francisco, his work is on display as part of a group show that continues until October at the Asian Art Museum. He will have a solo museum show at the University of Washington in Seattle in the autumn.

“He has amazing technique and uses these unusual materials,” says Tyler Rollins, a New York dealer specializing in contemporary Southeast Asian art. “The works speak for themselves with a solemnity that people pick up on. His career is moving in a steady forward-trajectory because his work has a universality. He has a unique way of working yet is familiar with the international vocabulary and dialog but is not copying.”

Mr. Rollins’ eponymous gallery in the Chelsea district will feature Mr. Pich’s art later this year. Except for a large piece best suited for a museum, everything sold at the sculptor’s first American show, held by Mr. Rollins in 2009. Next year, the artist will also have a solo exhibit at Hong Kong’s 10 Chancery Lane Gallery.

As a boy in 1979, Mr. Pich and his family fled their home in Cambodia, which had just been invaded by Vietnam. They became refugees in a camp in Thailand, until 1984 when they were resettled in America, where they became citizens. Attending the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, he switched from pre-med to painting. In 1999, he graduated from the prestigious Art Institute of Chicago with a fine arts master’s degree.

He explains that he left America, where his parents and siblings still live, because he missed Cambodia and “was just tired of doing meaningless things to stay alive in the U.S. The idea of being an artist in that environment made less and less sense.”

As a struggling artist he had jobs ranging from real-estate agent to counselor to interpreter. He recalls: “I was driving all the time to different parts of Massachusetts. All the time was lost.”

In 2002, as he was on the road again trying to make a living, a friend happened to call, asking: “Are you lost?” Mr. Pich replied: “Yes.” Two days later he went to buy an air ticket to return to Cambodia for the first time. He says it is a total coincidence that he landed in Phnom Penh on Nov. 9, Cambodian independence day.

Mr. Pich is currently working on a five-meter-high sculpture inspired by the Morning Glory plant, a staple food in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge. Those who lived through that era “remember this very cheap and abundant plant because we owe our survival to Morning Glory,” he says.

Get Scene in your inbox by subscribing to our daily newsletter.",A Cambodian artist’s distinctive bamboo-and-rattan sculptures are drawing international acclaim.
"Jockey Michelle Payne couldn't remember winning the Melbourne Cup after a horror fall in Mildura in May. (AAP)

Melbourne Cup-winning jockey Michelle Payne briefly forgot her historic victory in the aftermath of a horror fall at Mildura.

Payne was flown to Melbourne’s Alfred Hospital on May 23, where she underwent surgery for a torn pancreas after her horse stepped on her as she fell.

She told radio RSN that the trauma also affected her memory, particularly aboard Prince of Penzance.

“""I couldn't remember winning the Melbourne Cup initially and had to Google it.

""It's nice to win the Melbourne Cup for a second time,” she said.

She also remembered the fall, but not reaching the ground.

Payne narrowly avoided becoming a diabetic from the fall.

""The doctors explained that I must have been stood on in the abdomen area and all the other organs can get out of the way but the pancreas is sort of stuck at the back,"" Payne told the radio station.

""They are very confident I'll make a full recovery.

""It would have been a real pain in the arse to become a diabetic.

""I have to rest for the next four weeks because of the risk of hernia.

""I can do a bit of (stationary) bike riding and a lot of walking and build up a bit of core strength.

When asked whether she would ride again, she said her first thoughts were that she would definitely get back on a horse. However, she experienced moments of doubt.

""I'm pretty strong willed and tend to do what I want to do,"" she said.

""I have to live my life the way I want and want to take my time to make my decision.

""Initially I probably did feel I would I make a comeback, but it takes a lot of dedication and energy to do that.

""I have to make sure I've got the energy to put in 100 percent.""

Payne will be licensed to train and ride from August 1.",Melbourne Cup-winning jockey Michelle Payne will take her time deciding whether she returns to race riding.
"Wolf is another entrepreneur in the ecosystem that has surrounded the actual buying and selling of marijuana since Coloradans voted for recreational use in 2012. His company, Cultivating Spirits, puts on gourmet multi-course meals in which various cannabis strains are paired with wines, appetizers, entrees and desserts. A cannabis-themed wedding convention seemed a logical venture for the pair.

""To have an event that looks very normalized for people outside the cannabis industry, that's very important for the growth of the cannabis industry,"" says Wolf. With sandy hair flowing past the shoulders of his dark blazer on expo day, he looks like the Allman Brother who went to business school. ""We need people from other states and countries to look at Colorado and say, 'Wow, they are doing it the right way.'""

Colorado and Washington voters passed recreational marijuana legalization on the same day back in 2012, but Colorado put the law into effect six months before Washington. The state has enjoyed cutting-edge status in the popular imagination since. It's now the petri dish of American legalization, but not all has gone perfectly. Talk to enough of the more cynical Coloradans, and a picture emerges: You can sell the stuff, but you can't put the money anywhere; you can buy the stuff, but you can't smoke it anywhere.

Federal law still deems marijuana a serious offense, making it essentially a cash business in the state. That's absurd, considering that 2015 Colorado marijuana sales have a good chance of hitting $1 billion when final numbers come in next month. From a consumer's perspective, you can only smoke (or even take marijuana edibles) on private property with the owner's permission. But just what constitutes private property and permission isn't always so easily defined.

Those hiccups pale compared to recent gains, according to all I speak with in Denver. But Wolf's point is essential: Steady normalization will be key to the industry's growth and mainstream acceptance. It's a wise and noble outlook from the expo cofounder.

Meanwhile, I enter the Cannabis Wedding Expo with a philosophy of my own: When your editors say you can get high for work, you should definitely get high for work.",Two lucrative markets (weed and weddings) under one roof. Talk about green.
"Mayor Bloomberg ... the Broadway star? It must just be the Inner Circle charity dinner, an annual roast of City Hall journalists and politicians! Bloomberg's rebuttal performance, held this year at the New York Hilton Hotel on March 23, 2013, featured the mayor being joined on stage by the casts of four Broadway shows, including ""Rock of Ages,"" Nice Work If You Can Get It"" and ""Annie."" Here, Bloomberg gets a lift from the ladies of ""Nice Work If You Can Get It"" while performing in his last Inner Circle Dinner. Check out more photos of the mayor hamming it up ...

The mayor gets cheeky! Performing with the cast of ""Rock of Ages,"" Mayor Bloomberg unleashed his inner rock star, strumming a guitar while donning a leather jacket. When the ""Rock of Ages"" cast jokingly told the mayor he's been elected as the new pope, he quipped, ""I’ve been a chief executive so long, I don’t know if I could be a number two.""

Could a spot on ""Dancing With the Stars"" be up next for Mayor Bloomberg after his time in office? The mayor certainly had his hands full, dancing with the cast of ""Nice Work If You Can Get It."" In another skit with the ""Annie"" cast, the mayor and his fellow actors poked fun at Hurricane Sandy. Every time Annie's dog Sandy was mentioned, Bloomberg, along with the rest of the actors, reacted in horror.

Mayor Bloomberg also had a little fun at New Jersey Governor Chris Christie's expense. Speaking about Sandy, Bloomberg said, “for me, when I hear that name I expect Chris Christie to hug me.”

Who knew the mayor was such a showman? Bloomberg danced on stage at the 91st annual show, which was entitled ""Last Gulp.""

This wasn't the first time Mayor Bloomberg, who was joined here by the cast of ""Rock of Ages,"" made a splash at the Inner Circle Dinner. Check out some of the memorable costumes New York City mayors have donned throughout the years at the annual Inner Circle charity dinner ...

Mayor Bloomberg ditches his suit and tie for... a Spider-Man getup? The mayor went for laughs at the 2011 annual dinner.

Bloomberg also took on the role of a character from Broadway show 'Mamma Mia!' with cast members Judy McLane, Lisa Brescia and Jennifer Perry at the Inner Circle dinner.

In 2010, Bloomberg traded in his mayoral power for flower power, joining the cast of 'Hair' in a spoof called 'Mair.'

Rocking shoulder length chestnut locks and a hippie-inspired head band, Bloomberg appears to be in something of a haze.

Where can we find a shirt like that?

In 2009, the mayor took a rather bizarre take on 'The Little Mermaid' in a skit that began with Bloomberg crashing his plane into the East River after learning he can't run for a third term as mayor.

We're not sure what's going on here during this 2008 skit, but we're loving the mayor's red bow tie.

Mayor Bloomberg takes the stage next to Mary Poppins in a 2007 skit. They say a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down, but he doesn't look too thrilled by what's being ladled up.

Having a billion dollars can apparently buy you a flying umbrella. Beats having to take the subway to work.

We gotta respect a guy who's willing to dance on stage wearing suspenders and a straw hat. Here Bloomberg shows us his moves during a rendition of Mary Poppins.

Is that King Arthur or Michael Bloomberg?

This may be New York City, but Bloomberg joined the cast of 'Chicago' to bring a few laughs to dinner guests in 2004.

Here, he shows us his jazz hands.

Mayor Mike Bloomberg performs with the cast of 'Chicago.'

Looking mighty in his suit of armor, Bloomberg expressed his dream to 'rule the unrulable city' in his 'Mayor of La Mancha' skit in 2003.

Still dressed in armor, Bloomberg mounts a burro as he exits the stage. Oh, the jokes...

Mayor Rudy Giuliani, sans pants, kicked it with the Rockettes during a 2001 skit.

Rudy Giuliani, or Don Giuliani? The former mayor channeled his inner mobster during a spoof of 'The Godfather' in 2001, but it's kind of hard to take him seriously in those heels.

He can dance, too! Giuliani broke out his white disco suit and hit the stage in 2000.

What a beast. Mayor Giuliani put on fur and horns for his 1998 parody of 'Beauty and the Beast.'

But not for long! Giuliani shed his beastly fur and emerged a prince. We wonder where's his Beauty?

Giuliani got himself all dolled up for the 1997 Inner Circle dinner, but the show turned out to be kind of a drag.

The mayor appeared alongside Julie Andrews, dressed as a man, in his spoof of Broadway show, 'Victor Victoria.'

Call him Grease Lightening. Rocking leathers and a motorcycle, Giuliani appeared with the cast of 'Grease' during the 1996 dinner.

Clearly, he's excited about his role.

Mayor Ed Koch gets a hand up during a 1986 Inner Circle dinner. We're loving the whole stripes on plaid look.

Eaten alive! Koch gets swallowed up by a plant from 'Little Shop of Horrors' during a 1985 spoof.",Take a look back at some of the more memorable costumes New York City mayors have donned throughout the years at the annual Inner Circle charity dinner.
"Models walk the runway at the Oscar De La Renta fashion show during Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Spring 2014 on September 10, 2013 in New York City.

A model walks the runway at the Oscar De La Renta fashion show during Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Spring 2014 on September 10, 2013 in New York City.

Model Chanel Iman walks the runway at the Oscar De La Renta fashion show during Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Spring 2014 on September 10, 2013 in New York City.

A model walks the runway at the Oscar De La Renta fashion show during Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Spring 2014 on September 10, 2013 in New York City.

A model walks the runway at the Oscar De La Renta fashion show during Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Spring 2014 on September 10, 2013 in New York City.

A model walks the runway at the Oscar De La Renta fashion show during Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Spring 2014 on September 10, 2013 in New York City.

A model walks the runway at the Oscar De La Renta fashion show during Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Spring 2014 on September 10, 2013 in New York City.

Model Karlie Kloss walks the runway at the Oscar De La Renta fashion show during Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Spring 2014 on September 10, 2013 in New York City.

Model Joan Smalls walks the runway at the Oscar De La Renta fashion show during Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Spring 2014 on September 10, 2013 in New York City.

A model walks the runway at the Oscar De La Renta fashion show during Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Spring 2014 on September 10, 2013 in New York City.

A model walks the runway at the Oscar De La Renta fashion show during Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Spring 2014 on September 10, 2013 in New York City.

A model walks the runway at the Oscar De La Renta fashion show during Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Spring 2014 on September 10, 2013 in New York City.

A model walks the runway at the Oscar De La Renta fashion show during Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Spring 2014 on September 10, 2013 in New York City.

A model walks the runway at the Oscar De La Renta fashion show during Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Spring 2014 on September 10, 2013 in New York City.

A model walks the runway at the Oscar De La Renta fashion show during Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Spring 2014 on September 10, 2013 in New York City.

A model walks the runway at the Oscar De La Renta fashion show during Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Spring 2014 on September 10, 2013 in New York City.

A model walks the runway at the Oscar De La Renta fashion show during Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Spring 2014 on September 10, 2013 in New York City.

A model walks the runway at the Oscar De La Renta fashion show during Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Spring 2014 on September 10, 2013 in New York City.

A model walks the runway at the Oscar De La Renta fashion show during Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Spring 2014 on September 10, 2013 in New York City.

A model walks the runway at the Oscar De La Renta fashion show during Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Spring 2014 on September 10, 2013 in New York City.

A model walks the runway at the Oscar De La Renta fashion show during Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Spring 2014 on September 10, 2013 in New York City.

A model walks the runway at the Oscar De La Renta fashion show during Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Spring 2014 on September 10, 2013 in New York City.

A model walks the runway at the Oscar De La Renta fashion show during Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Spring 2014 on September 10, 2013 in New York City.

A model walks the runway at the Oscar De La Renta fashion show during Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Spring 2014 on September 10, 2013 in New York City.

A model walks the runway at the Oscar De La Renta fashion show during Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Spring 2014 on September 10, 2013 in New York City.

A model walks the runway at the Oscar De La Renta fashion show during Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Spring 2014 on September 10, 2013 in New York City.

A model walks the runway at the Oscar De La Renta fashion show during Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Spring 2014 on September 10, 2013 in New York City.

A model walks the runway at the Oscar De La Renta fashion show during Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Spring 2014 on September 10, 2013 in New York City.

A model walks the runway at the Oscar De La Renta fashion show during Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Spring 2014 on September 10, 2013 in New York City.

A model walks the runway at the Oscar De La Renta fashion show during Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Spring 2014 on September 10, 2013 in New York City.

A model walks the runway at the Oscar De La Renta fashion show during Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Spring 2014 on September 10, 2013 in New York City.","Gauzy gowns in pretty pastels were featured at the  Oscar de la Renta spring 2014 runway show on Sept. 10, 2013 ..."
"With God as our witness we told you so! On Friday, the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility chastised companies for failing to heed its warnings against insufficient transparency. The center also warned the government against doling out golden parachutes on judgment day.

The Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, a 37-year-old alliance comprised of nearly 300 religious institutional investors, has been trying to be the angel on the market's shoulder for the past few years, seeking to make companies more socially and environmentally responsible by sponsoring shareholder resolutions and other initiatives. It said it had warned the very institutions that are feeling the heat now that unless they infused their dealings with much-needed transparency, it would take more than a wing and a prayer to save them.

The religious group did its best to make investors feel guilty for not cleaning up their act.

""Had the eerily prescient advice of faith-based investors been heeded, every evidence suggests that it would have prevented, or at the very least diminished, the impact of this meltdown,"" said the Rev. Seamus Finn. According to Finn, the center's investors addressed the need for increased disclosure of liabilities and better risk assessment and monitoring. Additionally, investors harped on the dangers of subprime and predatory lending practices.

The coalition, which wields $100.0 billion in invested capital, advised the government on how to mend financial institutions' greedy ways. Most importantly, the center warned against sending taxpayers the tab for Wall Street's bailout. Ensure ""that the consequences of the response do not impose additional burdens on the marginalized and poorest who are at the periphery of the workings of financial markets,"" the center said, adding that credibility must be restored to financial markets ""at the lowest possible cost to the taxpayers.""","Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility says if Wall Street had listened to it before, it wouldn't be in such dire straits."
"As economist David Henderson points out, even many free market advocates believe that government-mandated warnings are a largely harmless way to protect the public against various risks. Maybe we shouldn’t ban potentially dangerous activity X or product Y, but surely the government should warn the public against them, or require firms to do so. That way, they can make a better-informed decision about whether the benefits of X and Y are worth the risk. Unlike outright bans, this form of “soft paternalism” doesn’t restrict the freedom of consumers. It doesn’t even significantly increase the costs of exercising it, as “sin taxes” do.

But, as Henderson emphasizes, this optimistic appraisal of government-mandated warnings implicitly assumes that an the government is an “entity that will somehow provide the right kind of information or mandate that firms provide the right kind of information.” In reality, government officials often have strong incentives to mandate warnings that are misleading or flat-out wrong. Henderson points to a recent case where the state of Florida required producers of skim milk that does not contain added vitamins to label it as “imitation milk” even though it is actually real milk, and not an imitation. In this instance, the state requires inaccurate labeling of all-natural milk that is likely to mislead consumers.

This case is just the tip of a much larger iceberg of misleading government warnings and information campaigns. Advocates of warning labels point to success stories such as the famous Surgeon General’s warning against the dangers of smoking. But, as Harvard economist Edward Glaeser describes in this article, there is also a long history of misleading government-sponsored information campaigns against such activities as homosexual sex, masturbation, and many others. More recently, the European Union has imposed mandatory labeling of GMO foods, even though such foods are no more dangerous than no-GMO competitors.

Why would governments mandate misleading and inaccurate warnings? There are a variety of reasons. Often, governments use warnings to stigmatize an unpopular activity or group. Elected officials must get on the good side of majority public opinion to stay in power, and denouncing the unpopular is a time-honored strategy for courting popularity. This dynamic accounts for public information campaigns against homosexuality in an era where majority public opinion was deeply hostile to gays and lesbians. In other cases, inaccurate warnings may be the result of interest-group lobbying. For example, producers of non-GMO food products have obvious incentives to promote labeling that might scare consumers away from their competitors. In still other cases, the culprits may be a “baptist-bootlegger” coalition between well-meaning, but poorly informed members of the general public, and self-interested lobbies.

We might not need to worry about misleading government warnings if voters carefully monitored government information campaigns and punished politicians at the polls for promoting inaccurate ones. But public ignorance about government policy is widespread, often much more severe than ignorance about private sector products. If the public really was well-informed about the issues addressed by government warnings, there would be little justification for the warnings in the first place. Ironically, the very public ignorance that government warnings are supposed to combat reduces the quality of the warnings themselves, and increases the risk that they will exacerbate ignorance rather than curb it.

None of this proves that government-mandated warnings are never justified. But we should at least view this tactic with greater skepticism than it usually gets. Perhaps government-mandated warnings should come with their own attached warning labels, like this:

WARNING: Following government-mandated warnings like this one will sometimes be hazardous to your health, your happiness, or your pocketbook. The government is not liable for any injury or financial losses you may incur by adhering to this warning. Exercise caution and proceed at your own risk.

UPDATE: It’s worth noting two additional dangers of unnecessary or misleading government warnings. First, they can contribute to information overload, wasting our time and diverting our attention away from more useful information. Most people have encountered packages that have so many hard-to-understand warnings that it becomes difficult to separate the potentially useful information there from all the clutter. Second, mandatory warnings requiring expenditures for enforcement, compliance, and monitoring. These may impose significant costs on taxpayers, businesses and consumers. They also tend to privilege large, established firms (which can more easily afford compliance costs), over smaller and newer ones.

Ilya Somin is Professor of Law at George Mason University. His research focuses on constitutional law, property law, and popular political participation. He is the author of ""The Grasping Hand: Kelo v. City of New London and the Limits of Eminent Domain"" and ""Democracy and Political Ignorance: Why Smaller Government is Smarter.""",Many people view government-mandated warnings as an essentially benign way to protect people against risk without restricting freedom. But be warned: government information campaigns may be more dangerous than you think.
"On a Saturday in mid-November, NetJets Inc. hosted several hundred of its wealthiest customers in the ballroom of the luxury Wynn resort in Las Vegas, where guests played poker alongside Warren Buffett with $950,000 in prizes at stake.

Outside, dozens of uniformed NetJets pilots picketed against the private-jet company. “Management greed is destroying NetJets,” read one placard. “Do pilots need to pay more for healthcare so you can fly cheaper?” asked another.

Labor unrest is unusual for a company owned by Mr. Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc., where the prevailing image is that of a conglomerate with well-paid managers who oversee contented workers at more than 70 operating subsidiaries. But the drama playing out at NetJets illustrates the hard side of Mr. Buffett’s singular focus on returns. In the case of NetJets, the pressure to complete the turnaround of a business Mr. Buffett once called his “number one worry” is now spilling into public view.

The Las Vegas protest was part of a deteriorating labor situation that now has employees accusing management of illicitly accessing an online portal where NetJets pilots communicate. If the conflict isn’t resolved soon, it could become the latest headache from a company that has been a periodic source of worry for Mr. Buffett. In the 16 years that Berkshire has owned NetJets, the jet operator has never paid its owner a dividend, and its net worth is considerably less than the $725 million Berkshire paid for it in 1998, a person close to the company said.

Of course, some of the unrest is expected during bargaining season at NetJets, which has a history of testy negotiations. But because of the escalating tension and the company’s high-profile business, this fight seems to be garnering attention from investors.

“Perhaps this is standard posturing between labor and management, but it does appear to be getting more contentious,” said David Kass, a professor of finance at the University of Maryland and Berkshire shareholder. “And Buffett has said perpetual money or labor problems would be two reasons to exit a company.”

NetJets employees are protesting what they consider “unjustifiable cost cuts and overhead reductions in the face of increasing flight demand, record profits and a dramatic reduction in debt,” according to a letter sent to Mr. Buffett in March.

NetJets says it put forth a contract proposal for its pilots that asked for a “few reasonable changes” including modifications to the current health benefits and inclusion in an annual incentive program tied to company and individual performance. The company says its pilots are among the best-paid in the industry and that salaries and other benefits—including longevity pay, overtime and an “industry-leading” 401 (k) plan in which it matches 50% of employee contributions—wouldn’t change under the proposal for a new contract.

The fight has worsened amid extended contract negotiations with multiple unions representing pilots, flight attendants, mechanics and others. NetJets, based in Columbus, Ohio, has about 6,200 employees, a majority of whom belong to unions.

In a December lawsuit, a union representing NetJets’s 2,700 pilots alleged that the company had illegally obtained confidential information posted to a password-protected message board used by pilots. The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Ohio, also alleges that NetJets executives have unlawfully set up a Twitter account impersonating a pilot. The fake account, called “TwinkieTheKid,” allegedly baited pilots to endorse or participate in “unlawful job actions,” according to the lawsuit.

The talks haven’t yet interrupted service or resulted in customer cancellations, although some users have called to inquire about the labor problems, a person familiar with the matter said.

NetJets spokesman Thomas Hoyt declined to comment on the lawsuit. “We continue to be disappointed that the union continues to engage in theatrics when there is work to be done at the bargaining table,” Mr. Hoyt said in a statement.

Mr. Buffett hasn’t addressed the issue publicly. He too declined to comment but said in an interview: “In almost 20 years where my family and I have flown over 1,000 flights, I’ve never met a pilot who wasn’t professional or friendly.”

In Berkshire’s “owners’ manual,” where Mr. Buffett and his business partner, Charlie Munger , explain their business principles to the company’s shareholders, the two wrote that a money-losing business and poor labor relations are the only two reasons that would compel Berkshire to sell a company.

Although Berkshire, based in Omaha, Neb., has more than 330,000 employees globally, it has seen a handful of strikes in the nearly 50 years that Mr. Buffett has been at the helm.

Berkshire bought NetJets in 1998, after Mr. Buffett became a big fan of its business model. Founded as Executive Jet Airways more than 50 years ago, NetJets pioneered the concept of “fractional ownership,” where individuals can buy a share in a plane in exchange for flying hours.

NetJets took a major hit during the financial crisis as wealthy clients cut back on private flying, surviving only because Berkshire guaranteed its $1.9 billion debt load.

After big layoffs and furloughs in 2009, NetJets began turning around. Since 2010, NetJets has placed orders for as much as $17.6 billion worth of new jets from Bombardier Inc., the Cessna Aircraft Co. unit of Textron Inc. and others. In 2013, revenue grew by 7.5% to about $4 billion as it sold more plane shares.

In his 2011 annual letter to shareholders, Mr. Buffett wrote about the company’s evolution. “A few years ago NetJets was my number one worry,” he wrote. “Its costs were far out of line with revenues, and cash was hemorrhaging. Without Berkshire’s support, NetJets would have gone broke. These problems are behind us.”

Having shrunk its debt to about $500 million, according to a person familiar with the matter, the company continued to be profitable in 2014. Still, NetJets produces a tiny fraction of Berkshire’s total earnings, which stood at about $20 billion in 2013. NetJets’s profit rose 7% in 2013. Berkshire is expected to report its 2014 annual results in February.

Union officials say NetJets Chief Executive Officer Jordan Hansell told them that reduced compensation, weakened job security protections, increased health-care costs “are necessary because Berkshire” requires a greater return on revenue from NetJets.

NetJets says its contract proposal tries to strike a balance between achieving business targets while lowering labor costs without reducing pay. The company has pitched a modified health-care plan that will require union employees to contribute to premiums that they currently don’t pay. It also has offered to offset the increased cost to employees through lump-sum payments.

However, the two sides haven’t had much success at the bargaining table.

The Las Vegas protest was one of several informational events staged in 2014. Union members also picketed outside airports such as New Jersey’s Teterboro, frequently used by private-jet operators. At Berkshire’s May annual meeting in Omaha, pilots handed out fliers to attendees. Recently, they protested at Art Basel in Miami, an event that is popular with wealthy customers.

“We really don’t like this labor dispute,” said Pedro Leroux, president of the NetJets pilots union. “We just want the contracts to reflect what we bring to the table. The company says we have world-class pilots, so treat us accordingly.”

Write to Anupreeta Das at anupreeta.das@wsj.com","Dissent is brewing in the pilot ranks of NetJets, the company owned by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway. Labor unrest is unusual for a Berkshire company and this particular fight is turning nasty."
"Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano denied that the Obama administration is trying to unilaterally execute immigration policies contained in the stalled DREAM Act -- but at the same time she said it ""doesn't make sense"" to deport illegal immigrant students who would be covered by the proposal.

Her comments Tuesday on Capitol Hill suggest that even if the DREAM Act does not pass, federal immigration officials will not target illegal immigrants who would otherwise be given a reprieve under the bill.

The DREAM Act is a proposal that would give illegal immigrants who came to the U.S. as children a chance at legal status if they complete two years of college or military service. Democrats are pushing a new version of the bill after it died in the Senate last year.

Though the latest proposal stands little chance of advancing in the GOP-dominated House, the administration recently issued a memo that covered similar ground. The memo from Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director John Morton instructed staff to consider 19 factors when exercising ""prosecutorial discretion"" -- or the discretion an ICE attorney has in deciding whether and how to pursue or dismiss an immigration case.

The list includes factors similar to those in the DREAM Act, like whether someone arrived in the U.S. as a ""young child,"" is pursuing an education or has served in the military.

Questioned about DHS enforcement Tuesday at a Senate hearing on the DREAM Act, Napolitano confirmed that the department is not interested in deporting ""DREAM Act students.""

""We have provided information about what it would take to do removal of everyone in the country. It's obvious that those resources aren't available, and when you're talking about DREAM Act students, it really doesn't make sense,"" Napolitano said.

At the same time, Napolitano denied that the recent ICE memo was being used to get around the failure of Congress to pass the DREAM Act. She said the administration's enforcement of illegal immigration is ""unparalleled,"" but that federal officials are trying to make that enforcement as effective as possible.

""We simply don't see appropriations necessary in order to remove everyone who is technically removable from the United States, so we have to set priorities,"" Napolitano said.

In doing so, the department has tried to mostly target serious criminal offenders for deportation. The recent ICE memo stressed that factors like a criminal history should weigh against illegal immigrants in federal custody, while factors like whether someone came to the U.S. as a child should weigh in their favor.

""They really do focus on those who ... are the greatest risk to public safety,"" Napolitano said Tuesday.

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, questioned Napolitano on whether her department has ever asked Congress for the resources necessary to fully enforce immigration law.

Napolitano twice said her department has provided Congress with ""information"" about what it would take to remove 11 million people.

""You are not answering my question,"" Cornyn shot back.",Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano denied that the Obama administration is trying to unilaterally execute the so-called DREAM Act -- but at the same time claimed it doesn't make sense to deport illegal immigrant students who would be covered by the proposal.
"He was strapped in tighter than Hannibal yet managed to escape like some crazed Houdini.

A Chicago patient who was strapped onto a gurney by five security guards for a ride to a hospital on the far side of town somehow managed to get free and then commandeer the ambulance he was in, Beverly-Mtgreenwood Patch reported.

Yet that wasn’t his greatest escape. Sparks flew when Michael Buckner, 23, of Chicago, lost control and flipped the emergency vehicle on a Wisconsin roadway.

Dramatic video caught both the moment when the ride, owned by Superior Ambulance, drifted into another lane and nearly collided with an 18-wheel truck and the startled driver’s reaction as the vehicle careened on its side.

Buckner allegedly drove more than 100 miles to Wisconsin before wrecking, the Ozaukee County Sheriff’s Office said.

But Buckner's wild ride wasn’t done. Police claim he stole the vehicle of a good Samaritan who stopped to help him from the overturned wreck along Interstate 43 near Port Washington, Wis.

After being apprehended and charged with operating a vehicle without owner’s consent, deputies took Buckner from Ozaukee County Jail to the local hospital when it appeared he was having a health crisis, police said.

That’s when he attacked three deputies in an attempt to escape – yet again. None of the officers were seriously hurt and Buckner, who was himself injured, was slapped with battery of a police officer charges.

“How’d he get out of the restraints?” Cook County Judge Peter Felice asked an Illinois state police agent in court on Tuesday, according to Patch. “He’s Houdini!”

It was an almost-great escape. Buckner, who has no prior criminal history, faces charges in Illinois. He is being held in Wisconsin on $25,000 bail.

ON A MOBILE DEVICE? WATCH THE VIDEO HERE.",A Chicago patient strapped onto a gurney somehow managed to get free and then commandeer the ambulance he was in before wrecking.
"The U.S.-led coalition has killed 50,000 Islamic State fighters in the last two years in Iraq and Syria, marking a milestone in the long terror fight, a senior U.S. military official told Fox News on Thursday.

FOUR-STAR BRASS SAY NO-FLY ZONE WOULD WORK AGAIN IN SYRIA

The official made the remarks for the first time and called the figures a conservative estimate, but said it was more than what others have stated before.

U.S. leaders have expressed reluctance to disclose specific numbers, and noting that ISIS had been able to replace fighters rapidly, particularly early on.

ISIS LAUNCHES OVERNIGHT ATTACK AGAINST IRAQI TROOPS IN MOSUL

Speaking about ISIS, the official said, “I give them credit for being so resilient.”

The official warned airstrikes have killed so many ISIS fighters, fears remain that the terror group could go underground and morph into something he called “AQI 2.0,” or another version Al Qaeda in Iraq.

In August, Lt. Gen. Sean MacFarland said about 45,000 combatants had been taken off the battlefields.

The official said coalition airstrikes could be more aggressive in places like Mosul, where Iraqi troops are battling to retake the city, but civilian casualties are a risk. The official wasn't authorized to discuss the matter publicly so spoke on condition of anonymity.

The U.S.-led coalition has flown more than 125,000 sorties in Iraq and Syria since Operation Inherent Resolve began in Aug. 8, 2014, the Pentagon reported in November.

Fox News' Lucas Tomlinson and The Associated Press contributed to this report.","A senior U.S. military official told Fox News Thursday that the U.S.-led coalition has killed 50,000 Islamic State militants in the last two years in Iraq and Syria."
"‘Grey’s Anatomy’ actor Jesse Williams and his wife Aryn Drake-Lee are expecting their first child in December, according to reports.

Jesse Williams is going from TV doctor to real life dad!

The 32-year-old ""Grey's Anatomy"" star is expecting his first child with wife Aryn Drake-Lee, according to Us Weekly.

Williams, who plays the hunky Dr. Jackson Avery on the long-running series, married his wife in September 2012, after dating for more than five years.

The actor met his real-estate broker wife before becoming famous, when he was still a New York City school teacher, according to the mag.

They live together in Brooklyn, where the mom-to-be celebrated her baby shower on Sept. 29, a source said.

The insider also revealed that Drake-Lee, 33, is due in December.","Jesse Williams is going from TV doctor to real-life dad! The 32-year-old ""Grey's Anatomy"" star is expecting his first child with wife Aryn Drake-Lee, according to Us Weekly."
"By Larry Weisman, USA TODAY

BALTIMORE — There is plane geometry and plain old math and they intersected Sunday.

When referee Walt Coleman ruled that Pittsburgh receiver Santonio Holmes' feet were down in the end zone and he had possession of the pass, he never mentioned the football breaking the plane of the end zone. But he awarded Holmes a touchdown with 43 seconds left and the Pittsburgh Steelers not only won the game against the Baltimore Ravens but also the AFC North title as well.

The 13-9 triumph also lets the Steelers (11-3) dream about more than just one home playoff date. They can compete for the AFC's top seed when they play the Tennessee Titans (12-2) next week.

BOX SCORE: Steelers 13, Ravens 9

""Winning the division,"" coach Mike Tomlin said, ""is the prerequisite for being the team we want to be.""

The Ravens (9-5) remain in the wild-card chase, but bitterly. They led 9-6 with 3:36 to play and the Steelers pinned at their 8-yard line. Twelve plays later, the last swathed in controversy, they trailed a team that hadn't won here since 2002.

Quarterback Ben Roethlisberger rolled to his left, looked back toward the middle and threw to Holmes, who appeared to be coming out of the end zone as he made the reception. The ball was spotted at the 1-yard line by head linesman Paul Weidner but the NFL replay official in the booth signaled for another look. Coleman then ruled it a touchdown.

In a statement to a pool reporter, Coleman said ""the ball was breaking the plane. He had two feet down. When he gained control of the ball, the ball was breaking the plane and then he fell into the field of play. But to have a touchdown, all you have to have is a catch which is the two feet down, possession and control of the ball breaking the plane."" He said Weidner ""felt like when the receiver gained possession of the ball, the ball was not breaking the plane of the goal line.""

He had company in the Ravens' locker room. ""A million times if you play it, of course he didn't get in,"" linebacker Ray Lewis said. ""But that's the way they called it.""

Holmes insisted it was a touchdown and hardly the game-decider. ""If it wasn't overturned, we would have kicked a field goal and sent it to overtime,"" he said.

That touchdowns were so scarce is another simple function of math that begins with one and two — Pittsburgh ranked first in the NFL in total defense, Baltimore second. The teams punted 13 times and each turned the ball over twice. They combined to get inside the 20-yard line six times and kicked five field goals, the only touchdown coming in the final minute.

""This was a ridiculously tough football game,"" Tomlin said.

The Steelers tormented quarterback Joe Flacco with an array of blitzes and coverages, sacking him twice and intercepting two passes. The second sack proved the most critical. It came with 4:28 left to play and the Ravens, up 9-6, at the Steelers' 28-yard line. That was at least marginally in field goal range but linebacker Lawrence Timmons sacked Flacco for a 7-yard loss that was compounded by another 7 lost yards on a fumble.

""I was sliding to my left and wanted to get rid of the ball. That's what you've got to do in that situation, get rid of the ball,"" Flacco said.

The Ravens punted and Sam Koch put the ball out at the Pittsburgh 8-yard line. The Steelers then engineered their longest drive of the day, culminating in the touchdown that may or may not have actually been.

""I don't know that we had the confidence that we could do this,"" Tomlin said. ""I think there was an overwhelming sense that we have to do this. That's how we play.""

You share in the USA TODAY community, so please keep your comments smart and civil. Don't attack other readers personally, and keep your language decent. Use the ""Report Abuse"" button to make a difference.","The Pittsburgh Steelers used a second straight fourth-quarter comeback to earn another AFC North title. Santonio Holmes caught a controversial 4-yard touchdown pass from Ben Roethlisberger with 43 seconds left, and the Steelers clinched their second..."
"Posted Apr 21st 2009 7:59PM by TMZ Staff

Jamie Foxx has been sued by a guy who got severely injured on a Vodka display and claims his dream to become a brain surgeon has been put on ice.Here's the lowdown. Foxx hosted a party in 2007 at Social in Hollywood. William Presler says in his lawsuit he was hired to work the bar -- made completely of ice. In the suit, filed today in L.A. County Superior Court, Presler claims drunk guests dropped their drinks around the bar and glass shattered everywhere. He claims he tried cleaning it up but was told to leave it be. Presler says the manager preferred kicking the glass along the side of the ice bar. At the end of the party, Presler says he slipped, fell and landed on the shattered glass, severely injuring himself. He needed 170 stitches to repair the damage to the severed nerves in his left hand.Presler says he obtained a neuroscience degree and was forced to abandon his career to become a brain surgeon due to the damage in his left hand.

Tags: jamie foxx, JamieFoxx, la superior court, LaSuperiorCourt, social in hollywood, SocialInHollywood, vodka",Jamie Foxx has been sued by a guy who got severely injured on a Vodka display and claims his dream to become a brain surgeon has been put on ice. Here\'s ...
"Lexus says the RC F GT3 will hit racetracks around the world in 2015.

The GT racing world is ready to get one very unexpected new addition.

Lexus wants to take the RC coupe racing, and the proof will be on display at the 2014 Geneva Motor Show. The Lexus RC F GT3 Concept definitely looks like a winner, thanks to its ground-hugging stance and enormous rear wing and diffuser.

RELATED: BOMBSHELL! 2015 LEXUS RC F DEBUTS AT DETROIT AUTO SHOW WITH BRUTE PERFORMANCE IN A SEXY PACKAGE

A tuned version of the RC F’S V-8 engine delivers “a maximum output exceeding 540-horsepower,” according to Lexus. The rules of various racing series around the globe could impact total output, along with the RC F GT3 Concept’s 2,755 lb. curb-weight.

Lexus says the RC F GT3 will be available to purchase by racing teams beginning in 2015. Sorry, you won’t be able to grab one of these at your local Lexus dealership.","Lexus wants to take on formidable GT racecars from Porsche, Audi, Mercedes, Lamborghini and Nissan"
"President-elect Donald Trump railed against China on Sunday, only hours after his transition team denied that his call with Taiwan’s president signaled a new US policy toward Pacific power.

“Did China ask us if it was OK to devalue their currency (making it hard for our companies to compete), heavily tax our products going into their country (the US doesn’t tax them) or to build a massive military complex in the middle of the South China Sea?” he tweeted. “I don’t think so!”

Earlier on Sunday the vice-president-elect, Mike Pence, had tried to downplay the possibility that Trump could threaten a diplomatic rift with Beijing through his actions last week. Trump’s 10-minute phone conversation on Friday with Tsai Ing-wen – thought to be the first time a US president or president-elect has spoken to a Taiwanese leader since 1979 – and subsequent reference to Tsai as “president” threatened such a breach, and implied he might be making up policy on the hoof.

In damage control mode, Pence sought to dismiss the row as “a tempest in a teapot”, contrasting it with Barack Obama’s rapprochement with communist Cuba.

“He received a courtesy call from the democratically elected president of Taiwan,” Pence told ABC’s This Week. “They reached out to offer congratulations as leaders around the world have and he took the call, accepted her congratulations and good wishes and it was precisely that.”

Later, in an interview on NBC’s Meet the Press, Pence again used the term “the president of Taiwan”, suggesting it was no slip of the tongue.

China views self-ruling Taiwan as part of its own territory awaiting reunification, and any US move implying support for independence – including use of the word “president” – is likely to offend Beijing.

Chinese state media said Trump’s “inexperience” led him to accept the phone call but warned that any breach of the “one China” stance would “destroy” relations with America.

Asked by ABC host George Stephanopoulos if he understood China’s objections, Pence replied: “Yes, of course.” But he quickly shifted gear to claim that the American people find Trump’s “energy” refreshing.

The Indiana governor was asked directly if there were implications for the “one China” policy. “We’ll deal with policy after 20 January,” he said, referring to the day of Trump’s inauguration.

On NBC, Pence suggested the controversy had been overplayed. “The waters here seem like a little bit of a tempest in a teapot,” he said.

“I mean, it’s striking to me that President Obama would reach out to a murdering dictator in Cuba and be hailed as a hero. And President-elect Donald Trump takes a courtesy call from the democratically elected president of Taiwan and it becomes something of a thing in the media.”

Other Trump surrogates sought to neutralise the issue. Speaking on Fox News Sunday, senior aide Kellyanne Conway said her boss was “well aware” of Washington’s “one China” policy.

“I know China has a perspective on it,” she said. “The White House and state department probably have a perspective on it. Certainly Taiwan has a perspective on it.

“The president-elect’s perspective is he accepted a congratulatory call. When he’s sworn in as commander-in-chief, he’ll make clear the fullness of his plans. But people shouldn’t read too much into it.”

Since his stunning victory over Hillary Clinton on 8 November, Trump has accepted congratulatory calls from dozens of world leaders including the prime ministers or presidents of Israel, Singapore, Japan and China, Conway said.

Speaking at the Brookings Institution in Washington on Sunday afternoon, Secretary of State John Kerry said it would be “valuable” to Trump if he took advice from state officials before such calls. Speaking to reporters at Trump Tower, however, Conway said the president-elect was “not really a talking points kind of guy”.

There were also signs of uncertainty over Trump’s choice of secretary of state. The transition team has previously said the short list was down to four – understood to be Tennessee senator Bob Corker, former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, former CIA director Gen David Petraeus and Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor who was the 2012 Republican nominee for president.

On Sunday, Conway told reporters “he’s broadened the search” and the “list is expanding”, and added: “More than four but who knows how many finalists there will be. It’s a big decision and nobody should rush through it.”

Petraeus appeared on ABC in what some observers billed as an audition for the cross-examination he could expect from Congress over his conviction for mishandling classified material.

Petraeus pleaded guilty last year to a misdemeanour charge after sharing intelligence with his biographer, Paula Broadwell, a former army officer with whom he had an extramarital affair.

“What I would say to them is what I’ve acknowledged for a number of years,” he said. “Five years ago, I made a serious mistake. I acknowledged it. I apologised for it. I paid a very heavy price for it and I’ve learned from it.”

Petraeus added that he has given more than 38 years of “in some cases unique service to our country in uniform and then at the CIA”.

Reflecting on his hour-long meeting with Trump last week, Petraeus, speaking from Germany, said he found the president-elect to be “quite pragmatic” and added: “What I enjoyed most, frankly, was the discussion of issues, if you will, or campaign rhetoric, and placing that in a strategic context.”

Petraeus’s viability for the job was put to Pence, who insisted that despite Trump’s attacks on Hillary Clinton over her own carelessness with classified emails while secretary of state, the former military leader was an “American hero” and still in contention.

“He paid a price for mishandling classified information,” he said on NBC. “I think the president-elect will weigh that against the background of an extraordinary career of military service.

“It will be the president-elect’s decision about the totality of Gen Petraeus’s experience and background.”

Stephanopoulos also grilled Pence over Trump’s evidence-free claim that “millions of people voted illegally”, denying him victory in the popular vote in the presidential election, in which Clinton leads by more than 2.5m ballots.

The host made 10 different attempts, through questions or interventions, to make Pence admit the claim was groundless.

Stephanopoulos asked: “It’s his right to make false statements?”

Pence replied: “Well, it’s his right to express his opinion as president-elect of the United States. I think one of the things that’s refreshing about our president-elect and one of the reasons why I think he made such an incredible connection with people all across this country is because he tells you what’s on his mind.”

Stephanopoulos shot back: “But why is it refreshing to make false statements?”

Maintaining his cool, Pence said: “Look, I don’t know that that is a false statement, George, and neither do you. The simple fact is that ...”

Stephanopoulos interrupted: “I know there’s no evidence for it.”

At the end of the exchange, Pence insisted: “He’s going to say what he believes to be true and I know that he’s always going to speak in that way as president.”

In another series of tweets early on Sunday, Trump threatened heavy taxes as retribution for US companies that move their business operations overseas and still try to sell their product to Americans.

He promised a 35% tax on products sold inside the US by any business that fired American workers and built a new factory or plant in another country.",President-elect sent tweets hours after Mike Pence tried to downplay possibility that Trump could threaten diplomatic rift with Beijing through actions last week
"REPORTING FROM SEOUL -– More environmental damage has likely occurred at Japan’s stricken nuclear reactor after more than 45 tons of highly radioactive water leaked from the Fukushima Daiichi power station this weekend, with some of the water possibly reaching the nearby Pacific Ocean, the utility that operates the plant said.

The leak counteracts assurances that the Tokyo Electric Power Co., or Tepco, has largely controlled damage at the coastal nuclear plant, located about 220 miles northeast of Tokyo, which it plans to bring to a total shutdown by year's end.

On March 11, the 1970s-era plant was hit by a massive earthquake-triggered tsunami that knocked out its cooling system, eventually leading to several reactor-core meltdowns. The catastrophe, which experts have called the largest single release of radioactivity into the ocean, has threatened fisheries in the region and caused the evacuation of 80,000 residents near the facility.

Since March, utility engineers have attempted to cool the ailing plant's reactors by flooding them with water, which becomes contaminated with radioactivity in the process.

Tepco installed a new circulatory cooling system in September, with filters that decontaminate and recycle the cooling water. However, the company acknowledges that some water has already leaked into the ocean and that thousands of tons more remains in the flooded basements of the plant's reactor buildings.

According to a statement on the utility’s website, workers discovered Sunday morning that radioactive water was pooling in a runoff container near one of those purification devices.

The system was shut down and the leak apparently ceased, but workers later found highly radioactive water leaking from cracks in the container’s concrete wall into a gutter that leads to the ocean.

Employees stemmed the leak with sandbags.

The newspaper Asahi Shimbun quoted Tepco officials as saying that as much as 220 tons of water may now have leaked from the damaged facility since the disaster struck nearly nine months ago.

The water from Sunday's leak was measured at 16,000 becquerels per liter of cesium-134, and 29,000 becquerels per liter of cesium-137, the utility said. Those numbers are 270 times and 322 times higher, respectively, than government safety limits, experts say.

Both substances are readily absorbed by living tissue and can greatly increase the risk of developing cancer.

In another development, Japanese media quoted an interim report, released by Tepco last week, that captures the desperation workers faced when the Fukushima Daiichi plant was struck by the tsunami in March.

""I felt I could do nothing. Other operators appeared anxious, and said, 'When we cannot control [the reactors] and are helpless, is there any point in us staying here?' "" the chief of the reactors' central control room is quoted as saying in the utility's internal investigation report released Friday. ""So, I bowed my head and asked them to stay.""

Another worker interviewed by officials was part of an effort to vent the containment vessels around the nuclear cores to prevent an explosion.

""I heard some big weird popping sounds ... and when I tried to start working ... my black rubber boots melted [because of the heat],"" he said.

Japan's ""nuclear gypsies"" face radioactive peril at power plants

Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant has stabilized, officials say

Radiation hampers efforts to restore power to nuclear plant in Japan","Fukushima Daiichi: Radioactive water continues to leak from Fukushima Daiichi, the stricken Japanese nuclear power plant damaged in March 11 earthquake and tsunami."
"The Washington Post ran a piece on Thursday about a generation of young users who haven't given in to Facebook peer pressure. What about you? Are you on the popular networking site?

By Jodi Westrick | October 15, 2009; 5:33 PM ET | Category: Local , National Share This: Email | Technorati | Del.icio.us | Digg | Facebook Previous: Creigh Deeds vs. Bob McDonnell | Next: Good call for Zorn?

Yes I am and I'm having fun keeping in touch with my real friends all over the world. They're good, honest, intelligent and fun people!

Btw, I think it's silly to have hundreds of ""friends.""

Posted by: cmecyclist | October 16, 2009 7:05 AM

I don't do MyStalkerSpaceBook services for good reasons. They aren't exactly privacy tools.

Posted by: timscanlon | October 16, 2009 8:53 AM

I live overseas these days, I can keep in touch with my family and friends in the States, let them know what I'm up to. I can take pictures with my iphone, upload them with the iphone facebook app and that's what I like about it.

I'm a contracting software engineer, I've made lots of friends and acquaintances around the world over the years... you'd be surprised at the number of job offers I've had from people I've known in the business.

I don't play any of the games, I belong to very few groups. I block stuff I don't want to see on my wall, occasionally blocking the posts of friends-of-friends who are too political or too religious.

I ignore about half the friend requests I get. You know, you can't remember everybody.

My use of facebook is very specific. I get what I want out of it.

Posted by: katavo | October 16, 2009 9:18 AM

I use Facebook. It's great for staying in touch with friends and relatives that aren't in the same state or country. When I moved back to the U.S., friends from overseas that I'd lost touch with have found me. I keep in touch with people that share my interests as well. I don't share private info or have anything I would be afraid for anyone to see.

I remove offensive posts and then block that person. It's fun for a bit of time and eventually bores me though. I might visit 1 - 2 times a day one week or once every 2 -3 weeks. There are more interesting things to do.

Posted by: shejoy | October 16, 2009 10:41 AM

My use of FaceBook is very, very specific and limited to interactions with close family.

Posted by: satin4u2 | October 16, 2009 11:08 AM

I'm not on Facebook, MySpace, or Twitter. I don't have a cell phone. I don't want people to ""follow"" me. [slams door and pulls down shades]

Posted by: seismic-2 | October 16, 2009 12:59 PM

To me, ""Social Networking"" amounts to nothing more than a monumental waste of time. I don't care where you had breakfast or what you ate. Much of what everyone does on a daily basis, for the most part, is of interest only to one's self; to everyone else, it's a terrible bore. Don't do it, don't want to do it, nver will.

Additionally, my cellphone is NOT my primary means of communication nor my primary source of entertainment; it is, however my portable music player. My calls are, for the most part, necessary plus, they're few and far between. Most of my calls are by wire.

Posted by: ancientdude | October 16, 2009 2:30 PM

I'm on FB, but I don't have a cell phone.

And I have tons of friend invites from people that I have no idea who they are - they sit in pending, cause my policy is only real friends.

Posted by: WillSeattle | October 16, 2009 2:31 PM

Facebook is a site for losers who haven't kept up with their friends, so now don't have a life. On Facebook, you can cower your former acquaintances to be in contact with you because nobody likes to say: ""No, I don't want you for my friend!"" Probably in high school, you barely knew a person or weren't anywhere near ""friends"" at all. I joined for a while just to see what it was, and that's what it is! You can learn gossip about people who actually would've never given or gotten the time of day. It's somebody's harebrained idea to make people think they HAVE to belong to it; like starting to smoke in high school so you feel you're cool!! It certainly isn't a site for well-rounded people.

Posted by: Maerzie | October 16, 2009 8:21 PM

I've been invited to join. I wonder why they won't just give me a call.

Posted by: fabricmaven1 | October 17, 2009 12:12 AM

Facebook is what you (and your Facebook friends, of course) make it. I hear a lot of complaints from people that they don't want /need to know what their Facebook friends had for lunch, etc. Sorry, but if that's the only sort of information your Facebook friends are capable of posting, then maybe you just know some really boring people. Facebook for me is just a place where I can keep up with all the fascinating things people I know like to share about their own lives and the world in general: their artwork; links to interesting articles, videos, and websites; music; invitations to film screenings and shows; their thoughts on life. We're simply creative people using Facebook as a communication medium. And we have very active social lives... imagine that. So complain all you want about how boring your Faceebook is. Mine is anything but.

Posted by: busybeelove | October 17, 2009 10:45 AM

I was put off, frankly, by constant emails from Facebook urging me to join. But I wouldn't have anyway. Phones, email, snailmail, photos, lunch, weekends, reunions -- why add a profiteering middleman?

Posted by: texassideoats | October 18, 2009 6:02 AM",The Washington Post ran a piece on Thursday about a generation of young users who haven't given in to Facebook peer pressure. What about you? Are you on the popular networking site? Read the piece....
"Catalonian President Artur Mas's decision to call early elections for Sunday has backfired, muddying the future for Spain and Catalans alike.

Mas and his Convergence and Union party hoped to ride a sudden groundswell of separatist feeling in the region to secure a clear majority in the 135-seat regional parliament. Instead, the party looks set to lose 12 seats, falling from 62 to 50.

Mas's problem appears to be that people who really want independence took his call for a referendum on Catalonia's status as an opportunity to vote for parties with deeper roots in the separatist cause. (Mas was a recent convert.) He was also burdened -- like so many other incumbent European leaders -- by the unpopularity that comes from implementing austerity measures. He'll now have to govern in an awkward coalition, probably with the viscerally pro-independence and anti-austerity Catalan Republican Left, which looks set to more than double its representation in parliament, to 21 from 10.

This is not a good outcome for Spain. Mas has used vague language on the independence issue, suggesting a four-year process that might, or might not, lead to a demand for complete independence. Speaking at a conference in Brussels recently, he presented a conciliatory face to an EU worried over the prospect of political instability in Spain at a time when it's on the brink of needing a bailout. There's good reason to believe Mas might have used a majority to negotiate a better deal with the Spanish government in Madrid on tax transfers and other issues, in exchange for referendum terms and timing acceptable to the central government.

That approach would have disappointed determined separatists, who want independence in 2014, a historically resonant anniversary year for Catalans. But Mas's caution is probably more in line with an ambivalent public, which polls suggest is split roughly down the middle on the question of secession. Now that more measured course is harder to imagine. Not only does the Republican Left reject Spain's, and Catalonia's, current economic policies, in government they would also make it harder for Mas to negotiate any deal that compromises independence.

It's possible that Mas will abandon the referendum effort. But that option probably just got harder for Mas, as well as running the economy.

Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy also has lost from the vote. His ruling People's Party has played a poor hand in all this. It took a hard stance on the proposed Catalan referendum, insisting that any decision to hold one would be illegal. This was and remains a mistake. Much of the frustration among Catalans is over what they perceive as the central government's arrogance in refusing to let Catalans decide their own nationality. As we've said before, granting the right to a referendum would have been the best step toward defeating separatists in the vote that followed.

The Spanish government also sought to benefit from an unsigned, unstamped police report of dubious provenance that the conservative Spanish newspaper El Mundo published days before the election. The report suggested that Mas had a Swiss bank account for kickbacks. Weakening Mas in such an underhand way may have helped less biddable opponents.

Spain, on top of its economic woes, faces nationalist movements in at least two regions: Catalonia and the Basque region. When ETA, the Basque terrorist group, this weekend offered to disband and disarm in exchange for certain conditions, the government dismissed the offer out of hand, repeating the mantra: ""We don't negotiate with terrorists."" ETA is weakened and has lost support to non-violent nationalist parties. That, as the U.K. discovered with the Irish Republican Army, is the time to talk.

In Catalonia and in the Basque country alike, Spain's government appears to be overplaying a strong political hand at a moment when economic weakness leaves it especially vulnerable to instability.

(Marc Champion is a member of Bloomberg View's editorial board. Follow him on Twitter.)

Read more breaking commentary from Bloomberg View columnists and editors at the Ticker.","Catalonian President Artur Mas's decision to call early elections for Sunday has backfired, muddying the future for Spain and Catalans alike."
"Updated May 2, 2013 11:30 PM ET

The Boston Celtics-New York Knicks series has turned nasty — as FOXSports.com's Bill Reiter describes — and now the ill will has gotten personal.

Knicks star Carmelo Anthony got into it with Celtics reserve Jordan Crawford after Boston extended the series with a Game 5 victory Wednesday night, exchanging words after the buzzer. Twitter and the blogosphere blew up after video and GIFs of the incident appeared to show Crawford mouthing a profane insult to Anthony about his wife, La La. (WARNING: Explicit language)

Earlier this season, Anthony got into it with Kevin Garnett after the Celts star reportedly told him his wife ""tastes like Honey Nut Cheerios"".

On Thursday, Anthony's wife, La La, joined the battle on Twitter, taking aim at Crawford.

Try again. You on the bench for a reason. instagram.com/p/Y0QM3-xjT5/

I would never talk trash about that mans Wife. I don't him........ All I did was respond!!

Watch for more fireworks in Friday's Game 6 in Boston as the Celtics try to even the series.","The Knicks-Celtics series has turned nasty, and Carmelo Anthonys
wife, La La, has joined the battle."
"An expert committee of architects has announced that New York’s new World Trade Center is the tallest building in the United States at a height of 1,776 feet, surpassing Chicago's Willis Tower.

The Height Committee of the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat announced its decision Tuesday morning at press conferences in New York City and Chicago.

The committee is recognized as the final arbiter of building heights around the world. It had been weighing whether a design change meant the needle atop 1 World Trade Center is part of the actual building or merely the equivalent of a broadcast antenna.

The committee announced Tuesday that the needle was a spire, and therefore, a part of the actual building. Twenty-five members of the group met in Chicago on Nov. 8 to debate the height of the building.

“To us it’s not very fuzzy it all,” said Timothy Johnson, chairman of the council.

Johnson said as the members came out of a room after they agreed that 1 World Trade Center is America’s tallest building, they realized they “had [made] a little part of history in this decision.”

The tower built on the site of the 9/11 attacks is a symbolically important 1,776 feet tall with the 408-foot needle. It would be 1,368 feet tall without it, shorter than the 1,450-foot Willis Tower in Chicago.

One World Trade Center’s 1,368 feet height without the needle also holds symbolism; it is the height of the original World Trade Center.

The designers originally had intended to enclose the mast's communications gear in decorative cladding made of fiberglass and steel.

But the developer removed that exterior shell from the design, saying it would be impossible to properly maintain or repair. Without it, the question was whether the mast was now primarily just a broadcast antenna.

Under the council's current criteria, spires that are an integral part of a building's aesthetic design count. Broadcast antennas that can be added and removed do not.

The new World Trade Center tower remains under construction and is expected to open next year.

“The challenge is now back with Chicago—can you build another bigger building?” Johnson asked.

The new World Trade Center is now the fourth tallest building worldwide, behind Dubai’s Burj Khalifa, at 2,717 feet tall, Shanghai’s Shanghai Tower, at 2,074 feet tall, and the Makkah Royal Clock Tower in Mecca, which stands at 1,972 feet, according to Emporis.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.","An expert committee of architects has announced that New York’s new World Trade Center is the tallest building in the United States at 1,776 ft., declaring that a needle on top of the building is a spire."
"""And it's my opinion that economies are served by falling prices, by increased production, increased efficiencies, that lower consumer prices, that that's what makes people better off. And I think the idea that central banks need to deliberately create inflation because it's somehow a necessary ingredient to economic growth is wrong. Inflation is actually worsening the problems in the economy.""

Roubini said that he saw continued low inflation ahead.

""I'm in favor of low inflation, a target of 2 percent. You were arguing that deflation was good. I was pointing out that in the period of time that we had deflation, the Great Depression, or the stagnation of Japan, in the last 20 years, or what's happening right now in the euro zone where you have deflation and recession, deflation is associated with lack of aggregate demand that implies an economy is in depression,"" he said. ""And therefore, deflation is a symptom of lack of growth and aggregate demand. Why do you think deflation is good? That's nonsense.""

Roubini also argued that gold prices would fall and that the U.S. dollar would strengthen.

Schiff brushed off Roubini's arguments.

""Let me give you the facts. Americans use credit cards. They buy things, and they pay 18 percent interest. Why don't they wait a year, save the money and save the 18 percent? Because they want it now,"" he said. ""There is no period in history where consumers have not bought things because they thought the prices would be cheaper. We know the price is going to be cheaper? We all own cellphones. We know if we wait a while, we can get the phone cheaper. But we don't wait because we want it now. This is all nonsense.""

— By CNBC's Bruno J. Navarro. Follow him on Twitter @Bruno_J_Navarro.","It was a battle of the bears between Nouriel Roubini and Peter Schiff. What began at the 2014 SALT Conference, continued on CNBC's ""Fast Money."""
"This weekend’s polls confirmed again that the battle for the Senate may hinge largely on what happens in Iowa. Which means control of the Upper Chamber may turn to no small degree on this question: Can Joni Ernst run out the clock before her actual positions catch up with her, and eke out a victory through fundamentals, nostalgia-tinged appeals to conservative rural voters, and a deftly spun tale of clashing personalities that positions her as the true representative of “sturdy Iowa folk virtues“?

Democrats have long thought that once Ernst’s real views (the right-wing conspiracy-mongering about the United Nations; the opposition to the Department of Education and federal minimum wage; the outsized ideas about government dependency, etc.) were fully aired out, Democrat Bruce Braley would edge ahead. But Ernst maintains a small lead, calling into question that theory.

Now, in the final push, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee is going up with a new ad that lacerates Ernst for signaling openness to privatizing Social Security, contrasting that with Democrat Bruce Braley’s flat-out opposition to privatization:

The ad, which is part of an ongoing multimillion-dollar buy, claims Ernst is “so extreme, she’d risk seniors’ retirement on the stock market, ending the guaranteed minimum benefit.” The ad offers no source for this claim, which looks like an extrapolation of the general risks involved with privatization. The spot does feature footage of Ernst saying: “Yes, I have talked about privatizing Social Security.” Ernst has subsequently confirmed she’s discussed privatization “as an option.” As PolitiFact notes, it’s going too far to say that Ernst would definitely do this, but it’s fair to say Ernst is open to doing it, and that embodies a real contrast between the two candidates.

A national Democratic strategist involved in the Iowa race tells me internal polling shows airing out Ernst’s true views on Personhood and Social Security is largely responsible for Braley bringing the race within two points.

The Ernst campaign’s own behavior suggests it is aware of the dangers of allowing for a full explication of her views and positions. Over the weekend, the Des Moines Register’s editorial board reported that it had invited her in for a discussion of its much-coveted endorsement, because it had not yet heard enough “specifics about her vision, priorities and positions.” Ernst skipped the meeting, and it seems fair to speculate that the Ernst camp worried that an extended discussion risked drawing her views into sharper relief.

When the Des Moines Register endorsed Braley the next day, it explicitly cited her openness to Social Security privatization as a key reason why. So expect Democrats to hammer away at this aggressively in the final stretch.

* GOP HOLDS EDGE IN BATTLE FOR SENATE: Over the weekend, NBC released a batch of polls showing Republicans leading in Colorado by one, in Arkansas by two, and Iowa by three. Greg Orman leads in Kansas by one and North Carolina is tied. All are within the margin of error.

Meanwhile, YouGov released a trove of data showing GOP leads in more than enough states to take the majority, but some are slim and Colorado and Iowa are tied. All this is consistent with the idea that the GOP is favored to take the Senate but that many of these races could still go either way.

* SENATE BATTLE REMAINS STABLE: Nate Silver analyzes the above data and concludes that not a lot has changed: Republicans hold a clear edge but not a decisive one, and a lot of uncertainty remains. Silver:

Part of the reason for the uncertainty is that many of the important races are associated with circumstances that produce larger polling errors. Louisiana will almost certainly have a runoff and Georgia is more likely than not to have one, which means there’s quite a lot of campaigning left in each state. The polling has been sparse in Arkansas and both sparse and inconsistent in Alaska. Kansas, and to a lesser extent Kentucky….Republicans have the edge, but they haven’t been able to put Democrats away.

Meanwhile, the FiveThirtyEight and HuffPollster models have the chances of a GOP takeover at around 63 percent — a clear advantage to Republicans but by no means a certainty.

* SOME LARGER CONTEXT ON THE SENATE BATTLE: E.J. Dionne supplies it, noting that if anything, given the fundamentals, the battle for the Senate should not be as close as it is; Republicans should have dispatched more Dem incumbents by now; and they should have put more Dem seats in play. If Democrats must lose the Senate, limiting the GOP majority to 51 or 52 seats, which looks very plausible, is job number two.

* HOUSE GOP CONTEMPLATES GOVERNING: Politico has an interesting interview with number two House GOPer Kevin McCarthy, who explains that the GOP-controlled House must show the capacity to govern next year or lose in 2016. But:

Critics inside and outside the Republican establishment say the party’s revival is dependent on not only a functioning Congress, but passing policies like immigration reform — an uncertain prospect in a Republican-controlled Congress. McCarthy left open the possibility of passing an overhaul of immigration laws, but said if Obama “tried to do it by executive order, that’s the worst way,” and it would “stop everything.”

And so the groundwork is already being laid to blame Obama for the coming GOP failure on immigration, arguably the issue that poses the most pressing demographic challenge.

* QUESTION OF THE DAY: Washington Monthly asks a good one, and provides a possible answer: What ever happened to the House GOP lawsuit against the president?

* WHY WE’LL NEVER SPEND ON INFRASTRUCTURE: Paul Krugman makes it simple: Though America has long spent to upgrade its infrastructure and invest in the future, that isn’t going to happen now because one party opposes it.

Nowadays we simply won’t invest, even when the need is obvious and the timing couldn’t be better. And don’t tell me that the problem is “political dysfunction” or some other weasel phrase that diffuses the blame. Our inability to invest doesn’t reflect something wrong with “Washington”; it reflects the destructive ideology that has taken over the Republican Party….America has turned its back on its own history. We need public investment; at a time of very low interest rates, we could easily afford it. But build we won’t.

Your regular reminder: Republican lawmakers used to support infrastructure spending to create jobs, back before Obama was president.

* AND, YES, OBAMACARE IS WORKING: Don’t miss the New York Times’ terrific infographic detailing the real-world impact, by a number of metrics, of Obamacare a year after the website crashed. Overall conclusion:

After a year fully in place, the Affordable Care Act has largely succeeded in delivering on President Obama’s main promises, an analysis by a team of reporters and data researchers shows. But it has also fallen short in some ways and given rise to a powerful conservative backlash.

That the law has largely succeeded on core goals, but has given rise to a conservative backlash anyway, is why Republican Senate candidates are dissembling and evading endlessly on the true implications of their supposed support for repeal.

Greg Sargent writes The Plum Line blog, a reported opinion blog with a liberal slant -- what you might call “opinionated reporting” from the left.",Democrats plan to attack her over Social Security in the final stretch.
"One might consider a Chicago White Sox fan living in Seattle to have bad luck. It rains a lot, your team doesn't visit often...and so on.

Then Paul Dockal decided to bring his 9-month-old son, Bode, to Safeco Field for his first baseball game on April 21. Paul treated his son and his wife, Jennifer, to first-row seats behind the opposing dugout.

And that's when the good luck started for Paul. Scratch that. For Bode. The family witnessed Phil Humber's perfect game for the White Sox in Bode's first-ever baseball game. Talk about good luck.

""It's one of those things that, I don't think he could understand how important it was for me to be with him until he has a son of his own,"" Paul told MLB.com. ""The first thing I said to my wife was, 'This is the best day I've ever had with my son.'""

So after lightning struck once, there's no way it could happen again, right?

Paul took Bode to another game when his uncle wanted to catch a game on Aug. 15. Felix Hernandez was pitching. And just like that, Hernandez threw a perfect game and Bode witnessed history AGAIN. You can't make these things up.

Just like that, Bode Dockal has already seen more in his nine months on earth than most die-hard baseball fans have in a lifetime.

There have been only 23 perfect games thrown in nearly a century and a half of pro baseball history, and Bode has seen two already. Too bad he won't remember either game.

We've seen the corny movies about luck in sports. Angels in the Outfield. Rookie of the Year. Luck of the Irish (Disney Channel Original Movie, people). But for something like this to happen in real life? Crazy.

If you're a pitcher, wouldn't you want to invite this kid out to the game?

Although, considering the Tampa Bay Rays have witnessed three perfect games in four years, baby Bode still has some work to do in the witnessing-perfect-games department.

And now that Bode has become the ""Perfect Game Baby,"" does this mean he'll be blessed with good luck for the rest of his life or will he be the kid who can't hit to save his life in tee-ball?","Nine-month old baby Bode Dockal saw two perfect games, in his first two trips to baseball ballparks."
"Updated SEP 17, 2014 7:51p ET

Miami Marlins slugger Giancarlo Stanton's MVP-caliber season is officially over.

Manager Mike Redmond announced to reporters at Citi Field on Wednesday afternoon that Stanton will be shut down for the final 12 games, though the team expects him to be ready for spring training next year.

""The doctors at the end felt like he needed more time to heal, no doubt,"" Redmond said. ""It wasn't worth rushing him back. Make sure he's properly healed up and ready for next year.""

Stanton was struck by an 88 mph fastball from Milwaukee Brewers right-hander Mike Fiers last Thursday. After being tended to by medical and training staffs of both teams, he was taken in an ambulance to a Milwaukee hospital. Tests revealed multiple facial fractures and dental damage. He required stitches for a facial laceration.

Upon his arrival in Miami the following day, the 24-year-old underwent further evaluation and dental work. Members of the organization, including general manager Dan Jennings, had stated Stanton's desire to return.

""We didn't expect anything less, and the fact he said that we knew that he wanted to be out there and it was genuine,"" catcher Jarrod Saltalamacchia said. ""But that being said we know what the smart thing to do is. As a teammate I don't think I would let him do it. I would probably tackle him before he got out there.""

On Tuesday, Stanton updated fans on Instagram of his progress with a post highlighting before and after images.

The two-time All-Star finishes with a .288 average, an NL-leading 37 homers and 105 RBI. Prior to the injury, he had played in all 145 of Miami's contests this season and paced the league in nearly all offensive categories. Since Friday, the Marlins are 2-3 without him in the lineup and have been held to just one run in all three losses.

There remains the possibility of Stanton getting at-bats in simulated games with the instructional league that runs through the beginning of October.

""He's made tremendous progress, but there was still some swelling and then the multiple fractures,"" president of baseball operations Michael Hill said. ""It just wasn't enough time, enough schedule to get him back and on the field.""

You can follow Christina De Nicola on Twitter @CDeNicola13 or email her at cdenicola13@gmail.com.",Miami Marlins right-fielder Giancarlo Stanton will not play for the rest of the season.
"WASHINGTON – Tea Party and union members, liberals and conservatives, Republicans and Democrats have two things in common as the Supreme Court prepares to announce its verdict on President Obama's health care law Thursday.

They have no clue what the court will decide. And they will have plenty to say outside the court immediately after — in high praise or denunciation.

Much like the court's three days of oral arguments on the Affordable Care Act in late March, Thursday will feature a crowded, hushed courtroom and a cacophonous series of sidewalk demonstrations.

For some lawyers and lawmakers who have fought the health care battle for years — and in some cases, decades — it's an opportunity to witness history inside the marble courthouse.

""There's an atmosphere of intense, quiet excitement,"" says Neal Katyal, who represented the Obama administration before the court as acting solicitor general in 2010-11. ""People are sitting in that room knowing history is about to be made.""

Ron Pollack, executive director of the health consumer group Families USA, has been there the past three days the court delivered opinions, just in case health care was among them. Thursday, he plans to arrive several hours early to make sure he picks up every nuance from the nine justices.

Pollack's allies will be outside as well, to react before dozens of TV cameras. Within minutes, the group plans to send its analysis and recommendations for further action to more than 100,000 supporters. It has prepared eight news releases based on potential court rulings.

""It's going to be packed,"" Pollack predicts. ""We're going to have a lot of people outside. They will have signs, and they will chant dignified but positive things about the legislation.""

On the other side of the debate, Tea Party demonstrators also will be out in force. They plan a ""flash rally"" in front of the court, thanks to ""Minutemen"" coming from hours away.

Within 36 hours, the Tea Party Patriots plan a teleconference for their members with key opponents of the law, including Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., and Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn.

Members of Congress will be inside and outside. House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, will dispatch two members of his leadership team, Reps. Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington and Tom Price of Georgia. Boehner has vowed to seek repeal of any portions of the law left standing by the court.

Liberal Democrats, anticipating that the court's conservative majority may strike at least part of the law, plan to march from the Capitol to the court with signs urging ""Medicare for all,"" a type of government-run health care. Among them will be Reps. Raul Grijalva of Arizona and Keith Ellison of Minnesota.

Some of the most prominent advocates involved with the case won't attend — they'll be busy reading and responding.

Randy Barnett, a Georgetown University law professor and plaintiff in the case on behalf of the National Federation of Independent Business, will be reading the justices' opinions, writing on legal blog sites, doing radio commentary and fielding a steady stream of media calls.

""This has turned out to be the biggest case in our lifetime,"" Barnett says. ""This is really a case that's up there at the level of Brown v. Board of Education,"" the 1954 desegregation case.",People will have plenty to say outside the Supreme Court after the health care ruling.
"The highly anticipated second season of Sarah Koenig’s podcast Serial is finally here and the Internet is going crazy about it. As was rumored, this season will tackle the case of Bowe Bergdahl, the U.S. soldier who walked off his post in Afghanistan in 2009 and was captured and held by the Taliban for nearly five years.

After the team at Serial announced its release with a casual tweet and an email to subscribers on Thursday morning, people took to Twitter to express their emotions and thoughts about the upcoming episodes.

Many could barely contain their excitement:

UMMM season two episode one of serial is out right now and nobody thought it was important to SCREAM THIS from the mountaintops???

— kat (@katbamkapow) December 10, 2015

While others cracked jokes about the series:

Remember, federal buildings are closed today. The release of a new Serial episode is a national holiday for white people.

— daveweigel (@daveweigel) December 10, 2015

Didn't expect this season of Serial to explore what that light switch in the corner of my living room is supposed to do but I'm intrigued

— doughy ramone (@alexsleepwalks) December 10, 2015

Others recognized the severity of the subject matter being discussed:

Anyway, it's time for us to all feel vaguely bad for using someone else's tragedy for water cooler entertainment. #Serial

— Mike Drucker (@MikeDrucker) December 10, 2015

Is this season of Serial also about turning a teenager's murder into a fun meme

— Richard Lawson (@rilaws) December 10, 2015

Even Rabia Chaudry, a lawyer who set in motion the events that led to season one, chimed in:

The first episode of season two, “DUSTWUN” (or “Duty Status – Whereabouts Unknown”), is available to download now.",The popular podcast will tell the story of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl
"CLEARWATER, Fla — The digits next to Luis Severino’s name in the Yankees-Phillies box score from Tuesday’s game at Bright House Field lie.

In 1¹/₃ innings the Yankees’ top pitching prospect allowed two runs and four hits. But watching the outing live, it was far better than that.

After a perfect first frame in which he caught Cesar Hernandez looking at a 86 mph change, fanned Cameron Rupp with a 94 mph fastball and shattered Ben Revere’s bat with another 94 mph heater, the 20-year-old gave up four soft singles in the second inning when he faced Ryan Howard with runners on first and second and no outs, and Howard beat him for an RBI single.

“Howard,’’ Severino said when asked who he wanted to get out the most. “Because he is Howard. I tried to get a strikeout, but I didn’t get it.’’

Because Severino has made six starts above Single-A, it’s not likely the Dominican Republic native can make the big league club no matter how well he pitches in spring training.

Nevertheless, it’s not out of the question he will surface in The Bronx at some point during the regular season.

“I hope so, if I do my job, yeah,’’ Severino said.

That was the end of Severino’s day.

The power the Yankees gush about when talking about Aaron Judge surfaced in the ninth inning when the 6-foot-7, 255-pounder hit a three-run home run to tie the score 5-5, the final score of Tuesday’s game.

“I am trying to make it as hard as I can for them to send me across the street to the minor leagues,’’ said the Yankees’ first-round (32nd player) pick taken in the 2013 draft.

Judge, an outfielder, played in Single-A Charleston and Single-A Tampa last year when he hit 17 homers and had 78 RBIs.

Stud catching prospect Luis Torrens will miss the 2015 season because of a torn labrum in his right shoulder and will undergo surgery Wednesday in New York.

Torrens turns 18 in May and played in the Gulf Coast League, Short-A Staten Island and Low-A Charleston last season.

Adam Warren is being used as a starter this spring, but there are those in the organization who believe he is more valuable in the bullpen.

“I feel like I can compete to be a starter but who knows where it will wind up,’’ Warren said after starting and throwing two scoreless innings Tuesday.

Asked if Warren is a legitimate candidate to pitch his way into the rotation, manager Joe Girardi said he is interested in getting a look at the right-hander who appeared in 69 games last year (no starts) and posted a 2.97 ERA.

“I think it’s something you have to look at with the way he’s pitched,” Girardi said. “With the health of our pitchers, I think we also have to be prepared. It’s both reasons.

“You like him in the bullpen, and you feel really comfortable bringing him in from the bullpen. He’s a multiple-inning guy that has four pitches that really get right-handers and left-handers out. As much as you want to see guys grow and continue, he’s pretty darn good in the bullpen.’’

Jacob Lindgren, the Yankees’ first pick in last year’s draft (second round) out of Mississippi State, gave up two unearned runs, thanks to a throwing error by second baseman Rob Refsnyder.

Andrew Bailey threw live batting practice at George M. Steinbrenner Field. It was the first session of the spring for the right-hander, who hasn’t worked a big league game since 2013 because of shoulder surgery. He attempted one late last season but it didn’t feel right. He said Tuesday the arm felt “very good.’’

The pace-of-game changes wasn’t noticed by many players. Center fielder Jacoby Ellsbury only noticed it when he saw the clock in center field. Warren was worried the 1:50 to throw eight warm-up pitches was not enough time, but he got it done in 50 seconds.

— Additional reporting by Ken Davidoff","CLEARWATER, Fla — The digits next to Luis Severino’s name in the Yankees-Phillies box score from Tuesday’s game at Bright House Field lie. In 1¹/₃ innings the Yankees’ top pitching prospect allowed..."
"Hedge funds and other money managers have amassed a near-record number of bullish bets on increasing oil prices, helping push the main international benchmark well above $40 per barrel.

By the close of business on March 22, money managers held a net long position equivalent to almost 579 million barrels in the three largest crude oil futures and options contracts.

Hedge funds have more than doubled their net long position from just 242 million barrels at the end of last year, according to an analysis of data published by regulators and exchanges.

The net long position has passed the previous peak of 572 million barrels, set in May 2015, and is closing in on the record of 626 million, set in June 2014, when Islamic State fighters were racing across northern Iraq.

Hedge funds have established a record net long position in Brent crude futures and options traded on ICE Futures Europe equivalent to 364 million barrels of oil.

At the same time, hedge fund managers have largely closed out their previous record short position in U.S. oil futures and options and started to accumulate long positions instead.

Combined WTI short positions on the New York Mercantile Exchange and ICE Futures Europe have been cut from 261 million barrels at the start of February to 112 million barrels.

The net long position in WTI has surged from just 60 million barrels in early February to 215 million barrels on March 22.

The accumulation of a near-record net long position has coincided with a sharp rise in oil prices, with U.S. crude up from $26 per barrel to more than $41, and Brent up from $30 to $42.

The closing out of the previous record short position in U.S. crude futures and options has been accompanied by a predictable short-covering rally.

There has been a close correspondence between hedge fund positions and the movement of oil prices since early 2014.

Just as record shorting of U.S. crude futures and options helped push oil prices to multi-year lows below $30 per barrel in January and February, so the unwinding of those positions has sent prices sharply higher.

This is the third time that hedge funds have established a large short position and then unwound it since the start of 2015 and each cycle has ended with a sharp short-covering rally.

But the current short-covering rally now appears over with hedge funds now fully exited from the record short position established since October 2015.

With the hedge funds switched from a record short position to a near-record long one, the balance of risks in the market has shifted to the downside.

Instead of a short-covering rally, the main risk in the short term is now long liquidation if funds try to take some of their profits following the rise in prices.

The current hedge fund long positioning puts the market at risk from a sharp drop in prices such as occurred after June 2014, May 2015 and October 2015.

There seems to be some awareness of the shifting balance of threats.

In the last three weeks, oil prices have risen by less than expected given the large reduction in hedge fund short positions.

The rally in WTI has stalled at or just below $40, while the liquidation of hedge fund short positions implied it should have risen closer to $50 per barrel.

Hedge funds are betting growing consumption and shrinking oil output will swiftly rebalance the oil market.

Like the optimistic Professor Pangloss in Voltaire’s “Candide,” hedge funds have established a near-record long position on the assumption the oil market will be in the best of possible worlds in 2016.

The newfound bullishness has been based in part on the view that oil prices have already fallen so far (probably too far) that they must increase again in the medium term.

Few analysts, traders, and investors think that oil prices could be sustainable at $30 in the medium and long-term so a correction was inevitable at some point.

Hedge funds have turned very bullish about the outlook for oil prices based on indicators showing that gasoline demand in the United States and India.

Investors appear more hopeful the U.S. and global economies will avoid a return to recession in 2016, ensuring that oil consumption keeps increasing.

U.S. shale production appears to be falling swiftly based on state production data and the wholesale idling of drilling rigs, which should gradually help tighten the oil market.

Sentiment about possible production restraint from members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries has also improved.

OPEC members appear to be inching towards agreement on a standstill production agreement in cooperation with key non-OPEC countries.

Critically, the possibility of a standstill agreement is no longer being conditioned on adherence by Iran, which remains determined to increase its oil production to pre-sanctions levels.

Global oil inventories remain high and continue to swell, but the most rapid stock-building phase may be over and stocks could start to draw down in the second half of 2016 or during 2017.

Unplanned production and pipeline outages in the Middle East and Africa have underscored how little spare capacity there is in the market, with almost all countries producing close to their maximum.

It is possible to construct a very bullish narrative in which the oil market rebalances thanks to strong gasoline consumption growth, a rapid decline in U.S. shale output and production restraint by OPEC.

Global oil inventories peak within the next six months and thereafter start to draw down as the global economy continues to expand, freight movements accelerate and a colder northern hemisphere winter arrives.

Hedge funds appear to have bought heavily into this narrative over the last couple of months, anticipating and accelerating the recovery of oil prices from unsustainably low levels.

But the market has risen so far so fast, and the hedge funds are now so heavily invested, that the balance of risks has shifted, at least in the short term.

The biggest price risk comes from long liquidation, either because hedge funds try to book some of their profits or because data on supply and demand fail to live up to expectations.",And they are placing bets in records amounts.
"In the last year, videos of incidents between white police officers and minorities have prompted changes in procedures. Here is a look at those videos, which include graphic scenes of violence.

They began as workaday interactions between the police and the public, often involving minor traffic stops in places like Cincinnati; North Charleston, S.C.; and Waller County, Tex. But they swiftly escalated into violent encounters. And all were captured on video.

Those videos, all involving white officers and black civilians, have become ingrained in the nation’s consciousness — to many people, as evidence of bad police conduct. And while they represent just a tiny fraction of police behavior — those that show respectful, peaceful interactions do not make the 24-hour cable news — they have begun to alter public views of police use of force and race relations, experts and police officials say.

Videos have provided “corroboration of what African-Americans have been saying for years,” said Paul Butler, a professor at Georgetown University Law School and a former prosecutor, who called them “the C-Span of the streets.” On Thursday, the family of Samuel DuBose, an unarmed black man who was shot to death by a University of Cincinnati police officer on July 19, said the officer would never have been prosecuted if his actions had not been captured by the body camera the officer was wearing.

To the police, that poses a new challenge in trying to regain public confidence. “Every time I think maybe we’re past this and we can start rebuilding, it seems another incident occurs that inflames public outrage,” said James Pasco, the executive director of the Fraternal Order of Police. “Police officers literally have millions of contacts with citizens every day, and in the vast majority of those interactions, there is no claim of wrongdoing, but that’s not news.”

Some polling bolsters such concerns. In a Gallup national survey conducted in June, 52 percent of people said they had “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in the police, down from 57 percent two years earlier, and 64 percent in 2004. In 2007, 37 percent of Americans had high confidence that their local police would treat blacks and whites equally, the Pew Research Center found, but last year that was down to 30 percent.

At the same time, video may be changing the way prosecutors handle cases in which the police are accused of misconduct. Not only can video contradict an officer’s account of what happened, it can also create immense public pressure for action against officers.

Such was the case with fatal police shootings in North Charleston and Cincinnati, and with the arrest in Baltimore of Freddie Gray, who died of injuries he sustained while in police custody. In all three cases, prosecutors brought rare murder charges against officers within days — remarkable speed for a process that in the past could take weeks or months. Those swift actions have been applauded by many African-Americans.

But some prosecutors have raised concerns that the public outcry generated by video can also put pressure on prosecutors to file charges. “We don’t want to rush to judgment simply because of what the video shows,” said Peter Weir, the district attorney for Jefferson and Gilpin counties in Colorado, who says he believes police body cameras enhance public trust in the system.

In the Cincinnati case, video from a camera worn by a University of Cincinnati police officer, Ray Tensing, provided crucial evidence, and contradicted the officer’s official account, in the July 19 shooting death of Mr. DuBose. A grand jury indicted Mr. Tensing, who was fired by the university police department on Wednesday, on charges of murder and manslaughter. He pleaded not guilty on Thursday in Hamilton County Municipal Court, and Judge Megan E. Shanahan set his bail at $1 million.

Mr. Tensing later made bail and was released.

There are no definitive figures, but officials say that most police forces do not use body cameras, or use them on a very limited basis. But according to a 2013 survey by the Police Executive Research Forum, a research group, about one in four of its member forces regularly used body cameras. And the number is rising quickly as the federal government provides grants for cameras, said Lindsay Miller, a senior research associate at the group.

San Diego has equipped hundreds of its police officers with cameras and is expanding that program, and Los Angeles recently decided to put cameras on all of its patrol officers but has not yet done so. New York, Chicago, Houston, Philadelphia and other cities have trial programs.

Dashboard cameras are far more prevalent — more so among state police and highway patrol forces than among local police forces — but experts say they know of no national tally of those, either.

Yet despite the growing use of police video cameras, evidence is mixed about what effect they are having on police behavior. Experts say that cameras probably change for the better how the police and the public treat each other, but they do not know how much. And the fact that one viral video after another surfaces, showing officers treating civilians harshly, demonstrates the limits of that change.

Recent studies showed that when officers in Rialto, Calif., and in Mesa, Ariz., wore body cameras, complaints against the police fell sharply. But body camera advocates and skeptics alike say they do not know how much that reflects a real decline in police misconduct, and how much was a drop in spurious civilian complaints; it may be that both groups behave better when they are on camera.

“Over all, body cameras and dashboard cams deter police misconduct, but at this point, it’s hard to know how much, and there are officers whose behavior is not going to be changed,” Professor Butler said.

The proliferation of video has coincided with a paradox: Public views of the police have grown worse, yet experts say police use of force has probably been lower in the last few years than in generations. (There is, however, no precise accounting of the number of people killed by police officers each year.)

Polls show overwhelming public support for police body cameras — 92 percent in a New York Times/CBS News poll conducted April 30 to May 3. But law enforcement officials warn against unrealistic expectations of a simple transition that will provide a kind of impartial witness to every interaction.

Routine use of cameras raises multiple questions for police departments: how to pay for them, how much discretion to give officers in turning cameras on and off, how long to store recordings, when to make them public, and how to safeguard the privacy of people, like crime victims, who might turn up on video.

A collection of videos that have led to nationwide protests, federal investigations and changes in policy and attitudes on race.

“The benefit of being able to hold police accountable in many situations where they are now largely immune is probably worth the cost alone,” said Jonathan Simon, the director of the Center for the Study of Law and Society at the University of California, Berkeley. “But even more so when you consider how often the same cameras will provide damning evidence against criminal suspects as well.”

Police commanders and prosecutors generally support camera use, arguing that they provide useful evidence, and will usually show the officers conducting themselves professionally. Views among officers and the unions representing them are more mixed, varying from place to place.

“A negative is that police might say, ‘We just won’t put ourselves in bad situations,’ that they say, ‘We are not going to jeopardize our lives because if we make a good-faith mistake, it is going to look like a crime, and we’re going to get prosecuted for murder,’ ” said Francis T. Cullen, a professor in the School of Criminal Justice at the University of Cincinnati.

Another drawback, experts say, is that the public may have too much faith in video. It can give an incomplete, even misleading, picture, they say, and it cannot really put the viewer in the shoes of an officer having to make split-second decisions under pressure.

“Body cameras are helpful, but they are not the magic elixir,” said Sim Gill, the district attorney of Salt Lake County, Utah. “What a camera sees is not necessarily what the officer sees. It’s not always going to be conclusive.”

A version of this article appears in print on July 31, 2015, on page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: Glare of Video Is Shifting Public’s View of Police . Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe","The recording of encounters between the police and the public has begun to alter public views of the use of force and race relations, experts and police officials say."
"The Royal Children's Hospital emergency department has been under growing demand over winter. (9NEWS)

Victoria’s health minister Jill Hennessy has warned of a growing list of patients at the Royal Children’s Hospital emergency department, as parents regularly treat the hospital as a first option to treat ill children.

Announcing the allocation of “significant and record investment” of funding including $1.4 million unit to combat the emergency department’s growing numbers, Ms Hennessy said it was important that with the increase of patients at the Royal Children’s Hospital, parents were well-informed of their options.

“What we see in winter is a significant increase in the demand of all of our health services, here at the Royal Children’s Hospital for the month of May up to 8,000 patients were seen when ordinarily we would see around 6,200,” she said.

“It’s important that we focus on providing care to the sickest of children first, and to establish a special unit to get those kids that are coming in – that perhaps don’t require admission to hospital but do still require some medical attention.”

Ms Hennessy said the centre would be a go-to point for parents who in other circumstances may have to wait long periods in the emergency department.

The Royal Children's Hospital has recently advised parents on social media to consult a GP or local hospital first to combat the strain on the department, with weekends among the busiest times. Around 300 children visit the hospital on Sundays.

The clinical director of emergency medicine at the Royal Children’s Hospital, Stuart Lewena, said while the problem was not extremely grave, with communication the new facility would help parents who otherwise have to wait for care.

“It’s a problem for the fact that the small number of parents it affects – we’re not doing them any favours by making them wait, and the small impact on crowding is not helpful for them or the other people waiting, but to call it a big problem is overstating the fact,” Mr Lewena said.

A new treatment facility will be delivered for patients with less urgent care to reduce wait times. (9NEWS)

“In busy periods, it’s not uncommon for parents with children who have less urgent matters to have to wait up to four hours for care.

It’s more of a problem for those parents themselves. If you come here when you don’t need to and wait four hours - through communication and giving options and helping them make decisions, you can source a better avenue of healthcare,” he said.

The hospital will endeavour to create a 10-treatment space, with additional staff, to provide “fast-track care”.

“It’s delivering care to children with less complex problems who can probably get in and out of hospital in a timely fashion, as long as we can get them through the door and start treating them,” Mr Lewena said.

Christine Kilpatrick, CEO of the Royal Children’s Hospital, said the funding will be extremely useful for the increased demand.

“This helps us for the growing need of children who are coming here,” Ms Kilpatrick said.

© Nine Digital Pty Ltd 2016","Victoria’s health minister Jill Hennessy has warned of a growing demand of patients at the Royal Children’s Hospital emergency department, as parents regularly treat the hospital as a first option to treat ill children."
"ATHENS — With a new batch of budget cuts looming, Greek officials have made it clear that they must target the state's nearly 1-million-strong army of civil servants, shaving salaries, benefits and bonuses for the third time in three years.

""We're doomed,"" says social worker Dmitra, 44, who asked that her last name not be printed for fear of reprisals. ""Whoever said we were privileged and protected?""

And yet, many Greeks emphatically contend that government workers are protected. At least they still have a job.

Since the financial crisis erupted here in 2009, the unemployment rate has vaulted to 24% from 7.8%, adding 800,000 Greeks to the ranks of the unemployed, for a total of 1.2 million. But all the job losses have come from the private sector.

""It's like a ship is sinking and there aren't enough safety rafts, but public sector employees, because of their lifelong job security status, are on deck, rushing on board the boats safely,"" says Nikos Tsafos, a Washington-based economist. ""Does that seem fair?""

The civil service has long been a sacred cow. Successive governments, mainly headed by the socialist PASOK party, for decades stuffed it with political — and at times, doltish — hires, swelling it to a fifth of the nation's 4.2-million-member workforce in 2010.

Even now, few politicians seem willing to overly offend members of the potent voting bloc.

In recent months, a junior partner in the ruling coalition has balked at creditors' demands that Prime Minister Antonis Samaras shed 15,000 public jobs, endangering a shaky alliance that the conservative leader stitched together after winning two divisive elections in May and June.

The country remains under heavy pressure to get its house in order. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who is widely reviled in Greece because of her demands for tough reforms, is scheduled to visit this week. Last week, inspectors from the European Commission, International Monetary Fund and European Central Bank were in Athens, and they reasserted the demand for public sector cutbacks.

Now, facing a need to trim an additional $13.7 billion, Finance Ministry officials say about 70% of that will come from the civil service, trimming as much as 12% of judicial officers, police officers and military troops.

Pensions will also be reduced again, and the retirement age, currently 65, looks likely to be raised to 67.

Fear of future public sector sackings and the added austerity have unleashed more protests. As popular resentment grows against the country's political elite, wrenching economic and social shifts have also left this country of 11 million bifurcated between public sector and private sector employees, compounding the already deepening divide between the haves and have-nots, the rich and the poor.

""I've never felt more insecure,"" said social worker Dmitra as she turned off a TV news report and rolled some Old Holborn tobacco. ""It doesn't seem like we will be spared.""

The latest divide has become so distinct and vivid, experts say, that severe social fallouts could follow.

""It's like civil war without the strife,"" said Giannis Panousis, a professor of sociology at Athens University. ""As the crisis deepens, so too will the division, leading to extreme individual reactions and blind social explosions.""

A decade ago, Maria Katsoula considered herself middle class, working at a thriving supermarket chain. She lived with her sister, Vasso, a cleaner at a refinery. Then the recession hit and both lost their jobs. Maria twice attempted suicide; Vasso's health deteriorated. They eventually moved in with their parents, but food and medical expenses have been impossible to cover with their father's meager pension.

""The other day, I caught him [their father] rummaging through a dumpster, picking eggplants,"" said Maria, who has a neck tattoo that reads ""Trust no one."" ""I never envisioned my life changing like this.

""I have no sympathy to spare for civil servants now. They have been pampered and protected for years. It's high time they feel the pain we have endured for years. Perhaps only then can we start feeling like we are in this struggle together.""

Economists like Tsafos have long talked of the need to spread the pain of austerity evenly between Greece's private and public sector. By some accounts, such a move would have saved the government $5 billion in 2011.

But not all are convinced.

""It's easy to oversimplify,"" said Savas Robolis, a professor of economics at Panteion University. ""Trying to find scapegoats — in this case, the civil service — isn't a solution to Greece's problems. Finding a curative strategy other than austerity is.""

Carassava is a special correspondent.","ATHENS — With a new batch of budget cuts looming, Greek officials have made it clear that they must target the state's nearly 1-million-strong army of civil servants, shaving salaries, benefits and bonuses for the third time in three years."
"The study, in the journal JAMA Psychiatry, found that 55 percent of suicidal teenagers had received some therapy before they thought about suicide, planned it or tried to kill themselves, contradicting the widely held belief that suicide is due in part to a lack of access to treatment.

The findings, based on interviews with a nationwide sample of more than 6,000 teenagers and at least one parent of each, linked suicidal behavior to complex combinations of mood disorders like depression and behavior problems like attention-deficit and eating disorders, as well as alcohol and drug abuse.

The study found that about one in eight teenagers had persistent suicidal thoughts at some point, and that about a third of those who had suicidal thoughts had made an attempt, usually within a year of having the idea.

Previous studies have had similar findings, based on smaller, regional samples. But the new study is the first to suggest, in a large nationwide sample, that access to treatment does not make a big difference.

The study suggests that effective treatment for severely suicidal teenagers must address not just mood disorders, but also behavior problems that can lead to impulsive acts, experts said. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1,386 people between the ages of 13 and 18 committed suicide in 2010, the latest year for which numbers are available.

“I think one of the take-aways here is that treatment for depression may be necessary but not sufficient to prevent kids from attempting suicide,” said Dr. David Brent, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh, who was not involved in the study. “We simply do not have empirically validated treatments for recurrent suicidal behavior.”

The report said nothing about whether the therapies given were state of the art or carefully done, said Matt Nock, a professor of psychology at Harvard and the lead author, and it is possible that some of the treatments prevented suicide attempts. “But it’s telling us we’ve got a long way to go to do this right,” Dr. Nock said. His co-authors included Ronald C. Kessler of Harvard and researchers from Boston University and Children’s Hospital Boston.

Margaret McConnell, a consultant in Alexandria, Va., said her daughter Alice, who killed herself in 2006 at the age of 17, was getting treatment at the time. “I think there might have been some carelessness in the way the treatment was done,” Ms. McConnell said, “and I was trusting a 17-year-old to manage her own medication. We found out after we lost her that she wasn’t taking it regularly.”

In the study, researchers surveyed 6,483 adolescents from the ages of 13 to 18 and found that 9 percent of male teenagers and 15 percent of female teenagers experienced some stretch of having persistent suicidal thoughts. Among girls, 5 percent made suicide plans and 6 percent made at least one attempt (some were unplanned).

Among boys, 3 percent made plans and 2 percent carried out attempts, which tended to be more lethal than girls’ attempts.

(Suicidal thinking or behavior was virtually unheard-of before age 10.)

Over all, about one-third of teenagers with persistent suicidal thoughts went on to make an attempt to take their own lives.

Almost all of the suicidal adolescents in the study qualified for some psychiatric diagnosis, whether depression, phobias or generalized anxiety disorder. Those with an added behavior problem — attention-deficit disorder, substance abuse, explosive anger — were more likely to act on thoughts of self-harm, the study found.

Doctors have tested a range of therapies to prevent or reduce recurrent suicidal behaviors, with mixed success. Medications can ease depression, but in some cases they can increase suicidal thinking. Talk therapy can contain some behavior problems, but not all.

One approach, called dialectical behavior therapy, has proved effective in reducing hospitalizations and suicide attempts in, among others, people with borderline personality disorder, who are highly prone to self-harm.

But suicidal teenagers who have a mixture of mood and behavior issues are difficult to reach. In one 2011 study, researchers at George Mason University reduced suicide attempts, hospitalizations, drinking and drug use among suicidal adolescent substance abusers. The study found that a combination of intensive treatments — talk therapy for mood problems, family-based therapy for behavior issues and patient-led reduction in drug use — was more effective than regular therapies.

“But that’s just one study, and it’s small,” said Dr. Brent of the University of Pittsburgh. “We can treat components of the overall problem, but that’s about all.”

Ms. McConnell said that her daughter’s depression had seemed mild and that there was no warning that she would take her life. “I think therapy does help a lot of people, if it’s handled right,” she said.",A study in the journal JAMA Psychiatry found that 55 percent of young people who tried to kill themselves had received some mental health treatment beforehand.
"said Thursday morning he isn't sure if top Iranian leaders personally knew of an alleged plot to kill the Saudi ambassador to the United States, but said they should be held accountable anyway.

""Even if at the highest levels there was no detailed operational knowledge,"" Obama said, ""there has to be accountability with respect to anybody in the Iranian government engaging in this kind of activity.""

In his first public remarks since details of the alleged plot were released earlier this week, Obama said

must ""answer to the international community"" for anybody in their government engaged in terrorist activity.

Around the world, American diplomats are spelling out evidence of the purported plot for world leaders and laying the groundwork for U.S. requests to come -- tougher sanctions on Iran and, ultimately, greater isolation by the international community.

Eight years after the U.S. shared faulty intelligence about weapons of mass destruction supposedly held in Iraq, some governments are skeptical of any new intelligence reports from Washington.

But in a morning news conference with the South Korean president, at the

this week for a state visit, Obama said he has no doubt that Iranian government officials at some level were aware of the plot.

Once people have had a chance to analyze the facts, Obama said, ""there will not be a dispute"" about what happened.

Obama seemed to acknowledge that he doesn't know for certain that knowledge of the alleged plot reached to Iranian

or to the country's supreme leader, Ali Khamenei.

But he argued they should still be held accountable.

""The important thing is for Iran to answer to the international community why anybody in their government is engaging in this kind of activity,"" Obama said.","President Obama  said Thursday morning he isn't sure if top Iranian leaders personally knew of an alleged plot to kill the Saudi ambassador to the United States, but said they should be held accountable anyway."
"Updated JUL 26, 2014 1:55p ET

Bears general manager Phil Emery entered the offseason with a specific goal: making the Monsters of the Midway frightening once again.

The franchise records set by Chicago's offense in 2013 under new head coach Marc Trestman went for naught as the Bears missed the playoffs primarily because of ineptitude on the other side of the football. The Bears forced a league-high 11 turnovers in the first three games, then fell apart defensively as injuries mounted and weaknesses at some positions were exposed. The front four struggled so badly that Chicago fielded the NFL's worst run defense and tied with Jacksonville for the fewest sacks with 31.

Emery didn't try using a band-aid to fix the problem. Instead, he applied a giant pad of gauze.

The Bears added three veteran defensive ends in free agency (LaMarr Houston, Jared Allen and Willie Young) while using second-day draft picks on defensive tackles Ego Ferguson and Will Sutton. Shea McClellin -- a 2012 first-round bust so far as an end -- was converted into a pass-rushing outside linebacker. The secondary received a youth infusion with the drafting of Virginia Tech cornerback Kyle Fuller (first round) and University of Minnesota safety Brock Vereen (fourth).

*By clicking ""SUBSCRIBE"", you have read and agreed to the Fox Sports Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.

The scary part for defensive coordinator Mel Tucker: Even all this may not be enough as Chicago still has major question marks at middle linebacker and both safety spots.

Fortunately for the Bears, there is enough offensive firepower to outscore the opposition and reach the playoffs for the first time since the 2010 season if quarterback Jay Cutler stays healthy.

Of course with Cutler, that's a big if. He has missed 12 games the past three seasons because of injuries. The Bears also enter the preseason with arguably the NFL's shakiest backup situation as Jordan Palmer and Jimmy Clausen battle for the spot.

A better defense, though, would help mitigate Cutler's loss if he is sidelined once again.​",Jay Cutler's group will have to outscore the opposition to cover for a shaky defense.
"With mid-term elections just around the corner, the chasm between Democrats and Republicans is growing larger every hour. Unless, of course, you happen to be strolling by the illusory Chok'lit Shoppe in Riverdale. There you might find President Obama and former vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin sharing a milkshake.

Archie Comic Publications announced both the current president and former Alaska governor will be featured in Archie #616 & #617. The issues center around the student government campaigns of Archie and Reggie at Riverdale High. According to the Archie Comic press release, the storyline will continue into issue #617 as the race heats up and Secret Service gets involved.

While details of who's stumping for whom remain a mystery, the cover of Archie #616 features President Obama and Sarah Palin sipping on a shared milkshake while Archie exclaims, ""Wow, I guess anything's possible."" There's been no word on whether Riverdale is a right or left leaning district.

The ""two part political epic"" has been dubbed ""Campaign Pains"" and is scheduled for release in December 2010 and January 2011. It has not yet been proven that milkshake sharing is an effective form of bipartisanship.","FOX News covers politics on America's Election Headquarters. FOX News political coverage on elections, races, foreign policy, candidates, and national security."
"People living near the Hatton Garden vault where thieves struck over the Easter weekend said they heard drilling noises over the holiday period.

A resident in London’s jewellery quarter also suggested there was an electricity problem in the area the week before the raid in which millions of pounds worth of jewellery, valuables and cash were taken.

The Metropolitan police are examining CCTV footage, including that first published by the Mirror on Friday night. According to the paper, its footage showed suspects among a gang of at least six men arriving and leaving the Hatton Garden Safe Deposit Ltd building during the weekend of the burglary when millions of pounds worth of jewellery, valuables and cash were stolen.

Scotland Yard said its officers were aware of the footage before it was published and were examining it and other images.

Related: Cops and ex-robbers on Hatton Garden heist: 'This is no bunch of mugs'

On Saturday, police released pictures of three suspects and a van used by them. The men spent Thursday night in the building before leaving on the Friday and returning over Saturday night.

Scotland Yard has also admitted that police did not respond to an intruder alarm on Good Friday. Officers are investigating why the call was given a grade that meant no response was considered necessary.

The Met said it had not established any links between the robbery and a fire in nearby Holborn days earlier, which caused power cuts, telephone faults and road closures.

Farhana Begum, a 19-year-old student who lives nearby, said: “My mum actually heard drilling on the Friday night, it was probably about 9pm or 9.30pm.

“But there had been roadworks, or construction work, going on in the street for the last couple of weeks so she thought they may have been working late,” she said.

Related: Is history the key to finding the Hatton Garden diamonds?

The weekend before the raid, on the Friday or Saturday, and before the Holborn fire, there had been an electricity cut, she said. “It was just a bit peculiar.”

John Han, 26, another local resident, said that over the Easter weekend “we heard some type of loud noise which woke us up. It was late on the Friday or Saturday, I can’t remember which. I am not sure what it was, but I thought they were just doing road works in the street again,” he said.

“But I did think to myself, why would somebody be doing roadworks at that time.”

Another woman living nearby who did not want to be named said: “My husband said he heard a loud bang late on Friday night, but he wasn’t sure what it was. We have no idea if it was connected or not.”

Police were finally alerted to the burglary on Tuesday morning. They say there was no sign of forced entry for the “highly audacious” heist.

Seventy-two security boxes were opened out of the 999 in the vault. Of them, seven were empty and 11 were due to be drilled out because of non-payment of fees, according to Scotland Yard. Officers have contacted 42 holders of boxes which were opened.",Several people say they heard drilling and banging sounds over the bank holiday weekend as Scotland Yard continues to examine CCTV footage
"When it comes to preventing pregnancy loss, couples are often faced with more questions than answers. The vast majority of miscarriages are unexplained and unpreventable, though research over the years has tried to isolate factors more or less likely to increase risk of loss. That has led to ping-ponging advice over the role that alcohol, smoking, exercise, stress and daily vitamins, for instance, play in the outcome of a pregnancy.

In the latest study published in Fertility and Sterility, researchers looked at caffeine intake—including dad’s—and multivitamin use. They studied both the women and men in 344 heterosexual couples who became pregnant. The couples used home pregnancy tests to track their pregnancy, and agreed to keep daily journals of how much they smoked, how much alcohol they consumed, and how much caffeine they drank, starting from before they became pregnant until the time they got a positive pregnancy test.

Women taking multivitamins daily, regardless of how much caffeine they drank, saw a 55% lower risk of pregnancy loss than those not taking vitamins. The Centers for Disease Control already recommends women take multivitamins that contain folate to lower the risk of neural tube defects in their babies. But this data also supports taking multivitamins to reduce miscarriage as well.

“When it comes to preventing miscarriages, there’s a lot of ‘don’t do this’ and ‘don’t do that,’” says Katherine Sapra, a post doctoral fellow at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and a co-author of the study. “There’s not a lot of what women can actually do to reduce their risk. Here we find that women can basically halve their risk of miscarriage by taking a vitamin every day.”

MORE: Women Now Have As Many Miscarriages As Abortions

The researchers also looked at caffeine. It was long thought that caffeine may influence a woman’s ability to stay pregnant, but many of those analyses have subsequently been disregarded. As such, many doctors now say up to four cups of coffee per day is perfectly safe for women at all stages of pregnancy.

In the new paper, scientists have data that suggests—but doesn’t prove—that more than two cups of caffeinated beverages a day may increase miscarriage risk. Once they accounted for the role that the woman’s age plays in miscarriage, the researchers found that the amount of caffeine that each partner drank daily had the strongest connection to pregnancy loss. This suggests caffeine may increase risk for pregnancy loss, although how that may occur isn’t clear and was not the focus of the study.

MORE: Trying to Get Pregnant Soon After Miscarriage is a Good Idea: Study

Still, there are other factors that Sapra and her colleagues did not consider, which could also explain the miscarriages independent of the caffeine. They did not look at how much the women exercised, for instance, what they ate overall, how much they slept and how much stress and anxiety they reported. All of those could potentially influence miscarriage risk more strongly than how much caffeine couples drink.

Sapra also notes that in her study, the couples’ caffeine consumptions wasn’t monitored by the researchers; the women and men reported on how much caffeine they drank, and such self-reports, while a legitimate research tool, can be open to bias.

Such bias may have led to the fact that the researchers in this particular study did not find a connection between pregnancy loss and smoking or alcohol, for example. Or it could simply be a matter of numbers. Sapra says there was only a small number of men and women in the study who smoked or drank since they were trying to become pregnant and many avoided those behaviors out of concern that they would negatively impact their chances of conceiving.

Sapra stresses that for couples struggling to get pregnant, the findings don’t provide a prescription for a healthy pregnancy, but does hint at what things they can do to hopefully avoid miscarriage and improve their chances of staying pregnant.",A new study adds nuance to the question
"Traditional retirement advice typically calls for paying off the mortgage and reducing debt as much as possible before moving on to what’s sure to be a smaller paycheck.

Tom Anderson says that’s a big mistake.

Anderson, author of “The Value of Debt in Retirement,” says people should think more like corporations by balancing debt with the cash they have on hand. While some debt should be paid off as soon as possible, he says, not all debt is bad.

The trick is to keep the money in the bank or to invest it in something that would pay more than the cost of the debt you’re carrying, he says. The strategy is not for those short on willpower.

Anderson, a wealth manager in Chicago, recently spoke with The Post. This has been edited for length and clarity.

Tell us about your strategy.

All that I’m doing is taking corporate finance ideas and applying them to the individual. I spent a long time studying finance and optimal debt structures. If you take on too much debt, your company is going to go bankrupt.

People can have too much debt or be very debt averse. Few have an optimal debt ratio. There is no middle ground. All I do is take corporate debt ratios and make them more conservative and apply that same framework to the individual balance sheet.

For an individual, what would be an example of that optimal balance?

When you’re getting close to retirement or in retirement, I like a range of 15 to 35 percent. Most people are way above or way below that. So if I have $100,000 of net worth, I could have $150,000 in assets and $50,000 worth of debt.

If you have more than $50,000 in debt, then you are really counting on things going your way. If you have a lot less than that, you may not get that optimal approach.

That ratio must be very important.

Right. What we do in America is start out with a whole lot of debt and try to rush to come down to zero. There should be more balance.

Is there such a thing as “good” debt or “bad” debt?

There are different types of debt. There’s what I call oppressive debt, working debt and enriching debt. Oppressive debt is going to be things like your credit card debt or any debt that is over a 10 percent interest rate, payday loans, all of that stuff. Get rid of it as fast as you can.

Then there is working debt. Many mortgages can have a rate of 3, 4 or 5 percent and they might be fully tax deductible for you as well. Then you have enriching debt, which is debt that you’re choosing to strategically have but that you can pay off at any point in time.

When would it not be a good idea to pay off your mortgage in retirement?

I would argue that unless you have enough money to pay off all of your house, don’t pay off any of your house. The second you pay down your house, it’s a one-way liquidity trap, especially for retirees. Let’s say I have a $100,000 mortgage and I put down $50,000 on it and I retire. Can I access that $50,000? I can’t.

Not paying it down can increase your liquidity. It can increase your flexibility. It can increase your overall rate of return. It can maximize your tax benefits. And it can actually reduce your overall risk. Companies do this all the time. Why? Because they value liquidity and flexibility.

Can’t people tap that equity by taking out a home-equity loan or line of credit?

It definitely makes sense to have that home-equity line of credit in place, but you may need more liquidity than that. And if we think about 2008, which is my base case, many home-equity lines of credit were canceled or reduced. Nothing buffers you like having money in the bank.

Does this approach only make sense when rates are low?

A famous economist said that interest rates are never good or bad. They’re a function of the economy at any given time. In 1980, maybe you had mortgage rates at 12, 13 or 14 percent. You maybe could have invested in a Treasury bond at 15, 16 or 17 percent. So you would still have a positive spread.

The problem today is there’s an illusion that low rates are good, and, therefore, they’re pushing people to take on more debt and to reach for return. If I’m paying 3 percent for my mortgage, but Treasurys are only paying 1 or 2 percent, that’s actually a negative spread.

How do you measure the value of that liquidity?

Let’s say I have $100,000 mortgage and that my after-tax cost of that is 2 percent. If I had that $100,000 invested at a rate of return of 4 percent, I would have incoming cash flow of $4,000. I would have spent $2,000 on mortgage interest. I would have $2,000 a year coming into my pocket. If you capture a spread, it’s good. If you don’t capture a spread, it’s bad.

I would argue that money in the bank is a way of protecting myself. It’s an insurance policy.

Can you give me an example of when someone would benefit more from having that cash on hand?

So many people do exactly what my grandfather did. He had a fabulous job with the federal government and a conservative, middle-class family. He paid off his house and had a pension and Social Security. Then he had a long battle with Alzheimer’s, a battle he ended up losing. When that battle got particularly complicated, he needed to move into an elder-care facility.

So how do you do that? You can’t get a mortgage for that. He couldn’t access the equity in his home. He needed to go right away, and what he wanted was to sell that house and go in. Instead we used my parents’ assets to bridge that, just until that house sold. But that’s another strategic use of debt. An elder-care bridge loan is a situation that many retirees end up having to face. You can protect yourself from it by keeping your own liquidity.

Let’s talk about someone who is trying to save while paying down debt, which is a big thing for anyone who has student loan debt or credit card debt. How do they balance those two?

I think what you need to figure out is am I under-saved or over-saved for retirement? Then you look at if you have debt or don’t have debt.

If you have debt, you say, what’s the rate on that debt? If it’s over 10 percent, say I have a credit card that charges 20 percent. I know of no investment that will give you a guaranteed rate of return of 20 percent, so pay it off.

But debt that gets between 5 and 8 percent, you might want to see whether it has tax benefits. Generally, I still want that to get paid off, but I do need to make sure I have liquidity.

I think people should value liquidity. Do not pay down debt that is less than 5 percent if you’re not on track for retirement.

If somebody has no emergency savings, should they put everything they have into paying off that 20 percent debt before they save?

First, people need to have a three-month cash reserve – whatever money you need on a bottom-line, after-tax basis. You need to have some oil in the engine.

Even if I have debt, I need to have some liquidity to survive. Once I get to liquidity, I want to start to reduce that credit debt. Then I want to come back to that liquidity and build it up to six months and, at the same time, I want to be building up my retirement savings. So a lot of people will have credit card debt and they’re putting money into their 401(k). And I understand why people do that, but it is mathematically unusual.

We all have limited resources that are coming in that we’re trying to stretch. How do we prioritize that?

To be clear, this strategy only holds up when people are saving the money that they aren’t using to pay down debt, correct?

Yes! That is the most important central premise. My plan is you can either pay off the debt or you save. If you go out and buy a Maserati, all bets are off. This is not about buying things that you can’t afford. It’s about finding better ways to pay for things that you can afford.

Debt can increase your rate of return. It can reduce your taxes. The question is are you able to implement those ideas effectively?

He’s $90,000 in debt and six years from retirement

Why you shouldn’t use retirement savings to pay off debt

How to wipe out debt: ‘Make more than you spend. Invest the difference wisely.’","Being debt free doesn’t beat having cash in the bank, one financial adviser argues."
"MANILA - On an Asian trip about asserting American power, President Obama today paid tribute to its greatest symbol: men and women of the U.S. military who serve around the globe, including more than 80,000 in the Asia-Pacific region.

In a speech to U.S. and Filipino troops at Ft. Bonifacio here, Mr. Obama thanked American service members past and present for their sacrifices on behalf of regional security.

He also said a new agreement with the Philippines to send American warships and fighter jets to bases here for the first time in more than 20 years underscores their commitment.

""We'll train and exercise together more to bring our militaries even closer,"" he told the troops. ""We'll improve our ability to respond even faster to disasters like [Super Typhoon] Yolanda.""

On a trip to the large American military cemetery here, the president honored U.S. and Filipino service members who fought side by side in the Pacific during World War II and gave their lives.

He laid a wreath and viewed the Tablets of the Missing, which contain the more than 36,000 service members who were killed and never found.

The cemetery is the final resting place for more than 17,000 U.S. war dead from World War II - the largest number of US World War II graves in one place anywhere in the world.

It was a poignant ending to a trip dogged by the crisis in Ukraine, regional conflicts with China, and painstaking negotiations on a new Pacific free-trade partnership. But now, as the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll shows, President Obama has deepening domestic political challenges at home.

Air Force One departed Manila 40-minutes early, racing Obama back to the U.S. to face them.","Amid Ukraine talk and regional conflicts, trip comes to poignant end."
"After an Iranian official said that the Islamic Republic's athletes would play “every country” at the Olympics, it seemed the London Games would put a halt to Iranians boycotting events to avoid facing off against Israelis.

But the question of whether Iran and Israel will compete head to head is up in the air again after an Iranian news agency linked to the government reported that the official had been misquoted earlier this week.

Ducking out of events to make a statement is frowned on by the Olympics. The president of the International Olympic Committee, Jacques Rogge, warned earlier this summer that athletes who bowed out of competition without a good reason would face sanctions.

Bahram Afsharzadeh, secretary-general of the Iranian Olympic committee, seemed to swear off any boycott in his remarks. “We just follow the sportsmanship and play every country,” Afsharzadeh was quoted as saying by the Associated Press and other outlets Monday.

The Associated Press noted that at times, Afsharzadeh had been speaking through an interpreter. In Iran, the semiofficial Fars news agency reported Tuesday that his words had been twisted, saying that Afsharzadeh had never named Israel in his remarks.

Last week, Iranian Sports Minister Mohammad Abbasi insisted that Iranian athletes would continue to boycott events with Israeli competitors, telling the Islamic Republic News Agency that “not competing with the Zionist athletes is one of the values and prides of the Iranian athletes and nation.”

The debate may be a purely symbolic one: Iranian athletes are unlikely to face Israelis in competition at all, with the two countries sending few Olympians in the same categories, according to Israeli media.

An Iranian judo practitioner who might have faced an Israeli in competition, Javad Mahjoub, is reportedly missing the Games due to gastric illness -- a withdrawal that some have eyed suspiciously. In the past, Mahjoub told Iranian media he had deliberately lost a match to avoid facing off with an Israeli.

The International Olympic Committee said it was impossible to know at this stage whether any of the countries' athletes would face each other, ""as it will depend on qualifiers during the Games.""

In several countries across the Middle East, Olympians have faced pressure to sidestep competing against Israeli athletes as a political statement. Some Iranian athletes avoided matches with Israelis by withdrawing from events at the Olympics in 2004 and 2008, according to the Associated Press.

The Olympics come at a time of continuing tensions between the two counties: Iran and Israel have long been at odds over Iran's disputed nuclear program, which Iran says is solely for peaceful purposes. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also has blamed Lebanon-based Hezbollah and its Iranian backers for a recent bombing targeting Israeli tourists in Bulgaria, an allegation Iran has denied.

North Korea reveals leader Kim Jong Un is married

Londoners know a thing or two about misery, survey shows

China creates city on disputed island, angering neighbors [Video]

-- Emily Alpert in Los Angeles

Photo: Soldiers raise an Iranian flag Monday during the flag-raising ceremony for Iran at the Olympic Village in London four days before the start of the London 2012 Summer Olympics. Credit: Khaled Desouki / Associated Press","After an Iranian official said that Iranian athletes would play “every country” at the Olympics, it seemed the London Games would put a halt to Iranians boycotting games to avoid facing off against Israelis. But the question is up in the air again after an Iranian news agency linked to the government reported that the official had been misquoted earlier this week."
"WATER fountain season is here. New York City workers have turned on bubblers in the parks, and the Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson has begun to erect four enormous waterfalls in the harbor, each 90 to 120 feet high, that are scheduled to flow from July to October. The shimmering cascades will cost the city nothing (the $15 million cost is being paid by private donations to the Public Art Fund), but here’s a better idea for a civic-minded organization or person interested in celebrating water: sidewalk fountains in places outside the parks.

Convenience is said to be one of bottled water’s greatest allures: we’re a grab-and-go society, consuming roughly 50 billion bottles of water a year. But as awareness of the product’s economic and environmental impact has escalated, mayors across the nation (although not Michael Bloomberg of New York) have canceled city contracts with bottled water purveyors, citing the expense of hauling away empties (less than 20 percent make it into recycling systems); the vast amounts of oil used in producing, transporting and refrigerating the bottles; and the hypocrisy of spending taxpayer dollars on private water while touting the virtues of public supplies. Last summer, New York City spent $700,000 on a campaign reminding New Yorkers that their tap water is tasty and affordable.

Delivered by gravity, tap water generates virtually no waste. All that, and it contains no calories, caffeine or colorants either. (Yes, New York’s water — like that of other cities — contains trace amounts of drugs, but we lack proof, so far, that exposure at these low levels is a human health risk.)

Bottled water’s main virtue, it seems, is convenience, especially for people at large in the city. As the editor of Beverage Digest told The Times, “It’s not so easy, walking down Third Avenue on a hot day, to get a glass of tap water.”

But it needn’t be so. Paris has its ornate cast-iron Wallace fountains (donated in the late 19th century by a wealthy philanthropist hoping to steer the homeless from alcohol toward a healthier beverage); Rome its ever-running street spigots; Portland, Ore., its delightful four-bowl Benson Bubblers.",An entire generation of Americans has grown up thinking public faucets equal filth. It’s time to change that perception with public fountains.
"BY DONNA PETROZZELLO DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Thursday, February 28th 2002, 2:25AM

Democratic political strategists James Carville and Paul Begala, who helped manage Bill Clinton's 1992 presidential campaign, are gearing up to battle on CNN's nightly debate series ""Crossfire.""

The duo will join the issues-oriented, 7 p.m. talk show April 1 as foils for conservative anchors Robert Novak and Tucker Carlson.

""Very often, the definition of a liberal is someone who is afraid to take their own side in a fight, but James and I are not,"" Begala said yesterday. ""We have strong views and we're ready to back them up.""

Left-leaning co-anchor Bill Press will leave ""Crossfire"" but will continue as a contributor to CNN's ""Inside Politics"" and ""American Morning With Paula Zahn.""

The addition of Carville and Begala is part of efforts to beef up ""Crossfire,"" which include expanding the show from 30 minutes to an hour and moving it out of the studio and into an auditorium at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., where it will be taped before an audience.

"" 'Crossfire' has been with us for 20 years, it's one of our mainstay shows, and it was just time to rejuvenate it,"" said CNN senior vice president Sue Bunda, who oversees ""Crossfire"" and other series. ""The idea of taking it to a live audience made a lot of sense.""

Begala, who was co-anchor two years ago of MSNBC's talk series ""Equal Time"" with conservative Oliver North, called going head to head with Novak and Carlson a dream job.

""CNN is going to pay me to work with my best friend, James, and do what I do normally at home - watch 'Crossfire,' scream at Novak and Carlson, and throw socks at the screen,"" he said.

For Carville, ""Crossfire"" will provide an opportunity to rail against the Republican commentators who lambasted President Clinton in the 1990s.

""Color me naive, but I think this is going to be fun,"" said Carville, whose wife, Republican strategist Mary Matalin, was co-anchor of ""Crossfire"" with Press in 1999.

""Corporal Cue Ball is ready to go after the Prince of Darkness and Bow Tie Boy,"" said the bald Carville, referring to himself, Novak and Carlson.

While ""Crossfire"" will be Carville's first stint as co-anchor of a regular weeknight series, he's confident he and Begala will resonate well with viewers.

""I never wrote a book that wasn't a best seller,"" he said. ""I've never worked on a political campaign that I didn't think I'd win, and so I'm just going to do this show in a way that I feel comfortable with and that is true to myself.""","Democratic political strategists James Carville and Paul Begala, who helped manage Bill Clinton's 1992 presidential campaign, are gearing up to battle on CNN's nightly debate series ""Crossfire.""The duo will join the issues-oriented, 7 p.m. talk show April 1 as foils for conservative anchors Robert Novak and Tucker Carlson. ""Very often, the definition of a liberal is someone who is afraid to take"
"By Roger K. Lewis October 15

The goal of bridges is to span across rivers or valleys, streets or highways, rail yards or railroad tracks. Essentially a structurally supported deck, a bridge is a connector enabling movement between whatever the bridge connects. But a few bridges achieve another goal: If the bridging deck supports activities and structures, it is a destination as well as a connector.

With sufficient length and width, a bridge can become in effect built land, a place for residential, commercial and recreational development, a “reconstituted ground plane” in architectural parlance.

A bridge that connects and creates land and land development opportunities is not a new idea. The Ponte Vecchio in Florence, Italy, first built in Medieval times, is the iconic prototype of a destination bridge hosting income-producing real estate. Three stone arches gracefully step across the Arno River to support a narrow street. Lining each side of the street and surmounting the bridge is a multi-level agglomeration of small shops, work spaces, offices and apartments.

Modern-era bridging strategies are gaining traction in Washington and elsewhere, especially where natural or city-splitting infrastructure barriers exist; where air-rights development is technologically and financially feasible; and where infrastructure owners are willing to grant development air rights. And topping the list of barriers worth bridging are obstructive transportation corridors — expressways and railways — whether elevated, sunken or on-grade.

In D.C., Capitol Crossing will be a 2.2 million-square-foot, mixed-use project built atop a street-level, structural deck spanning across Interstate 395 and its chasm slicing through downtown’s eastern flank. The site is bounded on the north and south by Massachusetts Avenue and E Street NW, and on the east and west by Second and Third streets NW.

Bridging over the sunken, six-lane I-395 freeway will be technically challenging, as the freeway cannot be closed during construction. But the payoff will be creation of three new city blocks on which new office and apartment buildings can be built. The platform and street-level destinations also will help reconnect urban neighborhoods split apart by the freeway.

Burnham Place likewise will be a high-density, mixed-use, air-rights project built atop a structural deck spanning across multiple rail platforms and tracks north of Union Station. Long-range plans envision a total makeover of the transportation complex behind the iconic station, plus a new, north-facing station entrance and plaza at H Street. When the project is done, D.C.’s increasingly vibrant NOMA (North of Massachusetts Avenue) neighborhood will be better connected functionally and aesthetically to Union Station and Burnham Place.

One other unique D.C. bridging project is in the works: the 11th Street Bridge Park. A new pedestrian deck spanning the Anacostia River is to be built on existing bridge piers left standing after demolition of the old 11th Street bridge. The project’s key conceptual goals include: making the bridge an artfully designed destination encompassing recreational, cultural and educational activities; enhancing knowledge of and interaction with the Anacostia River environment; and providing a strong physical connection unifying both sides of the river, most notably Wards 6 and 8.

Outside Washington, a worthwhile model and proof of concept for bridging, both to connect and to create a desirable urban destination, already exists. In Dallas, Klyde Warren Park sits atop a structural concrete deck spanning sunken, city-splitting State Highway Spur 366, the Woodall Rodgers Freeway. Constructing the 1,200-foot-long deck posed technical challenges similar to those facing construction of the Capitol Crossing deck spanning D.C.’s I-395.

Completed and dedicated in 2012, Clyde Warren Park was a long overdue city enhancement, as downtown Dallas encompasses few public parks and relatively little housing. Thus, thanks to construction of a new piece of urban land, the 5.2-acre, three-block-long park finally provides street-level, civic open space in the heart of Dallas.

The park’s amenities are numerous. A spacious performance pavilion and a popular restaurant anchor the center of the park. Unlike many urban parks, well-equipped public restrooms are provided. A children’s play area, botanical garden, dog park, water fountains and ample seating attract visitors, all helping to animate the space. The well-landscaped, well-lighted park is continually programmed throughout the year for concerts, music festivals, dancing, games and small-scale, staged activities such as puppet shows.

At the same time, Klyde Warren Park knits back together the severed urban fabric of the adjoining downtown Dallas neighborhoods, split apart for decades by the sunken freeway. The park reconnects streets and walkways, improving pedestrian and vehicular traffic flow while further activating the park. And developers are building more downtown housing in response to a market perceiving increasing downtown urbanity, to which the park contributes.

Constructing structural decks on which to build is a complex and costly process. Thus, it only makes sense in places with very good transportation access, where market-responsive uses and high densities can be developed, and where highly attractive amenities can be provided. With earth-bound urban land becoming ever more expensive, perhaps building bridges to create new land will become both increasingly necessary and desirable.

Roger K. Lewis is a practicing architect, a professor emeritus of architecture at the University of Maryland, and a regular commentator on “The Kojo Nnamdi Show” on WAMU 88.5.

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"For years, tenants have worked uneasily inside the Manhattan skyscraper formerly known as the Piaget Building, as federal prosecutors tried to wrest the prime real estate from Iranian-related partners.

The office tower at 650 Fifth Avenue, built in the late 1970s by the Shah of Iran, has been the subject of seizure proceedings by federal prosecutors who contended that the ownership groups engaged in money laundering for their government and also violated economic sanctions imposed against Iran.

Earlier this month, a judge ruled in the prosecutors’ favor, in what prosecutors described as the country’s largest-ever terrorism-related forfeiture. The decision, which is likely to be appealed, has only added to the uncertain fate of the building, which is a highly coveted trophy property with notable tenants, like a Juicy Couture flagship store, offices for Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide and the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation.

The government’s aim is to sell the property, which brokers said could bring at least $800 million. Proceeds from a sale would probably be used to pay some of the $6 billion in damages claimed by family members of victims of Iranian-sponsored terrorism, including victims of the 9/11 attacks.

The court decision was issued at a delicate time in the strained relations between Iran and the United States, as both sides suggest diplomatic overtures. The new Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani, is in New York this week, as is President Obama.

The building’s ownership, under the legal name 650 Fifth Avenue Company, has consisted of the Assa Corporation and Assa Company Limited, which owned 40 percent of the property, and the Alavi Foundation, which owned the remaining 60 percent. The court ruled that the Assa entities are a front for Bank Melli Iran, an institution that is wholly owned by the Iranian government. It also ruled that both Assa and Alavi laundered money.

“The court has found that, based on the uncontroverted record evidence, Assa was (and is) a front for Bank Melli, and thus a front for the government of Iran,” United States District Judge Katherine B. Forrest wrote in her Sept. 16 ruling.

In the late 1970s, the Pahlavi Foundation, a nonprofit group that was operated by the Shah of Iran to pursue the country’s charitable interests in the United States, erected the building. It was financed with some $42 million from Bank Melli, which had been lent the money by the Central Bank of Iran, according to court documents. After the Iranian revolution in 1979, the Islamic Republic of Iran sought to take control of the Shah’s property, including the assets of the Pahlavi Foundation, which was renamed the Alavi Foundation.

“As a former property manager of the building, we never knew exactly who we were working for,” said Michael T. Cohen, regional president for Colliers International. While he managed the building, in the 1980s, Mr. Cohen worked for a predecessor to Colliers International, Williams Real Estate. “We knew it was the Pahlavi Foundation, and we knew there were people in New York to whom we reported, but beyond that we couldn’t be sure of anything.”

As for the organizations leasing space in the building, which included Marc Rich & Company, Pahlavi “was a murky landlord who catered to murky tenants,” Mr. Cohen said. (Mr. Rich, who died this year, was the financier who fled to Switzerland while under indictment on charges of fraud and illegal trading with Iran, among other charges. His pardon by President Clinton set off a firestorm of criticism.) Ivan F. Boesky, the Wall Street speculator convicted of insider trading in 1987, was also a tenant at one point.

While the government has seized commercial buildings before, the sheer size of 650 Fifth Avenue presented challenges, mostly because of the number of tenants. In 2008, the government first filed a case against Assa, claiming it was a front for Bank Melli. Rents that had been paid to Assa were diverted into an account supervised by the United States Marshals Service. In 2009, the government also began pursuing Alavi. The United States attorney’s office said on Tuesday that it would request the diversion of Alavi’s rent income as well.

Kathleen A. Roberts, a former judge and a mediator, was appointed by federal court to supervise decisions made by the Alavi Foundation. Ms. Roberts oversaw issues like lease negotiations and building upkeep.

She also supervised the owner’s decision last year to spend $11 million on capital improvements. The building also hired CBRE to oversee the office space and Cushman & Wakefield to oversee the retail, replacing Jones Lang LaSalle, which had been managing the property. Jones Lang LaSalle did not return calls for comment, and CBRE and Cushman & Wakefield declined to comment.

The United States attorney for the Southern District of New York, which brought the case, declined to comment for the article.

This week, in the aftermath of the court ruling, the government is petitioning the court to make Ms. Roberts the sole decision-maker over the property. That request could raise some additional concerns for tenants already bedeviled by unknowns, real estate experts said.

Gary M. Rosenberg, a founding partner at the law firm Rosenberg & Estis, suggested that a government landlord might act more slowly than a private one.

“If tenants need something outside the four corners of the lease — for example, a fire knocks out the elevators — a typical landlord would call the insurance company and then call the elevator company and say, ‘Just fix it,’ ” he said. “The government isn’t going to pay to get the elevators fixed until they get their insurance proceeds.”

Because of the expected appeal, Ms. Roberts will most likely continue to oversee the building, and any sale will probably be a few years away.

But even talk of a potential sale of this property, at the corner of Fifth Avenue and 52nd Street, generates a lot of excitement in the real estate industry.

“It is right in the heart of the most expensive retail real estate in New York City,” said Robert K. Futterman, chairman and chief executive at the retail brokerage RKF. He added that “if it is put on the market, we are going to see an exciting bidding war from all the major retail players.”",An office tower built in the late 1970s by the Shah of Iran is coveted real estate that could be sold after a judge found that its owners laundered money for Iran’s government.
"Eli Wallach, who died Tuesday at age 98, was a character actor who worked with some of the biggest and best names in show business, including Clark Gable, Clint Eastwood, Steve McQueen, Marilyn Monroe, Peter O’Toole, Al Pacino and many more. He may be most noted for the 1966 movie The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.

Here are some ways to remember his work – and his charm:

The big secret in acting is listening to people – Eli Wallach http://t.co/aS7UQF2XW9— The Academy (@TheAcademy) June 25, 2014

Veteran actor Eli Wallach's 'method' revealed in this insightful @SightSoundmag interview: bit.ly/1qIILlJ http://t.co/pOxKgmcmPx— (@BFI) June 25, 2014

In the interview Wallach was asked about being a Method actor. His answer: “I wasn’t convinced that this Method knew the answer to it all. A good actor steals. I take from what’s given, the rules of the game, and I sift it through my machine. I take what I need and think I can use.”

My visit with Uncle Eli when he won his honorary Oscar. A big loss, but what a life. nyti.ms/TuHHDS— a. o. scott (@aoscott) June 25, 2014

Scott also tweeted: “Thanks to all for Uncle Eli condolences. According to Tennessee Williams, ‘Eli discovered the secret of pissing people off.’ He’s happy.”","The good, the brilliant and the charming."
"SuperFan badge holders consistently post smart, timely comments about Washington area sports and teams.

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You must be logged in to recommend a comment.","The first (e)merge art fair will take place Sept. 22-25 at the Capitol Skyline Hotel, featuring artists from 15 countries. Take a look at some of the emerging artists who will be featured in the show."
"Review of HBO's ""Treme"" perpetuates myth that Hurricane Katrina to blame for devastation in the La. city.

But even with a less intense opening than David Simon's 'The Wire,' it may not sing to everyone.

The director of 'The Wire' brings a new series to HBO, 'Treme,' this time dealing with another troubled city New Orleans.

Yes, it may be TV's slack month before May's high-profile parade of season finales. But there's still lots to watch. Consult USA TODAY critic Robert Bianco's night-by-night spotlight:.

Some will find places on network lineups, many others will never see the light of prime time.

...MySpace.) Steve Zahn's character DJ Davis McAlary? Partially based on real-life DJ Davis Rogan. (MySpace.) Finally, John Goodman's character Creighton Burnette is inspired by the late Ashley Morris, a college professor and blogger who passed away in 2008 and...

...storm protection standards. It is the job of Creighton Bernette, a novelist and Tulane University professor, played by John Goodman, to place blame and voice the outrage of neglect that many New Orleans residents and others have expressed about the port city’s...

...set three months after Katrina. That passion is seen in the temper of Creighton Bernette, the college professor played by John Goodman, who tosses a microphone into the water when a British documentarian belittles the cultural richness of the Crescent City....

...world. This is how we do this now. I was looking for reviews of Treme, because even apart from David Simon’s track record, John Goodman and Melissa Leo are both on my “Actors To Watch, No Matter the Other Details” list. But cable does not happen in this household,...

...You Don't Know Jack, the story of Dr. Jack Kevorkian and his assisted-suicide crusade, starring Al Pacino, Susan Sarandon, and John Goodman. Boyer, 59, plays Lois Hawes, a Kervorkian patient dying of brain cancer. The role required Boyer to shave her head...

Two cutting-edge movies from the late 1960s and enough rock and roll for six parties constitute the home viewing week's platinum picks:

Billy Elliot, the season's biggest musical hit, dominated the 2009 Tony Award nominations Tuesday, picking up 15, more than any other show.

It's been a busy and fairly eclectic spring on Broadway, so it seems fitting that the season should wind down with the two very different shows that opened Thursday night: a revival of the existentialist classic Waiting for Godot and a new musical adaptation of the frothy feminist film romp 9 to 5.

Financial problems can be a factor in what researchers call ""familicide,"" but the scholars suggest the crime is rare.

Efforts to overhaul health care will suffer a setback because of Tom Daschle's withdrawal as President Obama's choice for Health and Human Services secretary, some interest groups and policy analysts say.","Collection of all USATODAY.com coverage of John Goodman., including articles, videos, photos, and quotes."
"05/06/2016 AT 04:55 PM EDT

not playing Captain America? Well, another

cast member also auditioned for the role way back when.

""I was really bummed that I didn't get Captain America,""

tells PEOPLE Now. ""I remember getting the phone call and going, 'You were great, but it's not for you.' ""

However, it all worked out for the best because he was offered the part of Bucky Barnes, Cap's best friend who appears to die in

only to return as the deadly HYDRA assassin Winter Soldier in

""When they called me back again to tell me that there was this other role that I should be looking at, I was really excited because it wasn't over yet,"" he says.

Stan signed on to do nine movies with Marvel, which was ""a little scary,"" he admits. ""But, look, when you're working with someone like Marvel, I mean it's a blessing because the movies are different every time, so it's actually exciting to kind of come back to that,"" he says.

Three movies in, Stan has accepted that he ended up getting the right part.

""Playing an unstable, bipolar, multiple personality disorder person is definitely up my alley,"" he jokes.

is in theaters now and also stars",Sebastian Stan talks auditioning to play Captain America
"The archbishop of Canterbury called yesterday for Anglicans around the world to forge an agreement on issues that divide them, including the roles of gay clergy and women in the church, and suggested that the U.S. Episcopal Church could be relegated to second-tier status if it is unwilling to sign the proposed covenant.

Leading conservative Episcopalians cheered the ""Reflection"" by Rowan Williams, head of the 75 million-member Anglican Communion, the worldwide family of churches descended from the Church of England. They said it could lead within a few years to the moment they have long anticipated, when the 2.3 million-member Episcopal Church USA is forced either to renounce its 2003 decision to consecrate an openly gay bishop or face expulsion from the communion.

Liberals in the U.S. church noted that Williams did not specify what the covenant would say about homosexuality. They said drafting the document would involve lengthy negotiations and might result in a nuanced agreement the U.S. church could sign. And if the Episcopal Church could not join the covenant, some said, it might be content with some kind of ""associate"" status.

""I don't see this as leading to the Episcopal Church being expelled. I see it as meaning we might need to sit on the sidelines for a time, and that's not necessarily a bad thing, because it would . . . allow us to set the divisive issues to the side and focus on our work, which is the Gospel,"" said the Rev. Tobias S. Haller, vicar of St. James Church in the Bronx and author of a liberal Episcopal blog called ""In a Godward Direction.""

Williams wrote his Reflection in response to last week's General Convention of the Episcopal Church in Columbus, Ohio, where delegates elected Nevada Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori as the first woman to head any of the communion's 38 member churches. Thirteen of the 38 do not ordain women as priests or bishops.

The convention also called on U.S. dioceses not to consecrate any more bishops ""whose manner of life presents a challenge to the wider church."" That language fell short of a clear moratorium on installing more gay bishops, which conservative Anglicans sought.

Despite his limited powers, Williams has sought to bridge the divisions caused by the consecration three years ago of V. Gene Robinson as bishop of New Hampshire.

""It seems to me the best way forward,"" he wrote yesterday, is to draft a covenant on key theological and governing principles. Member churches that do not sign the agreement could end up with associate status, ""still bound by historic and perhaps personal links"" but ""not sharing the same constitutional structures,"" he wrote.

Conservatives particularly rejoiced over Williams's warning that no member church ""can make significant decisions unilaterally and still expect this to make no difference to how it is regarded in the fellowship.""

Bishop Robert Duncan of Pittsburgh, leader of a group of conservative U.S. dioceses, said that ""for the first time, the archbishop himself is acknowledging that some parts of the communion will not be able to continue in full membership if they insist on maintaining teaching and action outside of the received faith and order.""","The archbishop of Canterbury called yesterday for Anglicans around the world to forge an agreement on issues that divide them, including the roles of gay clergy and women in the church, and suggested that the U.S. Episcopal Church could be relegated to second-tier status if it is unwilling to sign..."
"The crowd watches Kehlani’s energetic show. Photo by Melina Tupa

The heat, thick and heavy. The sun, beating down hard. The air, sticky with the smell of fried food, pungent pot and end-of-summer sweat. It’s Labor Day, and thousands of people from the Bay Area and beyond have gathered in droves for hip-hop group Hieroglyphics’ 3rd annual Hiero Day­­­– a free music festival where dozens of bands perform in an effort to pull the community together through a celebration of artistic diversity. The streets are so packed with bodies moving and grooving about that some guests have climbed into windowsills of buildings, up trees, and are standing on the train tracks to get a glimpse of the performers on the street-stages erected outside Linden Street Brewery.

Read the rest of the story by Jacqueline Ipp and Melina Tupa at Oakland North.

Connect with Oakland North on Facebook, or follow us on Twitter.","Hiero Day was developed in 2012 to celebrate the city and highlight some of the best elements Oakland has to offer; to support underground music, grassroots organizations and local businesses."
"At Apple’s sparkling new complex in northwest Austin, workers who are spread throughout seven limestone-and-glass buildings field about 8,000 customer tech-support calls a day, manage the company’s vast network of suppliers and figure out how to move around millions of iPhones a week to ensure they get into the hands of customers when they want them.

Employees here help run Apple’s iTunes music and app stores, handle the billions of dollars going in and out of the company’s American operations and continuously update the Maps software that is integral to iPhones and iPads. At another Austin location, about 500 engineers work on the chips that will run the next round of Apple’s products.

The Austin campus — the company’s largest outside its headquarters in Cupertino, Calif. — offers plenty of perks, too. When employees are not working, they can lounge on chairs shaded from the Texas sun, dine at a two-story cafeteria that serves an abundance of food options, including barbecued ribs and banana-bread gelato, and visit a full-service medical clinic, which includes dentists, acupuncturists and a robot-assisted pharmacy.

Although contractors at the Austin technical support call center earn as little as $14.50 an hour, equivalent to about $30,000 a year, many of them become permanent staff members, which means better pay, after the typical one-year contract is up. Experienced call center employees earn around $45,000 a year, plus generous benefits and small annual stock grants. Pay is even higher for more senior advisers and managers. Apple says that, excluding benefits and stock compensation, the average salary of its Austin employees, including management, is $77,000 a year.

Apple declined to discuss its future expansion plans in Austin and in the United States.

“Apple has created over two million jobs in the United States since the introduction of the iPhone nine years ago, including explosive growth in iOS developers, thousands of new supplier and manufacturing partners, and a 400 percent increase in our employee teams,” the company said in a statement. “We made the unique decision to keep and expand our contact centers for customers in the Americas in the United States, and Austin is home to many of those employees. We plan to continue to invest and grow across the U.S.”

Last week, a reporter and photographer visited the Austin campus and interviewed more than a dozen workers, from managers to a prep cook on the kitchen staff. Apple’s public relations staff monitored some of the conversations, but others were unsupervised.

Genny Lopez, who went to college for two years and used to work as a bartender, joined Apple as a contractor handling tech support calls. She is now on staff, troubleshooting difficult customer problems. “You don’t need a crazy technical background to do this job,” Ms. Lopez said. “A lot of the training is getting really good at talking to people.”

Apple prides itself on providing top-notch phone service in 26 languages — 12 are spoken at the Texas call center alone — and the people who handle the calls are expected to follow up on any problem that cannot be quickly resolved. During the recent visit, Stephanie Dumareille, a senior adviser on iOS issues who is fluent in English and Spanish, patiently answered questions from a customer who was worried about saving her résumé online and did not know whether she was using a Windows or a Mac computer.

Employees say that Apple encourages them to move within and across teams, and the company is instituting a formal program to allow workers to try a completely different role for six months to see it if suits them and the company. Brisa Carillo, who started out in the call center fresh out of college five years ago, now handles international payroll matters and is studying for her M.B.A. so she can move up the ranks of the finance department within Apple.

The region’s economy has deep roots in technology and is home to a number of big tech employers, most notably Dell. Apple’s influence in the area extends beyond the people on its direct payroll. It has 350 suppliers in Texas alone.

And about 3,400 construction workers helped build the Austin campus. Apple ensured that they all got paid at least $12 an hour. It also provided workers’ compensation insurance and safety training, and it allowed the monitoring of conditions by an outside labor group, the Workers Defense Project, which has been trying to improve safety and pay in Texas construction.

“There is a high road, and Apple followed that path,” said Bo Delp, director of the Better Builder program at the Workers Defense Project. “It sent a pretty strong message to others in Austin.”

A mile from its Austin campus, Apple is involved in manufacturing, through Flex, a global contract manufacturer. Flex assembles Apple’s Mac Pro desktop computers to meet the exact requirements of customers, who can choose among more than 4,000 combinations of features and hardware.

Flex added about 2,000 jobs for the Apple project. Although Apple and Flex declined to discuss details of their arrangement, the assembly jobs start at $11 an hour and pay an average of about $30,000 a year, according to testimony by Flex officials in 2014, when they sought government aid for the expansion.

Apple could in theory build more products in the United States through contractors like Flex. But the company and industrial experts say that would be very difficult and could easily add $100 to the final cost of an iPhone. China has built a whole ecosystem of suppliers for nearly every electronic part imaginable. Vast pools of trained labor make it easy to quickly scale production up or down to meet demand.

Larger products, or ones that require more customizing, such as PCs, make more sense to build close to the final customer.

“It’s easy to ship a phone, and it’s harder to ship a computer,” said Andy Tsay, a professor at Santa Clara University who has studied global manufacturing patterns. “And it’s harder still for cars and refrigerators.”

Over time, the value of Apple’s business is shifting away from hardware like the iPhone and into software such as apps and services like Apple Music, Mr. Tsay said. And those jobs can be much better for workers. “There are fewer industrial accidents working in a call center,” he said. “There is probably more gender equity. And it’s probably better for customers, too.”

Alan Marquis, a former Army officer who spent a couple of years streamlining processes on a manufacturer’s assembly line before joining Apple, now manages part of the complex software that integrates Apple’s suppliers into the company’s production systems. “Here, there’s a lot more openness and creativity,” he said. “In manufacturing, it’s a lot more widgets dropping off the line.”

Mayor Steve Adler of Austin, a Democrat, does not sweat the details of the jobs companies create in his city. He is more concerned that the work pays enough — at least $20 an hour — to support the city’s middle class, which is being squeezed by rising home prices.

Some of the new jobs, like those at the Austin chip factory owned by Samsung, Apple’s biggest rival in the smartphone business, will be in manufacturing. Others, like the ones Apple brings, will be in services. “The best kind of jobs are those that allow someone to continue to grow and climb the ladder,” Mr. Adler said.

Asked about Apple’s lack of manufacturing in the United States, Ms. Lopez said: “The product that Apple builds here is us.”

Correction: November 20, 2016 An earlier version of this article misstated the education attained by Genny Lopez. She attended college for two years; she did not receive an associate’s degree.

A version of this article appears in print on November 21, 2016, on page B1 of the New York edition with the headline: How Apple Empowers, and Employs, the American Working Class. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe","The tech giant probably won’t bring all production to the United States, as Donald Trump has suggested, but it provides diverse opportunities for thousands of Americans, along with a ladder to climb."
"Say hello to Lunella Lafayette, Marvel's newest superhero.

The comic giant will soon be introducing audiences to Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur, a reimagining of the short-lived 1978 comic previously centered around a red T-Rex and his ""caveman-like friend"" Moon Boy, Entertainment Weekly reports.

The updated version stars Lafayette (Moon Girl) as a brainy pre-teen with ""unpredictable alien DNA"" who teams up with Devil Dinosaur in New York City. Writer Amy Reeder compared Lafayette to a ""female Inspector Gadget — only this time, she also knows what she’s doing.""

The story came to fruition when Marvel realized it lacked relatable characters that appealed to younger audiences, Moon Girl assistant editor Emily Shaw tells EW.

“Generally, we’re skewing a little bit older with a lot of our titles and we wanted to create something that adults and kids could really love, like a Pixar feel,"" Shaw said. ""That’s where the tone jumped off for us.”

& Here are some sketches by our amazing artist @Natbustos...we loved how she wrote ""Moon Girl"" & put it in the logo! pic.twitter.com/JTWMj3DlAk

— Amy Reeder (@amyreeder) August 13, 2015

Moon Girl artist Natacha Bustos is also excited that Lunella will add to Marvel's growing roster of diverse characters.

""It’s great to be a part of the creation of something which can mean something special to so many people,” she said. “I myself have come up against this dilemma (I’m half Afro-Brazilian and half Chilean besides being Spanish) of finding few or no cultural references, especially in Spain, a country where there is isn’t any community comparable to the African American community in the states.""

“It’s really important that the mainstream throws up new references like these and it’s an honor to be a part of that change that Marvel is bringing to the comic book creative landscape,"" she continued.

Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur will roar onto shelves this fall.

Have something to add to this story? Share it in the comments.","Meet Lunella Lafayette, Marvel's newest superhero."
"Updated April 8, 2014 9:29 p.m. ET

Google Inc. GOOGL -3.28% Google Inc. Cl A U.S.: Nasdaq $548.45 -18.59 -3.28% April 10, 2014 2:54 pm Volume (Delayed 15m) : 2.39M P/E Ratio 15.02 Market Cap $381.42 Billion Dividend Yield N/A Rev. per Employee $1,250,730 04/10/14 EBay, Icahn Settle Proxy Fight 04/10/14 AT&T to Build Out Ultrafast In... 04/09/14 After Heartbleed Bug, A Race t... More quote details and news » GOOGL in Your Value Your Change Short position is moving boldly to play a larger role in booking hotel rooms—at the risk of offending some of its most important advertisers.

Google is adding more photos and reviews to its hotel listings, so they increasingly resemble those of travel search sites such as Priceline Group Inc., PCLN -4.26% Priceline Group Inc. U.S.: Nasdaq $1182.05 -52.58 -4.26% April 10, 2014 2:54 pm Volume (Delayed 15m) : 1.15M P/E Ratio 32.06 Market Cap $64.38 Billion Dividend Yield N/A Rev. per Employee $715,085 04/09/14 Tech Shares Lead U.S. Stocks H... 04/08/14 Google Checks In to the Hotel ... 04/07/14 Google Enters Licensing Deal W... More quote details and news » PCLN in Your Value Your Change Short position Expedia Inc. EXPE -3.54% Expedia Inc. U.S.: Nasdaq $69.27 -2.54 -3.54% April 10, 2014 2:54 pm Volume (Delayed 15m) : 1.98M P/E Ratio 40.40 Market Cap $9.30 Billion Dividend Yield 0.86% Rev. per Employee $327,471 04/08/14 Google Checks In to the Hotel ... 04/07/14 Google Enters Licensing Deal W... 03/28/14 Wall Street Takes Dimmer View ... More quote details and news » EXPE in Your Value Your Change Short position and TripAdvisor Inc. TRIP -6.28% TripAdvisor Inc. U.S.: Nasdaq $82.58 -5.53 -6.28% April 10, 2014 2:54 pm Volume (Delayed 15m) : 1.88M P/E Ratio 57.62 Market Cap $12.53 Billion Dividend Yield N/A Rev. per Employee $468,350 04/08/14 Google Checks In to the Hotel ... 04/08/14 Times Square Hotel Nears a Sal... 04/07/14 Google Enters Licensing Deal W... More quote details and news » TRIP in Your Value Your Change Short position And it is more aggressively promoting its ""hotel-price ads"" that post room rates directly as travel-search sites do.

The idea is to encourage travelers to plan more of their trips directly on Google. In the process Google gets them closer to making a booking, which experts expect will make referrals more valuable, prompting travel agencies and hotel operators to pay more for clicks on Google ads over time. It also encourages more hotel operators to place ads on Google directly, bypassing online travel agencies that charge commissions of up to 25%.

In its latest move related to hotels, Google on Monday struck a licensing deal that will give it access to technology from hotel-booking software startup Room 77 while adding engineers to Google's hotel-search team.

The potential market is large. In the U.S. alone, travel and tourism spending totaled $450 billion last year, and is expected to grow 3.5% this year, according to the World Travel & Tourism Council.

But the move is risky: Online travel agencies are among Google's biggest advertisers. Priceline Group will spend more than $1.5 billion in 2014 on Google advertising and Expedia could spend another $1 billion, mainly to attract hotel bookings, estimates RBC Capital Markets analyst Mark Mahaney. Those two alone could account for nearly 5% of Google's ad revenue this year, Mr. Mahaney estimates, even though the company has over a million advertising customers.

A spokeswoman for TripAdvisor says the company welcomes competition. An Expedia spokesman pointed to comments made by an Expedia executive in February that the two companies ""can coexist harmoniously for a very long time."" Priceline declined to comment.

Google has been expanding ties with some big hotel groups. Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc. HLT -1.77% Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc. U.S.: NYSE $21.13 -0.38 -1.77% April 10, 2014 2:54 pm Volume (Delayed 15m) : 588,539 P/E Ratio N/A Market Cap $21.18 Billion Dividend Yield N/A Rev. per Employee N/A 04/09/14 Ally Financial Set to Cut Trea... 04/08/14 Google Checks In to the Hotel ... 04/08/14 Weather Channel Returns to Dir... More quote details and news » HLT in Your Value Your Change Short position says 78 of its properties now offer ""virtual tours"" on Google's site. Geraldine Calpin, Hilton's global head of digital, said more Web visitors book rooms after viewing those tours. Carlson Rezidor Hotel Group, owner of the Radisson brand, also uses the virtual tours, and plans to use Google's Wallet payment service for online payments to connect to its loyalty program.

The tech company also has stepped up efforts to recruit independent hotels to bid on the hotel-price ads. In early March, Google showed its new search results to dozens of technology companies that work with boutique hotel chains at a first-of-its-kind meeting in Berlin, according to three people who attended the meeting.

The hotel-price ads on Google are ""a game changer,"" said Erik Muñoz, an executive director at hotel-booking software company SiteMinder. He said Google's new ads allow hotels to compete with online travel agencies for a direct booking, potentially driving down their costs.

Google wants lots of hotels listing their rooms so that users have ""lots of options,"" said David Pavelko, Google's director of travel partnerships.

This also reduces Google's dependence on two giant travel advertisers.

Some hotel operators are wary of sharing too much information with Google, fearing the company will become a powerful intermediary between them and their customers.

Intercontinental Hotels Group IHG.LN -0.62% InterContinental Hotels Group PLC U.K.: London GBp1912.00 -12.00 -0.62% April 10, 2014 4:35 pm Volume : 538,453 P/E Ratio 0.21 Market Cap GBp4.93 Billion Dividend Yield 2.94% Rev. per Employee GBp148,852 04/08/14 Google Checks In to the Hotel ... 02/23/14 A Rebirth for Garden City 01/30/14 HotelTonight Sets Deals With 1... More quote details and news » IHG.LN in Your Value Your Change Short position PLC isn't participating in Google's program for the virtual tours, even as it buys Google advertising. An IHG executive says the company likes to reserve such content for its own site to encourage travelers to book directly, which saves the company money.

""Any time you're dealing with Google it pays to be careful and know what its long-term strategy is,"" says Tom Botts, chief customer officer at Denihan Hospitality Group, which is testing the virtual tour at its Miami property.

The relationship between Google and online travel agencies can be even more tense. They fear Google's moves to establish direct relationships with hotels, said one executive of Orbitz Worldwide Inc. OWW -3.92% Orbitz Worldwide Inc. U.S.: NYSE $7.60 -0.31 -3.92% April 10, 2014 2:54 pm Volume (Delayed 15m) : 337,883 P/E Ratio 4.88 Market Cap $862.68 Million Dividend Yield N/A Rev. per Employee $651,541 04/08/14 Google Checks In to the Hotel ... 03/12/14 Kodak Names Tech Veteran as CE... 02/13/14 Stocks Get Back in Rally Mode More quote details and news » OWW in Your Value Your Change Short position Expedia and TripAdvisor are members of FairSearch.org, an advocacy group that highlights what it sees as Google's anticompetitive practice of promoting its own services in search results. Even so, they remain big spenders on Google advertising because of the valuable leads.

Google has been slow to remake travel search results after buying flight search engine ITA Software in 2011. But there is more money at stake in hotel advertising, because there is more competition for travelers: A city served by a half-dozen airlines may have dozens of hotels.

Google's stepped up efforts around hotel search put it on a collision course with TripAdvisor, which like Google links out to other sites where customers actually book lodging. But even those other sites, which include Priceline's Booking.com and Expedia's Hotels.com, may be increasingly sidelined as Google moves to establish more direct relationships with hotels themselves.

The aggressiveness in hotel search is part of a broader push to provide more information on Google's own pages, beyond links to other sites. That is particularly important as more users search on smartphones, with their smaller screens and limited bandwidth. The hotel strategy is similar to Google's ""product listing ads"" for online shoppers that include prices and images.

A recent desktop search for ""New York Hilton Midtown"" reveals Google's new approach. To the right of Google's traditional links, a box featured hundreds of customer reviews, a ""see inside"" button that offers a virtual tour, and a spot for searchers to enter desired check-in and checkout dates. Similar results appear for the same search on Google Maps and increasingly on smartphones.

Once travelers enter the dates, Google's new hotel-price ads appear. Industry executives expect hotels and travel agencies to compete for these ads, and to pay more than for traditional Google ads since they will know more about a traveler's plans.

Write to Rolfe Winkler at rolfe.winkler@wsj.com and Craig Karmin at craig.karmin@wsj.com",Google is moving boldly to play a larger role in booking hotel rooms—at the risk of offending some of its most important advertisers.
"Several behind the scenes photos of

have found their way to the Interwebs.

: ""It's no secret that Kristen Stewart has shed her clothing for a couple of racy sex scenes in her upcoming film, On the Road; and now several screencaps from the film, based on beat writer Jack Kerouac's 1957 novel, have surfaced online.

have spread across the web like wildfire; one showing the actress fully nude ans [sic] smoking a cigarette on a bed, the other sitting topless in the front sead [sic] of a pickup truck with her two male co-stars, Garrett Hedlund and Sam Riley.""","Several behind the scenes photos of Kristen Stewart sans clothing have found their way to the Interwebs.From Starpulse: ""It's no secret that Kristen…"
"It was only understood relatively recently that more veterans of the Falklands committed suicide after being discharged than died in the conflict itself. The same seems to be true for the Gulf War, where just 47 died but 183 suicides or open verdicts have also been recorded. Such a ratio has clear and sobering implications for the Afghan conflict, in which British soldiers have seen the heaviest fighting since Korea. Combat Stress, a charity supported by The Daily Telegraph that has been doing outstanding work since the First World War, estimates that it takes up to 14 years for the full symptoms to emerge.

So far, the Government’s policy has been to discharge the veterans and trust the National Health Service to do whatever is necessary. But among the charities who work with them, there is little if any confidence that the NHS is up to the task. A Royal British Legion survey among GPs found widespread ignorance about the very specific factors that affect former soldiers. The Department of Health now has a Military Health & Veterans division, which has set up guidelines for doctors. But those who run it have been appalled by the low level of interest in their work.

It is easy to see why. Statistically, the average GP sees a new veteran every 16 months – making ex-servicemen a tiny fraction of their workload. Combat Stress says that just five per cent of its referrals come from GPs; many are soldiers from the Bosnian campaign. It is difficult to imagine that the NHS will be much improved by the time the veterans of Afghanistan start to come forward. The Ministry of Defence, meanwhile, is ill-inclined to take over. This is not simply official callousness: the military is reluctant to believe that its troops are so broken, and is understandably suspicious about studies suggesting (as one did recently) that 9 per cent of prisoners are ex-military. Besides, the quality of much of the data is so poor that no one knows for sure.

As for the Prime Minister himself, it is impossible to fault his efforts. Three days after assuming office, he called Andrew Murrison, a Tory MP and former naval doctor, and asked him to produce a report on veterans’ mental health. This is now being implemented in full, with urgency. Liam Fox, a former Army doctor, had campaigned for years on mental health, and could not have been more supportive. But in spite of seeing decades of cases of traumatic stress – many involving those who served in Northern Ireland – the medical and military establishment is still feeling its way.

The wholehearted public support has at least led to a number of excellent and entrepreneurial ex-service charities being set up. But their funding is vulnerable. At present, wearing the poppy is very much the done thing – far more so than a generation ago. But when the judges on The X Factor display bejewelled poppies, it is in danger of becoming overly fashionable. When something becomes fashionable, inevitably it will soon become unfashionable. Combat Stress needs to raise £10 million a year to cope with its current workload: it may well need far more in short order, at a time when Afghanistan is receding from the headlines and funding for such charities is not so abundant.

The solution is becoming steadily clearer. Splitting funding across various Government departments is not working, and it is unrealistic to expect GPs to acquire the required expertise. Britain needs a dedicated ministry for veterans, similar to America’s, with regional centres and staff who can advise on anything from housing issues to employment advice, as well as co-ordinate with the network of service charities who seem very much here to stay. It could even be the perfect vehicle for the Prime Minister’s Big Society agenda.

Every time a politician suggests that Britain should introduce some flag-waving “national day”, the idea dies a death, amid deserved ridicule. Today is our national day, when we quietly remember those who died to assure Britain’s freedom – and who are still risking their lives for their country. Now, more than ever, remembrance is about helping the living as well as saluting the dead. And there is all too much work to do.

Fraser Nelson is Editor of 'The Spectator’

To contribute to the Enemy Within appeal, send a cheque payable to “Combat Stress” to the charity at Tyrwhitt House, Oaklawn Road, Leatherhead, Surrey KT22 0BX","Despite ministers’ best efforts, we still lag far behind America in caring for 
  our war veterans."
"Say Media became the latest digital ad network to run into headwinds when it tried to build traffic by becoming a digital magazine publisher.

The company was reportedly profitable as recently as mid-2012, when it started its content-buying and building spree.

In its lifespan, it had reportedly raised $60 million from venture backers.

Late last week, it acknowledged that the strategy flopped and it was putting its content sites on the block.

The holdings include Jane Pratt’s xoJane, the tech site ReadWrite and Remodelista.

News that Say Media was selling its content sites was first reported by Digiday.

Pratt was pretty quick at getting the word out herself, tweeting: “I’m for sale.”

The 52-year-old founding editor of the now-shuttered Sassy and Jane titles also listed her cell phone so she can be contacted directly.

Officials at Say Media had not returned calls or e-mails by press time. Sources say that no investment banker has been hired.

The company, once known as Video Egg, originally was more of a tech company, figuring out how to embed video into content.

Co-founder and CEO Matthew Sanchez acknowledged to Digiday, “When we launched Say, it was really about, how do you provide technology and services for independent media,” he said.

The first signs of trouble appeared in May 2013 when Say Media canceled a proposed initial public offering.",Say Media became the latest digital ad network to run into headwinds when it tried to build traffic by becoming a digital magazine publisher. The company was reportedly profitable as recently as mi...
"Updated Oct 18, 2015 at 2:48a ET

GLENDALE, Ariz. -- After struggling in their first three games, the Boston Bruins appear to have turned things around.

Patrice Bergeron scored twice in the last 11 minutes to lift the Bruins past the Arizona Coyotes 5-3 Saturday night for their second straight win.

""We're moving the puck really well and we're taking what's open. We're not trying to force plays right now,"" Bergeron said. ""We've got to do some more of that.""

Tyler Randell, Dave Krejci and Brad Marchand also scored and Tuukka Rask stopped 20 shots for his first win of the season. Krejci and Torey Krug each had two assists.

After getting outscored 16-7 while losing their first three games, Boston has had a 11-5 scoring edge in the two wins.

The Bruins' latest win was its seventh straight Arizona.

Shane Doan had a goal and two assists, and Tobias Rieder and Kyle Chipchura also scored for Arizona. The Coyotes have lost two straight after opening the season with three wins.

Rieder and Chipchura scored 2 1/2 minutes apart in the third quarter to tie the score at 3 with about 13 1/2 minutes to go.

Bergeron then redirected a pass from Ryan Spooner into the net for the go-ahead power-play score at 9:10 of the period. Bergeron then added his third of the season, also on the power play, with 1:06 left to seal the win.

""They seem to be reading off each other well,"" coach Claude Julien said of the Bruins' three power-play goals in the game. ""They seem to know where they want to go. Every one of them on that power play pretty good poise.""

Marchand's short-handed breakaway goal at 4:44 of the third period extended Boston's lead to 3-1 before the Coyotes rallied to tie it.

Doan gave the Coyotes a 1-0 lead with his first goal of the season at 2:12 of the first period. He forced in a rebound off the skate of Bruins defenseman Kevan Miller and under Rask's leg pads. The goal was reviewed after Julien used his challenge but the ruling stood.

The unassisted goal marked Doan's 900th career point, making him the second player in franchise history to reach that milestone.

The Bruins failed to capitalize on their first three power plays of the game, but spent much of the night peppering Coyotes goalie Mike Smith with shots.

Boston outshot Arizona 10-1 at one point in the first period, but Smith was sharp in goal early, turning away several quality Bruins chances. Smith stopped shots from David Pastrnak at 16:48 of the period and Krejci during a power play, finishing with 38 saves.

The Coyotes had chances to add to their lead in the first period but could not convert on their two power plays and went 1 for 4 on the man advantage overall.

""Our execution was poor,"" Coyotes coach Dave Tippett said. ""When you don't make two or three passes together it's hard to get any flow in your game, hard to get any speed.""

Coyotes center Joe Vitale left the game after serving five minutes for fighting in the second period. Vitale, Tippett said, was taken to a hospital for X-rays after the game. He took a couple of punches to the head in a fight with Miller.

The Bruins finally solved Smith at 8:42 of the second after Smith had stopped two shots from Bergeron and a wrister from Colin Miller. Randell finished a pass from Krejci with a left backhand to tie the score at 1.

""He held us in the game pretty much the whole 60 minutes,"" Rieder said of Smith.

NOTES: Marchand returned from a concussion suffered on Oct. 10 against Montreal. ... RW Brett Connolly, a healthy scratch, missed his first game of the season . ... A good portion of the crowd of 13,411 inside Gila River Arena wore Boston's black and yellow. It was the Bruins' only visit to Arizona of the regular season. ... Coyotes C Antoine Vermette played after suffering a lower body injury in Thursday's loss to Minnesota. ... LW Jordan Martinook has a lower body injury and was scratched from Saturday's lineup.",Patrice Bergeron scored twice in the last 11 minutes to lift the Boston Bruins to a 5-3 victory over the Arizona Coyotes on Saturday night.
"Updated SEP 19, 2014 5:27a ET

The next swing coach for Tiger Woods might be Tiger Woods.

Woods posted a blog on his website Thursday saying there was no ''hard-and-set'' rule on finding a new swing coach.

He parted way with Sean Foley last month after two years. Woods only completed 25 founds this year because of a back injury that required surgery. He is not playing until the Hero World Challenge in December. He says he needs to get healthy before he figures out where to go with his game.

He says he is keeping his options ''very, very open.''

Woods says he has bounced some ideas off Notah Begay, a former teammate at Stanford and a longtime friend. He says they have discussed what direction Woods should go with his game.

*By clicking ""SUBSCRIBE"", you have read and agreed to the Fox Sports Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.",Tiger Woods says he might coach himself
"President Obama today called for a ""practical, common sense"" immigration system that will help the U.S. economy and maintain America's immigrant tradition -- and he put the pressure on Republicans to get it through Congress.

""Reform that brings accountability to our immigration system cannot pass without Republican votes,"" Obama said in his first major immigration speech as president. ""That is the political and mathematical reality.""

Obama said his administration has taken record-setting actions to strengthen the border, and he urged Congress to approve ""a pathway to legal status"" for the 11 million or so illegal immigrants in the USA.

Immigration has become ""a source of fresh contention"" in recent days because of the new Arizona law that gives police greater authority to question people's citizenship, Obama said. His administration is likely to file a lawsuit against Arizona, but the president did not discuss potential legal action.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said the first step on the immigration issue should be ""to secure the borders"" and Obama's pathway to citizenship amounts to ""amnesty"" for lawbreakers.

""The president can make progress on this issue, but it will take more than a speech,"" the top Senate Republican said. ""If he would take amnesty off the table and make a real commitment to border and interior security, he will find strong bipartisan support.""

Speaking to lawmakers, academics and community leaders gathered at American University, Obama touted his plan by stressing the immeasurable contributions that immigrants have made to the USA and the frequent discrimination they faced throughout history. ""Immigrants have always helped to build and defend this country,"" Obama said.

The chances for congressional passage don't appear great. Like McConnell, congressional Republicans and some Democrats said the government should focus on better law enforcement before moving on to citizenship issues or guest worker programs. Lawmakers already grappling with new Wall Street regulations and an energy bill must also deal with congressional elections four months from tomorrow.

Obama said political posturing on an emotional issue has delayed congressional action. ""Into this breach,"" he said, ""states like Arizona have decided to take matters into their own hands.""

Arizona's crackdown is understandable but ""ill-conceived,"" Obama said, arguing that an immigration system requires a national approach rather than a ""patchwork"" of state laws that puts too much of a burden on local law enforcement.

""These laws also have the potential of violating the rights of innocent American citizens and legal residents,"" Obama said, ""making them subject to possible stops or questioning because of what they look like or how they sound.""

McConnell criticized Obama for his stand on the Arizona law, saying, ""attacks on states filling the breach created by the failure of the federal government won't secure the border, grow jobs or create solutions for what we all agree is a broken immigration system.""

Obama criticized both sides of the immigration debate.

Some rights groups all but encourage illegal immigration, Obama said, though at least 11 million people are in fact breaking the law by not going through the citizenship process and they should be held accountable.

As for critics of ""amnesty,"" Obama said it's simply impossible to deport 11 million people. Doing so would disrupt communities and break up families, he said, as many undocumented immigrants have children who are U.S. citizens because they were born here.

The president said he has taken major steps to better protect the border, proclaiming -- twice -- that ""we have more boots on the ground near the southwest border than at any time in our history.""

As for his pathway to citizenship plan, Obama said it will help create ""a younger workforce and a faster growing economy than many of our competitors,"" Obama said. ""And in an increasingly interconnected world, the diversity of our country is a powerful advantage in global competition.""",Obama: Immigration plan 'cannot pass without Republican votes' - The Oval: Tracking the Obama presidency
"The $5 million listing for a rundown strip mall on Broadway boasts of the Somerville property’s redevelopment potential because of its proximity to a planned Green Line station.

The Green Line is also a bragging point for the builders of a 30-unit condo building — some priced as high as $750,000 — on Washington Street near Union Square, its sales pitch concluding: “It’s not just a home, it’s an investment!”

Around the corner, a nervous first-time home buyer rationalized buying a condo just above his price range as a “responsible decision” because the coming Green Line would boost its value.

The extension of the MBTA’s Green Line to Somerville and Medford was widely viewed as a sure thing — and many real estate decisions were made on that presumption. Property values and rents along the planned rail line jumped in anticipation.

When word came this week that the project is in danger of being scaled back or even canceled because costs could be as much as $1 billion more than expected, it landed like a sucker punch for buyers and investors who bought into the excitement.

Facing big budget problems for the Green Line extension, state officials see five ways to move forward.

“The price for housing in Somerville is kind of hard to justify, but the inevitability of the Green Line extension and the effect it would have on my property’s value made me sleep better,” said Rob Day, who with his wife bought a condominium near Union Square in December and expected to commute to his job as a Web developer in Boston on the new Green Line. “On Tuesday, I got up, saw the news on my phone, and said, ‘oh, [expletive].’ There was just a pit in my stomach.”

Day isn’t alone. The Green Line sales pitch, compelling and timely in an era when young urbanites in congested cities increasingly prefer public transit to driving, enticed others into making expensive purchases.

A 2014 study by the Metropolitan Area Planning Council estimated rents for apartments near the new Green Line stations would jump 25 to 67 percent once they opened. Combined with a strong regional economy and limited housing supply, the extension has been a key driver of demand in Somerville’s booming real estate market.

“People who are looking in that area are all very aware of the Green Line extension,” said Steve Novak, a Somerville real estate agent at Redfin. “Prices have already increased because of anticipation, and people are banking on it going even higher once they finish. There’s a huge buzz around the area about it.”

The 500 block of Broadway (above) in Somerville runs along the proposed route of the MBTA’s Green Line extension.

That buzz is apparent in listings for condos, homes, and commercial properties in Somerville and Medford. The marketing for the 30-unit condo building at 197 Washington St. urges buyers to capitalize on all the momentum in Somerville, including a massive remake of Union Square planned by the city.

“Union Square is in the early stages of an exciting redevelopment plan, including new Green Line stops which make this area one of the hottest up-and-coming markets in Greater Boston,” promotional materials say.

So far, there isn’t much panic evident after the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority disclosed the higher costs Monday. Officials and real estate experts argued that other forces, including a robust job market and a dynamic cultural and culinary scene, make Somerville and Medford appealing with or without the Green Line.

“Somerville has clearly done really well up till this point, even without” the Green Line, said Sue Hawkes, chief executive of the Collaborative Cos., which is leasing the 197 Washington St. condos and leased the condos at Station Landing, a development near the Orange Line. “The proximity to Boston, the fact that it’s such a foodie destination — all those attributes are there, irrespective of the extension.”

Still, the uncertainty isn’t welcome, Hawkes said. While a long delay or cancellation of the Green Line extension probably wouldn’t drive property values down, it could slow appreciation, meaning home buyers may see a smaller profit if they try to sell in several years.

Delays could also slow the wave of development planned along the corridor, especially near the more distant stations in Medford, where there are fewer transit alternatives.

“Development follows transit, period,” Hawkes said. “Whether it’s trains, boats, or automobiles, any time you lessen it or degrade those options, there’s certainly an argument that you’ll see less development and appreciation.”

So far, major developers and institutions expressed hope that by paring costs and recruiting private investors, the Baker administration will find a way to get the project built. But few would comment on what a canceled or long-delayed project would do to their plans.

In Union Square, a consortium of developers dubbed Union Square Station Associates is about to embark on a $1 billion, 18 million-square-foot redevelopment of multiple blocks, built around the Green Line station planned there.

“The Green Line extension will lead to economic growth, job creation, revenue generation as well as environmental and quality of life improvements,” a spokesman for the redevelopment team said in a statement. “In the long run, we are confident that the project will move forward because the stakeholders share these objectives and because the cost of not proceeding is enormous.”

This month, DivcoWest paid around $300 million to acquire NorthPoint, the 42-acre development in Cambridge near the Somerville line. Building plans include several million square feet of offices, research facilities, retail, and thousands of new apartments — and a relocated Lechmere Station. A spokesman for DivcoWest declined to comment.

Somerville Mayor Joseph Curtatone said the timing of the T’s announcement was unfortunate, as the city is trying to woo several companies. He said Somerville, the state, and the federal government — which has pledged $1 billion toward the Green Line — have too much invested to back out now.

Convinced the extension will ultimately get built, Curtatone offered this advice to new homeowners such as Rob Day:

“Don’t sell your condo, all right? Hang onto it. You’ll be fine.”",News that the extension of the MBTA’s Green Line to Somerville and Medford may be in danger of cancellation landed like a sucker punch for buyers and investors who bought into the excitement.
"By Amy Wilson Published: 5:46PM BST 31 Jul 2009

A Eurofighter Typhoon jet rolls on the taxiway at the Swiss Army Airbase in Emmen.. Photo: REUTERS/MICHAEL BUHOLZER

Under an agreement made with its partner nations, Germany, Spain and Italy, in 1998, Britain has another 48 Typhoons to buy, but Quentin Davies, defence equipment minister yesterday said there is ""no further commitment"".

""This is really tranche three,"" Mr Davies said. ""I don't exclude the possibility that we will buy more aircraft in the future, but there is no present intent, nor any expectation from our partners nor any obligation. We have signed for the totality of our available spending, which is now committed.""

The end of the programme would be a blow to defence company BAE Systems and engine-maker Rolls-Royce, which will make £2bn and more than £300m respectively from the 40 planes committed to yesterday.

The European partners building the aircraft agreed a €9bn (£7.7bn) contract to build 40 aircraft for the UK, 31 for Germany, 21 for Italy and 20 for Spain. The contract was agreed after BAE and its industrial partners EADS and Finmeccanica offered a cheaper maintenance and support deal for the life of the planes.

That contract will support 5,000 jobs at BAE in Britain at the height of production. Some 4,000 posts at engine-maker Rolls-Royce and its suppliers and a further 16,000 jobs across the UK aerospace industry also hinge on Eurofighter.

But since Britain signed a memorandum of understanding with Germany, Italy and Spain to buy 232 Eurofighters in 1998, the Ministry of Defence's priorities have changed. The conflict on the ground in Afghanistan is escalating and the Government has come under fire for failing to provide the necessary kit to soldiers serving there, particularly an adequate number of helicopters. The MoD's finances are expected to come under further pressure as the Government and its successor try to control the debts the country has built up as a result of the financial crisis.

It is now understood that no decision will be made on the remaining 48 Typhoons until after a strategic defence review has been carried out. The first detailed review for 10 years was announced earlier this month. A Green Paper is due in early 2010 but the review would not come until after a general election.

BAE said on Thursday activity in its fighter plane business would help to offset the drop-off in orders for armoured vehicles for the US military as it scales back in Iraq.

The company is making Typhoons for Saudi Arabia and hopes to win more export orders.

BAE's shares fell 5 to 307p.","Britain has signed up to buy another 40 Eurofighter Typhoon fighter planes but 
  cast doubt on the future of the programme by saying it was unlikely to need 
  any more."
"THE country is still reeling over Brexit and Love Island viewers were left concerned about what would happen to their favourite reality show.

Viewers were sent into a tizzy about whether Love Island would continue as it’s based in Mallorca, Spain.

While some were hoping the show – which sees a bunch of 20-somethings move into a villa hoping to find love – would continue in the sunny climate, others thought it would be fun to bring the show closer to home.

One fan wrote: “Does this mean they’ll have to cancel Love Island?#Brexit.”

Another said: “Hoping #Brexit does not impact too heavily on Love Island.”

Someone else added: ""All I want to know now is what are the thoughts of Cara and Nathan regarding the EU referendum? Will Brexit effect Love Island?""

Others added some humour into the mix, suggesting alternatives to the sunny Spanish holiday destination.

One Twitter user wrote: ""Following #Brexit the next series of #loveisland will be filmed in Barry Island unless Wales leave then Canvey Island is an alternative.""

Another said: ""Will future series of Love Island be set on Guernsey? #brexit"" while a fellow viewer wrote: ""Serious question. If we vote #Brexit where will the next series of Love Island be filmed? Butlins?""

Love Island producers didn't have a comment to make at this time.

Serious question. If we vote #Brexit where will the next series of Love Island be filmed? Butlins?

— Josh Parkin (@JoshParkin) June 8, 2016

They're probably going to have to film Love Island in Barry Island now #Brexit

— Alys Wilcox (@alyswilcox) June 24, 2016

Hoping #brexit does not impact too heavily on #loveisland

— RussellEarnshaw (@russellearnshaw) June 24, 2016

While viewers are worried about the show's future, there's plenty to keep them entertained on the current series as Tom Powell's ex-girlfriend Emma-Jane Woodham entered the villa on Friday night.

Sophie Gradon was not impressed at the new arrival and it looked like their romance was on the rocks.

Tom said the former Miss Great Britain had ""a face like a slapped a***"" and asked if she wanted to break up.

Just last week, he gave her a promise ring after she won the Miss Love Island contest.

She said: ""I'm trying to be patient with you and your moods and how you can snap at the smallest of things. Are you quite moody in other relationships? Or is it just because you're in here?""

Tom apologised and Sophie tried to get past it saying: ""I know you are, you're always sorry. Let's just go forward and try and not get moody with each other.""

However, she was unimpressed when he replied: ""Please smile, you've got s face like a slapped a***.""

She blasted: ""Next time you speak to me like that, I'll tell you you've got a face like a slapped a*** and let's see how well it goes down.

""Honestly, you're such a hypocrite. The amount of times I try and speak to you and your face is just like what it is now. I just can't read you sometimes.

""You're just so difficult Tom. We're hugging one minute and then you move away the next. I'm like 'What have I done now, I thought we were making up here'. I just don't know what to do.""

As they continued to argue, Tom asked her if she wanted too ""call it quits?"" but they agreed to work it out.

Tom's ex Emma later went on a date with Terry and Adam.

Meanwhile, Love Island producers turned up the heat last night as they had a Fifty Shade of Grey style challenge.

Bosses on the ITV show told the the girls and guys they’d have to undertake the task in order to see how far they’d go.

And while all of the couples willingly all took part – they indulged in varying degrees of erotic role-playing.

The drama continues on Love Island tonight on ITV2 at 9pm.

Got a story? email digishowbiz@the-sun.co.uk or call us direct on 02077824220",THE country is still reeling over Brexit and Love Island viewers were left concerned about what would happen to their favourite reality show. Viewers were sent into a tizzy about whether Love Islan…
"Alternative online lending marketplaces Lending Club and On Deck Capital are taking a beating on Wall Street this summer, with both companies’ shares plummeting below the opening prices of their respective initial public offerings.

Lending Club LC , which debuted on the New York Stock Exchange in December, has seen its stock fall 50% from a high of $29 per share shortly after the company went public. Lending Club’s stock, which is now trading at $14.56, is below its original price of $15 per share.

On Deck ONDK has also been getting hit by investors after its December IPO. The company’s shares are now trading at $11.60, 42% lower than the company’s initial offering price of $20.

Lending Club was one of the pioneers in peer to peer lending by creating a marketplace that connect borrowers and lenders. Founded in 2006, the company took traditional banks out of the equation to connect investors directly with those in need of a loan like small business owners who may not have qualified for a loan from a traditional bank and individuals looking to consolidate their debt. After clearing a few hurdles with federal regulators, Lending Club started gaining traction while raising massive amounts of cash from investors like Google Capital and Kleiner Perkins.

While On Deck also challenges traditional banks, the company differs from Lending Club in that it lends its own money to small businesses. From 2007, On Deck has lent more than $2 billion to hair salons, pizza parlors, and convenience stores.

Michael Tarkan, an analyst at Compass Point Research & Trading, is not optimistic about the prospects for both companies. He’s set a $14 price target for Lending Club’s shares and a $12 target for On Deck, and believes the stocks may sink lower. Why?

“The stocks are too expensive relative to underlying risk,” he said in an interview.

Tarkan further explained that Wall Street has realized that the stock price was overvalued considering the competitive and regulatory risks in the alternative lending space. He cited an increased amount of fast-growing competitors including Marlette and Prosper. Other startups that have raised money in the lending space include CAN Capital, LendUp, and Bond Street.

Traditional banks are starting to see opportunity in online lending as well. Goldman Sachs will soon let consumers apply for and receive small loans online, according to the New York Times.

Both Lending Club and On Deck have been lauded by Silicon Valley as disrupting traditional banks by opening up the floodgates for underserved customers to credit. Lending Club and On Deck make money primarily by taking a cut of interest rates from loans.

Renaud Laplanche, founder and CEO of Lending Club, acknowledged the declining value of his company’s stock, but maintained that some of gyrations are from a flood of shares into the market following end of an investor lock up period. The company also issued disappointing revenue guidance following earnings in the second quarter, which was later raised.

As for the increased competition, Laplanche points to the company’s first quarter revenue more than doubling to $81 million compared with the same period a year earlier. And with this growth, the cost the company was incurring to acquire customers has gone down over the past year, he added.

On Deck’s revenue has also grown year over year. The company doubled revenue to $56.46 million in the second quarter of 2015, but posted a net loss of $5 million for the quarter.

While there hasn’t been any renewed regulatory problems like Lending Club faced five years ago, Tarkan says that it’s still early days from a regulatory perspective.

Laplanche says Lending Club has worked well with regulators thus far, and he’s optimistic that regulators will continue to see the marketplace as a positive financial platform.

OnDeck declined to comment on the company’s stock performance for this article.",Lending Club and On Deck have seen their shares plunge from their highs following closely watched initial public offerings.
"Two British best friends accused of battering a pedophile with a baseball bat have been found not guilty of all charges.

Michael Loughran, 30, and Karl Carter, 27, reportedly faced up to six years in prison — longer than the 3-year sentence the child rapist they were alleged to have beaten — if convicted.

But the duo were left ""speechless"" after a jury at Teesside Crown Court took less then an hour to clear them of the alleged assault, according to ITV.

The court heard how the pair had offered up a $1,600 reward to track down the 18-year-old sex beast, who cannot be named for ongoing legal reasons.

They then went to his home on June 28 ""to scare"" the man who'd recently been released from prison.

Carter and Loughran, both from Redcar, denied wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm and having an offensive weapon.

Loughran did admit taking a swing at the man with a baseball bat, but said he was acting in self-defense and that it had actually belonged to his alleged victim.

The pedophile suffered a cut to the head which required stapling.

Carter said he was ""delighted"" with the verdict, which came after he and Loughran had spent five months locked up on remand.

""Justice has been done. We are not having a party, I'm just going home to spend the time with my partner and my kids. That's all I want to do,"" he told the Hartlepool Mail.

""It has been an absolute nightmare. If I could see all 12 members of the jury now, I would give them a big kiss,"" he added.","Michael Loughran, 30, and Karl Carter, 27, reportedly faced a longer sentence than the pedophile they were alleged to have beaten."
"updated 4:49 p.m. ET Aug. 23, 2011

When I was a kid, I read every Choose Your Own Adventure book I could get my eyes on, a stack of paperbacks with new agey cover art and titles like You Are a Monster, Alien Go Home!, and other phrases that sound like they were borrowed from the signature pages of my junior high yearbook.

The series’ gimmick was that at the end of each chapter, your character was faced with a choice (of adventures!) and you’d turn to the corresponding page based on whichever plot twist you selected. You know, go to page 42 if you stay to fight the Fish People, page 68 if you flee in terror and stay right here if you want to stay single forever and probably die alone.

Now that the official part of his PGA season is over — unceremoniously ending at the PGA Championship with two sweat-soaked Dri Fit shirts, five double bogeys and the third missed major cut of his career — I wonder if Tiger Woods has decided which page he’ll flip to next. He’s scheduled to play the Australian Open in November and might add an additional event to appease President’s Cup captain Fred Couples, but what happens after that?

What if — and this is less likely than watching him give the Cribs cameras a tour of his walk-in closets — he decided to retire, take his rebuilt knee, partially reconstructed swing and 14 major titles and head home? Turn to page 81 if you want to trade your red shirt for a white flag and sign the scorecard on your career.

Would he be remembered as the greatest ever? Kind of. Wait! Hear me out.

Jack Nicklaus, with his 18 majors, 73 wins and countless pairs of plaid pants is still the king. Golf reveres the majors, putting way more emphasis on those four tournaments than on the others that surround them on the calendar. By now, Nicklaus has kissed more metal than Robocop’s girlfriend, but he wasn’t considered to be the best until he’d outmajored Bobby Jones.

""Jack got old No. 14 last week and officially became the greatest golfer who ever lived or died,” Sports Illustrated wrote in 1973. If you follow those rules — and golf loves its rules, no matter how archaic, no matter how arcane — Nicklaus is still on top of the lifetime leaderboard.

But Woods has always made golf stretch its boundaries to accommodate him, figuratively, like when it tried to appropriately recognize his Tiger Slam or literally, when Augusta National stretched itself to over 7,400 yards in an attempt to Tiger-proof the course.

If he never played another competitive round, Woods would have to be remembered as the most dominant golfer — if not the most awe-inspiring individual athlete not named Roger Federer — of all time.

Woods’ first major breakthrough was at the 1997 Masters, as a 22-year-old Tour sophomore whose lanky arms stuck out of his sleeves like a pair of six-iron shafts. He left Augusta with the first of his four green jackets and left the Masters with cleat marks all over its record book, becoming the youngest winner (and the first African-American) with the lowest four-round total (270; -18) and the biggest margin of victory (12 strokes).

But it would get better. Or worse, if you had to share a fairway with him. Woods had an eight-year run from 1999 (the season before the Tiger Slam) through 2007 (the season before his ACL went rogue for the first time) when he was untouchable.

He kicked grass — bent, Bermuda, Kentucky blue — and took names, launching drives, draining putts and projecting an air of invincibility that no one — not Nicklaus or Nelson, not Hogan or Hagen — ever had. And he did it all on longer, tougher layouts and against a deeper field of would-be challengers than they saw in their pre-Nike nightmares.

""During that eight-year stretch, Woods played 167 PGA events and won 54 times, a 32.33 percentage. Of the 36 majors from 1999 through 2007, Woods won 12 (33.33 percent), which topped Nicklaus’ mark of eight major wins from 1962-1970 (22 percent). Neither man could match Ben Hogan's 9 for 16 performance (56 percent) from 1946-1953, which included several injury-shortened seasons following his 1949 car accident. In 2000, Woods became the first player since Hogan to bag three majors in one year.

Twice Woods had a season scoring average of 67.79, better than Byron Nelson’s 68.33, a number that had been untouched and unmatched for 55 years. During those two years (2000, 2007), Woods was outscoring his nearest competitors by an average of 1.46 strokes per round.

But the gap between Woods and his competition was much more than a backswing and a half; that’s the biggest difference between Woods and the other men who have earned green jackets, bronze statues and highway markers in their hometowns.

Woods didn’t have a consistent rival, regardless of how many pre-major network promos promised us a showdown between Woods and Phil Mickelson or Sergio Garcia or David Duval (before his career detonated). Watching them try to compete with Woods was like watching a row of burnt out Chevy Novas attempt to put up a fight against an oncoming monster truck.

So Woods took aim at history, against neatly typed records and sun faded scorecards, and I’d be among those who’d say that he crunched that too.

“I would never deny that Jack Nicklaus is the greatest player who ever lived,” Gary Player told Golf Digest in 2002. ""But Jack was never this dominant.""

Six-time major winner Nick Faldo said, ""I think one thing we could do is start a Tiger-less Tour. Then we others would have a chance of winning.""

""You need competition,"" Tom Kite grumbled. ""Otherwise it gets boring.""

Kite would know. He’s the only man who finished as a major runnerup to both Woods and Nicklaus.

That kind of awe-drenched intimidation was unprecedented. It still is. Even if Woods does one day equal Nicklaus’ when it comes to Majors, he’ll never equal himself when it comes to unbeatability (Yes, I’m making up a word. If ESPN can invent new quarterback stats, I can play armchair etymologist).

Those days of domination, of showing up on the first tee and making the rest of the field feel like they’re playing for second, are over, another casualty of his back-to-back winless seasons.

""He just walked out there and he was a hard guy to beat,"" Greg Norman told the Mirror last week. ""Now he’s trying to beat them instead of them trying to beat him. The kids growing up haven’t seen Tiger’s dominance.""

He’s right. The early twentysomethings of the PGA Tour are like the next generation of Amity Island vacationers, the ones who shrug and roll their eyes when the survivors tell them about that summer when they had a shark problem. They have no idea how scary it used to be.

By the time the Augusta National staff starts force-blooming the azaleas, Woods will have endured a 46-month drought between major wins, outlasting his second longest dry spell by a full year.

It’s still possible the 35-year-old Woods could settle into his new swing and add to his resume; Nicklaus won six of his majors after age 35 and eight of Ben Hogan’s nine titles came after he’d hit the middle of his 30s.

On one hand, only five majors stand between Woods and topping Nicklaus. On the other hand, that's FIVE MAJORS, an entire career's worth of accomplishments for Byron Nelson and Seve Ballesteros. It’s one more than Mickelson has so far, one more than Ray Floyd ever got.

But Woods knows that’s what it would take to be considered the greatest player, not the greatest for a decade, not the greatest for the early '00s, but the G.O.A.T., the greatest of all-time. When asked who he thought that player was, Woods replied without hesitation. ""Jack,"" he said. ""He’s got 18. I’m at 14.""

What can Woods do but turn the page and keep going?

Jelisa Castrodale has learned a lot about life by making a mess of her own. Read more at jelisacastrodale.com , follow her on twitter at twitter.com/gordonshumway, or contact her at","Castrodale: Even if Tiger Woods never catches Jack Nicklaus, he'll still be known as the most dominant golfer — and 2nd most dominant athlete — who ever lived."
"(Originally published by the Daily News on March 3, 1965. This story was written by Kate Cameron.)

Robert Wise has transformed the delightful Rodgers and Hammerstein musical stage production of “The Sound of Music” into a magical film in which Julie Andrews gives an endearing performance in the role of Maria, the governess. Caretaker to the young seems to be Julie’s metier, as she has been nominated for an Academy Award for her performance last year in Disney’s production of “Mary Poppins,” P.L. Travers’ enchanting nanny.

“The Sound of Music,” which Wise produced and directed for 20th Century-Fox, had its initial New York showing at the Rivoli Theatre last night. Filmed in Todd-AO and Deluxe color, it opens on a breath-taking panoramic view of the mountains surrounding the beautiful and ancient city of Salzburg, where the picture was shot in its entirety. It then pans to a shot of Maria singing a panegyric to her beloved mountains.

From then on the real-life story of the Von Trapp family is unfolded on the screen in as rosy sentimental a manner as it was presented in the Broadway stage with Mary Martin in the role of Maria.

The stage production was not received too warmly by the dramatic critics either here or in London, but the show was an outstanding success in both cities.

Appealing to the whole family and giving Julie Andrews a chance to sing and perform charmingly, it presents Christopher Plummer as Captain Von Trapp, a role that is sure to enhance the popularity of this fine actor.

The screenplay by Ernest Lehman and Hammerstein’s book of the stage show were based on Baroness Von Trapp’s story of her life at Salzburg, her rejection as a nun because of her inability to conform to the rules of the convent, her work as governess to the seven motherless Von Trapp and the family’s melodramatic flight out of Austria in the middle of the night, just after the anschluss between Nazi Germany and Austria took place in the thirties.

As befitting a musical show, the family story is presented with humor and sentiment. The fact that it is a true story adds to its audience appeal.

The children are well represented by Charmian Carr, Heather Menzies, Nicholas Hammond, Duane Chase, Angela Cartwright, Debbie Turner and a darling four-year-old, Kym Karath. Eleanor Parker, looking very beautiful, plays Von Trapp’s fiancee and Richard Haydn gives an amusing interpretation of the Max Detweiler role. Peggy Wood presents a dignified impersonation of the mother superior.

Marni Nixon, that silver-throated ghost who has been haunting Hollywood for some time dubbing songs for the stars, makes her bodily appearance on the screen for the first time as one of the singing nuns.

Rodgers has written two new songs for the picture and they add a fresh note to the film’s action. Three of the original numbers were dropped. The new songs are: “I Have Confidence In Me” and “Something Good.” The outstanding musical numbers of the original score are “Do Re Mi,” “My Favorite Things,” “Climb Every Mountain,” “I Am Sixteen Going on Seventeen” and the title song.

Wise’s direction is excellent, as he keeps his cast on the move throughout the slightly less than three-hour performance.",“The Sound of Music” has Julie Andrews as an endearing baroness of the Von Trapp family.
"After potentially serious back-to-back laboratory accidents, federal health officials announced Friday that they had temporarily closed the flu and anthrax laboratories at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta and halted shipments of all infectious agents from the agency’s highest-security labs.

The accidents, and the C.D.C.’s emphatic response to them, could have important consequences for the many laboratories that store high-risk agents and the few that, even more controversially, specialize in making them more dangerous for research purposes.

If the C.D.C. — which the agency’s director, Dr. Thomas Frieden, called “the reference laboratory to the world” — had multiple accidents that could, in theory, have killed both staff members and people outside, there will undoubtedly be calls for stricter controls on other university, military and private laboratories.

In one episode last month, at least 62 C.D.C. employees may have been exposed to live anthrax bacteria after potentially infectious samples were sent to laboratories unequipped to handle them. Employees not wearing protective gear worked with bacteria that were supposed to have been killed but may not have been. All were offered a vaccine and antibiotics, and the agency said it believed no one was in danger.

In a second accident, disclosed Friday, a C.D.C. lab accidentally contaminated a relatively benign flu sample with a dangerous H5N1 bird flu strain that has killed 386 people since 2003. Fortunately, a United States Agriculture Department laboratory realized that the strain was more dangerous than expected and alerted the C.D.C.

In addition to those mistakes, Dr. Frieden also announced Friday that two of six vials of smallpox recently found stored in a National Institutes of Health laboratory since 1954 contained live virus capable of infecting people.

All the samples will be destroyed as soon as the genomes of the virus in them can be sequenced. The N.I.H. will scour its freezers and storerooms for other dangerous material, he said.

“These events revealed totally unacceptable behavior,” Dr. Frieden said. “They should never have happened. I’m upset, I’m angry, I’ve lost sleep over this, and I’m working on it until the issue is resolved.”

The anthrax and flu labs will remain closed until new procedures are imposed, Dr. Frieden said. For the flu lab, that will be finished in time for vaccine preparation for next winter’s flu season, he said.

Dr. William Schaffner, the head of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University’s medical school, said he thought all American labs should stop shipping all hazardous agents until they have reviewed their safety procedures. Although there is no obvious way to force them to do that, he said, the federal grants that most labs depend on “could be the stick.”

Dr. Frieden himself suggested that the accidents had implications for labs beyond his agency, arguing that the world needs to reduce to absolute minimums the number of labs handling dangerous agents, the number of staff members involved and the number of agents circulating.

Scientists doing the most controversial work — efforts to make pathogens more lethal or more transmissible — say the research helps predict mutations that might arise in nature so that vaccines can be created. But other scientists feel that creating superstrains is unacceptably dangerous because lab accidents are more common than is often acknowledged, as Dr. Frieden’s announcement indicated.

The revelations at the C.D.C. renewed calls for a moratorium by opponents of such “gain of function” research.

“This has been a nonstop series of bombshells, and this news about contamination with H5N1 is just incredible,” said Peter Hale, founder of the Foundation for Vaccine Research, which lobbies for more funding for vaccines but opposes “gain of function” research. “You can have all the safety procedures in the world, but you can’t provide for human error.”

At the C.D.C. itself, Dr. Frieden said, staff members who knowingly failed to follow procedures or who failed to report dangerous incidents will be disciplined. A committee of experts will be convened to revise procedures.

In the flu-related incident, a C.D.C. lab accidentally contaminated a sample of less-dangerous H9N2 bird flu, which it was preparing for shipment to an Agriculture Department laboratory, with the H5N1 bird flu strain.

Though the contamination was discovered on May 23, Dr. Frieden said that he was dismayed to discover that senior C.D.C. officials were not informed until July 7, and that he was told only 48 hours ago.

Nonetheless, he said, “we have a high degree of confidence that no one was exposed.” The flu material was handled in high-biosafety-level labs in both agencies, and the workers wore breathing apparatuses.

In theory, the flu-related accident could have been much worse than the anthrax one.

Anthrax can kill those who inhale it, but is not normally transmitted between humans, so an infected laboratory worker presumably could not have gone home and passed it on. H5N1 bird flu has killed about 60 percent of those known to have caught it, almost always after contact with poultry. Although it does not easily jump from person to person, it is thought to have done so several times.

The anthrax episode took place on June 5 in the agency’s bioterrorism rapid response lab as part of testing a new mass spectrometry method.

The new C.D.C. report found several errors: A scientist used a dangerous anthrax strain when a safer one would have sufficed, had not read relevant studies and used an unapproved chemical killing method.

The error was discovered by accident. The door to an autoclave that would have sterilized samples taken for safety tests was stuck, so they were left in an incubator for days longer than normal. Only then did a lab technician notice that bacteria believed to be dead were growing.

Later tests done at the C.D.C. and at a Michigan State Health Department lab as part of the investigation confirmed that the chemical method would have killed any live, growing anthrax in the samples that were sent out, but might not have killed all spores, which are surrounded by a hard shell and can also be lethal.

Although anthrax terrifies laymen, “when you work with it day in and day out, you can get a little careless,” Dr. Frieden said. “The culture of safety needs to improve at some C.D.C. laboratories.”

A version of this article appears in print on July 12, 2014, on page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: C.D.C. Shuts Labs After Accidents With Pathogens. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe","After potentially serious accidents involving bird flu and live anthrax, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shut the Atlanta labs and halted shipments of infectious agents."
"Ardent animal lovers who read this blog are really pretty miffed about what's going on at SeaWorld. Saturday, the SeaWorld killer whale shows will continue in Orlando.

SeaWorld President Jim Atchison is holding a press conference at which he said the Shamu Believe show with killer whales will resume this weekend -- three days after a whale killed a trainer at the Orlando park.

The former head of training at SeaWorld Orlando says a trainer drowned by a killer whale broke with rules that had been in place for handling the giant animal.

Dawn Brancheau, the SeaWorld trainer drowned this week by one of the park's killer whales, was in many ways the true-life example of the park's signature story story about a child who grows up to swim with mighty orcas, the Associated Press reports.

USA TODAY's Donna Leinwand spoke to animal-rights activists about the SeaWorld tragedy. Here's some of what she's reporting:

...Olympians performing triple somersaults from 10m up. Black, who also performs as part of the Pirates Unleashed show at Sea World, wowed the audience with his pyro stunt. Covered head to toe in a special fire suit and armed with years of experience, a petrol-soaked...

...in Vancouver. ... A killer whale has attacked and killed a trainer at Sea World in Orlando, as ... During a performance at Sea World in San Diego, a killer whale bit and dragged ... CBS News RAW: Officials in Orlando said there was no foul play concerning...

...nation of Georgia fatally crashed during a practice run in Vancouver. ... A killer whale has attacked and killed a trainer at Sea World in Orlando, as ... During a performance at Sea World in San Diego, a killer whale bit and dragged ... Michael Kanellos,...

...Gold Coast theme parks have shaken off the financial crisis, making a big splash in the accounts of the entertainment giant. Sea World, Movie World and Wet 'n' Wild have reported a pre-tax net profit of $20.1 million for the six months to the end of December,...

...it was four dolphins bodysurfing within metres of surfers at 9.15am, there was a welcome wave of relief for the D-bah locals. Sea World vet Dr David Blyde said the appearance was not out of character for the animals, since dolphins were very sociable, inquisitive...

The move brings SeaWorld's base price to just 5 cents less than single-day, single-park tickets to Disney or Universal.

Eighty-one percent of amusement parks will hold Halloween or fall-themed events this year.

It was a fish story that even veteran boat captains found fascinating: As many as 200 killer whales feeding on tuna in the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico.

Hoping the prospect of sales will woo cash-strapped travelers, the nation's tourist destinations are taking a page from the retail playbook, offering tourists deep discounts and freezing gate prices.

There are no free lunches in life, but one could always count on free beer samples at Anheuser-Busch theme parks. Until now.","Collection of all USATODAY.com coverage of Sea World., including articles, videos, photos, and quotes."
"Image: Al Powers/Powers Imagery/Invision/AP/Associated Press

If you want a party done right, call Taylor Swift.

Whether it be a fan's bridal shower or a birthday for her very best friend, the number one rule for a Taylor Swift party is go big or go home.

For Swift's high school friend Abigail Anderson's 25th birthday, the pop star went all out by arranging for Dashboard Confessional singer Chris Carrabba to make an appearance at the party for a sing-a-long.

It's hard to hate, hate, hate T-Swift when she's this sweet.",Taylor Swift arraged for members of Dashboard Confessional to crash her friend's birthday party.
"Olivia Jackson and inset of Milla Jovovich

Courtesy Olivia Jackson; Jeffrey Mayer/WireImage

09/16/2015 AT 08:35 AM EDT

posted an emotional message on

asking friends and fans to please pray for a full recovery for Olivia Jackson, her stuntwoman, after

while filming a scene for

""I sit down to write this post with a heavy heart, because a terrible accident rocked our set on Saturday the 5th of September. My incredibly talented stunt double, Olivia Jackson, collided with a camera crane while performing a motorcycle stunt and it put her in the hospital with severe, multiple injuries,"" Jovovich wrote on

Jackson, 32, who also performed stunts in the forthcoming

, suffered severe head injuries and a punctured lung after colliding with a metal camera arm during a high-speed motorcycle chase in South Africa,

She was not wearing protective gear at the time,

reported. Several sources said she was placed in a medically induced coma.

Jovovich's husband, Paul W.S. Anderson, is directing the film. ""The cast and crew of

have been totally devastated and are waiting with bated breath for news on her recovery,"" Jovovich wrote.

It appears Jackson is presently in stable condition. ""We now understand she is stable and being carefully monitored by very experienced South African doctors.""

Still, the actress said Jackson needs all the support she can get and is asking friends and family to please pray for her.

""I would really appreciate it if you would take a moment out of your busy days ahead and pray for Olivia's full recovery too. She needs all the help she can get right now and every bit of the good energy we can send,"" she wrote.

Jackson's husband, fellow stunt performer David Grant, also posted a

""I want you all to know that she has been making steady progress and your thoughts and good vibes are all working so please keep them up!"" he wrote. ""She's my inspiration and my world and one tuff little mother f---er !""

""She's fighting hard and the team of people working on Olive have been amazing and have been doing some incredible work,"" he also wrote. ""Thanks again to everybody! I whisper to her everyday telling her about the support she's getting world wide!""

Jackson recently worked as a stunt double on the set of

and as Gwyneth Paltrow's stunt double in","Milla Jovovich says her stuntwoman, Olivia Jackson, is in stable condition but still needs ""all the help she can get"""
"WASHINGTON, Jan. 6 — President Bush’s new Iraq strategy calls for a rapid influx of forces that could add as many as 20,000 American combat troops to Baghdad, supplemented with a jobs program costing as much as $1 billion intended to employ Iraqis in projects including painting schools and cleaning streets, according to American officials who are piecing together the last parts of the initiative.

Pool photo by Ali al-Saadi

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki spoke Saturday in Baghdad.

The American officials said Iraq’s prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, formally agreed in a long teleconference on Thursday with Mr. Bush to match the American troop increase, made up of five combat brigades that would go in at a rate of roughly one a month, by sending three more Iraqi brigades to Baghdad over the next month and a half.

Nonetheless, even in outlining the plan, some American officials acknowledged deep skepticism about whether the new plan could succeed.

They said two-thirds of the promised Iraqi force would consist of Kurdish pesh merga units to be sent from northern Iraq, and they said some doubts remained about whether they would show up in Baghdad and were truly committed to quelling sectarian fighting.

The call for an increase in troops would also put Mr. Bush in direct confrontation with the leaders of the new Democratic Congress, who said in a letter to the president on Friday that the United States should move instead toward a phased withdrawal of American troops, to begin in the next four months.

Mr. Bush is expected to make the plan public in coming days, probably in a speech to the country on Wednesday that will cast the initiative as a joint effort by the United States and Iraq to reclaim control of Baghdad neighborhoods racked by sectarian violence. Officials said Mr. Bush was likely to be vague on the question of how long the additional American forces would remain on the streets of Baghdad. But they said American planners intended for the push to last for less than a year.

A crucial element of the plan would include more than doubling the State Department’s reconstruction efforts throughout the country, an initiative intended by the administration to signal that the new strategy would emphasize rebuilding as much as fighting.

But previous American reconstruction efforts in Iraq have failed to translate into support from the Iraqi population, and some Republicans as well as the new Democratic leadership in Congress have questioned if a troop increase would do more than postpone the inevitable and precarious moment when Iraqi forces have to stand on their own.

Congress has the power to halt the increases by cutting off money for Mr. Bush’s proposals. But some Democrats are torn about whether to press ahead with such a move for fear that it will appear that they are not supporting the troops.

When Mr. Bush gives his speech, he will cast much of the program as an effort to bolster Iraq’s efforts to take command over its own forces and territory, the American officials said. He will express confidence that Mr. Maliki is committed to bringing under control both the Sunni-led insurgency and the Shiite militias that have emerged as the source of most of the violence. Mr. Maliki picked up those themes in a speech in Baghdad on Saturday in which he said that multinational troops would support an Iraqi effort to secure the capital.

Some aspects of the plan were reported by The Wall Street Journal on Friday.

The officials would not say specifically whether the American troop increase would be carried out if the Iraqis failed to make good on their commitment to add to their own ranks. But they emphasized that the American influx, which would be focused in Baghdad and Anbar Province but could also include a contingency force in Kuwait, could be re-evaluated at any point.

The American officials who described the plan included some who said they were increasingly concerned about Mr. Maliki’s intentions and his ability to deliver. They said senior Bush administration officials had been deeply disturbed by accounts from witnesses to last Saturday’s hanging of Saddam Hussein, who said they believed that guards involved in carrying out the execution were linked to the Mahdi Army, the Shiite militia that is headed by Moktada al-Sadr, whose name some of the executioners shouted while Mr. Hussein stood on the gallows.

“If that’s an indication of how Maliki is operating these days, we’ve got a deeper problem with the bigger effort,” said one official, who insisted on anonymity because he was discussing internal administration deliberations over a strategy that Mr. Bush has not yet publicly announced.

The White House has refused to talk publicly about any of the decisions that Mr. Bush has made about his plan, which is tentatively titled “A New Way Forward.” Even though speechwriters are already drafting Mr. Bush’s comments, several of the crucial elements are not final, officials warned. That apparently includes the exact amounts of money Mr. Bush will ask of Congress to finance the jobs program or a longer-term job-training effort that will also be part of the strategy.

Thom Shanker contributed reporting from Washington, and Marc Santora from Baghdad.","President Bush’s plan could add as many as 20,000 American combat troops, supplemented with a jobs program costing as much as $1 billion, officials said."
"A federal judge has set a May 28 trial date for the director Julie Taymor, Bono and the Edge of U2, and the producers of the Broadway musical “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark” to battle in court over a lawsuit stemming from the spectacular implosion of their years-long collaboration on the show.

Judge Katherine B. Forrest of Federal District Court in Manhattan ordered on Friday that the parties may conduct discovery through May 1 and that “trial is and will be on May 28, 2013,” adding that no further meetings with the judge were necessary. The order came four days after the judge, during a closed-door session with the various sides, expressed frustration that they had not been able to settle disputes over copyright control and profits from the show in spite of coming to terms in principle in August.

One person familiar with the settlement negotiations said on Tuesday that the sides were at an impasse, and that the holdup had less to do with compensating Ms. Taymor than with creative rights and control of “Spider-Man,” whose producers are now considering future overseas tours and other runs. The person, who spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid antagonizing the parties involved in the lawsuit, said that the sides were still talking and that a settlement was still possible.

A lawyer for Ms. Taymor declined to comment on Tuesday; lawyers for the producers did not return phone messages seeking comment.

The lawsuit is primarily between Ms. Taymor, the musical’s former director and one of its script writers, and the producers and “Spider-Man” composers, Bono and the Edge; the producers, with the composers’ blessing, fired Ms. Taymor in March 2011. She sued that November on copyright grounds, saying the producers were making money off her ideas and script and owed her more than $1 million. The producers countersued, saying that they had ousted her for breach of contract.

“Spider-Man,” by far the most expensive musical in the history of Broadway with a $75 million budget, opened in June 2011 to largely negative reviews but has gone on to be a fan favorite, grossing more than $1 million a week. Its weekly running costs are quite high on Broadway, however, at roughly $1 million, and ticket sales have dipped slightly in recent months.","Despite agreeing in principle on a settlement, the producers and former director of the show have not been able to hammer out final details in their dispute over copyright and profits."
"FORTUNE — Continuing its most aggressive rollout of an iOS device to date, Apple AAPL on Friday launched its new iPad in a dozen more countries, starting with South Korea.

Judging from the video below, the event in Seoul followed the usual over-the-top script, from the line sitters who show up the night before to the staffers whooping and hollering the next morning.

Over the course of the day, the device was scheduled to go on sale in Brunei, Croatia, Cyprus, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Malaysia, Panama, St Maarten, Uruguay and Venezuela.

Video from South Korea below:",iPad fever spreads around the world
"had every right to use the music she had in her wildly famous YouTube makeup videos ... because the company that owned the rights said she could ... at least her lawyers claim they did.

As TMZ previously reported, Ultra Records -- home to EDM giants

, and many more --

... claiming she stole dozens of their songs for her videos.

But Phan's lawyers tell TMZ ... Ultra fully agreed to allow Phan to use the music and feels her videos have promoted their music and ""showcased [them] to an international audience.""

Phan's legal team says Phan plans to file a lawsuit of her own.

For his part, Kaskade has taken to Twitter to defend Phan, writing over a series of tweets ... ""I’m not suing @MichellePhan + @ultrarecords isn’t my lapdog. I can’t do much about the lawsuit except voice support for her.""",Michelle Phan had every right to use the music she had in her wildly famous YouTube makeup videos ... because the company that owned the rights said she…
"FONTANA, Calif. – Ryan Hunter-Reay opened the IndyCar season determined to take his career to another level.

He had a chance to race for the season-opening win at St. Pete, where a victory would have given him a nice little bump to start things. But when fuel became an issue, and his crew implored him to save gas over the closing laps, he backed off and settled for a third-place finish.

It's not easy to ask a driver, especially one who opened the season with all of three IndyCar victories, not to chase the checkered flag. Hunter-Reay willingly did it, though, because he'd changed his thinking and made the big picture — collecting every point possible — his focus.

It paid off Saturday night when Hunter-Reay capped a career year with his first championship at a major racing level. In finishing fourth, he beat Will Power by three points for the IndyCar title, the first for an American since Sam Hornish Jr. in 2006.",Ryan Hunter-Reay opened the IndyCar season determined to take his career to another level.
"Just as banks have always attracted robbers, the money management business has always attracted charlatans. Lately we've seen more than the usual share of frauds and Ponzi schemes, with Bernard L. Madoff's scam as the largest and most noteworthy.

What's an investor to do for protection? One simple answer is to entrust your assets directly to a well-known member of the mutual fund business. For investors who prefer to work through a brokerage, financial advisory firm or alternative asset manager, however, here are five steps I recommend:

Insist on a Third-Party Custodian Don't let the money manager or an affiliate retain control of your assets. Instead insist that they be physically deposited in an unaffiliated institution with which you're familiar, such as a major bank, like State Street ( STT - news - people ), or a well-known wire house such as Charles Schwab ( SCHW - news - people ) or TD Ameritrade ( AMTD - news - people ). Any check you write to invest or transfer funds into your account should be made out to the custodian--not the manager you hired.

Once your account is operating, you should receive monthly or quarterly reports from the third-party custodian. You can then compare the reports with those from your money manager and track your assets. The chances a custodian would be in on a fraud are slim, but even if it were, the firm would likely have insurance to cover investor losses. Firms that are members of the Securities Investor Protection Corp. and bear the ""Member SIPC"" designation provide insurance for up to $500,000 in fraud-related losses.

Ask Lots of Questions Before hiring a money manger, be sure to pepper him or her with enough questions that you fully understand what you're investing in and how much risk is involved. Ask not only about average expected returns but also how much could you lose. Liquidity is another important issue; hedge funds and other alternative asset managers sometimes require multi-year lockups.

If you decide to end your relationship, can you withdraw your money immediately or must you give three to six months' notice? Are there exit fees? Will all of your holdings have to be sold at a gain or loss, or can you transfer securities in kind? None of these are questions you want to ask for the first time after you've soured on a manger or need cash in a hurry.

When in doubt, ask more questions. It's widely noted these days that prospective Madoff clients were told ""Bernie doesn't like questions."" Now, of course, we know why.

Do Not Grant Discretionary Powers Turning to a professional money manager to advise you on how to invest can make a lot of sense. Granting that person carte blanche to move around your money without even consulting you is another matter entirely. In my opinion you can't--or shouldn't--trust anyone that much.

Instead ask your money manager to state in writing what they are recommending and the specific investment vehicles they will use. Then they should not invest in any investments until you've approved. If a manager wants to make changes to your account or strategy, make sure you understand the reasons first. In some cases it may be simply to get you back to a previously agreed-upon asset allocation. If the manager recommends altering that strategy, make sure you understand the reasons and agree before making any moves.",Investors need to keep tabs on brokers and money managers.
"MOGADISHU, Somalia – Somali security forces Thursday ended an overnight siege by extremist gunmen at a hotel in the capital which killed least 15 people, including two members of parliament, officials said.

The assault started when a vehicle laden with explosives detonated outside the Ambassador Hotel Wednesday evening and three militants stormed inside the building, said the African Union Mission in Somalia. The AU multinational force is bolstering Somalia's weak government against an insurgency by the Islamic extremist group Al Shabaab.

Al Shabaab claimed responsibility for the attack, which sheared off the front of the luxury hotel and left blood spattered on bullet-marked walls. The twisted remains of dozens of vehicles ringed the site.

One militant was killed at the entrance to the hotel while two others entered and shot at residents, the AU force said in a statement. All the attackers were killed in the siege.

Nine bodies were removed from the hotel after troops killed the remaining assailants, Capt. Mohamed Hussein, a senior Somali police officer, told The Associated Press.

Six out of 40 people injured in the attack died from their wounds, Ahmed Mohamed, a nurse at Madina hospital in Mogadishu, said. Victims screamed in pain in overwhelmed hospitals, and there were fears the death toll could rise.

Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud condemned the attack, saying extremists launched it after suffering major blows from the country's security forces in rebel-held towns in recent months.

The hotel attack came on the eve of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, during which extremists often step up attacks in this volatile East African country.

The assault highlights challenges facing the Somali government and AU forces that are struggling to secure the seaside capital. An attack on another Mogadishu hotel and public garden in February killed at least nine civilians. A car bomb outside a restaurant in the capital in April killed at least five.

The insurgents have been ousted from most of Somalia's cities but continue to carry out bombings and suicide attacks.

The Pentagon on Wednesday announced that a U.S. drone strike on Friday had targeted a senior military commander of Al Shabaab in Somalia, Abdullahi Haji Da'ud. U.S. officials said they couldn't confirm yet if he was killed.","Somali security forces Thursday ended an overnight siege by extremist gunmen at a hotel in the capital which killed least 15 people, including two members of parliament, officials said."
"KANDAHAR, Afghanistan – The United States has paid $50,000 in compensation for each Afghan killed in the shooting spree attributed to a U.S. soldier in southern Afghanistan, an Afghan official and a community elder said Sunday.

The families of the dead received the money Saturday at the governor's office, said Kandahar provincial council member Agha Lalai. Each wounded person received $11,000, Lalai said. Community elder Jan Agha confirmed the same figures.

They were told that the money came from U.S. President Barack Obama, Lalai said.

A U.S. official confirmed that compensation had been paid but declined to discuss exact amounts, saying only that it reflected the devastating nature of the incident. The official spoke anonymously because of the sensitive nature of the subject.

A spokesman for NATO and U.S. forces declined to confirm or deny the payments, saying that while coalition members often make compensation payments, they are usually kept private.

""As the settlement of claims is in most cases a sensitive topic for those who have suffered loss, it is usually a matter of agreement that the terms of the settlement remain confidential,"" Lt. Col. Jimmie Cummings said.

Staff Sgt. Robert Bales is accused of sneaking out of his base before dawn on March 11 then creeping into houses in two nearby villages and opening fire on sleeping families within.

It was not immediately clear how much money had been paid out in all. Afghan officials and villagers have counted 16 dead -- 12 in the village of Balandi and four in neighboring Alkozai -- and six wounded. The U.S. military has charged Bales with 17 murders without explaining the discrepancy.

The 38-year-old soldier is accused of using his 9mm pistol and M-4 rifle, which was outfitted with a grenade launcher, to kill four men, four women, two boys and seven girls, then burning some of the bodies. The ages of the children were not disclosed in the charge sheet.

The families had previously received smaller compensation payments from Afghan officials -- $2,000 for each death and $1,000 for each person wounded.

Families of the dead declined to comment on any payments by U.S. officials on Sunday, but some of them said the previous day that they were less concerned with monetary payments than with seeing the perpetrator punished.

Also Saturday, a bomb exploded in the south of the country as a foot patrol of Afghan and NATO forces was passing by the previous day, killing nine Afghans and one international service member, officials said.

The group was patrolling through Arghandab district in Kandahar province late Saturday when it was caught in the blast, said Shah Mohammad, the district administrator. Arghandab is a farming region just outside Kandahar city that has long been a bed-down area for Taliban insurgents. It was one of a number of communities around Kandahar city that were targeted in a 2010 sweep to oust the insurgency from the area.

The Afghan dead included one soldier, three police officers, four members of the Afghan ""local police"" -- a government-sponsored militia force -- and one translator, Mohammad said.

NATO reported earlier Sunday that one of its service members was killed in a bomb attack in southern Afghanistan on Saturday but did not provide additional details. It was not clear if this referred to the same incident, as NATO usually waits for individual coalition nations to confirm the details of deaths of their troops.","An Afghan official says the Unites States has paid $50,000 in compensation for each Afghan killed in the shooting spree attributed to a U.S. soldier in southern Afghanistan."
"The Federal Reserve held off on raising interest rates at its last meeting before the presidential election due to global uncertainty.

The Federal Reserve decided to hold off on interest rates at its last meeting before the U.S. presidential election, which took place last week from Nov. 1-2.

Despite strong signs of recent economic growth and expansion, one that saw five consecutive months of substantial employment gains, uncertainty in the global market prevented the Fed from instituting its first interest rate hike since December 2015.

Small business lending continues to improve gradually, especially in the New York metro area, which has some of the highest approval rates in the country.

Hispanic-owned businesses are growing faster than all other firms

According to the Biz2Credit Small Business Lending Index, the monthly analysis of more than 1,000 loan requests on Biz2Credit.com, lending approval rates at big banks in the New York metro area improved to 23.6% in October 2016 and is one-tenth of a percent higher than the national average.

In fact, loan approval rates among all categories of lenders either matched or exceeded national averages last month.

Institutional lenders — credit funds, insurance companies, family funds, and other yield-hungry, non-bank financial institutions — have emerged as major players in marketplace lending and are approving a new high of 63.1% of loan requests by small business owners in both the New York metro area and nationwide.

Borrowers are particularly attracted to the lucrative financial terms that this category of lenders offers, which features quicker decisions than other types of lenders due to its innovative financial technology.

Small biz lending approval rates improved at NY-based big banks

Although lending approval rates continue to drop at alternative lenders (59.5% nationwide), they are still higher in the New York metro area.

Meanwhile, loan approval rates at credit unions (41.2%) and small banks (48.7%) are mirror images in New York and nationwide.

Since the Great Recession that started in December 2007 and the ensuing credit crunch, the economy has slowly but steadily improved.

Companies' financial performances improved and banks began opening up the spigots and allowing the flow of capital. The outcome of the presidential election could change things.

It's a sunny outlook for small biz owners seeking to expand

For instance, stock markets tanked on Oct. 28 in the wake of news that the FBI is reopening an investigation into Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server while serving as secretary of state.

FBI director James Comey cited new evidence that emerged from a separate investigation related to disgraced Congressman Anthony Weiner's sexting scandal. Investors have begun to look for safe havens and stock market volatility has increased in light of the news of a closer U.S. Presidential race.

The polarizing policies of each candidate are particularly of importance to global markets. Despite his aggressive stance on remodeling the U.S. economy, financial markets have an uneasy feeling as the Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump's odds of winning increase, as reported by NPR.

His light background on leading an economy makes him largely unpredictable and that is concerning for financial markets.

As the economy continues to surge ahead of the Federal Reserve's next meeting from Dec. 13-14, a big part of their decision to raise the interest rates will likely be based on who wins the Presidency.

The Fed has previously indicated that it would institute an interest rate hike if the economy continued to show growth and sustainability. The central bank's first interest rate hike in nine years, back in December 2015, was modest. The next one is also expected to be modest, but there could be more than one increase in 2017.

Whether the increase happens at all next month remains to be seen, but the outcome of the election will certainly influence the Fed's future decisions.

Rohit Arora is the CEO and co-founder of Biz2Credit.com, a leading online marketplace that connects entrepreneurs with small business loan options to meet their business financing needs. Rohit was named Crain's NY Business ""Entrepreneur of the Year 2011.""

For more DAILY VIEWS, The News' contributor network, click here.",The Federal Reserve held off on raising interest rates at its last meeting before the presidential election due to global uncertainty.
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Now Playing: AP Photographer Recounts Chaos During Russian Ambassador's Assassination","Associated Press photographer Burhan Ozbilici was covering a photo exhibition in Ankara on Monday when a gunman opened fire, assassinating Russia's ambassador to Turkey, Andrey Karlov."
"District resident Shemethia Butler never finished college or studied finance. But she plans to fly to the Wyoming this week for one of the most elite economic conferences in the world. Her goal: schooling the central bankers gathered among the Grand Tetons in Jackson Hole about the hard realities of her own kitchen-table economics.

There’s $899 in monthly rent for the two-bedroom apartment she shares with her 5-year-old daughter, $83 to $90 for electricity, $40 for her cell phone. Meanwhile, Butler brings in less than $700 a month from her part-time job at McDonald’s. She doesn’t need a spreadsheet to know that the numbers don’t add up.

“I’m going to Wyoming to let these bankers in Jackson Hole know that we are not in recovery,” said Butler, 34. “I need them to understand. I need them to see where I’m coming from.”

The three-day meeting in Jackson Hole, sponsored by the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, includes a keynote by Fed Chair Janet Yellen. In the past, notable speakers have included Columbia University economist Michael Woodford and Bank of India Gov. Raghuram Rajan. The atmosphere is decidedly academic, with strict rules governing the presentation and debate of research papers that can run 50 pages or longer -- not the typical setting for a populist uprising.

This year the conference is focused on the health of labor markets, a key consideration for the Fed as it weighs when to end its unprecedented support for the American economy. And activist groups have become increasingly worried that workers themselves are not included in the discussion.

The Center for Popular Democracy is slated to release a letter Tuesday signed by more than 60 left-leaning organizations, ranging from community groups to bigger players such as the Economic Policy Institute, Public Citizen and Demos. They are calling on the Fed to keep its easy-money policies in place until wages start to rise and what has been an exceptionally uneven recovery begins to broaden out. Butler, along with several other workers and activists, intend to trek through the mountains to deliver that message in person before the conference begins Thursday.

“We are writing to remind you that the American economy is not working,” the letter reads. “We hope that in the coming months and years, the Federal Reserve’s leaders will make a more concerted effort to listen to our voices.”

The Fed is an unusual target for this type of grassroots campaign, more typical in protests against big companies such as Wal-Mart or around issues like voting rights. Monetary policy can be an abstract concept, rife with jargon and inscrutable acronyms. Criticism of the Fed has typically come from economists debating its mathematical models, politicians bristling over the independent central bank’s powers or frustrated investors attempting to divine its intentions.

“Most people don’t really understand much about what the Fed does and certainly not why it does what it does,” said Allan Meltzer, a professor at Carnegie-Mellon University and Fed historian. “It’s rather remote from most people’s current experience and interests. It’s very hard to summon public outrage, whether it’s deserved or not.”

The Fed’s charge is to keep prices stable and encourage maximum employment. It operates by setting the interest rate at which banks lend to each other overnight. That rate, in turn, influences the cost of borrowing throughout the economy. Lower rates help stimulate consumer and business spending -- and with any luck, create jobs -- while higher rates help quell an overexuberent economy and rising prices.

The Fed slashed its target for interest rates to zero in 2008 to combat the financial crisis and has kept it there ever since. It has pumped trillions of dollars into the economy for an additional boost. But now, the unemployment rate is falling faster than many at the Fed expected. Job growth is reaching into higher-wage industries after years of being concentrated in low-paying sectors. For the first time since the recession, the central bank is seriously debating if the economy is ready to stand on its own.

That is enough to worry activist groups -- particularly since hope of federal legislation on issues such as the minimum wage, extending unemployment benefits and paid leave stand little chance of passing in a polarized Congress. The Fed is one of the only games left in town.

“Monetary policy is central to our economy and our society, and the discourse around monetary policy needs to be democraticized,” said Ady Barkan, senior attorney for the Center for Public Democracy. “We can’t leave the debate about Fed policies up to academics and elite bankers and corporate executives.”

The unusually contentious battle last year over who would lead the Fed also help stoke interest in the institution, he said. President Obama had initially planned to nominate former Treasury Secretary and close adviser Lawrence H. Summers for the post. But Democrats balked at Summers’ role in deregulating the financial industry during the Clinton administration and his disparaging comments about women made when he was president of Harvard University.

The pressure from liberal groups helped ensure that Summers could not secure the votes to win confirmation in the Senate. He eventually withdrew his name, and Obama instead nominated Yellen, who was the second-in-command at the Fed.

Yellen may be particularly sympathetic to the activists’ arguments, at least relative to previous Fed chairmen. In a speech Chicago in March, she invoked individual stories of struggling workers to illustrate the human toll of high unemployment -- an unorthodox move in an institution more famousfor obfuscation. The next month, she met with representatives from the AFL-CIO, which did not sign the joint letter, and has repeatedly cited the high number of involuntary part-time workers and those who have given up looking for a job as reasons to be patient in withdrawing the Fed’s support. Yellen is slated to speak about the labor markets Friday in Jackson Hole.

""These and other indications that significant slack remains in labor markets are corroborated by the continued slow pace of growth in most measures of hourly compensation,"" she said in congressional testimony last month.

It is unclear how much grassroots opposition may influence Fed thinking -- particularly since it occurs so rarely. Meltzer said he could not recall activists ever gathering at Jackson Hole. The last public campaign mobilized against the Fed was in the 1980s, when then-Chairman Paul Volcker was hiking interest rates to stem double-digit inflation. Though he successfully brought prices under control, the economy went into recession as a result. Farmers and construction workers were particularly hard hit by the rate hikes, and they mailed blocks of wood to the Fed in protest and blocked its entrances with tractors.

The measures did little to sway Volcker, according to Stephen Axilrod, who worked at the Fed for three decades and was among Volcker’s key aides. His course had been set.

“None of that, in my head, had much to do with anything,” Axilrod said.

But he and other Fed watchers acknowledge that the central bank is in a new era. Public confidence in government and financial institutions is shaky at best. The Fed has made a concerted effort to increase transparency and connect with Main Street. At the same time, lawmakers have launched several efforts to curtail the Fed’s powers -- or even get rid of it altogether. Though such proposals stand little chance of passing, they can shift public perception of the central bank.

“Part of it is part of a reputational issue,” said Sarah Binder, a professor at George Washington University and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. “The Fed’s credibility depends on people believing that they’re going to do what they say they’re going to do.”

And right now, the Fed’s next step is not all that clear. Prominent economists outside of the institution -- and several top officials within it -- are arguing that the Fed has goosed the economy to its limit. Some worry it could be even laying the groundwork for the next bubble: The major U.S. stock indexes have roughly doubled in value since the depths of the recession. The Dow Jones Industrial Average has hit 15 record highs this year alone.

But Butler still has a long way to go to before rebuilding her life after losing her job at the Golden Corral due to budget cuts a few years ago. At McDonald’s, she makes $9.50 an hour, and she pulls in extra money by baby-sitting or doing her friends’ hair. It’s still not enough to make ends meet.

“Things may be fine on Wall Street, but they are not fine on my street,” Butler said. “And if [central bankers] lived on my street, they would definitely change their mind.”","Community groups take their message to the elite economics conference in Jackson Hole, Wyo., this week."
"NAIROBI, Kenya — Stephen Juma stood in front of the Westgate shopping mall on Tuesday for the first time since the haunting Saturday four months ago when he was directing traffic outside the parking lot. He spoke flatly as he recalled how three gunmen leapt from a car and began shooting, shattering a nation’s sense of security.

Once a magnet for shoppers, diners and moviegoers, Westgate now stands empty behind a corrugated metal fence. One side is covered with scaffolding sheathed in green netting. Much has returned to normal here in Nairobi, Kenya’s vibrant capital, but the mall, once a symbol of the nation’s upward mobility, frequented by the country’s moneyed elite, remains in a kind of limbo.

Inside, the blood has been wiped from the floor tiles, but the telltale bullet holes remain in the thick panes of glass of the store windows that once held mannequins and cellphones and sneakers. The rows and rows of melted goods on the shelves in the Nakumatt grocery store, ravaged by fire, have been hauled away.

The mall remains closed to the public, but Mr. Juma returned on Tuesday as one of the witnesses in the criminal case against four suspects charged as accomplices of the militants who laid siege to the mall that September day. At least 67 men, women and children were killed in the attack, which brought the Kenyan capital to a halt and transfixed the world.

“We have to see the crime scene the witnesses are talking about,” said Chief Magistrate Daniel Ochenja, who is hearing the case. “Now we know what Westgate looks like after the terrorist attack.”

He brought along prosecutors, defense lawyers, witnesses and the accused. The suspects were driven in a green truck. Soldiers in fatigues and green berets guarded the four men, who followed the judge in two pairs, handcuffed together.

The fearsome Somali militant group known as the Shabab claimed responsibility for the attack, but the four men — Adan Mohamed Abidkadir Adan, Mohamed Ahmed Abdi, Liban Abdullah Omar and Hussein Hassan Mustafah — pleaded not guilty last week to charges of supporting a terrorist group.

“They are amused because they are being treated like they destroyed this place, and they’ve never been here before,” said Mbugua Mureithi, a defense lawyer.

Paul Mbunzi, head of security for the mall, was there to answer any questions Chief Magistrate Ochenja might have, pointing to the part of the upper parking lot where a cooking competition for children had turned into a massacre.

“The children were just around there?” Chief Magistrate Ochenja asked, gesturing to where the competition had taken place. Below, in a crater where much of the upper parking lot collapsed, workers still labored to haul away the rubble.

Witnesses like Mr. Juma and Ali Miraj were there to explain to the magistrate just what had happened.

“I was shooting from this pillar, and my colleague was at the other pillar,” said Mr. Miraj, an administrative police officer who was moonlighting for a private security company on the day of the attack.

At first, Mr. Miraj thought the shooting was a robbery. When he saw armed men below him on the ground floor, he waved to them, thinking they were plainclothes police officers. Instead, he said, they turned and fired their AK-47s at him, forcing him to take cover behind the same peach pillar where he recounted the story for the judge.

He said he found himself in a shootout with the militants and wounded one of them in the leg before running out of ammunition and retreating from the shopping mall.

Many Kenyans say they are unconvinced that the militants were killed during the standoff, which lasted days, believing that some or all of them might have escaped in the confusion. An analysis by the New York City Police Department found that there was no evidence that the militants were in the mall after the first night of the siege and that they may have escaped.

The State Department later said that the view of the New York police was not that of the United States government. The F.B.I. said it believed that the attackers had all died at the mall. “We believe, as do the Kenyan authorities, that the four gunmen inside the mall were killed,” said Dennis Brady, the F.B.I. legal attaché in Nairobi, in an interview published on the bureau’s website.

After the attack, security around Nairobi tightened up. Searches at public buildings increased. Perfunctory sweeps with metal-detecting wands turned into methodical scans. For a while, anyway. The heightened vigilance has worn off.

Even as Kenyans have fallen back into their old habits, smaller-scale attacks have continued to threaten the public. In December, an explosion ripped apart a passenger van, killing four and wounding at least 25. On Jan. 2, a grenade attack wounded more than 10 people at a nightclub popular with tourists in Diani, a coastal resort.

Just last week, an explosion shook Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi. Kenya’s inspector general of police, David Kimaiyo, played down the episode, saying in a message on Twitter that “papers caught fire after a loose light bulb fell into a dustbin,” but witnesses described a strong blast. The United States Embassy included the episode in a warning to American citizens in Kenya among “several recent small Improvised Explosive Device (IED) and grenade attacks.”

But those attacks did not capture public attention like the one at Westgate. Prosecutors say the four men they have put on trial were part of the support network that made the Westgate siege possible. “The four are directly connected to the individuals who physically carried out the attack,” Mr. Brady said.

Field trips aside, the trial is taking place at the Milimani Law Courts, an imposing yellow building inaugurated in 2011 by the president at the time, Mwai Kibaki.

“If my son is Al Shabab, then the whole of Kenya is Al Shabab,” Waraka Hussein Mohamed, 45, the mother of one of the suspects, Mr. Abdi, said on a recent afternoon, proclaiming her son’s innocence. “Instead of the government going to Somalia to arrest Al Shabab, they arrest our children,” she added. “They were just targeting places where Quran was taught.”

A committee responsible for figuring out how to reopen the Westgate mall began holding public hearings this week. The group’s task, according to Kariuki Muigua, joint secretary of the committee, is also to build the public’s confidence “with regard to security.”

Store owners testified about the challenges they faced after outlets were destroyed, stock was stolen and insurance companies informed them that they were not covered for terrorism. If they could overcome the financial hurdles to reopening, they would want more armed guards.

Without security, witnesses testified, there could be no investment. “There’s always that question lingering: When is the next Westgate taking place?” said Eric Raikanya, store operations manager for the shoe company Bata, which had a branch at Westgate.

But many expressed a desire to return as an act of defiance. “My people are ready to go back,” said Terry Mungai of Ashleys Salon. “Even clients, the ones who were inside there for several hours, are ready to go back.”

“The terrorists came and left. They don’t live there,” she said. “They can hit anywhere else.”

A version of this article appears in print on January 22, 2014, on page A7 of the New York edition with the headline: Visiting Scene, Court Calls Forth Memories of Massacre at a Mall. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe","A chief magistrate led a grim field trip to the Westgate mall in Nairobi, Kenya, the scene of a massacre, bringing along prosecutors, defense lawyers and even the suspects."
"Apple CEO Tim Cook holds an iPad during a presentation at Apple headquarters in Cupertino, Calif. Oct. 16, 2014. (REUTERS/Robert Galbraith)

Apple boss Tim Cook has joined the growing band of super-rich people pledging to give away their wealth before they die.

In a recent profile piece for Fortune magazine, Cook said that as far as personal finance goes, he wants first to take care of his 10-year-old nephew’s college fees, though that shouldn’t make too much of a dent in his estimated fortune of $785 million, current stock value included.

The Apple CEO told Fortune he’s already made a number of donations to various philanthropic projects, adding that in the future he intends to make more contributions though in a more systematic fashion.

Related: Tim Cook speaks at length about Steve Jobs and how Apple has moved on

Just months after taking over from Steve Jobs in 2011, Cook demonstrated his interest in charitable causes when he set up a matching gift program for donations made by Apple employees.

The scheme promises that whenever an Apple employee donates money to a non-profit organization, the tech company will equal the donation by up to $10,000 annually.

Related: Fortune names Tim Cook ‘the world’s greatest leader’

Cook’s pledge to donate his accumulated wealth to good causes follows similar moves by other big names in the tech business. Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, for example, has been doing his level best to get rid of his billions, while Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg has also given away a decent chunk of his personal fortune to date, including $25 million last year to help combat Ebola.

“Grants like this directly help the frontline responders in their heroic work,” Zuckerberg said at the time, adding, “We are hopeful this will help save lives and get this outbreak under control.”

Both Gates and Zuckerberg have signed up to business magnate Warren Buffett’s Giving Pledge promise, a “a commitment by the world’s wealthiest individuals and families to dedicate the majority of their wealth to philanthropy.”

Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg, Virgin’s Richard Branson, and SpaceX founder Elon Musk have also signed up.",Apple boss Tim Cook has joined the growing band of super-rich people pledging to give away their wealth before they die.
"Image: Getty Images for TechCrunch

Ashton Kutcher kicked the hornets' nest that is the Uber scandal on Wednesday with a series of tweets criticizing ""shady"" journalists.

Kutcher weighed in on the controversy that rocked the company this week, when Uber Senior Vice President Emil Michael suggested hiring ""opposition researchers"" to dig up dirt on journalists who have written critically about the company. Michael specifically focused on PandoDaily founder Sarah Lacy.

Kutcher is an Uber investor, and apparently didn't see what was wrong with the company doing some digging on ""shady"" journalists.

What is so wrong about digging up dirt on shady journalist? @pando @TechCrunch @Uber

— ashton kutcher (@aplusk) November 19, 2014

For the most part, Uber investors have been been mum on the subject, but Kutcher's tweets continued.

We are all public figures now! “@RussADeCastro: @aplusk Depends if they are a PUBLIC FIGURE, like you, or not. http://t.co/ZFemzZshxV”

— ashton kutcher (@aplusk) November 19, 2014

I believe we live in a day were the first word has become ""the word""

— ashton kutcher (@aplusk) November 19, 2014

Rumors span the globe before anyone has an opportunity to defend them selves.

— ashton kutcher (@aplusk) November 19, 2014

Everyone is guilty and then tasked to defend themselves publicly.

— ashton kutcher (@aplusk) November 19, 2014

Questioning the source needs to happen... Always!

— ashton kutcher (@aplusk) November 19, 2014

So as long as journalist are interested and willing to print half truths as facts... Yes we should question the source.

— ashton kutcher (@aplusk) November 19, 2014

After his rant, Kutcher was quick to distance himself from Uber, noting that he was tweeting in a personal capacity.

To be clear I speak for my self not @Uber

— ashton kutcher (@aplusk) November 19, 2014

This should be fun... Here comes the part where journalist explain why they should be exempt from ridicule and judgement and probing...

— ashton kutcher (@aplusk) November 19, 2014

U r all right and I'm on the wrong side of this ultimately. I just wish journalists were held to the same standards as public figures.

— ashton kutcher (@aplusk) November 19, 2014

Unsurprisingly, Twitter users reacted accordingly.

@aplusk @pando @Uber Because journalists have a lot less power than a billion $ co, and are tasked with stewarding the truth vs. profit.

— Alexia Tsotsis (@alexia) November 19, 2014

I dug up something incredibly embarrassing about Ashton Kutcher's past. pic.twitter.com/9DoIYt88oC

— Tom Gara (@tomgara) November 19, 2014

Have something to add to this story? Share it in the comments.","Ashton Kutcher kicked up a Twitter storm on Wednesday when he weighed in on the Uber scandal by criticizing ""shady"" journalists."
"Sunday, March 22, 2015, 9:38 AM

A 21-year-old man was fatally shot in his car in Queens early Sunday, cops said.

Jordan Santos was sitting in a 2002 Lexus RX300 parked on a secluded block of Edsall Ave. near the Long Island Rail Road and 72nd Place in Glendale just after 2 a.m. when a gunman walked up to the driver’s side window and opened fire, hitting him in the neck, authorities said.

Emergency responders rushed Santos to Wyckoff Heights Medical Center in Brooklyn, but he could not be saved.

Jordan Paulino, 17,of Queens was arrested Sunday night and charged with manslaughter in connection with the killing, but she was not the shooter, police said.","A 21-year-old man died after he was gunned down in his car in Queens early Sunday, police said."
"There were only a few hiccups in the opening of Koneko, the new cat cafe on Clinton Street on the Lower East Side.

The dishwasher sprang a leak on Oct. 29 (National Cat Day, as it happens), and flooded the place. The following day, a customer was unable to unlock the bathroom door (identified by an elegant pictogram of a litter box), though she was extremely gracious about her misfortune.

Cat cafes run on an engine of good will, as Benjamin Kalb, 25, Koneko’s founder, is discovering.

Wildly popular in Japan, where many landlords don’t allow pets, cat cafes combine feline communion with modest food service. It’s complicated to pull off in New York, because health department rules are such that food preparation and animals may not mix.

The Clinton Street space, once home to the Bang Bang tattoo parlor (which has moved to Broome Street), has been artfully conceived by CO-Office, a design firm, to separate the food making from the felines. (Meow Parlour, technically the city’s first cat cafe when it opened last December on Hester Street, is a cats-only location; sweet snacks are brought over from the Meow Parlour Patisserie around the corner.)

“This is the best job I’ve ever had,” said Jackie Luther, 53, once a bartender at CBGB, who has been working at a veterinary practice for the past decade. That background makes her, Mr. Kalb opined, the platonic ideal of a cattery guide. She is one of three guides who care for the cats (14 were in residence last week) and oversee the guests who have reserved time with them.

Cattery visits are $15 an hour and reservations are suggested, though some walk-ins may be accommodated. All the cats at Koneko are adoptable. Mr. Kalb has partnered with Anjellicle Cats Rescue, a New York organization that saves cats from the “at risk” list of the city’s Animal Care Center.

Ms. Luther wore a black T-shirt and had an ankh tattoo; Alison Nishiyama, 27, a graphic designer who has been working at a vet practice and volunteering at the A.S.P.C.A., wore cat-shaped earrings and a cat-shaped pendant necklace. The third guide, Anne Paolini, 24, is a yoga instructor with a degree in foreign policy who plans to hold vinyasa classes at Koneko, and cat meditation. What does that mean?

“No one knows,” said Joe Crump, 55, Koneko’s creative director and Mr. Kalb’s partner.

Ms. Paolini explained later that the cat meditation she had envisioned involved humans meditating among the cats, not the other way around.

Koneko is sleekly appointed and elegantly minimal (Donald Judd meets Cirque du Soleil is how Mr. Kalb described it) with poured concrete floors, gallery lighting and carefully curated art work, including stunning black-and-white cat photos by Ylla, once the Richard Avedon of the animal world, who died in 1955.

The cat areas — two living rooms and an outdoor space (otherwise known as the catio, with an anime-ish mural by Tim Diet, a street artist) — are separated from the restaurant by a glass wall and an anteroom for removing shoes and coats. Floating red oak shelves step the walls of the upstairs cattery; downstairs is black canvas modular furniture and black-and-white tiles. There are felt cat beds, circular mats by Flor and minifutons, in an aesthetic more sophisticated than the carpet trees that tend to mark the pinnacle of cat design.

“We tried to curate above that which you’d find on Petco,” said Mr. Crump, who is also an executive at Razorfish, the digital ad agency. “Many of the things were found on Etsy and tested on our own cats, like the felt cat beds made by a woman on Nantucket. They take three weeks. We ordered six. It totally stressed her out.”

There are Japanese bar snacks, like house-made jerky and seasonal pickles, as well as jicama salad, Stumptown coffee, sake, wine and beer and desserts like green tea cheesecake from Patisserie Tomoko in Brooklyn.

Mr. Kalb, a classical pianist who had been a line cook in restaurants like Bouley and Momofuku Noodle Bar, had an existential moment on his last birthday. With a degree in music and English from the New School, he wondered, “What am I doing with my life?” While visiting Japan, he found himself at Calico, a multilevel cat cafe.

“It was the most transformative, amazing experience,” he said. Back home, he thought: “You only live once. Why not go big?”

He toured 25 Japanese cafes in four cities before conceiving Koneko with a mandate, he said, to elevate the concept with polished design and curated art. The other day, Mr. Kalb was observing three women in their mid-20s who worked in finance take photos of Lauren, an extravagantly affectionate tabby, who was lolling on her back. “I feel like we’re in meta voyeur mode,” he said.

Lauren licked the Purell off a visitor’s thumb, and Ms. Luther noted that she once had a cat that ate Bengay.

What’s the difference between the clientele of CBGB and Konoko? “Not as edgy and definitely more sober,” Ms. Luther said.

Ms. Paolini may disagree. She said happy hour in the area has brought a few mildly lubricated crowds. On Thursday, she said, a group came in who were a bit loud, though the cats took them in stride. Later one guest posted on Instagram: “#tbt to yesterday afternoon when I got drunk at a cat cafe and started taking artsy photos.” (Cats are to Instagram what the Jenner family is to People magazine.)

Mostly the guests are as blissed out as the cats.

“It’s communion,” said a 32-year-old woman who works in real estate and declined to give her name. She was admiring the antics of Bueller, a 9-month-old marmalade who was careering after a ball in the cattery downstairs. “I have a cat,” the woman said, “so I feel a little dirty coming here. It’s like going to a strip club if you’re married.”

George, a somnolent ginger fellow curled in an orange felt bed, was sleeping through the overtures of Molly Flanagan, 31, who works at the United Nations and had brought her sister, Rebecca, 29, who works at Unicef.

“We met first on the Internet,” said Ms. Flanagan of George, explaining that she found his profile on Petfinder, the Match.com of domestic animals. “I was looking for a redhead,” added Ms. Flanagan, who wore her own coppery hair in a short crop, “so we could — —”

Her sister broke in, “Share clothes?”

Social media had also drawn in Brianna Kennedy, 25, who handles social media for an online fashion company.

“I follow a lot of cat Instagrams,” she said. “I would really love to adopt. Bryant was Insta’d on #catroomnyc, and it said he was coming here,” she added, referring to a soulful gray lolling on a futon in a corner.

Ms. Kennedy was not Bryant’s only suitor. Susan Easton, a graphic designer and entrepreneur who created Koneko’s branding, including its emoticonlike logo, had also fallen hard for Bryant.

It felt like kismet, she said, because the typeface she’d chosen for the cafe was a sans serif draftsman’s font that was also named Bryant.

“I’m trying to convince Ben and Joe to make Bryant the house cat so I can come visit,” she said, adding that she travels too much to have an animal. Also, her boyfriend is allergic.","Koneko, a new cat cafe in Lower Manhattan, lets you order Japanese snacks and sake, along with feline companionship."
"Thursday, March 19, 2015, 10:21 AM

A high-speed 100-mile car chase came to a dramatic end when the suspect's vehicle smashed into a highway barrier and flipped over twice.

Helicopter footage shows the Nissan hitting speeds of 100 mph after the pursuit began in Vacaville, northern California, on Tuesday afternoon.

Ramon Bernal, 24, was allegedly speeding when patrol officers asked him to pull over. He refused and tried to flee, reports ABC 7.

He lost a full tire during the chase, but managed to evade capture for almost 100 miles.

The chase saw him driving on Highway 80 in the North Bay, heading south on I-680 through the East Bay until reaching San Jose. He then headed back north on I-280.

But he eventually lost control as he neared Los Altos Hills at 3 p.m. The SUV skidded into a barrier and then cartwheeled in the air.

Incredibly, the vehicle landed on its wheels without striking any other cars.

Bernal, from Davis, emerged slightly dazed and confused but apparently uninjured from the wreckage. He was surrounded by armed cops and arrested.

Police said they were ""puzzled"" by his failure to stop as he did not have a criminal record and the car was not stolen. He is now facing a slew of felony charges.

ON A MOBILE DEVICE? WATCH HERE",A high-speed 100-mile car chase came to a dramatic end when the suspect's vehicle smashed into a central reservation and flipped over twice.
"North Korea warned of war Saturday as South Korea continues to blast anti-Pyongyang propaganda across the rivals’ tense border in retaliation for the North’s purported fourth nuclear test.

The South’s propaganda broadcasts drove the Korean peninsula to the brink of war in August after a brief resumption. Seoul said the two sides exchanged artillery fire in response to the broadcasts and they would eventually end them. Pyongyang says the broadcasts are tantamount to an act of war.

North Korea’s top ruling party official said the broadcasts, along with talks between Washington and Seoul on the possibility of deploying U.S. warplanes capable of delivering nuclear bombs in Seoul have pushed the peninsula “toward the brink of war.” The official was speaking to a crowd at Pyongyang’s Kim Il Sung Square.

Workers’ Party Secretary Kim Ki Nam said in comments on state TV late Friday that North Korea’s rivals are “jealous” of their successful hydrogen test.

""Jealous of the successful test of our first H-bomb, the U.S. and its followers are driving the situation to the brink of war, by saying they have resumed psychological broadcasts and brought in strategic bombers,"" Kim said.

Reuters reported state media published photos of the rally which appear to show the crowds of people holding up signs in immense support of Kim Jong Un.

South Korean troops near the broadcast sites are on the highest alert, but have yet to detect any unusual movement from the North Korean military along the border, an official from Seoul’s Defense Ministry told the Associated Press Saturday. The Yonhap news agency said Seoul had deployed missiles, artillery and other weapons systems near the border to swiftly deal with any possible North Korean provocation, but the ministry didn’t confirm those reports.

Officials say broadcasts from the South's loudspeakers can travel about 6 miles during the day and 15 miles at night. That reaches many of the huge force of North Korean soldiers stationed near the border and also residents in border towns such as Kaesong, where the Koreas jointly operate an industrial park that has been a valuable cash source for the impoverished North.

Seoul also planned to use mobile speakers to broadcast from a small South Korean island just a few miles away from North Korean shores. While the South's broadcasts also include news and pop music, much of the programming challenges North Korea's government more directly.

""We hope that our fellow Koreans in the North will be able to live in (a) society that doesn't invade individual lives as soon as possible,"" a female presenter said in parts of the broadcast that officials revealed to South Korean media. ""Countries run by dictatorships even try to control human instincts.""

August talks between the Koreas eased anger and stopped the broadcasts, which Seoul started after blaming North Korean land mines for maiming two South Korean soldiers. It might be more difficult to do so now because, as some analysts suggest, it’s highly unlikely that the North will express any kind of regret for its nuclear test, which has become a source of intense national pride.

The fresh broadcasts came as world powers sought to find other ways to punish the North for conducting what it said was its first hydrogen bomb test Wednesday.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry urged China, the North's only major ally and its biggest aid provider, to end ""business as usual"" with North Korea.

Diplomats at a U.N. Security Council emergency session pledged to swiftly pursue new sanctions. For current sanctions and any new penalties to work, better cooperation and stronger implementation from China is seen as key.

Both South Korean and U.S. officials have discussed the deployment of U.S. “strategic assets,” Seoul’s Defense Ministry told the Associated Press. Assets are likely to include B-52 bombers, F-22 stealth fighters and nuclear powered submarines.

After North Korea's third nuclear test in 2013, the U.S. took the unusual step of sending its most powerful warplanes — B-2 stealth bombers, F-22 stealth fighters and B-52 bombers — to drills with South Korea in a show of force. B-2 and B-52 bombers are capable of delivering nuclear weapons.

It may take weeks or longer to confirm or refute the North's claim that it successfully tested a hydrogen bomb, which would mark a major and unanticipated advance for its still-limited nuclear arsenal. Outside experts are skeptical the blast was a hydrogen bomb, but even a test of an atomic bomb would push North Korea closer to building a nuclear warhead small enough to place on a long-range missile.

Late Friday, the Korea Institute of Nuclear Safety said a small amount of radioactive elements was found in air samples collected from the peninsula's eastern seas after the blast, but the measured amount was too small to determine whether the North had really detonated a nuclear device. The institute will continue to collect and analyze more samples.

British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond, meanwhile, asked South Korea to refrain from the propaganda broadcasts. But South Korea sees K-pop and propaganda as quick ways to show its displeasure — and a guaranteed irritant to the North's sensitive and proud leadership.

The broadcasts include Korean pop songs, world news and weather forecasts as well as criticism of the North's nuclear test, its troubled economy and dire human rights conditions, according to Seoul's Defense Ministry.

Performers on Seoul's propaganda playlist include a female K-pop band that rose to fame when its members fell multiple times on stage, a middle-aged singer who rose from obscurity last year with a song about living for 100 years and songs by a young female singer, IU, whose sweet, girlish voice might be aimed at North Korean soldiers deployed near the border.

North Koreans are prohibited from listening to K-pop, but defectors have said their countrymen enjoy music and other elements of South Korea popular culture that are smuggled into the country on USB sticks and DVDs.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.",North Korea warned of war Saturday as South Korea continues to blast anti-Pyongyang propaganda across the rivals’ tense border in retaliation for the North’s purported fourth nuclear test.
"Russia said Thursday that it would only deliver gas to Ukraine if the troubled country pays in advance, intensifying efforts to bring its neighbor back under its control, the Associated Press reports.

Ukraine has faced economic near-collapse since the ouster of pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych in February, and has been kept afloat in part by a $3.2 billion bailout from the International Monetary Fund, which has offered a total aid package of $17 billion over two years.

But on Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said the country’s mounting debt to Russia has reached $3.5 billion and said that after June 1 it will only deliver prepaid gas.

The threat puts the pro-Western interim government in Ukraine under added pressure amid ongoing unrest in the country’s east, where pro-Russian separatists have seized administrative buildings and entire towns after Russia annexed the southern region of Crimea.

It’s not the first time Russia has lorded its energy dominance over Ukraine and other European neighbors. Amid price disputes in 2005 and 2009, Russia cut off supplies to Ukraine and Europe.

Cutting off delivery to Ukraine in June is likely to have less of an impact on Europe than in the past, the Associated Press reports, in part because it will fall during the warmer summer months and in part because Gazprom, the state-owned Russian gas giant, has built a pipeline to Europe that bypasses Ukraine. Ukraine has called for Russia to restore discounts on the gas that were canceled after Yanukovych was removed.","Russia says it is owed $3.5 billion by Ukraine in gas payments, and will only deliver prepaid supplies after June 1"
"Popular stalwart follows London 2012 team glory by earning Team GB's first individual showjumping medal since 1972

NICK SKELTON has bagged equestrian gold at the age of 58 – his first ever individual medal in the Olympics.

The Warwickshire wonder triumphed in a six-way jump-off after setting the pace on Big Star with a blistering clear round of 42.82 seconds.

British veteran Nick Skelton was in the running for an equestrian medal all the way

Skelton won team gold at London 2012 along with Ben Maher, Peter Charles and Scott Brash.

Maher joined him in the individual final today but failed to make the jump-off.

Skelton, in contrast, landed the gong that has long been the one dream he had left in his four decades of top-level jumping.

It was Britain’s first individual showjumping medal for 44 years – and reward for Skelton’s trust and patience.

He stayed with Big Star after missing out on an individual medal in 2012 and despite the 13-year-old horse missing two years after that through injury.

Sweden’s Peder Fredricson took silver, with Canadian Eric Lamaze winning bronze.",NICK SKELTON has bagged equestrian gold at the age of 58 – his first ever individual medal in the Olympics. The Warwickshire wonder triumphed in a six-way jump-off after setting the pace on B…
"A woman is suing the city of Albuquerque, claiming it illegally seized her car on only suspicion of a crime, and is seeking to resell it, despite a new state law banning the practice.

After her son was arrested in April for drunk driving while at the wheel of her borrowed Nissan Verso, Arlene Harjo, 56, found herself in court being told that she had to transfer ownership of the car to the city, or else settle the case for $4,000 to get it back.

But last year, New Mexico governor Susana Martinez signed a bill into law that made the practice, called civil asset forfeiture – under which police forces can confiscate and resell personal property based only on suspicion of its involvement in a crime, whether the owner was involved or not – illegal in New Mexico.

However, Albuquerque’s city government is choosing to interpret that law as only applying to state, rather than municipal police departments.

So Harjo has found herself stuck in a bureaucratic labyrinth in which she is making loan payments on a car as it sits in a government impound. On top of that, if she signs over ownership to the city, for resale, she will still have to keep making loan payments for a car she no longer possesses.

“Oh god, it’s been a nightmare,” Harjo, who works in customer service for Southwest Airlines, said. “I’m losing sleep over it, thinking, ‘Oh god I have to pay this loan’ and I can’t buy another car until I pay this loan off. And then the waiting game, I don’t know how long it’s going to take.”

People whose vehicles are impounded are on the hook for $50 for an administrative hearing, and $10 in lot fees for every day their car is in the impound, according to Reason.com, who first reported on Harjo’s case.

The city made $8.3m from civil asset forfeiture of vehicles alone between 2010 and 2015, according to the Albuquerque Journal, seizing more than 1,000 cars every year.

According to Robert Everett Johnson, an attorney with the Institute for Justice who is representing Harjo, the incentive structure is broken; the salaries of those running the civil asset forfeiture program for the city comes directly out of the program.

“So you can imagine why they are so hesitant to give this up,” Johnson said. “That’s really the constitutional problem here: the government shouldn’t have a financial incentive to take money from innocent people, but they have exactly that incentive. That’s why they’re going after innocent people like Arlene, and that’s why they’re not following the reform law.”

On Wednesday, city attorney Jessica Hernandez said in an email: “The City’s DWI forfeiture ordinance is exempt from the New Mexico civil forfeiture act according to the state law’s own terms. The City’s program is a narrowly-tailored nuisance abatement law to protect the public from dangerous, repeat DWI offenders and the vehicles they use to commit DWI offenses, placing innocent citizens’ lives and property at risk. The ordinance provides protections for innocent owners to get their vehicles back at an early stage in the process. Like all cases, we will review and evaluate this case’s individual circumstances.”

In April, Harjo’s son borrowed her Nissan to go to the gym, but was then pulled over for drunk driving and the car was impounded.

“I went [to court] the first time,” Harjo said, “and they told me they wanted me to sign a disclaimer” to transfer ownership of the car to the city for re-sale. Or she had to pay the city $4,000. “I told them I didn’t have $4,000.”

The government continued to pressure Harjo to sign the disclaimer, but she fought back, at first representing herself and then with the help of the Institute for Justice, a group that has campaigned against civil asset forfeiture. “The judge [was] making me feel like it was my fault, making me feel like I’d done something wrong, making me feel intimidated,” she said.

On Wednesday, Johnson and Harjo filed both an answer to the government’s civil forfeiture suit, and a counter-claim and separate civil action challenging the legality and constitutionality of Albuquerque’s civil asset forfeiture program.

The Institute for Justice has tried to challenge the program in court before, in a November 2015 lawsuit brought by two state senators against the city. But a judge dismissed the case, saying that the legislators were not the appropriate parties to bring the case.

“This is something we’ve been watching, and want to stop – because of the size of the program, but also New Mexico’s reforms, which were some of the first and still some of the most protective reforms in the country,” Johnson said.

“It’s important to us to see those reforms implemented, so local governments are not able to create what amounts to a loophole,” he added.

“The city’s program is a narrowly-tailored nuisance abatement law to protect the public from dangerous, repeat DWI offenders and the vehicles they use to commit DWI offenses, placing innocent citizens’ lives and property at risk,” city attorney Jessica Hernandez said in a statement. “The ordinance provides protections for innocent owners to get their vehicles back at an early stage in the process. Like all cases, we will review and evaluate this case’s individual circumstances.”","Arlene Harjo is suing city, claiming it illegally seized her car on only suspicion of a crime, despite a 2015 law making the practice by police illegal"
"We all loathe the people who talk, text and eat popcorn too loudly at the movies. Now a London theater has enlisted a force of ninjas to end the epidemic once and for all.

The Prince Charles Cinema in London has a team of volunteer ninjas — clad in full-body, all-black jump suits — who will let you know if you’re making too much noise during a film. As a token of appreciation for their efforts, the ninjas get to enjoy the movie free.

Think of the ninjas as theater etiquette vigilantes, who want to enjoy their theater-going experience, just like you.

Let’s just hope no engrossed fans get confused about who’s a theater volunteer and who’s a character from the movie they’re watching.",The Prince Charles Cinema has a team of volunteer ninjas who will let you know if you're making too much noise during a film.
"The U.S. is important, but not as crucial to global economic growth as is often assumed, according to European Central Bank researchers.

In a working paper published recently on the ECB’s website, Stéphane Dées and Isabel Vansteenkiste note that the U.S.’s contribution to global growth has fallen from almost 30% in 1950 to around 20% now. But they say the US business cycle still leads the world’s, in most places. Asia, where China’s rise is helping the region establish business cycles largely independent of its main trading partners, is a notable exception.

The U.S.’s influence on other countries’ economies remains larger than direct trade ties would suggest, the authors say. That’s partly because slower U.S. growth would impact not just a single partner country, but also growth in the countries that partner trades with. Other factors including increased financial integration could also play a role.

So, a negative U.S. demand shock equal to 1 percentage-point of U.S. gross-domestic product would decrease GDP in the euro-zone by more than a quarter percentage-point. Considering direct trade ties alone, that effect is just 0.1 percentage point. That pattern holds true for most of the world. Overall, Latin America’s GDP would suffer the most (0.65 percentage point) from a U.S. downturn, while the U.K.’s would suffer the least (0.12 percentage point).

And bad news travels faster than good news. The ECB authors found that the impact of negative shock to the U.S. economy takes just 1-3 quarters to spread worldwide, while a U.S. growth spurt takes between 2-10 quarters. Still, the authors conclude, confirming prior research, the U.S. isn’t the most important factor in global growth, noting “although a downturn in the U.S. would indeed negatively affect the world excluding the U.S., country-specific and global factors continue to dominate the outlook.” -Joellen Perry

Related article: Will Europe Take Hit From U.S. Credit Woes?","The U.S. is important, but not as crucial to global economic growth as is often assumed, according to European Central Bank researchers.  In a working paper published recently on the ECB's website, Stéphane Dées and Isabel Vansteenkiste note that the U.S.'s contribution to global growth has fallen from almost 30% in 1950 to around 20% now. But they say the US business cycle still leads the world's, in most places. Asia, where China's rise is helping the region establish business cycles largely independent of its main trading partners, is a notable exception. The U.S.'s influence on other countries' economies ..."
"Once upon a time getting married it was pretty black and one. Holy matrimony. Not even the sky's the limit anymore. We're loving let me count the bizarre ways. Top of mountains and can. Of America. In...

Once upon a time getting married it was pretty black and one. Holy matrimony. Not even the sky's the limit anymore. We're loving let me count the bizarre ways. Top of mountains and can. Of America. In the bottom of the ocean couples are tying the knot in light of the -- its sales in the dark of the Titanic has been -- all. -- -- -- And -- the naked truth is that he's been in a spot and somebody's probably gotten -- -- -- -- -- And remains smitten not -- these lovers chose to wed in a -- sharks. Yeah -- That's insane meet this crazy in love couple. The Romeo and Juliette -- -- returns. I have got to beat Alex -- police again. Then pushing them and. We can -- as they prepare to take their vows of the voodoo wedding in the war. -- -- and you know -- yeah. Their movie can't -- With the management. -- and snakes. Bruins who announced. In the past 22 months and -- and how. Alex has pledged their love forty times in 2200. Full home from the wind -- shores of British Columbia. To the market places South America. What the world are you doing. -- is now mine and they met in their hometown of Yorkshire England. Shortly after they found love some might say they lost their minds somewhere written wine was and who isn't it is always gotten all the best ideas come from line. Alex put his car dealership on the market -- -- quit her job in retail and they sold their belongings and purchased 25 year old camper van nicknamed -- So this is taking yes they gave the original idea was to travel the world and we'll talk about the best place to get married but -- they thought. -- how we write about it's about experience and -- -- an atom bombs and small Levinson. Country. On the day of the boots on the their little -- that hood was apparently burst -- -- them it's. Each time anyway. It's an easy thing. It's going to be ceremonies NCA. You -- the ceremonies themselves very seriously. You want to try to what is it that you want to try to gain out of this. Since the cultures and traditions we just wanted to kind of reflect. The country -- the state that weren't them as much as it possibly count. So -- tangled in Argentina. -- -- -- -- -- And zip line -- Colorado. I have yet. Ceremony that the party arrived by hasn't -- Whenever possible animals are on the guest list -- and Canada dolphins didn't want what's the picture up there. This. Sweating in Colombia however found in his pocket -- police eroded them. Yeah. Yeah. Not surprisingly Alex Paterson to tire of this part of the retreat you must get -- Friday. That's releases as well worn wedding dress how to dress doing amazingly no -- yesterday it's incredible. Displays is -- but as the -- It's been underwater. -- town hall didn't inspire and how -- It -- him so much and it -- -- dry cleaned up anything we just kind of hose it down. -- -- At each stop the couple has found people happy to help with the adventure. Volunteer photographers that yacht -- and the rest get a shout out on their blog. All donations go directly to -- No one ever complains that you're going around the world just sort of moved -- off of Iran. Yeah no we don't make anything we we we just borrow so it's not about money system -- Princeton these people -- -- -- of course the weddings the easy part marriage is called. We'll tell -- the Janet LeBron is the same -- -- -- and I'm. -- this difficult time including great fun time. You know I yeah. You think that -- specifically camera. My pick compound personal reasons. Of course you could -- a long. -- never experienced -- list. Weddings and a remote village to. The women is still topless with as that in the men -- very little Erica -- -- Regalia. And -- -- and we'll look of it from head to -- in hand -- afternoon. Was there -- ceremony that. Just struck he was being the most -- Yeah -- and here true. Basis. -- -- -- -- through holes on his -- -- It's. The so you've got kind of his -- thing the music scented -- feeling of -- smoke -- and parents and Taft is that every sentence in our sins -- agree. Straight back to their big day in the big. -- get but. Priestess bloody Mary conjures lesbians don't -- you share his streams. Where you can share her dreams. Does the meaning and the power. -- diminished by doing it again and it is almost and a low moderate national I think than -- get easier this because we're always doing the same thing publicly declaring Allah preaching. And this -- serious thing. Ironically police and Alex have yet to become legally married back at home in England and but by then they will have not a few dozen more exotic not tools and should have their final wedding -- -- As witnessed by those in the last thousand cats and I'm looking -- looking. -- -- -- -- Farmington get. I now pronounce you. -- -- -- -- -- -- We want more drama over the kept -- -- I --

This transcript has been automatically generated and may not be 100% accurate.

Home > Video > 20/20 > 20/20 Reports",A New Orleans voodoo rite was one stop on a UK couple's 22-month wedding tour.
"Neurosurgeon Dr Michael Wong (right) and his wife Dr Christine Wong outside the Supreme Court today. (AAP)

Melbourne neurosurgeon Michael Wong feels no anger towards the mentally-ill patient who came close to killing him in a frenzied stabbing attack.

If anything, he feels sorry for the Iranian refugee who came to Australia seeking a new life and will now spend 25 years ""behind bars in a way"" in a secure mental health facility.

""I'm really pleased that this man finally will be getting the help that he needs,"" Dr Wong said.

Kareem Al-Salami attacked his neurosurgeon in a Melbourne hospital foyer as Dr Wong arrived for work in February 2014, yelling ""bastard I kill you"" as he stabbed the doctor in the back.

Al-Salami continued to stab and slash at Dr Wong as his victim lay on the ground screaming for help.

He threatened patients and Western General Hospital staff who tried to stop him.

Without the courage and quick-thinking of staff and members of the public in distracting Al-Salami and moving Dr Wong away from danger, the attack would have likely continued with possibly fatal consequences, Justice Elizabeth Hollingworth said.

""Had Dr Wong not received immediate lifesaving surgery, it's highly likely that he would have died,"" the judge said on Wednesday.

Kareem Al-Salami will undergo treatment at Thomas Embling hospital for a nominal term of 25 years. (AAP)

Dr Wong had successfully operated on Al-Salami's spine in 2012, but the paranoid schizophrenic developed delusional beliefs that the operation had gone wrong and his neurosurgeon was conspiring with others to cover it up.

Dr Wong has fully recovered from the attack, apart from a few aches and pains, and returned to work two years ago.

""It's nothing short of a miracle that I am able to return to work as a neurosurgeon both physically and psychologically,"" he said in a court statement.

Yet Dr Wong feels neither anger nor resentment towards Al-Salami, who he says is a seriously disturbed man.

Al-Salami, formerly of Sunshine North, was found not guilty of attempted murder by reason of mental impairment.

But Justice Hollingworth was unable to send the 49-year-old to the secure Thomas Embling Hospital until Wednesday because there was no room.

Dr Wong was pleased Al-Salami will no longer be held in a prison or remand centre unable to properly care for a psychiatric patient.

""Finally he is able to be in the right place to get some treatment and also the duration or length of the sentence hopefully will allow him to have the treatment that he desperately needs and also keep the rest of society safe.""

Dr Wong says he is enjoying exploring new horizons in neurosurgery offered by technologies such as 3D printing.

But he has reduced the time he devotes to the public hospital system and no longer practises at Western General Hospital.

Dr Wong says security improvements at public hospitals have been piecemeal and tokenistic since his attack and wants more done to protect doctors and nurses from violent or drug-affected patients.",A judge has sentenced a mentally ill man who stabbed a doctor in a Melbourne hospital to a nominal term of 25 years in a secure psychiatric hospital.
"Would his memoir contain revelations that he had used performance-enhancing drugs? Was he waiting until the voting was over, and he was possibly elected, before making such an admission?

In the end, there were no such bombshells in Piazza’s book, “Long Shot” (Simon & Schuster), which was written by Lonnie Wheeler and was scheduled to be released this week. But there are a good number of intriguing disclosures as he recounts his improbable rise to stardom, pushed every step of the way by the support and insistence of his father, Vince.

Piazza writes that he was a brat at times during his baseball career, selfish, moody and immature. He says that he was occasionally a poor teammate, aloof and entirely too consumed by what was going on in his world. He says that when he received his biggest payday — a seven-year, $91 million deal with the Mets — he was frightened to the point of paralysis.

The book is Piazza’s way of walking back in baseball’s front door, at least for the moment, after five years way from the spotlight. He now leads a relatively quiet life in Miami with his wife, Alicia, and their two young daughters, Nicoletta and Paulina, with a third child due this summer. But things will become noisier this week, with Piazza back in New York to publicize the book and, no doubt, to answer questions about it.

In the book, Piazza describes how he rose from the 1,390th pick of the 1988 amateur draft to become one of the greatest hitting catchers in the history of baseball. Along the way, he encountered a number of difficulties, all of which he recounts in the book. There were his frustrations over his relationship with his first team, the Los Angeles Dodgers; his rivalry with the Martinez brothers, Pedro and Ramon; his paranoia that Latin players were against him.

He writes of his mixed feelings about the former Mets manager Bobby Valentine, with whom he went to the World Series; his bitter war with Roger Clemens, who beaned him while he was with the Mets; the rumors that he was gay; and, most significant, the suspicions that he used performance enhancers, which he denies.

“It shouldn’t be assumed that every big hitter of the generation used steroids,” Piazza says in the book. “I didn’t.”

But there is little in the book that would have given pause to any Hall of Fame voters had it been released before the ballots had been handed out. Still, Piazza said he delayed the release of the book because he did not want to be seen as campaigning for votes.

“I said we need to be respectful of the process and let it run its course,” Piazza said last week in a telephone interview, “and afterward, it was appropriate.”

As it was, Piazza did not gain entry into the Hall. He earned 57.8 percent of the votes (329 over all), still a distance from the 75 percent needed for induction. He appeared to have been caught up in a swell of antidrug sentiment from voters who emphatically rejected the candidacies of Barry Bonds (36.2 percent) and Clemens (37.6), even though Piazza has never been linked to a positive drug test or to any investigation into the use of performance enhancers.

Piazza says in the book that election to the Hall of Fame would validate his career. As a lifetime .308 hitter who holds the record for most home runs by a catcher, 396, and who hit 427 over all, his numbers seem to warrant entry. But if Yogi Berra and Joe DiMaggio did not make it on their first ballots, Piazza says he is in no position to complain.

“I won’t deny there is some disappointment, but I understand it’s a process,” he said in the interview, which marked his first public comments since the Hall of Fame vote was announced Jan. 9. “All things considered, I got over 50 percent, and a lot of people were very supportive. I mean, there’s what, almost 600 voters? That’s a lot. I’m on my homeowners board. I know how hard it is to get six people on the same page, let alone 600.”

Piazza’s last game came Sept. 30, 2007, with the Oakland Athletics. He played in 83 games that season and hit .275. He turned 39 that season, and he was done. “I was just tired,” he said in the interview.

Since then, he has not been involved with Major League Baseball, although he has been active with the Italian baseball team, which he will help coach in the coming World Baseball Classic. He has also traveled extensively to Italy and other parts of Europe to help develop the game.","In “Long Shot,” Mike Piazza, the former Mets catcher, admits that he used androstenedione before baseball banned it, but says he did not rely on steroids."
"WASHINGTON - Jerry Seinfeld couldn’t shake off the previous night’s gig. Tough crowd at a casino, he explained: ‘‘Like stabbing a minotaur to death with a kitchen knife.’’ But now he was in Washington, slipping into the buttery Naugahyde of a 1963 Corvette Stingray, and rough edges blurred, and women on Constitution Avenue were yelling ‘‘Cool car!’’ at him instead of ‘‘Mulva?!’’

‘‘Ugh, what a car,’’ Seinfeld said, stepping out of it near the Capitol Reflecting Pool earlier this month. ‘‘What. A. Car. It’s like having a hot dog on July Fourth with Scott Carpenter.’’

Which is why he selected it to drive to the White House and pick up the president of the United States, an upcoming guest on his ongoing Web series ‘‘Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee.’’

As the title would suggest, 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. is a bit of a detour for Seinfeld’s show, which last season featured the likes of Jim Carrey, Steve Harvey and his long-ago sitcom partner Julia Louis-Dreyfus rolling around on vintage wheels and trading wisecracks with the star.

But this kind of showbiz cameo - Barack Obama’s episode will debut online Dec. 30 - is business as usual for the president, who has collaborated with entertainers to tout his policies, burnish his public image or nudge a national conversation. In 2014, he appeared on Zach Galifianakis’s talk-show parody ‘‘Between Two Ferns’’ to talk up HealthCare.gov after its bungled rollout. This summer, he sat in Marc Maron’s garage in Los Angeles for a wide-ranging podcast interview that touched on race and racism. Just last week, he appeared on NBC’s ‘‘Running Wild,’’ a nature-adventure show with British survivalist Bear Grylls, to voice his concerns over climate change.

After Obama cited Seinfeld as one of his favorite comedians on Maron’s podcast, Seinfeld jokingly suggested that his production team should reach out to the White House. The executive producer of ‘‘Comedians in Cars’’ did just that.

‘‘This was an opportunity to pull back the curtain for Americans on life in the White House,’’ the president’s press office said in a statement. ‘‘The president and Jerry had a unique, candid conversation that focused largely on the lighter side of the presidency.’’

Seinfeld came to Washington a day ahead of his taping with Obama to capture scene-setting footage around town; unlike his usual guests, this one could not go freewheeling with him beyond the gates of the White House.

At the Capitol, tourists were beginning to notice Seinfeld, but only after they noticed the car, a shimmering mirage of silver-blue metallic in a small parking lot on the building’s west front. Its back window, split down the middle, sloped into a dorsal haunch resembling its marine namesake. It was on loan from some rich guy in Connecticut who had already called the crew to ask about his baby, which hadn’t been out of his sight in 32 years.

‘‘The lines,’’ Seinfeld gushed, as if describing the Ark of the Covenant. He pointed out the spatial intimacy between the body of the car and the wheels - tight but not too tight. Then he gestured to a nearby Chevy Suburban, a brute hunk of black metal, one of the production vehicles.

‘‘See how much space is between the wheel and the body? That’s why it’s depressing. What’s really missing from the world are cars you can just stare at,’’ he said, hands on the waist of his dad jeans, flaring back his navy blazer. ‘‘We've decided it’s more important to stay alive than look cool.’’

Jerry Seinfeld adores comedy and cars - he values the pursuit of precision and mechanical perfection - and a few years ago he combined them with his love of coffee and launched this series, which features short videos of wealthy funny people motoring around in classics that only they could afford. He picked up Ricky Gervais in an ice-blue 1967 Austin Healey 3000. He picked up Tina Fey in a candy-apple red 1967 Volvo 1800S.

And in less than 24 hours he would pick up Barack Obama in the Stingray.

‘‘You learn over the years how to handle yourself when you’re taken out of your box and put into a situation that has different stakes and different jeopardy,’’ Seinfeld said. But the anticipation of being with POTUS for 60 to 90 minutes was different. ‘‘I don’t talk to anybody about tomorrow. I don’t wanna talk about it. I kind of like to pace around backstage a couple minutes before I go on, so I've been doing that for about five days now.’’

The crew was also nervous, because the White House seemed nervous. The ‘‘Comedians in Cars’’ shoot was arranged over the summer, but now the San Bernardino, California, shooting was still fresh; while Seinfeld taped B-roll, the president was preparing for a prime-time address to the nation.

Seinfeld follows politics, but it has no place in his act. Political jokes rot on the vine. He likes his bits to be evergreen. Still, he considers the highlight of his career to be performing in the East Room in front of Obama and Paul McCartney in 2010, and he can’t think of another U.S. president who would be as good on ‘‘Comedians in Cars’’ as the 44th.

‘‘He’s done some really good work as a monologist at those correspondents dinners - that’s how he qualifies to be on the show,’’ Seinfeld said, referring to the annual black-tie gathering of White House reporters.

‘‘Where’s Kramer?’’ shouted a mustachioed tourist, eating popcorn at Fourth and Independence as the Stingray glided past. ‘‘Where’s Kramerrr?’’

Seinfeld, who’s always looking for a novel camera angle, suggested attaching a GoPro to the Stingray’s windshield wiper.

‘‘Oh my God, that’s genius,’’ he said after, watching the playback in a parking lot by the Capitol Reflecting Pool, his voice reaching that Seinfeldian pitch of hysteria. ‘‘Look at that shot! This is so funny. Look at that crazy angle!’’

The gathering tourists started chanting ‘‘Jerr-y! Jerr-y!’’ as he opened the Stingray’s door to drive to the Air and Space Museum. He gave them a wave, his cuff links glinting in the setting sun.

‘‘I haven’t been in here since I was a kid,’’ Seinfeld said, hot-footing through the museum, sunglasses on, so he could use the restroom.

Then back in the four-vehicle caravan, down around the Tidal Basin, past the World War II Memorial, onto Interstate 66 and the George Washington Parkway. The crew members hung out the open sliding door of a minivan to get car-to-car shots. Everyone was hooked up to walkie-talkies.

‘‘Jerry, can you come around to our right?’’

‘‘Let’s meet them at Gravelly Point.’’

Seinfeld drove the Stingray onto the grass as a jet screeched in for a landing at Reagan National Airport. The sun was nearly gone. A chill took its place. He emerged from the car and walked to his getaway vehicle, a ho-hum SUV of negligible make and model.

‘‘A Festivus for the rest of us,’’ a biker in spandex called toward him, and Seinfeld twiddled a couple fingers in his direction, because you don’t deserve greater acknowledgment if that’s the best you can do.

The comedian was tired. The crew would get a twilight shot of the car at rest along the Potomac, but he headed back for room service at his hotel, where he would continue to pace and prepare. The conversation topics for the president would be quotidian. Seinfeld wanted to nab the normal in an abnormal life, the nothing in the everything.

‘‘I wanna know how far he can get in his underwear before it’s weird,’’ Seinfeld said from the passenger seat of the SUV. ‘‘And can you really get a good night’s sleep in this place? It’s like ‘Night at the Museum’ to me, sleeping in the White House. I just had another question: Are you ever talking to somebody and do you ever think, ‘This guy’s out of his mind'?’’

Everything went as scheduled the following day. Obama drove the Stingray on the White House grounds. The pair chatted in a basement dining room and Seinfeld asked about presidential bathroom routines, and the difference between presidential garbage and non-presidential garbage.

‘‘It was out-of-body for me,’’ Seinfeld said by phone afterward. ‘‘I'm not a guy who likes honor. In fact, I hate any kind of honoring. That I get to be a comedian, that’s the honor. But this was an honor: that (Obama) was OK with me, that he trusted me to do some comedy with him in the real White House.’’",How did the president get booked on Jerry Seinfeld’s Internet show “Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee”?
"MEXICO CITY (AP) Luis Scola and Nicolas Laprovittola scored 11 points to lead Argentina to a 96-64 rout of Cuba on Thursday in the Olympic qualifier.

Argentina will be joined in the second by Canada, which also won easily with an 82-62 rout of Venezuela. Argentina (3-0) leads Group B with six points followed by Canada (2-1) and Venezuela (2-1) with five. Puerto Rico (1-2) has four with one game remaining and Cuba (0-4) finished with four.

Cuba held the lead several times in a sluggish first-half for Argentina, which used a 26-4 run in the third quarter to take control of the game.

''We played without concentration, we lacked the attitude of a professional team in the first-half,'' said Argentina*s coach Sergio Hernandez.

Andres Nocioni added 10 points and 13 rebounds in 21 minutes for Argentina. Jasiel Rivero scored 25 points for the Cubans.

Nik Stauskas led a balanced Canadian offense that featured all five starters in double digits to beat Venezuela. Kelly Olynyk added 14, Andrew Wiggins 13 while Cory Joseph and Anthony Bennett combined for 10 each.

Bennett also grabbed 10 rebounds.

Canada, trying to qualify for their first Olympics since Sydney 2000, will finish the first round Friday against Puerto Rico.

In the final game of the day, Paul Stoll scored 18 points, hitting six 3-pointers, and Gustavo Ayon added 16 points with 11 rebounds for Mexico, trying to qualify for their first Olympic games since Montreal 1976.

Mexico (3-0) leads Group A followed by the Dominican Republic (2-2). Uruguay (1-2), Brazil (1-2) and Panama (1-2) all remain in contention to advance to the next round.",Argentina and Canada advanced to the second round
"BALTIMORE -- Brooks Robinson and Boog Powell, key contributors to Baltimore's 1970 World Series championship team, were honored Friday, throwing out ceremonial first pitches at the Orioles' home opener.

The Orioles' record opening day crowd cheered Robinson, even when he bounced his pitch to ceremonial catcher Miguel Tejada.

""Tejada made a nice pick up. I've been working with him at third,"" joked Robinson, a 16-time Gold Glove winner nicknamed ""The Human Vacuum Cleaner.""

And the crowd ""boo-ged"" Powell, the hefty first baseman who estimates he still signs 300 autographs a night at his barbecue stand at Camden Yards.

""Any time they boo you like that, it brings back memories,"" Powell said. ""Most of the time here there was a 'G' on it. That was the fun part.""

Robinson, now 72, and Powell, 68, heard nothing but cheers 40 years ago when the Orioles clinched the Series against the Reds in Game 5 at Memorial Stadium. Powell had homered in each of the first two games. Robinson was the World Series MVP, batting .429 and repeatedly robbing Reds hitters with plays at third base.

""Forty years, that's hard to believe,"" Robinson said. ""People say, 'You know, you were MVP of that World Series.' What they don't remember is that the first ball I got in that series was like a 24-hopper … and I made a high throw to Boog for an error. But everything after that was pretty upbeat.

""I played almost 23 years professionally and I don't think I ever had five games in a row like that. … I knew and (shortstop Mark) Belanger knew we were going to get a lot of work (on the left side of the infield) because they had Johnny Bench and Lee May and Tony Perez and we had left-handers (Mike) Cuellar and (Dave) McNally and (righty Jim) Palmer with that big curveball. … It just so happened I had some terrific plays to make and I made them and that really was kind of a springboard (for me) attaining the Hall of Fame. But it was one of those things where you say, 'I hope this series gets over in a hurry' because I can't keep this up.' ""

Powell said he always marveled at Robinson's defensive prowess.

""The rest of the world found out what we already knew,"" said Powell, turning to Robinson. ""They were nice plays in that Series but they weren't anything (we weren't used to seeing). You started a triple play one day when you came up with a grounder, didn't even know where you were, stepped on third and threw to second. You made those kind of plays day-in and day-out.

""I also had the honor to play behind him in left field for four years,"" Powell said. ""I broke in on so many balls that never got to me … sometimes I'd catch myself not breaking in.""

Powell was never a graceful outfielder, but Robinson said Powell might have been a little ""short-changed"" because he never won a Gold Glove as a first baseman.

""Now, how am I going to get a Gold Glove when we (already) had four on the team -- second baseman (Davey Johnson), shortstop (Belanger), third baseman (Robinson) and center fielder (Paul Blair)?"" Powell said. ""They're not going to give the first baseman a Gold Glove.""

Powell said the 1970 Orioles had great fun and a great affinity for one another and lamented the death of Cuellar at 72 earlier this week.

""We're starting to fade,"" Powell said. ""But we're not that old to have that.""","Brooks Robinson and Boog Powell reminisce 40 years after winning title - Daily Pitch: MLB News, Standings, Schedules & More - USATODAY.com"
"Posted about 2 days ago

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a practice to make your web site more visible to the audience looking for the information you have in your website. It only affects “organic search results”, paid search results such as “Google Adwords”.

This is our description as 3IN Consulting, but what other “big guys” describe SEO?

Wordpress: “Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of affecting the visibility of a website or a web page in a search engine’s ‘natural’ or un-paid (organic) search results. In general, the earlier (or higher ranked on the search results page), and more frequently a site appears in the search results list, the more visitors it will receive from the search engine’s users.”

SEOmoz: “SEO is the practice of improving and promoting a web site in order to increase the number of visitors the site receives from search engines.”

I am sure you have noticed people always talk about Google when it comes to Search Engine Optimization. But why? Aren’t there any other popular search engines? Is Google really monopoly? We need to look at the chart below to understand this better.

This chart shows how Google dominates today’s search engine market worldwide. According the comScore’s Web Search Market Share and Volume report, Google has 66.4% shares in US search engines and 79.6% in UK. It even has 24.6% market share in China after Baidu with 72.9%. This tells us Google as a search engine is really powerful all over the world, moreover unbeatable in some countries. However, this is not the main reason SEO experts always talk about Google, give examples on Google and even talk in Google’s jargon. It is Google’s scientific approach to the search results. Google guys always come with a general solution to a public issue or problem. This is what makes them number 1 search engine optimization resource along webmasters.

Enough chit-chat! Let’s get some juice!

You might be new to this market and already confused about the terms we use. First, let’s make them clear. What is “Organic Search Engine Results”, can I eat them, healthy? No! Check this out:

As you can clearly see the difference in the image above, “Organic Results” means what Google thinks how much searching keywords match with your content. In this example, we search “Web Design” and see 3 different regions. SEO is only interested in the maroon part. At this point, it’s understandable that you have the same question in mind: “Is there any effect of advertising in Google to its search results?“, we will answer this question in future articles. This is a little advanced topic for beginners.

Another term is “Google Page Rank“. Page Rank can be described as the importance of a web sites from search engine point of view. Google gives you a page rank starting from 1 and you will climb up stairs using techniques determined by Google. Page rank shows people how your information is accurate and valuable; in addition to telling search engines the links you have to the other websites are really important.

“Canonical Url” is a normalized form of dynamic url query strings. Let’s say you sell colorful shirts and one of your product’s url is: This is really a bad practice for both user experience and search engines. Instead of that, you should use something like: or with a little better approach:

You might see or read about robot.txt before, but you still don’t know what it is. Not a problem, because it simply tells search engines not to index whole website or some of your pages. “What!? Are you mocking crazy? What would I want my pages not to be found?” Hold your horses, you might not, but it is very useful in some specific cases. Think about this for a second; you have a custom CMS and you don’t want the admin panel link to be visible to public. Even though they need to know the credentials (or hack:) to connect to the admin panel, you still don’t want them to try because it is a security risk. You can’t be invisible at all, but not being in plain sight is a good precaution.

Another term you often hear or read when it comes to SEO is “nofollow” tag. Yes, it really says search engines not to follow the link, so you don’t get any benefit. The philosophy behind is to improve the quality of search engine results and preventing occurrence of spam indexing. Google recommends us using nofollow tag when the link goes to:

- untrusted page - paid link or an ad - a login page that Google cannot crawl such as “log in” or “sign up here”

“Web Crawler” or “Crawl Engine” is an automated computer program that browses the Internet and indexes web pages in a methodical manner. When you make some changes on your website, they are sometimes shown in search engines after a while, do you know why? Because the crawler runs in order and they get updated at the scheduled time .

“Backlink building” is not something you don’t know. Actually it is an SEO jargon to get a link from a website. The idea is when people like a page, they start giving out links to that. And the more backlinks a page has, the better.Why do I need to be listed in Search Engines?

Because you want to be found! If not, why are you even reading this article? Go get a up of coffee and watch a TV show :) Yes, the real point is to be appreciable.

Search Engines are not the only way to get traffic. People visit your site by clicking a link on a social media platform such as Facebook or Twitter. The other way is to have your website’s link on another web page, so people click that link and.. abracadabra they become your visitors, too.

Even though they are not the only way, search engines are the primary method of finding the information. At least this is how it works for the majority of Internet users. They only exist to provide targeted traffic, it means they are there for you to find what you’re looking for. Search Engines are the roadways of the Internet.

You already know your page needs to be found and indexed by search engines, Google has crawl engine for this job and the last piece of puzzle is ‘Google indexes all the Internet’. Yes I know it sounds pretty crazy, but it’s true! This is the first question you should ask after knowing these three pieces of information: “I don’t have to do anything, because Google does everything, right?” No! Then the second question comes: “Why can’t the search engines figure out my site without SEO?“. Crawl Engines are written to be smart, but you still need to show the path. You are still visible to public even though you don’t do any SEO, but do you really think coming after bizillion pages affect your traffic? Millions of people don’t, so they do SEO.

Let me give an example how you can help search engine crawler; you have a page full of animal pictures, no text at all. How can the crawler understand what this page is about? It can’t! If you expect a piece of code opens up all the images on your page and understands what they are about, let me tell you something: “This is not Matrix!”. So you have to let them know what they are about by adding short descriptions. I don’t want to give you technical details in this article, but you need to know there are some html attributes that are identified by search engines and you can optimize your pages using them correctly.

And the last but not the least question: “Can I do my own SEO?”, yes! BUT (you know what they say about “but”, forget whatever comes before it :) it is not easy task. You need to do a lot of readings and follow new trends on search engine optimization, plus you have to spend long ours in front of a computer.

We will talk about technical details and debate on options we have to make our pages more “search engine friendly” in our future articles.",Great article about Search Engine Optimization by 3IN IT Consulting Group
"""We all know that raising taxes would stall the rebound we all claim to want. Let's just admit we don't have a revenue problem. We have a spending problem.""

— Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), May 4, 2011

McConnell’s comment Wednesday, made on the floor of the Senate, is a common refrain by Republicans. It is an expression of a deeply felt philosophical position.

But we deal in facts, not philosophy. We think we have found a way to demonstrate that the nation has had both a spending problem and a revenue problem, at least since the halcyon days of 2001, when the Congressional Budget Office estimated that over 10 years the government would run a $5.6 trillion surplus.

We’re not saying that the Bush-era tax cuts were the primary reason for the disappearance of the surplus; the data clearly shows that new spending exceeded the estimated revenue loss of the tax cuts. One of the biggest problems, in fact, was that the revenue estimates made by the CBO turned out to be wildly overstated — so much so that a case can be made that Bush’s tax cuts actually reduced revenue less than is conventionally assumed.

Let’s go to the video tape.

In January 2001, the CBO — the nonpartisan scorekeeper for legislation — announced that under current policy , the government would run a $5.6 trillion surplus from 2001 to 2011. The key caveat is “current policy.” The CBO is supposed to assume all sorts of things in law, such as certain tax provisions will remain in place even though Congress always waives them. The CBO also assumed that discretionary spending would continue to decline as a percentage of the overall economy, having no clue that the Sept. 11 attacks that year would put new demands on government spending.

On the revenue side, the government was helped by a gusher of new money — capital-gains taxes from the run-up in the stock market, as well as taxes paid on stock options earned by technology executives. Between 1994 and 1999, realized gains nearly quadrupled, the CBO later estimated , with taxes on those gains accounting for about 30 percent of the increased growth of individual income tax liabilities relative to the growth of gross domestic product, the broadest measure of the economy. The CBO warned that those gains couldn’t continue — but the end came much sooner than expected.

Still, it was in that context that Congress enacted a 10-year cut in individual taxes, estimated to reduce projected surpluses by $1.35 trillion. For complicated budgetary reasons, the entire tax cut package was designed to end within 10 years, but no one ever expected that to happen.

Within a year, a chagrined CBO had to come back to Congress and admit its revenue estimates were off — way off. A weakened economy, the popping of the bubble in tech stocks and other factors meant that hundreds of billions of dollars in expected revenues had turned out to ephemeral. In just a year, capital gains returns fell 20 percent; income growth from stock options fell as much as 40 percent, the CBO estimated.

We looked at every annual update issued by CBO since 2001, and compared the actual results with the original 2001 estimate. We also examined the data behind a recent report by the Pew Fiscal Analysis Initiative. Finally, we were aided by a spreadsheet of 10 years of CBO data provided by Barry Anderson, a former CBO deputy director who famously presented the 2001 estimate to Congress. This is the first time this spreadsheet has ever appeared in print. (The acronyms are explained at the bottom. The first line under revenue projections is the 2001 tax cut; the third line is the 2003 tax cut.)

What is striking about this data is that it shows that revenue fell far more sharply than the tax cut projections. For instance, in 2002, individual tax revenues were $267 billion lower than projected, or down nearly 24 percent, compared to the estimate of a decline of $31 billion from the tax cut, according to our calculations.

The spreadsheet shows that in 2002 all revenue was down nearly $308 billion for reasons unconnected to tax cuts — what the CBO calls “economic or technical reasons.” That’s shorthand for “we blew the estimate.” The estimates for individual income tax revenues were off between 18 and 34 percent each year for the next several years — until the great recession hit in 2008. Then the estimates were off by nearly 50 percent in 2009 and 2010.

In fact, we would argue that it is a misnomer to claim that Bush’s tax cut reduced revenues by $1.35 trillion. That estimate was based on the inflated revenue forecasts of 2001, so the true cost to the Treasury was probably 15 to 20 percent less. Ingrid Schroeder, director of the Pew initiative, said they wanted to use only CBO-vetted numbers; the CBO has refused to revisit the question of what the Bush tax cuts cost.

Even if one uses the original cost-estimates for the tax cuts, spending increases still account for the largest share of the decline in the nation’s fiscal position. Our research shows discretionary spending (the annual spending bills controlled by Congress) kept exceeding the original estimates by greater and greater percentages — until the economy slammed into the wall and estimates were off by as much as 60 percent in 2009 and 2010. The original CBO projections again were unrealistic — and then wars and recession further exacerbated the problem.

Here’s how it breaks down from 2001 to 2011:

Increased spending (discretionary and mandatory): $4.3 trillion (36.5 percent)

Incorrect CBO estimates: $3.3 trillion (28 percent)

Tax cuts: $2.8 trillion (24 percent)

Higher interest costs: $1.4 trillion (12 percent)

The higher interest costs on the debt should be allocated proportionally to other categories. Presumably, the CBO category could grow — and the spending increases could shrink — if one wanted to argue that the spending estimates were as unrealistically low as the revenues estimates were too high. But in any case spending increases would still likely exceed tax cuts.

So yes, the nation has a spending problem. But we do not know how anyone can look at this data and say the nation does not have a revenue problem. The Bush tax cuts were predicated on predictions of revenue that did not appear. If there had not been a projection of $5.6 trillion in surpluses, Congress never would have approved $1.35 trillion in tax cuts.

We have previously written that the current sky-high deficit exists because tax revenues are at their lowest level since 1950 and spending is at its highest level since World War II, as measured as a percent of the GDP. Moreover, as demonstrated above, revenues have consistently failed to meet the projections that prompted the original tax-cut frenzy in Congress.

Don Stewart, a spokesman for McConnell, argues, “Revenues are down because of the economy — not because Americans are undertaxed. And as the economy improves, so too does the amount of revenue at existing tax rates. As even the president has noted, raising taxes in a recession is not helpful to the economy and could have the opposite effect.”

Stewart explains McConnell’s statement as being a warning against raising taxes in a recession and says he does not believe the revenue problem can be fixed by raising taxes.

That’s obviously a philosophical point of view. But isn’t it time for the Republicans to retire this talking point? The nation has a revenue problem and a spending problem — or else there would not be a deficit.

(Similarly, Democrats need to stop suggesting there is not a spending problem.)

Follow The Fact Checker on Twitter and friend us on Facebook",A new review of Congressional Budget Office data over 10 years shows that the nation has both a revenue problem and a spending problem.
"Jul 24th 2012, 12:07 by D.K.

ACCORDING to Bobby Kennedy, speaking in 1968, the problem with GDP is that it “measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile.” As he pointed out, GDP “counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. It counts special locks for our doors and the jails for those who break them. It counts the destruction of our redwoods and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl. It counts napalm and the cost of a nuclear warhead, and armoured cars for police who fight riots in our streets. It counts Whitman's rifle and Speck's knife, and the television programmes which glorify violence in order to sell toys to our children.”

Forty-four years later, one group is trying to catch up—the British government. This morning, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) published the first provisional “national well-being report”, which attempts to measure the “subjective well-being of individuals, which is measured by finding out how people think and feel about their own lives.“ The idea started with David Cameron, who, back in the (possibly?) happier days of November 2010, denounced the “incomplete” GDP statistic, and called for a better measure of national happiness—dismissing the idea that it would be “wooly and impractical.”

So how has it turned out? To gather data, 165,000 people were asked to answer the following questions with a ranking from 1 to 10:

Overall, how satisfied are you with your life nowadays?Overall, to what extent do you feel the things you do in your life are worthwhile?Overall, how happy did you feel yesterday?Overall, how anxious did you feel yesterday?

Perhaps the most surprising finding is that, despite an “Eeyorish attitude”, as the New York Times puts it, it turns out that the British are quite happy. 76% of people ranked their happiness as greater than 7 out of 10, while 80% ranked their lives' worthwhile-ness as greater than 7.

People with partners are happier and report higher scores on average than those who are single, widowed or divorced. Home-owners are happier than renters. The disabled and those in bad health are far less happy and far more anxious than healthy, able-bodied people. As are unemployed people.

More surprisingly, black Britons are far less happy than other ethnic minorities or than white people. Londoners are also the grumpiest, least self-assured and most anxious of all—the capital comes out worse than all other regions (that may not be a surprise). And middle-aged people are also less happy than younger or older people—the mid-life crisis is not a myth, it seems.

All of which is interesting, but hardly ground-breaking. You don’t need an ONS database to know that if you make people healthier and give them work then they will be happier. But an interesting thought is what will happen over time. The ONS hasn't measured happiness relative to income levels within its sample, but given a decade or two of data, it would presumably be easy enough to regress levels of happiness or “life satisfaction” against, say, GDP. We would then be able to see whether increasing GDP makes people happier or not.

In short, we would be able to tell whether, by measuring everything else, GDP might actually provide a proxy for “all that is worthwhile.” If so, then politicians can carry on using GDP as a proxy for national success. If not, well, we may have to start rethinking things a little—perhaps as Bobby Kennedy suggested.","ACCORDING to Bobby Kennedy, speaking in 1968, the problem with GDP is that it “measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile.” As he pointed out, GDP “counts air pollution and ciga"
"Which demographic group responded to the financial crisis by giving less money to charity? Pick one:

A) the poorest Americans – those without college educations and only minimum-wage jobs

B) The middle class, who bore the brunt of the foreclosure crisis and whose job losses drove the unemployment rate above 10%

C) The wealthiest citizens – the 1%

It was the rich. Americans making more than $100,000 a year cut the percentage of their income they gave to philanthropy by 3.3% between 2006 and 2012.

Those who earned less in salary actually gave more to the poor. In fact, according to a recent study by the Chronicle of Philanthropy, based on IRS data, those earning $25,000 or less donated an average of 16.6% of their adjusted gross income. By comparison, high-earning citizens gave only 4.6% of their incomes.

The higher you go in income, the lower the percentage of your salary that you gave to charity. So if someone earned between $50,000 to $75,000, their giving only rose to a trickle of 5.7%.

This difference should reignite a debate about income inequality in the United States – a wealth gap that the Great Recession only managed to deepen, according to Federal Reserve data.

The haves and the have-nots are drifting further and further apart, to the point that even ratings agency Standard & Poor’s is warning that this gap is putting a dent in the country’s long-term economic growth prospects, as a less-educated workforce becomes less able to compete in a global marketplace.

Two arguments keep persisting to explain or excuse the wealth gap. One is that the country’s wealthiest citizens are “job creators”. The other is that they give more to philanthropy.

These arguments are collapsing fast.

The job creators excuse has been hotly debated and at least partly debunked over the last few years.

Rich people certainly can create companies that offer great products and services, critics of the “wealthy folks create jobs” school of thought argue. But they still need consumers to step up and buy the products, and they need the right kind of environment in which to flourish. Rich people only create jobs when their customers can afford to buy. And if the rich are succeeding at job creation, it’s not visible in the nation’s payrolls: there’s still an unemployment crisis because many companies are not hiring despite years of record profits.

Now, the Chronicle of Philanthropy data is chipping away at the second pillar supporting income inequality: the great charity giveaway coming from the rich.

It’s true that, in dollar terms, the richest Americans actually gave more in 2012 than they had given in 2006, says Stacy Palmer, the Chronicle’s editor: $77.5bn, up by $4.6bn, adjusted for inflation.

It’s just that, relative to the increase in their wealth over that period of time, their giving actually declined.

“Donors don’t think about giving as a percentage of their income any more, unless they are part of a church and see it as tithing,” Palmer says.

Significantly, that decline took place during a period in which non-profit organizations saw their needs go up.

“They asked more people to help meet the greater demand for their services in those difficult years of the recession, but found it harder to persuade people,” says Palmer. “The more affluent tended to be less responsive. It seems to be related to empathy; the more affluent seem to be insulated from the challenges that working-class Americans confronted.”

Intriguingly, Palmer says that she sees surprisingly little overlap between the Forbes 400 list of the richest Americans, and the Chronicle of Philanthropy’s own list of the 50 most generous philanthropists (due for release later this month).

“A lot of the most generous donors never show up on the Forbes list,” Palmer says.

On the other hand, non-profit organizations note that the most generous donors – those less wealthy individuals who can least afford to squeeze out the extra dollars – tend to be the most empathetic. All too easily, they can see themselves in the place of the people their dollars are helping today.

Brian Wodar, national director of non-profit advisory services for Bernstein Global Wealth Management, notes that it might not just be empathy that’s at work here, however.

“It’s easier for less wealthy folks to make charitable gifts – they can simply text a $10 gift to the American Red Cross and it shows up on their phone bill,” he points out. To give away a significant percentage of your wealth when the sums are in the tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars – or in the millions – requires a lot more planning and organization.

That may not explain why the rate of giving by the wealthiest Americans dipped when it was most needed, but something else might: taxes.

The study period – from 2006 to 2012 – captures the period from the height of the pre-crisis economic expansion to its nadir. The stock market’s dive between 2007 and 2009 created big financial losses for the rich. They could apply their losses to cut their tax bills – which meant they didn’t need the extra benefit of charity-related deductions.

“I think that the much, much higher tax bills that most people confronted in 2013 will push these folks back into philanthropic giving,” he suggests.

Still, for wealthy Americans, philanthropy is choice, not duty. They choose whether to give, where to give and how much. A philanthropist deciding to lavishly endow a new university building (that will then carry his name in perpetuity) might view that as a form of giving back to the community. The community – beyond the academic institution itself – might view the gift in a different light. Without funds to subsidize after-school programs or college scholarships that might enable their own children to attend that college, the gift isn’t helping to address income inequality.

It isn’t just the super-wealthy who, in spite of the generous and well-publicized giving by the likes of Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, could be doing more.

Palmer points out that the merely moderately wealthy – those with a net worth of only about $500,000 to a few million or so – are among those who, anecdotally, are the least generous of all relative to their assets. (Data from studies by Bank of America and others tend to support that conclusion.)

“If a lot of them did only a little bit more; if they increased their share only slightly; if they could discover that empathy – wow, a lot more could be done for a lot more people,” Palmer says, almost wistfully.","A new report shows that the wealthy are giving only 4.6% of their salaries to charity, compared to 16.6% of those earning $25,000 or less. This is how inequality in America is perpetuated, writes Suzanne McGee"
"The number of driver-assist features on new cars seems to be increasing at an exponential rate. We may not have self-driving cars yet, but many of today's cars can do quite a few things on their own, from checking blind spots to autonomously braking.

Now Ford is piling on even more tech, with several new features set to enter production, and a few more under development. It plans to add ""enhanced"" active park assist, wide-angle rearview cameras, and a cross-traffic alert system with automatic braking to certain models, and is testing still more tech. All of this will help the Blue Oval keep pace with its rivals.

The cross-traffic alert system is similar to systems already offered by other carmakers. It uses radar sensors to scan the area behind the vehicle, and provides warnings to the driver if it detects an obstacle. It can also automatically apply the brakes if the driver doesn't heed those warnings. Providing further assistance while backing up is the wide-angle rearview camera, which should be helpful in situations such as backing out of a parking space with cars on either side.

Read more: Kia reimagines four of its current models as self-driving cars

Ford also has some tech under development at its Research and Innovation Center in Aachen, Germany, that further blurs the line between human-driven and autonomous cars. Researchers are working on an ""evasive steering assist"" system that can help a driver steer around obstacles at ""city and highway speeds."" The system uses radar and a camera to detect slow-moving or stationary vehicles ahead, and activates when the driver takes evasive action.

Certain Ford models already offer a park assist that helps steer cars into parking spaces, but Ford says it's working on an ""enhanced"" version that park a car at the push of a button. It controls steering, forward and reverse movement, and braking for both parallel parking and backing into perpendicular spaces.

One more new feature under development is a system that warns drivers if they are going the wrong way, against traffic. It uses a windshield-mounted camera and information from the navigation system to do that, and provides audio and visual warnings to the driver. This and everything else described above will likely appear on Ford production models in the next few years as the company progresses toward fully autonomous cars.",Ford is developing more driver-assist tech.
"Alaska Airlines wants to make losing your luggage a thing of the past.

To do it, the company is testing reusable, solar-powered tags that connect to its mobile app, according to the Los Angeles Times.

After buying a ticket through Alaska Airlines’ app, the Seattle-based company asks the person whether or not to activate the electronic luggage tag. Once turned on, Bluetooth technology syncs with the passenger’s smartphone to display information on its screen, the publication reported.

Loesje Degroen, the airline’s customer research and development manager, told the Times that the tag was first tested with 60 employees last year. Now it’s being tried out with 50 passengers with plans to expand the experiment in the coming months.

For more on the electronic tag, check out this Alaska Airlines video:

This isn’t the first experiment conducted by Alaska Airlines to offer innovative products. The carrier has also offered solar-powered ramps for passengers and has tested a way for passengers to board an airline with just their fingerprints, according to the Times.",With a new experimental product
"The Cannes advertising festival, which begins Monday, is known for self-congratulatory back-slapping, talk of creativity and a steady flow of rosé. This year something else will likely be part of the mix as industry honchos party on the French Riviera: worry.

The ad industry is in the midst of wrenching change that’s touching every piece of the business. A long list of marketers such as Procter & Gamble, Coca-Cola and Mondelez International have placed their media buying business up for review as they look to cut costs and find agencies versed in the latest digital techniques. All told, over $26 billion in ad spending for companies is in play, according to Morgan Stanley.

Meanwhile, howls of concern about alleged kick-backs in ad-buying are getting louder, fueling tension in the agency-client relationship. And the dark side of digital ad growth is coming into sharper focus. The Web’s hooligans are creating exotic new flavors of fake traffic, ad blocking software is – well, blocking ads – and marketers and publishers are in pitched battle over how “viewable” ads should be online.

“They are not the pretty issues but these are the issues that need to be addressed in order to help provide advertisers clearer return on their investments,” said Mike Peralta, chief executive officer of Audience Science, an ad tech firm that is hosting a seminar on Wednesday entitled “Digital Ownership & Transparency.”

Those controversial topics are expected to be part of panel discussions and cocktail party chatter at the 62nd Cannes Lions, where roughly 13,500 delegates are expected to attend, 12% more than last year.

Advertising, tech and media heavy-weights including WPP Chief Executive Martin Sorrell, Twitter Chief Executive Dick Costolo and Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes are expected to be among the attendees. Bigwigs will be pulling out all the stops to woo ad dollars, enlisting the help of celebrities such as Sting, Ryan Seacrest and model Chrissy Teigen to court deals with marketers such as such as McDonald’s, Heineken and Visa.

Other topics expected to be explored on the Côte d’Azur include how technology and data are increasingly being used in marketing. Panel discussions include one entitled “Cinematic Virtual Reality and the Power of Deep Immersion” and “Scientist Vs Poets: The Art of Connecting Data To Storytelling.”

The conference reflects the massive changes taking place on Madison Avenue. The week-long award show once meant to laud “Mad Men” for creative work has seen a steady invasion of tech giants such as Google, Facebook and ad tech firms such as Rubicon Project. Those companies have become power brokers as marketers shift ad budgets from traditional to online media. U.S. ad spending on digital ads is expected to increase 15.5% to $58.6 billion this year while spending on print ads will slide 1% to $31.17 billion, according to eMarketer.

The reviews by big companies of their ad agency business will “likely dominate the conversations,” said Philip Thomas, the festival’s chief executive. The reviews are being fueled by the digital reinvention of all aspects of the marketing ecosystem, as well as the growing concerns about transparency and conflicts-of-interest. Some marketers worry whether ad agencies are morphing into media selling entities that don’t always act as objective agents for their clients.

“Agencies have long clearly been the representative of advertisers, but there is a little bit of a pendulum swing, where you might ask, ‘who is really paying their bills?’” said Jim Nail, principal analyst at Forrester Research.

Mr. Nail said agencies also face a threat from brands that are building out internal divisions designed to handle automated ad buying—which could potentially cut agencies out.

Still, Mr. Nail said that Cannes represented the “perfect time to get drunk and bury the hatchet” for ad executives facing so many questions about their businesses.

“There is turmoil in the industry, but people can set it aside for week and celebrate all the great campaigns that are happening,” he said.

______________________________________________________ For the latest media, marketing and advertising news, follow us on Twitter: follow @wsjCMO Subscribe to our morning newsletter, delivered straight to your inbox.","The Cannes advertising festival, which begins Monday, is known for self-congratulatory back-slapping, talk of creativity and a steady flow of rosé. This year something else will likely be part of the mix as industry honchos party on the French Riviera: worry."
"Donald Trump has blamed a wide range of groups for the frequent and disruptive protests at his rallies, pointing the finger at the Bernie Sanders campaign, the remnants of the radical Weather Underground – even ISIS – and suggesting high-powered forces are behind the counter-Trump factions.

The reality, though, is a bit more nuanced than that.

So far, the protests largely have been driven by a hodgepodge of liberal groups and activists. Sanders supporters, MoveOn.org, Black Lives Matter and anti-Trump unions all have played a role – though there’s scant evidence to date that a singular group, let alone a Democratic campaign, is directing the protests that have become a near-daily occurrence.

College students, for instance, were at the center of the successful effort to shut down Trump’s rally Friday night at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Students and student groups upset with the school allowing Trump to hold an event at the UIC Pavilion boasted online that they started hatching a plan nearly a week before the GOP front-runner’s arrival.

“Donald Trump has made ridiculous conspiracy accusations that this was a professionally staged protest with paid protesters,” according to the Facebook page “Stop Trump -- Chicago,” which the students say they started and maintain.

“This was started by students, organized by students, and led by students,” says the post, put on the social media site Sunday night after a full weekend of Trump blaming Sanders, the Vermont senator and Democratic presidential candidate, for the rancor in Chicago and in several ensuing rallies in the Midwest.

The students weren’t entirely on their own, however. They acknowledge that the liberal, pro-Sanders group MoveOn.org donated 700 signs and a banner and sent an email to members informing them of the protest.

Trump has been adamant that Sanders’ “people” are driving the unrest.

At a rally Saturday in Cleveland, Trump said the protesters were “Bernie’s people. “

The next day, Trump told “Fox News Sunday” the Chicago agitators were hired pros.

“I mean, those were real professionals,” he said. “And they weren't protesters. They were … professional disrupters. They came in with the Bernie Sanders signs right out of his printing press.”

House Speaker Paul Ryan also said Tuesday “there is a concerted effort on the left” to disrupt rallies.

The Trump campaign, though, has not produced evidence that ‎""professional"" organizers were behind those protests, and no other evidence has surfaced to back up the charge.

The student organizers also deny it. “[A]dvertisement of a protest does not make them the organizers for it,” wrote Stop Trump – Chicago, which did not return a request for comment. “And as far as being ‘paid protesters,’ we would have loved to be paid for this but our students gladly did it for free.”

Sanders also rejected Trump’s allegations, releasing a statement calling Trump a “pathological liar” and saying, “Obviously, while I appreciate that we had supporters at Trump’s rally in Chicago, our campaign did not organize the protests.”

MoveOn.org, which has endorsed Sanders, did not return a request for comment.

Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks, though, on Monday stood by the argument that large forces are behind the protests, including ‘60s radical and former Weather Underground member William Ayers, once wanted by the FBI on bombing conspiracy charges until they were dropped in 1974 because of prosecutorial misconduct.

A picture of the 71-year-old Ayers, wearing a Black Lives Matters T-shirt while apparently standing outside the Chicago pavilion, can be found posted on several online sites.

And Ayers posted to his Twitter feed: “We shut Trump down! Beautiful gathering of anti-racist youth.”

Members of Black Lives Matters also have been engaged in Trump protests, wearing T-shirts that identify them as members of the group and chanting its motto, usually until they are escorted by security from the events.

In fact, Tommy DiMassimo, the student who on Saturday tried to rush Trump on stage at an Ohio campaign event, has ties to Black Lives Matters. The Wright State (Ohio) University senior also is seen in an online video, uploaded last year, dragging a U.S. flag while walking across campus with a group of mostly black protestors.

Trump said over the weekend that the individual “probably” was linked to ISIS. He appears to have made the ISIS connection after seeing the video, which is played over Arabic music with Arabic writing scrolling along the top.

DiMassimo told CNN he wanted to confront Trump because he is “a coward” and to show America that some people are not afraid of the billionaire businessman.

But he denied being a member of ISIS or having any connection to the terror group.

SEIU, the country’s biggest public-sector labor union, also was involved in the Chicago protest that forced Trump to cancel the rally.

Joe Iosbaker, the leader of SEIU Local 73, which represents roughly 3,000 UIC employees, acknowledged to Politico that he participated in the protests.

And he explained in a 1,085-word essay in the online publication “Fight Back! News” how the students planned the protests, including a strategy for “confronting the police.”

FoxNews.com’s Joseph Weber and Fox News’ Jason Donner contributed to this report.","Donald Trump has blamed a wide range of groups for the frequent and disruptive protests at his rallies, pointing the finger at the Bernie Sanders campaign, the remnants of the radical Weather Underground – even ISIS – and suggesting high-powered forces are behind the counter-Trump factions."
"At the end of Bill and Hillary Clinton’s Chappaqua street sits a for-sale sign for a used e-mail server with a clean hard drive. It includes the Clintons’ home address and instructs interested buyers to, “See Bill.”

Gary Murphy — channeling his inner Jon Stewart, he says — was irked by former secretary of state Hillary Clinton’s reason for using a private server set up in her New York home to do all her e-mailing, both for personal conversations and State Department business.

So, Murphy, 44, who lives in Chappaqua, about two miles away from the Clintons’ home, was driving around Wednesday and decided to make his annoyance known.

“I listened to that press conference, and something bothered me. . . it seemed like such a controlled environment,” Murphy told the Loop in an interview Thursday. “It was kicking around in my head, just because she says it’s over doesn’t mean it’s over. …It was a real arrogant way to do it.”

Murphy, who owns a house-cleaning business and is a registered Republican, said he doesn’t agree with the Clintons’ politics, but doesn’t hold any ill will toward them. In fact, when he saw Bill Clinton in town once, he asked the former president to take a picture with his daughter.

But this episode with Clinton and the e-mails bothered him. “I see her playing the bully and the victim, and I don’t think you can be both,” he said.

For $3, Murphy bought the for-sale sign. He already had the black marker. And he made his move, planting the sign at the corner of the Clintons’ street. “I didn’t want to be intrusive and go up on their front lawn,’ he said.

So far local media have picked it up. He said “local folks are having fun with it.” He hasn’t heard any real backlash yet, but anticipates it will come.

“Once you inject yourself into something, you expect it … I did it in the tradition of parody and having fun with politics,” he said. “It’s one little thing to get my point across.”

Colby Itkowitz is a national reporter for In The Loop.

Continue reading 10 minutes left",A Chappaqua resident annoyed by the Hillary Clinton e-mail story took a very public stand.
"The leak of the so-called “Panama Papers,” exposing the dealings of the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca, has brought international attention to the shadowy “offshore” accounts that have been set up to hide wealth and avoid tax laws. But how did these secretive financial activities come to be called “offshore” in the first place?

When “offshore” first came ashore in English, it was used quite literally, as an adjective or adverb referring to something, like an island, located away from the mainland. An “offshore wind” is one that moves out to sea. In his 1720 pirate tale “Captain Singleton,” Daniel Defoe mentioned winds blowing “off shore” (or “off the shore”) three different times.

In the early 20th century, “offshore” began to move in less literal directions, used for things coming from or situated in another country. (The word “overseas” had already undergone a similar transformation.) The Oxford English Dictionary cites a 1929 fishing industry journal, Pacific Fisherman, on the canning of “offshore tuna”—that is, tuna that is not caught domestically.

After World War II, “offshore” started entering financial contexts as well. Under the Marshall Plan, the U.S. provided aid to war-torn Europe by making it easy for Europeans to purchase manufactured goods. Those goods were typically American-made, but U.S. officials were concerned about such purchases creating commodity shortages and running up prices due to inflation. Thus, the Marshall Plan also allowed for “offshore purchases” of goods from Canada and other countries, sold with American dollars.

In the 1960s, “offshore” started leading a double life, used for activities that were literally conducted off the mainland, like offshore oil drilling, as well as describing more abstract entities moving abroad. A 1962 Wall Street Journal article on the Bahamas, already famous as a tax haven, pointed to the word’s new direction. The lenient tax laws of the island country facilitated the creation of many “U.S. offshore companies,” the Journal reported.

As other English-speaking Caribbean islands joined in the development of “offshore” business activities, the term became enshrined more officially, with “offshore financial center” emerging as something of a euphemism for “tax haven” starting in the 1970s.

As the word “offshore” gained popularity, it spread to other parts of speech. Since the 1980s, it has been used as a verb for moving business operations overseas. “Offshoring” is often conflated with “outsourcing,” though technically speaking, “outsourcing” doesn’t require sending jobs or services out of the country as “offshoring” does. Domestic outsourcing is often called “onshoring.”

The flurry of news around the Panama Papers scandal reveals how “offshore” has turned into a noun as well, as an elliptical version of “offshore account.” The McClatchy news service, for instance, has run headlines this week like “Have an offshore? Maybe you’re feeling indigestion.” With the Mossack Fonseca revelations, “offshores” have suddenly become on-topic.","In the wake of the Panama Papers, a look at the evolution of the word “offshore.”"
"Fast-food workers and labour organizers are set to turn out in support of higher wages in cities across the U.S. Thursday.

Organizers say walkouts are planned in 100 cities, with rallies set for another 100 cities. But it's not clear what the actual turnout will be, how many of the participants are workers and what impact they'll have on restaurant operations.

The actions would mark the largest showing yet over the past year. At a time when there's growing national and international attention on economic disparities, labour unions, worker advocacy groups and Democrats are hoping to build public support to raise the federal minimum wage of $7.25, or about $15,000 a year for full-time work.

In New York City, about 100 protesters carrying signs, blowing whistles and beating drums marched into a McDonald's at around 6:30 a.m. ET; one startled customer grabbed his food and fled as they flooded the restaurant, while another didn't look up from eating and reading amid their chants of ""We can't survive on $7.25!""

Community leaders took turns giving speeches for about 15 minutes until the police arrived and ordered protesters out of the store. The crowd continued to demonstrate outside for about 45 more minutes while a handful of customers remained inside. A McDonald's manager declined to be interviewed and asked that customers not be bothered.

Tyeisha Batts, a 27-year-old employee at Burger King, was among those taking part in the demonstrations planned throughout the day in New York City. She said she has been working at the location for about seven months and earns $7.25 an hour.

""My boss took me off the schedule because she knows I'm participating,"" Batts said.

She said she hasn't been retaliated against but that the manager warned that employees who didn't arrive on time Thursday would be turned away for their shifts. Batts said she can get only between 10 and 20 hours of work a week because her employers don't want to give her enough hours to qualify as a full-time employee. Under the health care overhaul, employers will be required to provide health care coverage to full-time employees.

Despite the growing attention on economic disparities, the push for higher pay in the fast-food industry faces an uphill battle. The industry competes aggressively on low prices and companies have warned that they would need to raise prices if wages were hiked. Most fast-food locations are also owned and operated by franchisees, which lets companies such as McDonald's Corp., Burger King Worldwide Inc. and Yum Brands Inc. say that they don't control worker pay.

However, labour advocates have pointed out that companies control many other aspects of the operations through their franchise agreements, including menus, suppliers and equipment.

Fast-food workers have historically been seen as difficult to unionize, given the industry's high turnover rates. But the Service Employees International Union, which represents more than two million workers in health care, janitorial and other industries, has been providing considerable organizational and financial support to the push for higher pay over the past year.

Berlin Rosen, a political consulting and public relations firm based in New York City, also has been co-ordinating communications efforts and connecting organizers with media outlets.

The National Restaurant Association, an industry lobbying group, said most those protesting were union workers and that ""relatively few"" workers have participated in past actions. It called the demonstrations a ""campaign engineered by national labour groups.""

In the meantime, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat from Nevada, has promised a vote on the wage hike by the end of the year. But the measure is not expected to gain traction in the House, where Republican leaders oppose it.

Supporters of wage hikes have been more successful at the state and local level. California, Connecticut and Rhode Island raised their minimum wages this year. Last month, voters in New Jersey approved a hike in the minimum to $8.25 an hour, up from $7.25 an hour.",Fast-food workers and labour organizers are set to turn out in support of higher wages in cities across the U.S. on Thursday.
"the fourth entry from the filmmaking ministry of Albany, Ga's., Sherwood Baptist Church, proves a particularly clunky, tunnel-visioned vehicle whose overbearing, overlong script nearly smothers the movie's quibble-free message: Fathers must be responsible. And what of the importance of mothers here? It often feels like a case of ""Oh, them.""

Director Alex Kendrick and brother — and producer and co-writer — Stephen are both pastors at Sherwood Baptist.

Despite the story's earnest emotional core, actions and reactions can prove overly simplistic; black-and-white when gray is so clearly called for. The many topics raised — gangs, drugs, immigration, absentee parents, poverty — are examined with didacticism and platitudes instead of by mining their inherent complexities. It's a Scripture-conquers-all approach that perhaps savvily, given the notable success of Sherwood's last picture, ""

,"" unabashedly preaches to the choir.

The plot ricochets among the lives of a quintet of main characters: stodgy Adam (director Kendrick); equitable, African American Nathan (Ken Bevel); playful Shane (Kevin Downes) and unmarried David (Ben Davies) — all Albany police officers — plus Javier (Robert Amaya), a Latino construction worker the four cops befriend. These guys enjoy an easy, jokey camaraderie (lame one-liners and forced ""boys will be boys"" ribbing abound) despite their personal and professional challenges.

But when tragedy strikes Adam, it compels this inexplicably selfish parent to take this fatherhood thing more seriously. To that end, he enlists his four pals to sign a resolution pledging themselves to God and to their fatherly duties. Weirdly, an outdoor pact-commitment ceremony, although a watershed moment, comes off a tad cultish.

While the resolution strengthens the men's bonds with their children, it also loosens the film's footing, turning it into an episodic series of mushy paternal moments and ethical curveballs meant to reinforce the fathers' pledge. Fortunately, an exciting climactic action sequence, which bookends a tense opening scene, provides some much-needed oomph.

Performances are largely mediocre, with Downes and Davies the most effective salesmen of the script's subtext-free dialogue. As the central lead, Alex Kendrick just doesn't possess the charisma, gravitas or camera-ready looks to carry the day (think: a more beatific, humorless

Also troublesome is the movie's doubtlessly inadvertent racial stereotyping. Yes, Nathan is seen as the near-perfect family man and an upright law enforcer, but otherwise, almost every criminal in town is also African American. In addition, the retro portrayal of Latinos — of the sing-songy, ""have a tortilla"" variety — like so much else presented here, is more cringe-worthy than authentically, well, courageous.","""Courageous,""  the fourth entry from the filmmaking ministry of Albany, Ga's., Sherwood Baptist Church,  proves a particularly clunky, tunnel-visioned vehicle whose overbearing, overlong script nearly smothers the movie's quibble-free message: Fathers must be responsible. And what of the importance of mothers here? It often feels like a case of ""Oh, them."""
"Updated MAR 13, 2015 12:58a ET

Maybe the Yankees made the right decision about Masahiro Tanaka after all.

For months, I'd believed the Yankees erred in their determination -- equal parts medical, financial and competitive -- that Tanaka ought to rehabilitate his partially torn elbow ligament rather than undergo Tommy John surgery. I'm not a doctor -- breaking news, I know -- but the plan seemed dubious: If the operation is inevitable, as many experts believe, why not have it now and give Tanaka the best chance to contribute during the latter years of his $155 million contract?

But every ulnar collateral ligament is unique. So is every repertoire, every mind, and every major-league pitcher. And with two perfect innings Thursday against the Atlanta Braves, in only his third game since the injury was diagnosed last July, Tanaka appeared to be a healthy 26-year-old who can perform at an elite level for the foreseeable future.

""He looks like he just came off a Cy Young, MVP, Rookie of the Year (season),"" said Braves catcher Christian Bethancourt, whom Tanaka retired on a groundout in the second inning. ""You can tell. I don't think he sweated a lot.

""From my standpoint, as a player, I don't think he was putting so much effort on (his pitches), and he was really, really good. He was comfortable. I think he feels like, when he's on the mound, he owns it. And he does.""

Braves hitting coach Kevin Seitzer saw Tanaka pitch during the 2014 regular season, when Seitzer held the same position with the Toronto Blue Jays. Seitzer said the pitcher he saw Thursday was no different than the one who beat the Jays three times last year.

""He was good -- down in the zone, mixed his pitches,"" Seitzer said. ""He was throwing strikes. He only went a couple innings, but he had good command. Same as last year, it seemed like . . . He looked normal.""

So, is Tanaka back? We can't be sure. We can't be sure about the health of anyone on a baseball field. Just ask the Blue Jays. Their ascendant ace, 23-year-old Marcus Stroman, was considered the best athlete on the team . . . and then tore the ACL in his left knee during a bunt-coverage drill earlier this week. He's out for the season.

Tanaka, meanwhile, was so efficient in his spring debut -- 19 pitches, 15 strikes -- that he needed to throw 18 pitches in the bullpen afterward to reach his allotment for the evening. Tanaka threw several devastating split-fingered fastballs -- his signature pitch, and one that places particular torque on the compromised UCL.

Fellow Yankees starter CC Sabathia said earlier Thursday that Tanaka has said continually this spring that he feels ""fine."" Well, he was better than fine against the Braves. He was dominant against six major-league hitters, which should allow the Yankees to dream a little about their chances in a winnable American League East.

Sabathia is part of that optimism, too, after an encouraging 29-pitch simulated game of his own, hours before Tanaka took the mound. Yankees manager Joe Girardi said Sabathia was able to push off his lower body effectively, following the right knee surgery that ended his 2014 season. Sabathia, 34, said his body hasn't felt this strong in spring training since 2012.

To the extent that Tanaka and Sabathia are the bellwethers for the Yankees' postseason hopes in 2015 -- as I believe they are -- Thursday was a rousing success. Yes, the day also included the disappointing news that No. 5 starter Chris Capuano is probably out for all of April with a quadriceps injury. But if Tanaka, Sabathia, Michael Pineda and Nathan Eovaldi can do a credible job in the top four spots, then Girardi should be able to negotiate April with Adam Warren or Esmil Rogers taking a semi-regular turn (thanks to off days and inevitable rainouts).

The larger divisional landscape is favorable, too: Stroman's injury has muted much of the excitement over Toronto's bid to end a two-decade playoff drought . . . The Yankees hired away a top reliever (Andrew Miller) from the defending division champion Orioles . . . A healthy Tanaka is better than any pitcher on the rival Red Sox pitching staff.

For months, the Yankees have received criticism for not signing Max Scherzer or trading for Cole Hamels. Thursday, the greatest prize of the previous offseason was on full display, just as good as he ever was.","New York Yankees starting pitcher Masahiro Tanaka looks strong in spring training debut, after opting for rehab and not Tommy John surgery. And, with CC Sabathia pitching in a simulated game, Jon Paul Morosi says suddenly the Yankees look like they could contend in the AL East."
"ATLANTA – Dan Uggla set an Atlanta record by extending his hitting streak to 32 games with a home run against the Chicago Cubs on Friday night.

Uggla hit another homer in the fifth inning — the team's fifth of the game off Chicago's Carlos Zambrano.

Zambrano was ejected by plate umpire Tim Timmons after throwing two inside pitches to Chipper Jones, the second going all the way to the backstop.

Uggla's streak, which began on July 5, is the longest in the majors this season. He began the night tied for the longest in Atlanta Braves history with Rico Carty, who hit in 31 straight in 1970.

Tommy Holmes holds the franchise record with 37 as a member of the Boston Braves in 1945.

Uggla hit an 0-1 pitch from Zambrano over the center-field wall in the second inning to extend his streak. He added another homer to left-center, giving him 26 for the season, after Freddie Freeman's homer in the fifth.

Jones and Jose Constanza also hit homers off Zambrano.

Uggla entered Friday night's game batting .355 (44 for 124) with 12 homers and 29 RBIs during the streak, but only .224 overall.

The Braves unloaded on Zambrano after seeing former manager Bobby Cox's No. 6 retired in a pregame ceremony.",Dan Uggla set an Atlanta record by extending his hitting streak to 32 games with a home run against the Chicago Cubs on Friday night.
"FILE - In this March 27, 2012, file photo, composer James Horner arrives at the 'Titanic 3D' UK film premiere at the Royal Albert Hall in Kensington, West London. A single-engine plane registered to the Oscar-winning ""Titanic"" composer crashed Monday, June 22, 2015, in Southern California, but the identity of the one person who died has not been released. Jay Cooper, an attorney for Horner, said the plane was one of several owned by the 61-year-old composer. (AP Photo/Joel Ryan, File) (A2012)

June 22, 2015: Scattered debris remains on the ground following a plane crash near the town of Ventucopa, Calif. (Mike Eliason/Santa Barbara County Fire Department via AP)

Fears for the life of Oscar-winning film composer James Horner increased late Monday after his lawyer revealed that no one has heard from the 61-year-old since a single-engine plane registered to him crashed in Southern California hours earlier.

Jay Cooper, an attorney for Horner, told the Associated Press the plane was one of several owned by the ""Titanic"" composer, adding ""It was his plane, and if he wasn't in it, he would've called.""

Ventura County fire spokesman Mike Lindbery said the crash happened around 9:30 a.m. Monday in the Los Padres National Forest. The pilot, whose name has not been released, was killed. No one else was on board. Crews were called in to extinguish a fire that erupted in vegetation surrounding the remote crash site, about 100 miles northwest of Los Angeles.

Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Ian Gregor said the plane was an S-312 Tucano MK1 turbo-prop with two seats.

Horner has been nominated for 10 Academy Awards, winning two for 1997's best picture, ""Titanic."" He composed the film's score and its enduring theme song, ""My Heart Will Go On,"" sung by Celine Dion.

His scores for ""Alien,"" ""Apollo 13,"" ""Field of Dreams,"" ""Braveheart,"" ""A Beautiful Mind,"" ""House of Sand and Fog"" and ""Avatar"" also earned Oscar nods, as did his original song, ""Somewhere Out There,"" from ""An American Tail.""

The Associated Press contributed to this report.","A single-engine plane registered to Oscar-winning composer James Horner has crashed in Southern California, but the identity of the one person who died has not been released."
"The President of the United States, yesterday, approved the Loan and Treasury bill perfected by Congress the day before, and this measure is now the law of the land. It creates a National Currency of United States Notes of the denominations of five dollars and upwards, made lawful money, and a legal tender for all debts, public and private, and in all payments to and from the Government, other than for Customs duties to the United States, and Interest on the Public Debt by the United States. The total amount of this currency authorized is not to exceed $150,000,000, including the $60,000,000 of United States Notes issued under the Act of July 17. These being made receivable by that Act, for all public dues, are now authorized to be accepted in place of Gold for Customs Duties; but the whole issue is to be withdrawn and canceled, and regular legal tender United States Notes substituted, as soon as practicable. The Customs Duties, whether in Gold or United States Notes, are specifically pledged for the interest on the Public Debt, which is to be invariably paid in gold.

The loan authorized by this act is limited to five hundred million of dollars, on the estimate of the Secretary of the Treasury, for the service of the remaining four months of the present fiscal year and the succeeding fiscal year. Only one form of loan is prescribed -- a twenty year 6 cent. stock, coupon or registered, which may be redeemed, at the pleasure of the Government, at any time after five years at the par value thereof. Into this Stock the United States Notes of circulation are made convertible, the conversion not to affect the sum total of United States Notes, legal tender, which the Treasury is authorized to keep in circulation.

The order issued by the Secretary of War, prohibiting the publication of military news, does not, it is understood, apply so much to movements which have already been made as to those which are to take place. In publishing the former, however, it will be necessary to avoid all details of military force, and all statements from which the number, position or strength of the National armies can be inferred. Descriptions of battles, therefore, can be given in full, unless there should arise a necessity for a temporary suppression.

From Tennessee the news is meagre. It seems that on the rebel evacuation of Nashville, the Union citizens of the place had sent a steamboat to Clarksville, which towed up one of our gunboats for their protection. Gov. HARRIS and the rebel force, as mentioned yesterday, retreated to Murfreesboro, where the rebel Governor delivered a savage war speech. Martial law has been declared in West Tennessee. It is to cease its operations as soon as the loyal citizens organize a Government. Postal facilities will follow the flag.

From Cairo we learn that the mortar fleet is finished. We have no news of the evacuation of Columbus. The rebels say they will make a stand at Columbus, Randolph and Memphis -- the three fortified points on the Mississippi River.

Advices from Santa Fe, New-Mexico, to the 10th inst., are received. The rebel SIBLEY is reported to be at Fort Thomas, fifty miles from Fort Craig, advancing toward the latter place, but with few supplies, and poor transportation. This expedition was expected to result in a total failure.

We learn from Wilmington, N.C., that a part of the gunboats attached to Gen. BURNSIDE's Expedition have entered Roanoke River. This stream is formed by the junction of the Staunton and Dan Rivers, near the southern boundary of Virginia, and flows into the head of Albemarle Sound. It is navigable to within a short distance of Weldon at the intersection of the railroads running to Wilmington, Gaston, Hicksford, Norfolk, and other points.

We learn from Fortress Monroe, that the attempt to lay the telegraph cable across the Chesapeake Bay was a failure, on account of the severe gale of Monday night. About sixteen miles were payed out successfully, however, before operations were stopped, and the end is buoyed up, so that a connection can be made. The steamer Hoboken, engaged in the enterprise, was wrecked on Cape Henry, but her crew escaped. The gunboat R.B. Forbes is also reported ashore at Nag's Head.

The Cincinnati papers furnish us with a number of interesting and important items regarding affairs in the West. The correspondent of the Commercial says that Gen. BUSHROD JOHNSON and all his staff, except Capt. MOORMAN, escaped from Fort Donelson on Monday last, after they had been prisoners but thirty-six hours. No trick was resorted to in order to effect their escape; they simply mounted their horses and rode through the lines. A correspondent of the Gazette reports that Gen. GRANT and a portion of his staff on the 21st, accompanied by Col. WALLACE, of the Eleventh Illinois, proceeded, under a flag of truce, up the Cumberland beyond Clarksville, in the direction of Nashville, where they met Gov. HARRIS, who, after an interview, asked an armistice and cessation of hostilities for three days, when he promised that the National flag should float over every fortified point in Tennessee.","The President of the United States, yesterday, approved the Loan and Treasury bill perfected by Congress the day before, and this measure is now the law of the land. It creates a National Currency of United States Notes of the denominations of five dollars and upwards, made lawful money, and a legal tender for all debts, public and private,"
"An artist's depiction of Rome burning - danielucas.com

With the European sovereign debt crisis escalating dramatically, after Italian bond yields hit record highs on Wednesday and France’s bond spread over German bunds continues to widen, the possibility that the EU will fail to find a solution and will be forced to break up is now very real.

Nouriel Roubini, the famed NYU economist dubbed Dr. Doom for his ultra-bearish predictions, argues that without the ECB engaging in QE (drop rates down to zero and massively purchase bonds) and a strong stimulus program from Germany, the European Union will not survive.

Italian bond markets might have passed the point of no return on Wednesday, when yields on 10-year sovereigns traded around 7.5. According to High Frequency Economics, Italian bond price action erased about €50 billion of wealth on Wednesday. The following day, the Italian Treasury placed €5 billion in 1-year bonds at a rate of 6.087%, helping to materialize a clear yield curve inversion.

While it appears possible that Italy may be able to save itself, Roubini doesn’t believe so. According to the FT’s James Mackintosh, Rome’s finances can be sustained for about a year at current, and slightly higher rates.

On the surface, the problem is investor confidence and political willingness from France, Germany, and the ECB to bail the Italians out, a move that seems more tenable now that PM Silvio Berlusconi has agreed to resign. But on a fundamental level, the problem is much deeper than it seems. Roubini thinks the problem is so bad that it will lead to a debt restructuring of Italy’s massive €1.9 trillion in sovereign liabilities, along with a return to Italy’s former currency. In other words, the execution of a dreaded euro break up.

The argument appears to have been that Italy, and Spain, face a problem of liquidity, unlike their battered fellow PIIGS which also face a problem of solvency. Italy does have a primary surplus and, even though unproductive, counts with a working economy. But, Roubini argues, once an illiquid but solvent country loses market credibility, and is practically pushed out of global markets by widening spreads, its debt dynamic becomes unsustainable and the country itself becomes insolvent.

Italy is indeed nearing the point where it will lose market access, as Barclays’ analysts suggest. As the France, Germany, and the ECB put pressure on Italy to get its reforms going before providing support, bond yields reach a level “which might trigger more and more capitulation selling by traditional investors in sovereign bonds. The latter could well lead to an erosion of the investor base in Italian sovereign debt,” which indeed could keep yields from ever falling to sustainable levels.

At the same time, rising Italian bond yields hurt Italy’s creditors. Major French and German banks, along with big names in the U.S. like Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, and Jefferies have exposures to European sovereign debt and have paid the consequences in terms of share prices. MF Global couldn’t take it and was forced into bankruptcy. High Frequency economics suggests that banking needs for capital are in the €1.4 to €2.5 trillion. And that doesn’t factor in major U.S. company sales exposure to Europe, with firms like GM, Ford, McDonald’s and even GE greatly exposed.

Bailout money is greatly needed, then, with Italy seemingly looking for a lender of last resort to help it pay its debts and banks in trouble due to their exposures. At the same time, austerity and reform have a negative impact on aggregate demand and supply, Roubini notes, and that is particularly worrisome given Italy, and Europe’s already slowing output. Italy would need to maintain at least a 5% primary surplus to finance its debt, Roubini believes.

The only solution, then, is a restructuring of debt, “that will cause significant damage and losses to creditors in Italy and abroad” and won’t even restore growth and competitiveness. “That requires a real depreciation that cannot occur via a weaker euro given German and ECB policies. It cannot occur either through depressionary deflation or structural reforms that take too long to reduce labor costs.” Roubini explains:

So if you cannot devalue, or grow, or deflate to a real depreciation, the only option left will end up being to give up on the euro and to go back to the lira and other national currencies. Of course that will trigger a forced conversion of euro debts into new national currency debts.

The only way to stop the upcoming disaster, according to Roubini, is quantitative easing. The ECB would have to drop interest rates to zero, effectively helping to depreciate the currency, and begin massively buying up Italian and peripheral debt. The euro would fall to parity with the dollar, Roubini says, and Germany and other “core” countries would have to implement fiscal stimulus plans to compensate for the fall in aggregate demand caused by austerity in peripheral nations.

It’s clear why they call him Dr. Doom.","Nouriel Roubini, Dr. Doom, believes Europe is in serious trouble as Italy is at risk of becoming illiquid and insolvent, losing market access, rendering it unable to service its debt and grow, forcing an EU exit."
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