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The Obama administration today released details of its plan to collect a new bank tax. But heavens, don’t call it that; it’s the “financial crisis responsibility fee,” not the “financial crisis responsibility tax.” This labeling choice was probably a good idea: The term “tax” seems to be a dirty word, according to a new study from three Columbia psychologists. Bradford Plumer at The New Republic summarizes the research here: Test subjects were broken up into two groups, and each group was allowed to pick between pricier and cheaper versions of various items like airline tickets. Group A was told that the more expensive items included the price of a “carbon tax,” whose proceeds would go toward clean-energy development. Group B was told that the costlier items included the price of a “carbon offset,” whose proceeds would go toward clean-energy development. Exact same policy, just different names for each. You can guess what happened next. In the “offset” group, Democrats, Republicans and independents all flocked toward the pricier item. They were perfectly happy to pay an extra surcharge to fund CO2 reduction — even Republicans gushed about the benefits of doing so. Not only that, but most of the group supported making the surcharge mandatory. In the “tax” group, however, Democrats were the only ones willing to pay for the costlier item. Republicans in this group were much more inclined to grumble about how much more expensive the tax made things. Labels really do matter. I wonder what would have happened if a third group had been given the option of a “carbon fee” — and how things would have looked if the tax-offset-fee had been imposed upon an outside group of much-reviled bankers, rather than the study participants themselves. My sense is that “tax” conjures up images big, ravenous governments sucking the little guy dry; “offset” connotes restoring things to their natural balance; and “fee,” like “fine,” sounds somehow punitive or compensatory, a punishment for wrongdoing or a bill for services rendered.

The wording "financial crisis responsibility fee" may avoid what a study has found to be a dirty word.

Despite all the talk about reducing energy consumption in the data center, on the desktop and in a variety of mobile devices that interface with it, companies are expanding their consumption of electricity faster than they are saving it. While many say they have adopted a very deep shade of green, they are decidedly less green than the image they paint. For the CIO, this is largely good marketing--and a bit of a sleight of hand. Mobile devices and notebook computers do consume less power than a desktop, but they typically get charged while employees are home or on the road, in cars, hotel rooms or even airports. Mobilizing a workforce may lower a corporation's energy bill, but it really isn't reducing the energy consumption tied to that corporation. And mobile employees burn fuel when they're on the road, so the net effect is definitely negative. Inside the data center, there is such low-hanging fruit for saving power that you have to wonder why it took so long to address these problems. Servers that are no longer in use still hum along while others use full power to run a single application. Virtualization may solve some of this, but the bigger problems are data mining and an overall architecture for what's needed, what isn't and how it should be organized. Because cooling systems in data centers are poorly planned and haphazardly implemented, that cool air never effectively reaches some servers, forcing air conditioners to work overtime and burn through more power. These are easy fixes, and they are starting to be addressed. But they won't solve the power needs caused by the digitization of everything that used to be on paper. Images and videos require huge amounts of storage, and quick access to those records will increase power consumption in coming years. The fact that they are run on servers that draw lower power is a good thing. But basic math says the aggregation of data will ultimately consume more power than is being used today. The federal government's push to digitize medical records is a case in point. The amount of power needed to store and access an MRI image is significantly higher than what's needed to store Tolstoy's War And Peace. A bank's storage of a check image may be convenient for customers, but it takes significantly more power to store, access and display than a basic spreadsheet. And we haven't even touched the subject of videos, which are becoming more popular as a way of communicating across a company and to the outside world. Outsourcing and cloud computing are more efficient in some respects, namely server utilization, but they also are a way of pushing energy consumption outside a company's data center. A company doesn't consume less energy by letting another company run its applications; it merely buries the electric bill inside a service contract. In the short term, a company that regularly refreshes its servers, virtualizes applications, fixes glaring problems and outsources its non-core functions will gain a shiny green glow. The CIO can point to lower energy bills to show that energy consumption is consistently going down and the public relations team can build a case of just how politically correct the company has become. But the real consumption by the company will continue to rise. Even the most aggressive document retention policies will, at best, hold the line. Adding different types of documents ultimately will increase storage needs, and power consumption will rise with it. Sooner or later, someone is going to figure out where all the energy costs are buried. What is green today may look significantly more tarnished five years from now. Painting The Data Center Green

Outsourcing energy costs isn't reducing total energy consumption.

Our reporting last week on a Brookings Institution study advocating that part of the U.S. Postal Service be sold off drew angry and passionate responses from postal employees, unions and liberal bloggers. Elaine Kamarck, a former Clinton administration official, joined conservatives in arguing in her Brookings report that a money-losing post office cannot survive as a government entity in the Internet age, which has sapped its First Class mail business. Karmack says the best path forward for the Postal Service requires breaking it in two. One arm would continue to deliver the mail five days a week. The other would stake out new business with no encumbrances. [Should the Postal Service be sold to save it? ] The two largest postal unions, fearful that thousands of jobs would be lost through privatization, have said for a long time that the Postal Service’s multibillion-dollar deficits are artificial. The agency’s eight consecutive annual losses, totaling more than $52 billion, are largely due to its obligation (imposed in 2006 by Congress as part of a sweeping postal bill) to pay $5.5 billion a year and counting toward the health benefits of future retirees. Yes, the volume of First Class mail — the Postal Service’s most profitable product — is in a downward spiral, union leaders acknowledge. Yes, the recession brought still steeper losses. But if not for the pre-funding mandate, required by no other public or private entities, they argue, the post office would be making money today, with the recession over and its package business booming. “She jumped to incorrect conclusions about what’s driving the losses,” Jim Sauber, chief of staff for the National Association of Letter Carriers, the largest postal union, said of Kamarck’s report. “The conventional wisdom is that the Internet is killing the post service,” said Sauber, an economist. “I’m not denying that the Internet is having profound effects both positive and negative. But most of the loss is from the pre-funding [requirement] and the recession itself.” The agency’s finances have stabilized in the past two years, with revenue more than covering expenses by about $1.2 billion during the first three quarters of this year. That’s without the pre-funding payment, which postal officials have now defaulted on multiple times, or long-term obligations to workmen’s compensation costs. The higher revenue is largely driven by cost cutting, from shrinking the workforce to closing mail-sorting plants. Numerous bills in Congress have called for eliminating the retiree payment, a budget maneuver at the time that most postal observers agree more than covers the agency’s obligations to future retirees. However, Congress has so far shown little appetite for fixing postal finances. But even without the pre-funding mandate, experts say the post office is not in a healthy financial position long-term. It remains on the Government Accountability Office’s high-risk list, with auditors characterizing its short-and long-term outlook as a “serious financial crisis” earlier this year. Workmen’s compensation debts, $15 billion owed to the U.S. Treasury, lagging investment in new vehicles, equipment and maintenance — these are persistent weaknesses. And most of a 3-cent rate increase that postal officials were able to count on for hundreds of millions of dollars in new revenue since 2013 is set to expire this spring. Still, the unions don’t buy the assumption that the Postal Service is in such free fall that the best option is to sell it. They also don’t buy the claim that taking its most profitable arm, its package business, private would come close to covering the expenses of its unprofitable arm, universal delivery of the regular mail. “We would deny the public the right to universal and uniform mail service at reasonable cost,” said Mark Dimonstein, president of the American Postal Workers Union. “It will be about whether someone can make a dollar as opposed to a right that has its foundation in the U.S. Constitution.” Sauber and Dimondstein say their commitment to saving jobs for their members goes hand in hand with their concern that private companies would simply cherry-pick the most profitable mail routes. “Who’s going to serve Montana or Utah?” Sauber said. “You can’t make money delivering the mail there. We’d fight like hell to protect the standard of living of our members, but what you would have is a much smaller, weaker postal industry.” Dimondstein said the exploding e-commerce business survives on the public infrastructure of the postal system: Post offices, mail carriers, mail sorting plants. “There’s not a private entity that could do all that.” Lisa Rein covers the federal workforce and issues that concern the management of government.

Congress is the real problem facing the Post Office and the one who can fix it, labor unions say.

AUSTIN, Texas – A federal appeals court ruled Wednesday that Texas' strict voter ID law violates the Voting Rights Act and ordered changes before the November election. The ruling from the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals instructs a lower court to make changes that fix the "discriminatory effect" of the 2011 law, but to do so in a way that disrupts this year's election season as little as possible. President Barack Obama's administration took the unusual step of deploying the weight of the U.S. Justice Department into the case when it challenged the law, which requires Texas residents to show one of seven forms of approved identification. The state and other supporters say the Texas law prevents fraud. Opponents say it discriminates by requiring forms of ID that are more difficult to obtain for low-income, African-American and Latino voters. "We are extremely pleased with this outcome. This law will no longer prevent eligible voters from casting a ballot this November," attorney Gerry Herbert, a member of the legal team that challenged the law, said following Wednesday's ruling. The Texas Democratic Party also immediately celebrated, declaring that "the most restrictive and discriminatory Republican voter ID law in country has been struck down." The New Orleans-based 5th Circuit agreed to rehear the issue after a three-judge panel ruled last year that the law violated the Voting Rights Act. Lawyers for Texas have argued that the state makes free IDs easy to obtain. They said any inconveniences or costs involved in getting one do not substantially burden the right to vote, and that the Justice Department and other plaintiffs had failed to prove that the law resulted in denying anyone the right to vote. Opponents countered in briefs that trial testimony indicated various bureaucratic and economic burdens associated with the law — for instance, the difficulty in finding and purchasing a proper birth certificate to obtain an ID. A brief filed by the American Civil Liberties Union cited testimony in other voter ID states indicating numerous difficulties faced by people, including burdensome travel and expenses to get required documentation to obtain IDs. Texas doesn't recognize university IDs from college students, but it does accept concealed handgun licenses as proof of identity. Despite being struck down by a federal district judge in 2014, the law has been enforced in recent elections. The decision came so close to Election Day that the 5th Circuit panel allowed it to be enforced that year to avoid voter confusion. In April, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected an emergency appeal to stop Texas from enforcing the law pending the current appeal. But the court said it could revisit the issue as the November elections approach.

A federal appeals court has ruled that Texas' strict voter ID law violates the Voting Rights Act and has ordered changes before the November election.

Nov 27, 2012 05:56 PM EST I said the other day I’d post a who-speaks-for-ducks item and so here we go. There’s just no getting around it. Because I wouldn’t want to shatter my credibility. I’m a stand-up blogger and this was a direct promise to post an item headlined in such a fashion. And don’t think I’m stalling here trying to remember what my point was going to be. Oh right: Fiscal cliff, Grand Bargain, tax hikes, spending cuts. We have to make some tough decisions. And on the spending side, we have to decide if we’re going to hack away at the growth in entitlement spending, or instead find savings through cuts in discretionary spending, which is to say cuts in the things that government actually does, which is to say cuts to such agencies as the National Park Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service — which is to say ducks. Well, now that I think of it, there’s an obvious answer: Ducks Unlimited. The fact is, there’s a lobby for everything. There’s a trout lobby! Trout Unlimited, or TU as we call it in my neighborhood. If you’re a lobbyist in this town, right now is game time. This is the flippin’ Super Bowl. You gotta gear up and get out there in the middle of the scrum. If you don’t protect your measure of gruel you’ll lose it to someone who’s hungrier and meaner. The public-employee unions are revved up, as is AARP and various advocacy groups like Fix the Debt and the National Committee to Protect Social Security and Medicare (which is very upset about the idea of switching to chained CPI as you can imagine). And you know all those tax “loopholes” that people keep saying they want to close? Every one of them has a constituency, and a lobbying operation, and a person in a swank corner office staring out on K Street. And a membership at Congressional. A corner table at Charlie Palmer’s steakhouse. A Rolodex the size of a Doberman. [Fogey mental note: Do people still have Rolodexes?] [And Dobermans??] Loopholes and tax breaks are a major industry here in Washington. The big tax fight between the Ds and Rs is over how to raise more tax revenue — by eliminating loopholes and tax breaks, or by raising marginal rates. The Republicans would rather do the latter. But you know the Republicans have friends who create loopholes for a living and hand over pallets of cash for re-election campaigns. The average Republican can say, with a straight face, “Some of my best friends are loopholes.” There is no solution to the long-term fiscal picture that does not involve some level of pain. Avoidance of pain is the job of the people representing the various interest groups. We know, for example, what AARP thinks about cuts to entitlement programs. It is a measure of the success of that effort that when the time came to create brutal sequestration cuts, entitlements were protected while discretionary programs (ducks, etc.) were splayed on the chopping block. I do not know how this will play out, but in all likelihood the future will be used again as the great slush fund for the present, and any Grand Bargain will likely involve efforts to hide the pain, obscure it, mask it, distract from it, suppress it, and ultimately lie about it. Someone will say: “This is going to hurt me more than it’s going to hurt you.” And that will be a lie.

Gear up. Game time.

What's the old adage? If you can't beat them, join them? Well, it seems that's exactly what Tesla is doing. The upstart EV automaker has applied for a dealership license in Michigan. This is a change, of course, for Tesla because, up until now, it has been selling its cars around the country in company-run showrooms that sell direct to customers — thereby circumventing the dealership model. However, in 2014 Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder signed a bill into law that banned direct sales of vehicles, closing the loophole Tesla has been exploiting around the U.S. to avoid opening dealers. "Tesla is committed to being able to serve its customers in Michigan and is working with the legislature to accomplish that," A Tesla spokesperson told Mashable. "The existing law in Michigan is very harmful to consumers. Tesla will take all appropriate steps to fix this broken situation." The difference between what Tesla is doing and, say, how Chevrolet sells cars is that, rather than having a dealership owned and operated by an independent company, Tesla doesn't have a middleman hawking its cars. This allows it to control and streamline the experience and avoid the grossness of a normal dealership — think old coffee and popcorn machines. The dealership license Tesla has applied for is a "Class A" license that requires the company to sell both new and used cars as well as offer a repair facility. Rather than turning over the reigns to an unknown entity, Tesla could have a former employee open a franchise dealership. This person would likely be required to operate the dealership just like a current Tesla direct-sales store. Though the company has applied for a dealer license, it isn't happy about the direct-sales ban and still aims to fight it. "As recently amended, current Michigan law prohibits Tesla from being able to license its own sales and service operations in the state," A Tesla spokesperson said. "Submission of the application is intended to seek the Secretary of State’s confirmation of this prohibition. Once confirmed, Tesla will review any options available to the Company to overturn this anti-consumer law." The decision on Tesla's application could take several months. No matter how the decision comes down, however, it seems Tesla isn't done fighting the direct-sales battle. Have something to add to this story? Share it in the comments.

Since direct sales is illegal in Michigan, Tesla has applied for a dealership license that it could have a former employee operate like a Tesla store.

Happy New Year and welcome to the 60 Minutes/Vanity Fair poll for January 2015. This month's poll takes on fear, a topic that is becoming increasingly controversial as it relates to terrorism. Sony's recent decision to cancel/delay the premiere of the movie "The Interview" has sparked a lively debate around the country about whether we should ever give in to the fear of threatened attacks, especially when they come from nameless and faceless hackers. Fear in humans has helped us to thrive as a species, using the "fight or flight" response which we possess instinctively to help us survive for thousands of years. Fear can also paralyze us. In his famous Inauguration speech in 1933, FDR famously said, "the only thing we have to fear, is fear itself.... nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror." He was referring to the economic fear and uncertainty that had gripped the nation. FDR's advice was to "face our fears as our forefathers did, who conquered their perils because they believed and were not afraid." Here's wishing that the New Year brings us freedom from fear and a continuing renewal of hope and optimism. And now the results... Three out of 10 Americans think that anger has caused the most harm in the world, followed by fear 25 percent, envy 21 percent, depression 17 percent, boredom three percent and pity one percent. Ah "what fools these mortals be"... the folly of humans and our emotions are as old as the Bible. Our emotions have caused more harm in the world than can ever be known. They have also caused more good and more love and more kindness. Many people are always aspiring to "the better angels of their nature" and there are many others who are not. That's just the way of the world. A whopping 82 percent of Americans are not afraid to say that FDR's famous quote constitutes a good way to view the world and only a paltry 14 percent think it is mostly silly nonsense. His words were timely and gave Americans inspirational leadership when they needed it most. He helped to create the Social Security Act of 1935 which has provided much needed help and dignity to countless Americans who had previously feared that they may become destitute in old age. Thirty-seven percent of Americans are most anxious when they are walking alone at night on a city street. Other activities that cause anxiety include: being stopped for a traffic violation 27 percent, hearing a pilot warn of turbulence 15 percent, having your annual physical nine percent and answering a phone without caller ID six percent. More women (53 percent) fear being alone on a city street at night and more men (34 percent) fear being stopped for a traffic violation. Here's a little advice for the six percent who fear answering a phone without caller ID, don't pick it up. Nearly half of Americans think clownophobia is the most ridiculous fear. Next in order were fear of commitment 13 percent, dentists 10 percent, needles eight, public speaking eight percent and flying seven percent. Whether they are ridiculous or irrational these fears can be very real to those who experience them. If you have seen the mini-series "It" based on the Stephen King novel, you probably know how creepy killer clowns can be. Fifty-seven percent of Americans say they fear the wrath of God the most, followed by their spouse 15 percent, their parents 11 percent and their boss seven percent. No one wants to feel the wrath of their spouse, parents or boss, but America has always been known as a God-fearing nation and this confirms that it still is. More than three out of four Americans say they are more likely to stay awake thinking about things that are already on their mind as opposed to one in five who say they lie awake thinking about things that are unknown and unexpected. When it comes to which method they most fear might put an end to mankind, 35 percent of Americans chose the nuclear option. Twenty-three percent went viral, 15 percent got a rise out of choosing the Rapture, another 15 percent chose the "Inconvenient Truth" of global warming and eight percent most feared meeting the same fate as the dinosaurs. Six out of 10 Americans think that people who risk their lives to climb Mount Everest are mostly fearless and 35 percent think they are mostly reckless. Over the years, many people who have attempted the climb have lost their lives. Those who train and prepare well may be called fearless and those who do not may be called reckless. Two out of three Americans think that being loved around the world would make the United States more secure and three out of 10 think that being feared would make us more secure. The majority agrees with the Beatles that "all you need is love" and the minority agrees with the famous Italian political theorist Niccolo Machiavelli who said "it is better to be feared than loved, if you cannot have both." The foreign powers that Americans currently fear the most are ISIS 38 percent, China 29 percent, Russia 19 percent and to a much lesser degree Liberia two percent and WikiLeaks two percent. You can watch the CBS Evening News almost any night and see why Americans fear these powers. ISIS kills and terrorizes innocent people. China has a huge population, economic clout and advanced cyber-capabilities. Russia is becoming more isolated and unpredictable on the world stage. More women feared ISIS (47 percent) while more men feared China (37 percent). JFK said, "the cost of freedom is always high, but Americans have always paid it." Most Americans support the price we pay to protect our citizens from the dangers posed by foreign powers. Nearly three in 10 Americans think that the actions of the passengers on Flight 93 showed the most courage, followed by Harriet Tubman 21 percent, Martin Luther King 16 percent, the signers of the Declaration of Independence 13 percent, JFK 10 percent and Jonas Salk six percent. Those passengers made a courageous decision in the heat of a conflict they knew might mean their deaths but they did it anyway. As an escaped slave, Harriet Tubman risked being recaptured and worse. MLK risked incarceration and as it turned out his eventual death to lead his people in Selma. As Ben Franklin mentioned upon signing the Declaration of Independence, "we must now hang together, or we shall surely hang separately." JFK showed great leadership during the Cuban Missile Crisis and Jonas Salk selflessly risked his health to save countless people from the ravages of polio. These episodes are just what JFK was writing about in "Profiles in Courage." This poll was conducted by telephone from November 5-9, 2014 among 1,018 adults nationwide. Data collection was conducted on behalf of CBS News by SSRS of Media, PA. Phone numbers were dialed from samples of both standard land-line and cell phones. The error due to sampling for results based on the entire sample could be plus or minus 3 percentage points. The error for other subgroups may be higher. Interviews were conducted in English and Spanish. This poll release conforms to the Standards of Disclosure of the National Council on Public Poll. Read more about this poll © 2015 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Do Americans want the world to love or fear the U.S.? The results are in for this month's 60 Minutes/Vanity Fair poll on fear

LINDSTROM, Minn. — Ki Gulbranson owns a logo apparel shop, deals in jewelry on the side and referees youth soccer games. He makes about $39,000 a year and wants you to know that he does not need any help from the federal government. He says that too many Americans lean on taxpayers rather than living within their means. He supports politicians who promise to cut government spending. In 2010, he printed T-shirts for the Tea Party campaign of a neighbor, Chip Cravaack, who ousted this region’s long-serving Democratic congressman. Yet this year, as in each of the past three years, Mr. Gulbranson, 57, is counting on a payment of several thousand dollars from the federal government, a subsidy for working families called the earned-income tax credit. He has signed up his three school-age children to eat free breakfast and lunch at federal expense. And Medicare paid for his mother, 88, to have hip surgery twice. There is little poverty here in Chisago County, northeast of Minneapolis, where cheap housing for commuters is gradually replacing farmland. But Mr. Gulbranson and many other residents who describe themselves as self-sufficient members of the American middle class and as opponents of government largess are drawing more deeply on that government with each passing year. Dozens of benefits programs provided an average of $6,583 for each man, woman and child in the county in 2009, a 69 percent increase from 2000 after adjusting for inflation. In Chisago, and across the nation, the government now provides almost $1 in benefits for every $4 in other income. Older people get most of the benefits, primarily through Social Security and Medicare, but aid for the rest of the population has increased about as quickly through programs for the disabled, the unemployed, veterans and children. The government safety net was created to keep Americans from abject poverty, but the poorest households no longer receive a majority of government benefits. A secondary mission has gradually become primary: maintaining the middle class from childhood through retirement. The share of benefits flowing to the least affluent households, the bottom fifth, has declined from 54 percent in 1979 to 36 percent in 2007, according to a Congressional Budget Office analysis published last year. And as more middle-class families like the Gulbransons land in the safety net in Chisago and similar communities, anger at the government has increased alongside. Many people say they are angry because the government is wasting money and giving money to people who do not deserve it. But more than that, they say they want to reduce the role of government in their own lives. They are frustrated that they need help, feel guilty for taking it and resent the government for providing it. They say they want less help for themselves; less help in caring for relatives; less assistance when they reach old age. The expansion of government benefits has become an issue in the presidential campaign. Rick Santorum, who won 57 percent of the vote in Chisago County in the Republican presidential caucuses last week, has warned of “the narcotic of government dependency.” Newt Gingrich has compared the safety net to a spider web. Mitt Romney has said the nation must choose between an “entitlement society” and an “opportunity society.” All the candidates, including Ron Paul, have promised to cut spending and further reduce taxes. The problem by now is familiar to most. Politicians have expanded the safety net without a commensurate increase in revenues, a primary reason for the government’s annual deficits and mushrooming debt. In 2000, federal and state governments spent about 37 cents on the safety net from every dollar they collected in revenue, according to a New York Times analysis. A decade later, after one Medicare expansion, two recessions and three rounds of tax cuts, spending on the safety net consumed nearly 66 cents of every dollar of revenue. The recent recession increased dependence on government, and stronger economic growth would reduce demand for programs like unemployment benefits. But the long-term trend is clear. Over the next 25 years, as the population ages and medical costs climb, the budget office projects that benefits programs will grow faster than any other part of government, driving the federal debt to dangerous heights. Americans are divided about the way forward. Seventy percent of respondents to a recent New York Times poll said the government should raise taxes. Fifty-six percent supported cuts in Medicare and Social Security. Forty-four percent favored both.

The government safety net was created to keep Americans from abject poverty, but the poorest households no longer receive a majority of government benefits.

PESHAWAR, Pakistan -- Dozens of their friends and coworkers have been murdered for distributing polio vaccine here, but a resolute band of Pakistani women are risking their lives to fight the rapid spread of the disease, defying Islamic extremists who see inoculation as a CIA plot. "My first priority," one polio worker, whose sister-in-law and niece were both gunned down a year ago as they distributed the vaccine near Karachi, said in broken English, "I want polio finished and leave Pakistan." NBC News' Ann Curry visited the front lines of the international campaign against polio in Pakistan earlier this year to meet some of the women who go door to door to pass out the vaccine, which can prevent early death or a lifetime of paralysis or disfigurement. They risk their lives for the equivalent of about $2.50 a day. GulNaz, the worker whose sister-in-law and niece were killed as they were making their rounds to inoculate children, said she doesn't want their sacrifices to be in vain. "Their deaths gave me a new resolve," said GulNaz, who asked that she be identified only by her first name out of safety concerns for her family. "Their sacrifice makes my mission more meaningful. I'm not stopping now." Polio worker GulNaz, in brown, leads her vaccination team in Karachi. The vaccination drive has taken on a new urgency in the wake of the World Health Organization's declaration of a global health emergency for polio on May 5, which singled out Pakistan, Syria and Cameroon as nations that had allowed the virus to spread outside their borders. But it also has gotten more risky in Pakistan, where the government temporarily suspended the campaign this summer in the wake of a pair of attacks on the Karachi airport claimed by the Pakistan Taliban, fearing that the polio workers also might be targeted, according to health officials familiar with the order. Sign up for breaking news alerts from NBC News Pakistan is Ground Zero in the revival of the disease, which just two years ago appeared to be on the verge of eradication following 25 years of progress. This year, Pakistan has tallied 260 deaths from the disease -- nearly three times as many as last year. It also is likely the most dangerous country in the world in which to distribute a vaccine. Sixty-four polio vaccine workers and security personnel protecting them have been killed by snipers and roadside bombs over the last two years. Recently, the government has been providing Army troops to accompany the vaccine workers in an effort to halt the slayings. "The children of our Pakistan, our community, also are our children." The attacks are believed to be the work of Islamic militants, including members of the Pakistani Taliban, who widely believe the workers are actually CIA spies. It's a view shared by many of Pakistan's majority Muslims in the wake of a fake hepatitis vaccination program run by the CIA in 2011 as it hunted Osama Bin Laden. As a result of the violence, few foreign aid workers are willing to venture into the most dangerous areas, particularly communities near Karachi controlled by Islamic militants and the tribal areas near the border with Afghanistan. That's unacceptable to Huma, a mother of two who lives in Peshawar, which borders the lawless tribal areas. She said she feels a responsibility to protect those children as well as her own. "The children of our Pakistan, our community, also are our children," said Huma, who estimates that she has vaccinated thousands of children in the nearly a year she has been a polio worker. "… They have to be the future of Pakistan. They have to be the future of tomorrow." Huma, who also asked that her last name not be published, said the job requires equal parts resolve and diplomacy to try to overcome the suspicions of Muslim parents, particularly when the discussion begins only after a door is slammed in her face. Four Pakistan Polio Workers Killed by Assassins on Motorcycles "We have to work in their comfort zone … in which … they are understanding of our words," she said, adding that she often has to make strategic decisions on the fly as far as "how to enter into the home, how to convince them." In one case, Huma recalled, she visited the home of a woman doctor repeatedly to try to persuade her to vaccinate her daughter, only to be turned away each time. Finally, she went to the daughter's school and explained to the girl why the vaccination was so important. The next day, after the girl relayed the message "that we have to work together and we have to eradicate the polio" to her mom, "She let me in," Huma said. Huma vaccinated the daughter and the woman later began giving vaccinations to other children herself, she said. But Huma and other vaccine workers, who have managed to distribute 450 million doses of vaccine over the last two years, say there are some areas where even they dare not enter -- neighborhoods controlled by Islamic militants that are declared "no-go" zones by organizers of the vaccination effort. That means thousands of kids go unvaccinated, raising the chances of new polio outbreaks that could quickly race through Pakistan's teeming cities and across borders. Three-year-old Musharaf was not vaccinated after his father, Usman, refused to let him receive the drops, saying it was part of a CIA plot to spy on them. Musharaf now has polio. The depth of many Pakistanis' suspicions of the vaccine workers was evident in an interview with a man named Usman. Usman, who is originally from the tribal area of South Waziristan, was himself struck by polio as a child and walks with a decided limp. Being "a little educated" about the benefits of vaccination, he said he allowed the vaccine workers to inoculate his three oldest children -- but not his now-3-year-old son, Musharaf. Usman said the revelation of the CIA's phony vaccination program was key to his change of heart. "I gave three of my kids polio drops," he said. "The fourth one I didn't because by then polio workers were involved in espionage. The CIA uses the program to get us." Musharaf was recently diagnosed with polio, though he isn't yet showing any symptoms of the disease and may never do so. Despite his son's diagnosis, Usman said he has no regrets, saying Musharaf is better off with polio than being blinded by a drone attack. "It's better that our kids get handicapped here than suffer from that," he said. "At least they can see. Allah decides and will decide for them and give them a living." Follow NBC News Investigations on Twitter and Facebook. Huma, the vaccine worker in Peshawar, said attitudes like Usman's are the reason she can't walk away from the inoculation campaign, despite the danger she faces as she appeals to parents to let her protect their kids with two drops - just two drops -- of vaccine from an eye-dropper. "We have to vaccinate them," said Huma. "… I understand the importance of these two drops. I want other mothers to understand the importance of these two drops." First published June 4 2014, 10:48 AM Ann Curry is the NBC News national and international correspondent/anchor and “Today” anchor at large. Curry reports for all platforms of NBC News including “TODAY,” “NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams,” “Dateline,” MSNBC, and all digital properties. Curry also serves as anchor for multiple NBC News primetime specials and regularly substitute anchors for “NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams”.Curry served as co-anchor of NBC News’ “Today,” from June 2011 to June 2012 and as news anchor from March 1997 to June 2011. She served as the anchor of “Dateline NBC” from May 2005 until September 2011.Curry has distinguished herself in global humanitarian reporting frequently traveling to remote areas of the world for under-reported stories. During the span of one year, from March 2006 to March 2007, she traveled three times to Sudan to report on the violence and ethnic cleansing taking place in Darfur and Chad. While there, she provided in-depth reports focusing on the victims who have been caught in the deadly conflict of that region, and she also conducted exclusive interviews with Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir and Chadian President Idrsiss Deby. In February 2009, she returned to the Darfur region to continue her reporting on the humanitarian crisis and to cover the looming arrest of al-Bashir for Crimes against Humanity in Darfur. In October 2010, Curry spent a week traveling through the southern region of the Sudan with actor and activist George Clooney to shed light on the tensions building in the country. In February 2012, Curry made her sixth trip to Sudan to cover the vicious bombing campaigns targeting black African tribes in the Nuba Mountains. In spring 2008, Curry broadcast live from the Democratic Republic of the Congo where she reported on the horrific struggles of the women and children from the city of Goma. She also traveled to Serbia in 2008 where she examined the deplorable conditions of Serbia’s mental institutions. Curry was the first network news anchor to report on the humanitarian refugee crisis caused by the genocide in Kosovo in 1999, reporting for NBC News from Albania and Macedonia. Curry has conducted numerous exclusive interviews with world leaders and dignitaries including three notable discussions with Dalai Lama, the first during his trip to the U.S amid violence in Tibet in April 2008, the second at his private home in India in March 2009, and the third, on May 20, 2010 on “Today,” his first live on-set interview on a morning news program. Curry sat down with former Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto just two months before her assassination in December 2007. In September 2011, Curry was granted the first-ever behind-the-scenes-access to the daily schedule of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. It was in this exclusive interview that Curry broke the news of his plans to free the much-publicized two American hikers who had been held hostage since 2009. In November 2011, Curry reported live from Baghdad, Iraq and conducted an exclusive interview with Vice President Joe Biden who was in Baghdad for a U.S.-Iraq Higher Coordinating Committee meeting. Curry also talked to Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari in his first-ever interview with an American news organization. Other Curry exclusives include Liberia’s Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, the first female elected President of an African nation; the first highly sought after interview with Thomas Hamill, the truck driver for Halliburton subsidiary KBR, who escaped captivity in Iraq; the first interview with accused spy Wen Ho Lee after he was cleared of all charges of espionage against the United States; and the first interview with the parents of the McCaughey septuplets. Curry also repeatedly landed the first exclusive interview with Lance Armstrong after his Tour de France wins.In the wake of the record-breaking earthquake and devastating tsunami of March 2011, Curry was one of the few network anchors to travel to Japan and provide on-the-ground coverage of the crises unfolding across the country. In January 2010, Curry was one of the first reporters in Haiti after the debilitating earthquake that hit that country. Twitter named Curry’s message calling for the Air Force to allow physicians to land in Haiti to administer aid to the injured, the #1 tweet in 2010. In February 2010, she traveled to Chile after that country’s massive earthquake, and in August of 2010, Curry reported live from Islamabad, Pakistan, covering the massive flooding devastation. While in the region, she interviewed Senator John Kerry. In July 2006, Curry reported on the Israel-Lebanon war, and she was one of the only American reporters to file stories on both sides of the conflict from Beruit and Northern Israel.In the summer of 2005, Curry traveled with First Lady Laura Bush throughout Africa to examine the continent’s HIV/AIDS epidemic, women's rights and education. She was the first network news anchor to report from inside the tsunami zone in Southeast Asia, filing reports from Sri Lanka for all NBC News and MSNBC programming. As part of “Today’s” unprecedented Ends of the Earth series, Curry has extensively examined the effects of climate change traveling to Antarctica and the South Pole in November 2007, and climbing Mount Kilimanjaro in November 2008. Curry traveled with “Today” to Beijing in 2008 for the Summer Olympics and to Vancouver in 2010 to cover the Winter Olympics. She also traveled to London for the Royal Wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton.In the first two weeks following the 9/11 attacks, Curry reported live from Ground Zero every day. When the United States bombed Al Qaeda targets in Afghanistan in November 2001, she reported extensively from the USS Theodore Roosevelt in the Arabian Sea, and landed the first exclusive interview with the war’s military commander, General Tommy Franks. Curry reported from Baghdad in the weeks leading up to the war in Iraq, and then from the USS Constellation as the war began, interviewing fighter pilots who flew the first wave of bombing runs over Iraq. She also filed reports from inside Iraq, from Qatar, and Kuwait during the first weeks of the war.Curry first joined NBC News in August 1990 as a Chicago-based correspondent. In 1992 she was named anchor of “NBC News at Sunrise.” She later helped launch MSNBC and then became news anchor at “TODAY.” Before coming to NBC, Curry was a reporter for KCBS in Los Angeles. In 1981, she was a reporter and anchor for KGW, the NBC affiliate in Portland, Oregon. Curry began her broadcasting career as an intern in 1978 at KTVL, in Medford, Oregon, near her hometown, rising to become that station's first female news reporter.Curry has earned seven Emmys Awards four Golden Mikes, several Associated Press Certificates of Excellence, three Gracie Allen Awards, a Matrix Award from New York Women in Communications, and an award for Excellence in Reporting from the NAACP. In June 2007, Curry was honored with the Simon Wiesenthal Medal of Valor for her extensive reporting in Darfur. She has been awarded by Americares, Save the Children, Women of Concern, the Anti-Defamation League as a Woman of Achievement, and the Asian American Journalists Association, receiving its National Journalism Award in 2003. She has also won numerous awards for her charity work, primarily for breast cancer research.Curry graduated from the University of Oregon School of Journalism in 1978.

PESHAWAR, Pakistan -- Dozens of their friends and coworkers have been murdered for distributing polio vaccine here, but a resolute band of Pakistani women ar...

By Associated Press December 16 at 1:47 PM SANAA, Yemen — Two suicide car bombers rammed their vehicles into a Shiite rebels’ checkpoint and a house south of the Yemeni capital Tuesday as a school bus was traveling nearby, killing at least 26 people including at least 16 primary school students, according to the Yemeni government, rebels and witnesses. Witnesses said that the first car was loaded with potatoes apparently disguising explosives underneath. When the car bomber arrived at the checkpoint manned by rebels, he blew up the vehicle as the students’ bus was passing. After the first explosion, a second car targeted the home of a Shiite rebel leader, Abdullah Idris. State TV quoted the country’s Supreme Security Committee — Yemen’s highest security body — as saying that at least 26 including 16 students and 10 civilians were killed in the twin bombings. Witnesses at the site of the attack said that the rebels brought four pickup trucks and dumped dozens of bodies into them while several ambulances rushed to the scene to carry away the wounded. Body parts littered the street along with open bags of potatoes. The Shiite rebels, known as the Houthis, blamed al-Qaida for the attack in the Radaa area of Baydah province, calling it “the ugliest crime against childhood.” The group said the school bus was carrying female primary school students. The witnesses spoke on condition of anonymity for fear retribution. This is the second time Idris’s house has been targeted since October. The Houthis and al-Qaida have been fighting in Radaa since the rebels overran the area in October. The empowered Shiite rebels have made significant military advances in recent months, seizing control of the capital and other strategic cities. Yemen has been gripped by a power struggle between President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi and the Houthis, who have allied with his predecessor, ousted President Ali Abdullah Saleh. On Tuesday, Saleh loyalists, who form the majority of parliament, derailed a vote of confidence on the new government’s program. A raucous session Tuesday came to an abrupt end before a vote, after Saleh loyalists bickered over internal party politics. They accuse Hadi of backing U.N. sanctions against Saleh and two top rebel leaders, and have called on the government to explicitly denounce the sanctions. Also Tuesday, Shiite rebel gunmen, who seized control of Sanaa in September, surrounded the ministry of defense and packed the city’s nearby streets, preventing the minister from accessing his office. A day earlier, the minister had kicked out the rebels from around the ministry for blocking his chief of staff from entering. Later, Hadi drove to the ministry, effectively ending the siege. Copyright 2014 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Two suicide car bombers rammed their vehicles into a Shiite rebels’ checkpoint and a house south of the Yemeni capital Tuesday as a school bus was traveling nearby, killing at least 26 people including at least 16 primary school students, according to the Yemeni government, rebels and witnesses.

Casey Kelbaugh for The New York Times Amanda Brooks was inspired to leave New York by a mother of four who lives on a cattle ranch in Oklahoma. IT was a little more than a year ago that the New York City socialite Amanda Brooks was appointed fashion director of Barneys New York, to some cluck-clucking in the industry. After all, Ms. Brooks, 38, had little experience in retail, other than acting as a muse and later creative director to the fashion label Tuleh, and was more often photographed in preppy classics than the avant-garde brands for which Barneys had been known under the stewardship of her well-regarded predecessor, Julie Gilhart. As the blog Fashionista put it, “We’ve always thought of Brooks as more of a Bergdorf girl.” Ms. Brooks’s duties included overseeing private labels and creating trend reports, informed in part by the street style of “it” girls, many of whom were part of her impressive network. “We didn’t need more retail help,” Mark Lee, the store’s chief executive, said of the hire at the time. Indeed, a lot of her job seemed to involve attending fashion shows, where she was a front-row regular, and going to openings and galas. But in March, Ms. Brooks pulled off yet another surprise. She announced that she was not just quitting the Barneys position, but leaving Manhattan itself and planning a yearlong move with her family to a farm in Oxfordshire, England, that is owned by the family of her husband, the artist Christopher Brooks. Was the Barneys brass disappointed in the high-profile hire? (Through a spokeswoman, executives there turned down requests to be interviewed on the matter.) Had Ms. Brooks — such a clotheshorse that she wrote a 2009 book on personal style — somehow soured on fashion shows? Or, as some in the news media speculated, was the move in support of her brother- and sister-in-law, Charlie and Rebekah Brooks, charged with perverting the course of justice (the term in British law) in the News of the World phone-hacking case? None of the above, Ms. Brooks said recently, dining on a sunny Friday at Freemans, downstairs from the apartment she’ll soon be renting out. (A North Fork residence will also be leased, to the artist Rachel Feinstein, a friend.) “It was because of Ree Drummond’s blog, The Pioneer Woman,” said Ms. Brooks, who has recently returned to a blog, ILoveYourStyle.com, that she started after publishing the 2009 book, which had the same name. Reading a New Yorker profile last year of Ms. Drummond, a mother of four who lives on a cattle ranch outside Pawhuska, Okla., and posts prolifically on subjects like how to make cornmeal pancakes (using catchphrases like “yahoo, yippety”) “got me really fired up,” Ms. Brooks went on. “It’s the idea of having a career on your own terms, anywhere.” At first glance, Ms. Brooks, a consummate urbanite with coolly styled looks, could not be more diametrically opposed to Ms. Drummond. At lunch, several days after the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s annual Costume Institute benefit (to which she wore a minimalist graphite Calvin Klein ensemble), Ms. Brooks was dressed casually in an open-knit beige sweater, black trousers and black flat sandals. Her blondish brown hair fell in an enviable natural wave, and her figure was willowy. “I lost a lot of weight working at Barneys,” said Ms. Brooks, nibbling delicately at the turkey sandwich with bacon she’d ordered along with an iced tea, then hastening to add, “It was the 14-hour days and then all the traveling.” Since she married Mr. Brooks in 2001, in a wedding attended by such diverse personalities as Christian Louboutin and Tama Janowitz, the couple have tried to maintain the integrity of their family life, she said, agreeing to limit work events to two nights per week, a difficult feat in the hyperactive art and fashion scenes. They have two children, Coco (not after Chanel, but an abbreviation of Carmen), 10, who has yet to take any discernible interest in fashion, Ms. Brooks said, and Zach, 8. She said she was reveling in her days off, scrapping her daily Women’s Wear Daily reading habit — “It’s refreshing to clear your mind,” she said. After lunch, she planned to take Zach to a birthday party. In Ms. Brooks’s view, domestic harmony and success at work are inextricably intertwined. “That fearlessness, to be able to jump around in my career, came from a certain amount of stability and foundation I’ve always had at home,” she said. “I’m defined by my history, my family. I was never looking for my career to define me.” Ms. Brooks grew up in Bronxville, N.Y., and Palm Beach, Fla., the younger of two daughters of Stephen Cutter, a real estate broker, and Elizabeth Stewart, an interior designer whom Ms. Brooks remembers wearing Alaïa to teach Sunday school. (Amanda’s older sister, Kimberly Cutter, is a novelist.) She attended public elementary school, then Horace Mann and Deerfield Academy, where she was a New England diving champion. While majoring in photography at Brown, she roomed with Patricia Lansing, a daughter of Carolina Herrera, for two years. She also briefly dated Alexander von Furstenberg, the son of Diane, who soon became what Ms. Brooks called “my fashion fairy godmother.” “It had nothing to do with Alexander,” Ms. von Furstenberg said of the bond between the two women. “But I have always had that special complicity with Amanda because of how we started.” This article has been revised to reflect the following correction: The previous version of this article implied that Mark Dowley was the current chief executive of the agency’s marketing division. He is the former chief executive. The previous version of this article implied that Mark Dowley was the current chief executive of the agency’s marketing division. He is the former chief executive.Â

The New York City socialite Amanda Brooks is packing up for a farm in England a little more than a year after being appointed fashion director of Barneys New York.

But what makes the British-Nigerian youngster stand out is the fact that she's also a university undergraduate. Esther, from Walsall, an industrial town in the UK's West Midlands region, is one of the country's youngest college freshmen. The talented 10-year-old enrolled at the Open University, a UK-based distance learning college, in January and is already top of the class, having recently scored 100% in a recent exam. "It's so interesting. It has the type of maths I love. It's real maths -- theories, complex numbers, all that type of stuff," she giggles. "It was super easy. My mum taught me in a nice way." She adds: "I want to (finish the course) in two years. Then I'm going to do my PhD in financial maths when I'm 13. I want to have my own bank by the time I'm 15 because I like numbers and I like people and banking is a great way to help people." And in case people think her parents have pushed her into starting university early, Esther emphatically disagrees. "I actually wanted to start when I was seven. But my mum was like, "you're too young, calm down." After three years of begging, mother Efe finally agreed to explore the idea. Esther has always jumped ahead of her peers. She sat her first Math GSCE exam, a British high school qualification, at Ounsdale High School in Wolverhampton at just six, where she received a C-grade. A year later, she outdid herself and got the A-grade she wanted. Then last year she scored a B-grade when she sat the Math A-level exam. Esther's mother noticed her daughter's flair for figures shortly after she began homeschooling her at the age of three. Initially, Esther's parents had enrolled her in a private school but after a few short weeks, the pair began noticing changes in the usually-vibrant youngster. Efe says: "One day we were coming back home and she burst out in tears and she said 'I don't ever want to go back to that school -- they don't even let me talk!' "In the UK, you don't have to start school until you are five. Education is not compulsory until that age so I thought OK, we'll be doing little things at home until then. Maybe by the time she's five she will change her mind." Efe started by teaching basic number skills but Esther was miles ahead. By four, her natural aptitude for maths had seen the eager student move on to algebra and quadratic equations. And Esther isn't the only maths prodigy in the family. Her younger brother Isaiah, 6, will soon be sitting his first A-level exam in June. Not content with breaking barriers to attend college at just 10 years old, Esther is also writing a series of math workbooks for children called "Yummy Yummy Algebra." "It starts at a beginner level -- that's volume one. But then there will be volume two, and volume three, and then volume four. But I've only written the first one. "As long as you can add or subtract, you'll be able to do it. I want to show other children they are special," she says. Meanwhile, Esther's parents are also trying to trail blaze their own educational journey back in Nigeria. The couple have set up a foundation and are in the process of building a nursery and primary school in Nigeria's Delta region (where the family are from). Named "Shakespeare's Academy," they hope to open the school's doors in September. The proposed curriculum will have all the usual subjects such as English, languages, math and science, as well as more unconventional additions including morality and ethics, public speaking, entrepreneurship and etiquette. The couple say they want to emulate the teaching methods that worked for their children rather than focus on one way of learning. "Some children learn very well with kinesthetics where they learn with their hands -- when they draw they remember things. Some children have extremely creative imaginations. Instead of trying to make children learn one way, you teach them based on their learning style," explains Efe. The educational facility will have a capacity of 2,000 to 2,500 students with up to 30% of students being local children offered scholarships to attend. Efe says: "On one hand, billions of dollars worth of crude oil is pumped out from that region on a monthly basis and yet the poverty rate of the indigenous community is astronomical." While Paul adds: "(The region has) poor quality of nursery and primary education. So by the time the children get secondary education they haven't got a clue. They haven't developed their core skills. "The school is designed to give children an aim so they can study for something, not just for the sake of acquiring certifications. There is an end goal." Read this: 92-year-old student inspires a generation Read this: Nigerian soul superstar Nneka is back!

Esther Okade seems like a normal 10-year-old -- she's loves Barbie dolls and Frozen. But she's also a mathematics marvel who just enrolled at college!

Madoff is a law professor, a published author, and a committed proponent of a higher estate tax. This article focuses on how the estate tax prevents concentrations of wealth. This argument is probably the most convincing argument for an estate tax. However, in this article, Madoff argues that Congress should give up on the estate tax, and instead should impose an income tax on inheritance. The income tax would be akin to a tax on lottery earnings and there could be an exemption for smaller estates — “up to $500,000 or even $1 million” — and deferral for “taxes on inherited family farms and businesses.” This article reflects flaws seen in previous op-eds by Madoff. (1) It would treat the estates of farmers and small businesses differently than other estates, without explaining why concentrations of wealth are appropriate for some but not for all. (2) It does not (and her previous articles inadequately) address the problem of taxing some wealth twice. (3) It favors spenders and consumers over savers. (4) It advocates paternalism over autonomy. Excessive concentration of wealth is a legitimate concern, but Madoff thinks that people are wealthy if they have more than $500,000 or $1,000,000. This assumption might be correct in some parts of the United States, but it is questionable as a generalization. For example, in New York City, a modest single-family house can cost over $400,000. In effect, Madoff advocates not wealth redistribution but a taking from many middle class Americans. Yesterday, President Obama signed into law an estate tax with a $5 million exemption. Thankfully, if the new law were to expire, even liberal Democrats would now support a $3.5 million estate tax exemption for individuals. For other op-eds by Ray D. Madoff, see , NY Times, July 12, 2010 (arguing for limits on dynasty trusts: “Congress could fix the problem by limiting the generation-skipping-transfer exemption to trusts that last no longer than two generations. After that, beneficiaries of a trust should be subject to tax, like everyone else. Then America would not have to face the uncontrollable growth of a new aristocracy.”). For my previous critique of Madoff’s assumptions, see Hani Sarji, Ray D. Madoff’s opinion on fixing the federal estate tax: an unbalanced proposal, Future of the Federal Estate Tax, Nov. 21, 2009.

On December 14, 2010, the New York Times published, Give Up on the Estate Tax, an op-ed by Ray D. Madoff.  Madoff is a law professor, a published author, and a committed proponent of a higher estate tax.  This article focuses on how the estate tax prevents concentrations of wealth. This argument [...]

Mr. Roh said the North was “somewhat upset” about the slow pace of development of the Kaesong Industrial Complex — a special economic zone built by South Korea inside North Korea and the centerpiece of the South’s engagement policy toward the North. At the same time, the South’s reference to Kaesong as the “symbol of reform and openness” clearly made the North’s top leaders uneasy, Mr. Roh said, suggesting that North Korea, like China, was seeking economic growth without political change. “The distrust and reluctance they feel toward the terminologies ‘reform and openness’ is something I felt when talking to Kim Young-nam yesterday and at the meeting with Chairman Kim this morning,” Mr. Roh said, referring first to the North’s No. 2 leader, whom he met Tuesday, and then to Kim Jong-il. The first summit meeting between the Koreas, in June 2000, ushered in a new era of reconciliation between cold war enemies who had taught their children to hate one another for decades. This meeting could serve as a reckoning of the last seven years of the South’s engagement policy toward the North — a policy that the South has hewed to despite the North’s test of missiles and a nuclear device, as well as the Bush administration’s initial hard-line attitude toward Mr. Kim’s government. In South Korea this week there has not been any of the euphoria of the 2000 meeting, which kept South Koreans glued to their televisions and fundamentally changed their perceptions of the North. This time, the South’s focus was economic, as indicated by the large entourage of business leaders with Mr. Roh. Among South Koreans, there is no longer any heady talk of a quick, German-like, reunification. Instead, they envision a carefully planned, sober process that will make the North less poor and shrink the gap between the Koreas before an eventual reunification, perhaps decades from now. “In general, I support this summit, but I’m a little less enthusiastic than I was in 2000,” said Byun Yoo-seok, 36, a pharmacist enjoying a day off on Wednesday in the Myungdong shopping area here. “I guess I realized that reunification will take a long time.” Lee Choon-won, 79, who was having coffee at a Starbucks with three friends, said: “There’s no emotion this time. It’s no fun. It’s just Roh Moo-hyun doing whatever he’s doing. North Korea got money last time and wants more this time.” Indeed, many South Koreans and the political opposition say they thought that Mr. Roh, long accused of coddling the North, would give away too much for little in return. He has been trying to set up a meeting with the North ever since he was elected five years ago. But critics say Mr. Roh, a lame duck with only four months left in office, wants to burnish his legacy with an accord and influence the coming presidential election. At the moment, Lee Myung-bak, the candidate for the conservative opposition Grand National Party, has a strong lead in the polls. Mr. Lee supports the engagement policy toward the North and has also talked of offering the North huge economic projects, but he has also emphasized the need for the North to reciprocate on security issues. The North, which has consistently attacked the Grand National Party, is believed to favor a liberal South Korean president. Critics here have accused Mr. Kim of agreeing to this summit meeting in a bid to stir euphoria about reconciliation between the Koreas and help Mr. Roh’s liberal United New Democratic Party. Over the last five years, Mr. Kim consistently rebuffed the South’s approaches for a second meeting. He said the conditions were not right, apparently referring to the stalled nuclear talks that began moving forward with a softening of Washington’s position early this year. On Wednesday, though, Mr. Kim surprised Mr. Roh by suddenly asking him to extend his visit by one day. Mr. Kim apparently withdrew the invitation after Mr. Roh told his host that he would have to consult his staff. “Can’t a president decide?” Mr. Kim asked in a seemingly teasing manner. “Presidents should be able to decide.” Mr. Roh said, “I can decide on big things, but on little things, I can’t decide.” A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A14 of the New York edition with the headline: Korean Leaders Agree On Economic Projects. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe

In a joint declaration today, South and North Korea said they would seek to put a formal end to the Korean War.

A Spanish newspaper has sparked controversy with its front page picture of a half-naked elderly former bullfighter showing off wounds from when he was gored 50 years ago. Readers of La Gaceta were stunned to see the snap of 83-year-old former torero Jaime Ostos holding his genitals on Wednesday morning's cover. Wearing only a striped shirt and his trousers around his ankles, he is seen cupping his private parts and pointing to the damage to his groin. The headline of the story, to mark the half-century anniversary of his injury in Tarazona, was "Doctors preferred to sign my death certificate rather than get blood on their hands." Twitter erupted as many slammed the image, saying it was a "desperate attempt" for publicity by the Madrid-based publication. Some said reporters should be focusing on the economic crisis that continues to engulf the southern European nation. But editor José Antonio Fúster tweeted in defense: "We're a different newspaper."

A Spanish newspaper has sparked controversy with its front page picture of a naked elderly former bullfighter showing off wounds from when he was gored 50 years ago.

The Vatican used to be impermeable to horrific stories of child sexual abuse by priests – and complicit in attempts to whitewash the perpetrators’ reputations. It was a place where men such as Cardinal Bernard Law, who became a pariah within the US Catholic church after it became clear that decades of sexual abuse had been covered up within his archdiocese, could go for a comfortable retirement and to escape glaring media attention or, even worse, possible investigation. But an unexpected confluence of extraordinary events has changed all that this week. The film Spotlight, the tale of the Boston Globe’s dogged investigation into clerical sexual abuse, won Hollywood’s most coveted prize of the Oscar for best picture. More importantly, hours before the Oscar win was announced, one of the most senior officials within the Vatican hierarchy, Cardinal George Pell of Australia, admitted under oath for the first time that he had heard that an Australian Catholic schoolteacher may have engaged in “paedophilia activity”, but never followed up on the “one or two fleeting references” he heard about the “misbehaviour”. The teacher in question, Edward Dowlan, a Christian Brother, was later convicted of abusing 20 boys and is serving a six-year prison sentence. Pell, in an appearance by videolink before the Australian royal commission into institutional responses to sexual child abuse that began at 10pm in Rome and ended at 2am, sounded contrite as he testified, often using short sentences. He called the church’s response to clerical sexual abuse of children by one serial offender, Gerald Ridsdale, “a catastrophe” for his victims but also for the church. Related: George Pell: church had 'predisposition not to believe' children who complained about priests It was a topic that may have come up in an exchange Pell had with Pope Francis, hours before his second night of questioning was due to begin. The Vatican did not respond to requests about what the two discussed. The testimony via videolink was arranged by the royal commission after Pell had said he could not travel to Australia because of a heart condition. A Vatican official acknowledged that Pell had probably not foreseen that he would still have to testify in a public forum even though he remained in Rome: a banqueting hall in the Hotel Quirinale that included nearly 70 journalists, and 15 survivors of sexual abuse who made the journey from Australia. The decision by Pell not to go to Australia and face intense media scrutiny there had an unintended consequence: uncomfortable questions about criminal sexual acts that do not often get a hearing in Italy – about priests kissing boys, swimming together naked, taking showers together – have been heard on the Vatican’s doorstep. Robert Mickens, a veteran Vatican journalist, said: “This is in the pope’s yard right now, and that has never happened. Historically, yes, this is something really big. “It was clear Pell was going to be very sullen; he had short answers and sounded repentant and ‘Gosh, I didn’t understand’. But there was an admission, finally, that he heard the rumours. Before, he was saying this was all brand new to him.” Mickens said he believed that Pell was purposely “playing the kind of almost sorry old man who was beaten up a little bit”. “That is a difficult act for George,” Mickens said. “Whether the commission buys it or not ... certainly here in Rome he looks like the object of a witch hunt.” One of the unusual results of Pell staying in Rome to testify is that it meant that a host of vaticanisti (expert Vatican reporters) were compelled to observe and report on the hearing, although most – especially Italian journalists – have not usually covered specific stories about clerical sexual abuse. In one of the most revealing moments of Pell’s testimony, he acknowledged that it was unusual at the time that Ridsdale, a paedophile priest whom Pell knew and lived with for about 10 months and was later revealed to be a serial rapist of children, took big groups of boys with him away on camping trips. “To the extent I thought about it, I thought with a big group of 45 boys that would prevent wrongdoing, or it was a useful precaution,” Pell said. When Gail Furness SC, the barrister assisting the royal commission, pressed him on that point, and asked whether “wrongdoing” was on his mind, he said: “Not particularly. I just thought it would have been imprudent to do otherwise.” When asked again, whether it was “imprudent” because a boy who was alone on a camping trip with a priest could be abused, Pell responded: “That is certainly correct, and it was also capable of provoking gossip that might or might not be justified.” Related: George Pell and the royal commission: the questions George Pell must answer | David Marr The big question now is not only how Pell will fare under the next few days of questioning, but whether renewed focus on clerical abuse and the church’s handling of the problem will also receive more attention from the pope. The Vatican has faced recent criticism on a number of sex abuse-related issues, including questions about its policy on reporting suspected cases – the church said it followed local laws but not all laws required such reports – and it does not appear to have made progress in establishing a special tribunal that it announced it would set up last year to investigate senior clergy who are accused of covering up abuse. “I’m not here to defend the indefensible,” Pell said. “The church has made enormous mistakes, but is working to remedy them.” Just how hard it is working to that end is a question Pope Francis will find it hard to ignore, observers say.

Decision not to return to Australia has had consequence of bringing uncomfortable questions to Rome

Show's over for Liberace Museum Las Vegas, Nevada (CNN) -- This weekend marks the end of an era for many fans of the iconic Liberace. The Las Vegas museum dedicated to preserving the glitz, the glamour and even the gaudiness that defined the entertainer's career is closing Sunday after more than 30 years. Despite his dynamic history, the draw of the Liberace Museum has been eclipsed by some of Vegas' increasingly lavish attractions. Low attendance is the primary factor in the decision to close the museum, Liberace Foundation President Jack Rappaport said. Liberace himself opened the museum in 1979, and in its prime, it brought in 450,000 visitors a year. "We've dwindled down to 50,000," Rappaport said. He blames the low attendance on the museum's location three miles off Las Vegas Boulevard, commonly known as the Strip. "We are just geographically not desirable," he said. [When the museum opened in 1979] we weren't competition for the Strip. We actually complemented the Strip." Rappaport feels that the megaresort style of the new casinos of Las Vegas -- with high-end shopping, an abundance of restaurants, shows and other museum-type attractions -- gives tourists everything they could need. "It's kind of like going to Disney World or Disneyland resort. You go there, and you don't really have to go anywhere else." If there is a bright side, it's that since the closing was announced weeks ago, attendance has nearly tripled, according to one tour guide's estimate. A significant number of this influx are locals who've lived in Vegas for decades but never made it to the museum. But positive attendance news in the 11th hour doesn't change the fact that for most of the 23 employees, not only will they be out of a job, they'll be out of a way to educate people on a man they've come to admire. "I mean, [Liberace] was Las Vegas," museum director Tanya Combs said. "Reading everything and seeing everything ... you start to believe in what a nice man he was, and you really wanted everyone to know that." Liberace Museum archivist Pauline Lachance shares photos of the celebrated musician. Museum archivist and historian Pauline Lachance has been the go-to gal for anything and everything Liberace. "He's made such an impact on my life; it's unbelievable. I get kind of choked up talking about him," she said. She could tell you about all sorts of things, from "Walter" Valentino Liberace's early life as a piano prodigy to his prime years as the highest-paid entertainer in the world, with the highest flamboyance factor to boot. He was a man who, in the midst of a battle with HIV, sold out New York's Radio City Music Hall so fast that his record still stands. Lachance's very first experience with Mr. Showmanship himself was a night that almost didn't happen. "I really didn't want to go," she recalls of the show her husband roped her into attending. But that evening sparked a passion, some might say obsession, for the king of bling. Up until his death in 1987 at 67, she attended no fewer than 50 of his shows. "All you need to do is go to one performance, and you want to go to every one after that. He just captivates you with his charm and his music." After the museum closes Sunday, Lachance will continue to work for the Liberace Foundation part-time. But there will be no more camera-wielding visitors oohing and aahing over Liberace's rhinestone-studded piano, complete with matching costume and Roadster. See an iReporter's snapshots of the glitzy museum The musician's remarkable costumes became more elaborate as the decades went on, some taking more than a year to construct. Throughout his career, he played eight major hotels in Las Vegas, with his longest run at the Las Vegas Hilton. In addition to establishing the museum in Vegas, Liberace set up a foundation to provide scholarship money to students of the arts. To date, the foundation has given more than $6 million to more than 2,700 students. But what it's able to offer these days has diminished significantly. Two years ago, the scholarship fund amounted to $112,000. The following year, that number dropped to $62,000. I wouldn't be surprised if somewhere down the line, Liberace gets reinvented again. ... But it is sad to see it close.--Howard Shapiro, Liberace museum tour guide Rappaport said people can rest assured that the museum's collection -- which includes more than 60 of Liberace's intricate eye-popping costumes, his 9-foot mirrored Baldwin grand piano and his 7-foot rhinestone studded Baldwin grand -- won't go into hiding for too long. A traveling tour of part of the collection is planned. The tour might be under way as early as summer 2011, according to Jeffrey Koep, chairman of the Liberace Foundation board of directors. A new incarnation of the museum isn't out of the question. "The board felt it best to close while we are still solvent and create a new business plan as we examine ways to sell our current location and search for locations that would allow for more patrons," Koep said in an e-mail. Tour guide Howard Shapiro said he wasn't terribly surprised that the museum in its current form won't be around forever, but he agrees that Liberace is too much a part of Sin City to be totally forgotten. "Las Vegas has a history of tearing down and not preserving. It's a sad commentary, but that's what this town is about, reinventing itself," Shapiro said. "I wouldn't be surprised if somewhere down the line, Liberace gets reinvented again. By whom and how, I don't know. But it is sad to see it close."

This weekend marks the end of an era for many fans of the iconic Liberace. The Las Vegas museum dedicated to preserving the glitz, the glamour and even the gaudiness that defined the entertainer's career is closing Sunday after more than 30 years.

Quit bossing me around, Sheryl! I’ve had it up to my eyeballs with Facebook’s chief operating officer, Sheryl Sandberg. The technology industry’s big cheese, a billionairess who lives in a California mansion with two kids and a husband who does laundry (what, no servants?), has stepped off her perch as the world’s most celebrated working mom and transformed into the feminist answer to reality-TV star/celebrity slug Kim Kardashian. Her Sherylness is a genius at generating media buzz without demonstrating a hint of street smarts. My apologies to rapper Kanye West’s baby mama. At least Kim’s honest about being a talent-free hack. Sheryl is leading a campaign to remove what she calls “the other B-word’’ from the English language. A word that has turned elite damsels such as Sheryl into blubbering, sugar-free gelatinous masses, and I’m not talking about boobs, bulimia or a term that rhymes with rich. Ban Bossy is the name of the idiotic crusade. No joke. Sheryl preaches that the word “bossy’’ is hurled at girls and women by meanies in a concerted effort to turn budding estrogen-possessing leaders into docile wimps. Sheryl’s brand of censorship does not involve government agents raiding homes and burning dictionaries. People are expected to pledge voluntarily that they won’t utter the offensive word. Alpha females First Lady Michelle Obama, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and singer Victoria “Posh Spice’’ Beckham have vowed to remove “bossy’’ from their vocabularies. Never mind that President Obama calls his wife’s domineering style of Christmas-tree decoration “bossy.’’ Mrs. Obama said she passively sipped hot chocolate last year with daughter Malia while the leader of the free and other daughter Sasha hung ornaments, the Washington Examiner magazine reported. The Ban Bossy movement was launched as seriously as open-heart surgery by Sheryl and Girl Scouts of the USA Chief Executive Officer Anna Maria Chavez, who co-wrote a piece published in The Wall Street Journal this month. “From a young age, I liked to organize — the toys in my room, neighborhood play sessions, clubs at my school,’’ wrote Sheryl. When she ran for class vice president in junior high school, she added, a teacher warned Sheryl’s best friend to find a new pal because “no one likes a bossy girl.” One wonders whether Sheryl was victimized by a word — or undiagnosed obsessive-compulsive disorder. She never wrote if she won the junior-high-school election, but I can only assume that her best buddy took the teacher’s advice and ran from the manic toy organizer. “When a little boy takes charge in class or the playground, nobody is surprised or offended. We expect him to lead,” the two authors continued, apparently unfamiliar with today’s touchy-feely feminized schools in which boys have their maleness pumped out of their bodies before puberty with the help of educators, therapy or medication. There’s something obnoxiously bossy about Ban Bossy. So Sheryl was brutalized by a word as a child? See a shrink or visit a bar! I refuse to take the stupid pledge. The flip side is, why is Sheryl harassing women into becoming leaders? What if my daughter is too pooped to run for class vice president? What if I think it’s just plain creepy to organize neighborhood play sessions? Singer Beyoncé, actresses Jane Lynch and Jennifer Garner, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, designer Diane von Furstenberg, NASCAR driver Jimmie Johnson and US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan appear in an online video promoting Ban Bossy. But is Beyoncé, whose rapper husband Jay Z has made a career out of denigrating women as “hoes” and worse, properly programmed? She ends the video by declaring: “I’m not bossy. I’m the boss.’’ Boss or bossy. What’s the difference? Sheryl last year published “Lean In: Women, Work and the Will to Lead’’ — a book she called “a sort-of feminist manifesto’’ that sold 1.6 million copies. In it, she tells women to risk getting fired by demanding that employers give them raises and promotions. Since the book came out, Sheryl’s turned into a veritable chick-empowerment industry, establishing the nonprofit organization LeanIn.org, which provides online lectures and instructions for starting Lean In Circles, basically consciousness-raising groups in which dames moan about useless husbands, emotionally unavailable partners and lousy jobs. The org has teamed up with Getty Images to sell pictures of strong women, girls and the people who support them. What Sheryl doesn’t say is that American women are doing just fine. They earn more college degrees than men. Young women rake in as much money, or more, than guys, a trend that stops only when they drop out of the fast lane to raise families. We have choices. Banning a word won’t make you rich or powerful. Act like Beyoncé, ladies. Be tough. Be a boss. Will the tension ever lift? I doubt it. Rachel Canning and her mom were seen walking awkwardly outside their New Jersey house before each slid into a separate vehicle and Rachel drove off to her Catholic high school. Rachel, 18, became a world-famous spoiled brat after she sued her parents for thousands of dollars to cover high-school and college tuition, plus living expenses. But after spending more than four months at a friend’s house, she returned to the home of her parents, Sean and Elizabeth Canning, last week. The Cannings said the case was “amicably settled.’’ But Rachel’s lawyer, Tanya Helfand, whined that the parents pressured her client to drop the suit. Rachel is lucky her folks took her back. A cup of high-faluting Lakkris latte from Budin, a Scandinavian-themed coffee palace in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, costs a ridiculous $10 — not including a tip. The brew is made from coffee beans from Ethiopia that are roasted in Norway. It contains anise syrup and is sprinkled with licorice powder, both shipped from Denmark. With each cup you get a marble-sized ball of chocolate-covered Danish licorice. Yuck. Save your money. Even in New York, one shouldn’t have to choose between a caffeine fix and paying the rent. Mayor de Blasio chatted up reporters on the steps of City Hall last week before snapping a selfie with them. He’s trying to repair his relationship with the media, which is worse than his popularity with city voters — 57 percent of whom said in a recent poll that he did a fair or poor job during his first two months in office. Hizzoner might try answering questions, such as why the SUV in which he rode ran stop signs and sped through Queens streets, days after he unveiled a traffic-safety plan. I guess we’ll have to settle for pictures.

Quit bossing me around, Sheryl! I’ve had it up to my eyeballs with Facebook’s chief operating officer, Sheryl Sandberg. The technology industry’s big cheese, a billionairess who lives in a Californ…

Pope Francis on Saturday went before several thousand journalists, thanked them for their work, told a joke or two and even blessed (or at least patted) someone’s seeing-eye dog. In a custom that dates at least to John Paul II, one of the pope’s first public appearances was a meeting in the modern Paul VI Hall with an estimated 5,000 reporters who are based in Rome or had flown in to cover the week’s historic events. Francis sat on the stage in a large but relatively simple chair and read a speech that thanked the press for its work during this “intense period” which had focused the world’s eyes on the Roman Catholic Church. Then, departing from his text, he offered to tell the story of how he chose his name, and in so doing provided a rare glimpse into the inner workings of the conclave, the secret vote by cardinals to select a new pontiff. He is the first Pope Francis, and some have wondered which Francis was his inspiration. The balloting inside the Sistine Chapel was clearly going his way when Cardinal Claudio Hummes, the retired archbishop of Sao Paulo, “my dear friend,” embraced him and told him not to forget the poor. The still-Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina sat reflecting, as the ballots were being counted, and then it came to him: St. Francis of Assisi. “The name came to my heart,” Francis said. “The man of poverty, the man of peace ... who wanted a poor church for the poor.” He said another cardinal quipped that he ought to be named Clement, a cheeky proposal given that the last Clement, the 18th-century Clement XIV, is remembered for having suppressed the Jesuits, the order to which Francis belongs. Why, Francis asked. “That way you get revenge on Clement XIV,” came the response. The crowd, which also included many journalists’ family members as well as employees of the Vatican press operation, was loving it. They applauded and laughed amid shouts of “Viva il papa!” All in all, Francis seemed comfortable and at ease and at times spontaneous. He wore a white cassock, basic black shoes and a plain cross. It was all a marked departure from his predecessor, Benedict XVI, a brilliant theologian who in public was stiff and formal. After finishing his speech in Italian, in which he also said he respected the freedom and intelligence of an independent press, Francis switched to Spanish. He said that he knew that the journalists, both those of the Catholic faith and those of other beliefs, were all children of God. A small group of Vatican press staff and journalists was led to the stage to greet Francis personally, including a blind man with a seeing-eye dog. Francis embraced the man, then turned to the dog, and the crowd roared. Appropriate: Francis of Assisi was known for his love of animals “This was extraordinary,” said Carlo Marroni, a correspondent with the Italian daily Il Sole 24 Ore.

VATICAN CITY -- He’s a charmer.

There's a new reigning monarch for the most expensive American car ever sold at auction. And it's a modified British sports car with a Ford V8 under the hood. Go figure. The roundish blue shape you see above is the 1962 Shelby 260 Cobra "CSX 2000" — a.k.a the first Cobra from lionized car designer Carroll Shelby. It just fetched $13.75 million ($12.5-million bid plus fees) this weekend. That makes it the most expensive American car ever sold at auction. Though Shelby didn't know it at the time, this little mod-job would go on to change American sports cars forever. Now it's altered the trajectory of American-car values forever, too. Talk about influence. When this Cobra was first built, to make it seem like he'd made more than one, Shelby and his crew repainted it before handing it over to a car magazine for review. As a result, the unrestored body sports dents and chips that reveal different paint colors beneath the final blue paint job. Onlookers might glimpse at what appears to be a well-worn sports car and wonder why it's worth $13.75 million. Its looks don't impart the car's significance, though. Without this car, and the racing triumphs of its successors, Shelby would never have been given the chance to lend his know-how to the automotive industry. 1962 Shelby 260 Cobra "CSX 2000" That means no GT350 and GT500 Mustangs. Likely, in turn, that means no cars like the Corvette Grand Sport or Camaro Z28 from Chevrolet to compete with Ford. Heck, the American muscle wars started in the 1960s that continues to this day may not have been ignited at all without this car. So, is it worth $13.75 million? Yeah, I'd say so.

It ignited the American muscle wars.

By Jeff Leeson2015-08-06 16:21:54 UTC Exceptional boredom often produces exceptional talent. Two friends took trick shots to the next level by bouncing a ping pong ball between their legs and behind their back with golf clubs before sinking it in a Solo cup. Oh, and they did it all in a single take. Watch your back, Tiger Woods; the young bloods are practicing.

Two friends probably spent their entire afternoon sinking this shot, but it was beyond worth it.

Energy exploration and production companies, he added, "are really forced to do some hedging here where they haven't before just to survive the next three quarters because if oil prices stay down here for the next six months to a year, if they do, they won't live." Dicker, author of "Oil's Endless Bid," also said that highly leveraged companies, such as those focused on the Eagle Ford and Bakken shale oil fields, were particularly at risk. "They simply cannot service the debt with prices that are hovering in the low $80s, and they're going to start to go broke," he said. "So, if you were worried that production from shale was going to be the reason that oil stays low, watch what happens if these prices stay here for several months. There's going to be a decrease in production almost immediately in several of these marginal players." Read More4 ways to protect your portfolio: Pros Dicker said those hurt by falling oil prices are exiting the trade. "And for a trader, that's a good sign if you think that oil prices are ultimately headed higher." However, it was premature to call the bottom, he added.

The last $4 in the decline of crude oil prices was due to distressed players getting out of the market, MercBloc President Dan Dicker says.

03/28/2006 AT 07:45 AM EST Brad Pitt, Ben Affleck and Laurence Fishburne have donated custom-made motorcycles to an online charity auction raising money for a planned memorial for the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in Washington, D.C. "People are always quoting (Rev. King)," Oscar winner Morgan Freeman, who organized the auction benefiting the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. National Memorial Foundation, tells the Associated Press. "He's remembered as our prince of peace, of civil rights. We owe him something major that will keep him and his memory alive." In all, four bikes are on the block: two from Affleck and one each from Pitt and Fishburne. Bids may be placed through Friday on the at charityfolks.com, Freeman says, adding that he hopes "people will overbid" for the worthy cause. As described on the Charity Folks site, Affleck's "treasured" 2001 2-cylinder, 4 stroke Big Dog Bulldog "has very low miles and is in great condition ... from his home, to yours" (as of Tuesday morning, it was up to $12,000). Fishburne's bike ($11,000 so far) is a replica of the "Captain America" model in the movie Easy Rider. Pitt's bike, a Ducati SR4, had the lowest bid of the morning: $8,000. Also available for a price: wedge-heeled shoes designed and signed by Jennifer Lopez and a DVD of Catch Me if You Can autographed by its costar, Tom Hanks. Groundbreaking for the monument, to be built on the National Mall, is scheduled for this year, with the aim of dedicating the site in 2008.

Pitt and other celebs auction their bikes to help build a Martin Luther King monument

The U.K.’s Brexit vote to leave the European Union shocked the world. The day before the vote, London odds makers gave 80% chance that Remain would be victorious, as polls revealed a 10-point edge over the Leave campaign. What caused the politicians and “smart money” to misjudge the electorate so badly? Elites underestimated the anger and despair of Britain’s working class. They also discounted the apathy of the millennial generation, which favored Remain but only 36% voted. The U.S. faces similar issues: working class anger, hostility toward the federal government, and a desire to blame problems on “the other”—Hispanic people, Muslims, African-Americans, and China. These emotions translate into fears of immigration, globalization, free trade, and technology—all themes that fan flames of distrust in government and the establishment. American business leaders who ignore their workers’ feelings do so at their own peril. Unhappy employees lead to disengaged workplaces and mediocre results. Here are five lessons they can learn from Brexit to apply immediately in their businesses: Focus on your workforce first and stock market second As the near-term pressures from short-term investors have accelerated, business leaders have engaged in financial engineering such as stock buybacks, cost cutting, and spinoffs. As a consequence, companies aren’t investing in their employees. Health care, perquisites, and other benefits are being cut back, employee training programs shelved, and support for creativity and innovation diminished, while the gap in compensation between rank-and-file workers and executives has widened dramatically. With employee cutbacks, fewer people are being asked to carry a larger share of the workload. According to Gallup polls, employee engagement scores have dropped to 30% or lower. More people are simply showing up to pick up a paycheck, while their passion for the business and commitment to pleasing customers has waned. To turn around these attitudes, business leaders need to stop trying to please the stock market – which will never be satisfied, no matter how strong the results – and engage and inspire their front-line people. Instead of cutting employee costs, they should be investing in them through training, added compensation incentives, attractive healthcare, and by creating an empowering culture. Support front-line employees who grow the business, instead of adding corporate bureaucracy that makes work more difficult All too often, managers see their job as controlling employees throughout the enterprise. Finance groups focus on cost-cutting, risk-averse lawyers make the company impossible to do business with, and human resources casts judgment on employees. As a result, corporate departments at many businesses have grown while the rest of the organization has shrunk, causing resentment. Meanwhile, top executives spend most of their time in internal meetings poring over numbers rather than listening to employees in research labs, offices, and factories. Corporate staffs in multi-business companies should be shrunk dramatically in size and refocused on helping employees do their jobs and making it easier for customers to do business. Accenture, with its 275,000 employees, is a good example of this approach. It has no true corporate headquarters, and its minimal corporate staff is dispersed around the world and focused on supporting customers. Spend one-third of your time with customers Whether you’re in retail, health care, IT, or financial services, there is no greater place for learning what is going on than being in the marketplace with customers. When I was at Medtronic, I observed more than 700 procedures in 12 years; it was the greatest learning opportunity I ever had. Leaders who apply all five senses to customer interactions learn more first-hand than they do from reading reports or looking at PowerPoint presentations. When he became CEO of Unilever ul , Paul Polman asked his leaders 10 questions to see how much time they were spending with customers. Their responses were so embarrassing that Polman challenged them to refocus their organizations on customers. Similarly, Anne Mulcahy kept Xerox xrx out of bankruptcy by skipping the endless meetings at headquarters in favor of riding with field salespeople to stem the tide of customer defections. This type of customer engagement signals to the entire organization that the company puts customers first. Promote transparency internally and externally In today’s world of social media and smartphones, transparency is not only the right choice – it is the only choice. Employees expect their leaders to keep them informed about what is going on, no matter how negative the news. When they are not treated with transparency, they turn to external sources and internal rumors for information, which they perceive is more timely and accurate than internal communication. Following a 2015 layoff, Zappos founder Tony Hsieh wrote to employees: “Remember this is not my company, and this is not our investors’ company. This company is all of ours, and it’s up to all of us where we go from here.” Hsieh’s communications are authentic, transparent, and informal. Former Ford f CEO Alan Mulally used weekly business performance reviews (BPR) to create transparency across the organization to turn around the troubled automaker. In these meetings, Mulally dove into details deeper than any Ford executive had ever done. Honest conversations helped to heal Ford’s politically charged, blame-focused culture. Rather than frowning on problems, Mulally used them to come up with solutions. Work with the government, not against it, to make sensible reforms Many business leaders see government as an enemy, and send out legions of lobbyists to influence laws in their favor. Properly constructed, regulations can help protect against defective or rogue products in the marketplace and ensure customer and employee safety. Brexit should be a wakeup call for all business leaders. The vote showed Britain’s leaders were out of sync with its voters. Could the same thing be happening with employees in your company? Are you involved on the front lines with your employees and customers every day, or are you holed up at headquarters? The answer may well determine your company’s success. Bill George is Senior Fellow at Harvard Business School, former Chairman & CEO of Medtronic, and author of Discover Your True North.

Britain’s leaders were out of sync with its voters. Could the same be happening at your company?

Revelers photograph fireworks over the Arc de Triomphe as they celebrate the New Year's Eve on the Champs Elysees avenue in Paris, France, Thursday, Jan. 1, 2015. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena) (The Associated Press) Revellers celebrate the New Year's Eve on the Champs Elysees avenue in Paris, France, Thursday, Jan. 1, 2015. The Arc de Triomphe is illuminated in the background. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena) (The Associated Press) PARIS – France's Interior Ministry says 940 cars were set alight by revelers ringing in the New Year — 12 percent fewer than the 1,067 set aflame last year. The figures issued on Thursday show that, despite the dip, setting fire to parked cars remains a firmly entrenched way for some French to send out the old and ring in the new. Ministry spokesman Pierre-Henry Brandet said on BFM-TV that numerous cars were burned around the country, particularly in the east, as well as in suburban Paris, notably the Seine-Saint-Denis region — where fiery riots around France started in 2005. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of Parisians thronged the tightly guarded Champs-Elysees Avenue to welcome 2015.

France's Interior Ministry says 940 cars were set alight by revelers ringing in the New Year — 12 percent fewer than the 1,067 set aflame last year.

A Florida-based father is facing off against Donald Trump. Jeff Popick is the manager of the band USA Freedom Kids and the father of one of its member. He told FOX411 he’s planning to sue the GOP nominee because he says the Trump camp never reimbursed him for travel costs or gave USA Freedom Kids the chance to perform after the group’s scheduled performance at a Trump rally in Iowa was cancelled at the last minute in January. USA Freedom Kids, an all-girl group that performs patriotic songs, had gained national attention after performing at Trump rally in Pensacola, Fla., earlier that month. Popick said he is only resorting to a lawsuit because he said the Trump camp kept giving him the runaround on when USA Freedom Kids would perform again following their Iowa cancellation and then went silent. “I don’t envision [the lawsuit] to be millions of dollars,” Popick told FOX411. “It’s the morality issue of doing the right thing and the Trump campaign has not done the right thing by these girls.” “The girls love to perform so that’s what I wanted on behalf of the girls,” Popick added. “How many times do you give someone to make it right? It was all about performing, not about money.” Popick said he gave the Trump camp one final chance with a “demand letter” addressed to a member of Trump’s advance team, George Gigicos, on July 9. In the letter Popick writes: “George, truth be told, I’ve been TOO patient and TOO loyal and have allowed horrible and abusive treatment that has worked to our severe detriment. You have made us broken promises galore, to the extent that they are not only deplorable, but downright actionable.” Popick said Gigicos acknowledged receipt of the letter but never responded. Popick said the group’s first album “Freedom Reborn” is tentatively planned to be released in six weeks but will now not include the track that made them famous: “Freedom’s Call,” AKA “The Trump Jam.” FOX411 reached out to the Trump campaign and to Gigicos but got no reply. Fox News.com Reporter and FOX411 host Diana Falzone covers celebrity news and interviews some of today's top celebrities and newsmakers. You can follow her on Twitter @dianafalzone.

A Florida-based father is facing off against Donald Trump.

Rep. Anthony Weiner's television appearances Wednesday confirmed what you might have suspected: Congressmen don't win when they have to discuss crotch shots. Right-wing commentator Andrew Breitbart began pushing the story over the weekend that a photo showing a man's crotch in snug underwear had been posted from the congressman's Twitter account. Those initial reports suggested that the provocative photo had been sent in a direct Twitter communication (not visible to other Twitter users) to a young woman in Seattle. The woman denied receiving any photo. The New York Democrat said he had never sent such a picture, or ever met the woman in question. She agreed that she had never met Weiner, though she acknowledged calling the lawmaker her "boyfriend" on the social network. She explained this as a fangirl gesture, delivered from a distance, rather than evidence the two had any sort of real relationship. Weiner got so agitated about being asked about all of this on Tuesday he called CNN's Ted Barrett a "jackass" during a confrontation on Capitol Hill. The lawmaker later said he lashed out because the reporter was interrupting him. Weiner acknowledged that wasn't such a great performance and that he needed to do more to clear the air. So he was back on cable TV Wednesday, this time granting interviews to Luke Russert of MSNBC and Wolf Blitzer of CNN. Weiner was calmer in those interviews than he had been a day earlier. He insisted he had never sent the picture in question to the Seattleite. But he also said he could not say for sure that the picture was not of him. “It certainly doesn’t look familiar to me," Weiner told Blitzer. "But I don’t want to say with certitude to you something that I don’t know to be the certain truth.” Hmmm. Not exactly conclusive. And things got a little bumpier and more halting as the congressman tried to explain whether he had ever taken such a picture of himself. “I can tell you this, that there are, I have photographs, I don’t know what photographs are out there in the world of me," Weiner said. "I don’t know what things have been manipulated and doctored. Um, and we’re going to try to find out what happened.” Weiner declined to answer when pressed by Blitzer as to whether he had ever communicated by direct message with the Seattle woman. “Look, I am not going to get into how I communicate with people on social media," he said. Asked to explain why he would have received another message, this one allegedly from a stripper, Weiner suggested his Twitter account might have issued a "pro forma" response, like ones that would have gone to others of the roughly 45,000 people who follow his 140-character missives. Weiner keeps up a lively, sometimes combative narrative on Twitter, making him one of the most popular lawmakers on the social media site. Weiner, 46, tried a lot of angles to make the mess go away Wednesday. There was humor: “It seems like a prank to make fun of my name. When your name is Weiner that certainly happens a lot.” There was empathy: "I would just hope you would leave these people alone," he said of his Twitter followers. "They didn’t do anything wrong for following me.” There was the commonweal: "I want to talk about the debt limit and health care reform." Weiner married former Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin last summer, in a ceremony officiated by Bill Clinton. When Blitzer asked if his responses were designed to protect someone, Weiner replied, "Yes, I am protecting my wife." The congressman said the pursuit of rumors in the story had gotten so silly that a blog's list of attractive women he followed on Twitter included his sister-in-law. But the furor seemed unlikely to conclude at least for a few more days. Those who wanted to keep it alive looked for a bigger public policy issue: If a congressman's social media account had been hacked, wasn't this a potential security threat to all of Congress? And shouldn't an investigation take place, to make sure the lawmakers could keep their online accounts secure? Others were questioning Weiner's tactics in trying to blunt the questions. "Anthony Weiner's non-denial denial about the pic sure undermines his defense," said Daily Beast media and political writer Howard Kurtz on, yes, Twitter, "and casts doubt on hacking tale. Why'd he wait almost a week?" On CNN, commentator Gloria Borger talked about the advantages and pitfalls of interacting with constituents on social media sites. “It establishes this sense of intimacy," Borger said, "and that can be good and sometimes it can be really bad." Photo: U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) as he met with reporters on Capitol Hill Tuesday to dicuss a photo from his Twitter account. The lewd picture was a close-up of a man in tight underwear. Weiner denied that he sent the photo via social media, but he said he couldn't be certain it was not of him. Credit: Alex Wong / Getty Images

Summarizing Anthony Weiner's media moments in recent days. The Twitter photo that won't go away.

Image courtesy of Warner Bros./Time Warner Inc. *No, not THAT The Avengers. I’m talking about the other Avengers movie. No, not Age of Ultron, the OTHER Avengers movie. The one that turns 17 years old on Friday? ”Rain or shine, all is mine?” “How now, brown cow?” Yeah, that’s the one. Thanks to happenstance and random chance, I found myself seeing Fantastic Four and The Man from U.N.C.L.E. within hours of each other. We now know what I thought of both films, but there was something interesting about seeing them so close as if one acted as the antidote to the other. The Man from U.N.C.L.E. is no great artistic triumph, but it is reliable, engaging, and intelligent meat-and-potatoes entertainment. And coming after the devastating catastrophe that was Fantastic Four, there was almost a feeling of relief, a reminder that Hollywood could still pull off this kind of pulpy and relatively unassuming goodness. That in itself was a familiar feeling. It was the same response I had on August 21st, 1998 to a little down-and-dirty R-rated vampire movie called Blade. Its sheer entertainment value and unquestionable competence were a huge relief coming just one week after the stunning disappointment of The Avengers. In fact, looking back on it, the utter failure of the 1960′s spy adventure is every bit as unlikely as the complete failure of the comic book superhero franchise picture was today. If you happen to dig up a print version of the 1998 summer movie preview that I wrote for my high school paper as a junior (no, it’s not online so don’t bother), you’ll notice that my most eagerly anticipated film that summer was not Godzilla, The X-Files, or even my eventual favorite The Mask of Zorro. No, it was The Avengers. The film was an adaptation of a television show that I had never seen, but it offered a seemingly unbeatable combination of winning action, quirky British humor, and an all-star cast in the form of Ralph Fiennes, Uma Thurman, and Sean Connery basically playing a 007-type supervillain. Oh sure it was moved from June 26th, 1998 to August 14th, 1998, but that in itself was no reason to panic. I had seen early August films like Mortal Kombat, Natural Born Killers, The Fugitive, Unforgiven, Hot Shots, and Parenthood open as the proverbial last big movie of the summer and run the tables to varying degrees, and we’ve seen plenty like The Sixth Sense and Guardians of the Galaxy do it since. So even with the switched release date and rumblings of bad buzz via the likes of Ain’t It Cool News, Dark Horizons, and Coming Attractions, I remained optimistic. After all, the first trailer was fun, and I had read the script. In these very early Internet days, it was all-too-easy to stumble upon a script, or at least an initial draft, of a big movie. I was among those who stumbled onto the script for Scream 2, which changed its entire ending after the screenplay got out. And I did read what a draft of Don MacPherson’s Avengers screenplay was. It was very British, very weird, a little dark, and periodically quite violent. With the intended June 26th release date and aforementioned big stars, it was clearly Warner Bros. /Time Warner Inc.’s 1998 attempt at mimicking the success of their Batman movies, as every studio had been doing with period piece properties for the last eight years. Besides, it had Uma Thurman in black leather, burned by Batman & Robin but still hot off of Pulp Fiction, Ralph Fiennes looking dapper and happy in his first blockbuster role, and Sean Connery playing a variation on Blofeld who could control the weather. Even if the film didn’t turn out to be a complete winner, it was surely going to be fun and entertaining, right? Well, little did I know that the film was about to follow a path not-too-dissimilar to the recent box office belly flop that everyone is talking about this week. Putting aside the fact that Sean Connery in 1998 was a bigger star than Miles Teller in 2015, the stories are similar. A major studio tries to make a franchise out of a property that itself has little pull with modern moviegoers. And they pick a relatively untested, at least in the realm of blockbuster filmmaking, director. This time it was Jeremiah S. Chechik, nearly a decade out from National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation and five years out from the buzzy Benny and Joon, but hot off Diabolique. Yes, that Sharon Stone/Chazz Palminteri remake of the classic 1955 French thriller that allegedly inspired Alfred Hitchcock to make Psycho and/or Vertigo was a box office failure. But it was a stylish picture and maybe Warner Bros. thought they had another Tim Burton in their midst. The filmmaker turned in a first cut, apparently running a little under two hours, which both horrified studio executives and stupefied a test screening audience made up of distinctly non-British and non-quirky working class moviegoers in Phoenix, Arizona. As a result, the studio ordered copious reshoots and the film was butchered almost to the point of incomprehensibility. It ended up running 89 minutes, with a single “F” word tossed in at the last minute to avoid a dreaded PG rating. Even with a rather terrific second trailer, one that is filled with action beats that aren’t in the movie (because who would want more scenes of Uma Thurman fighting people?), the writing was on the wall. The film crawled into theaters with no press screenings, no formal premiere, and no buzz to speak of. Back in 1998, it was basically unheard of for a major summer blockbuster to forgo press screenings. The critics who did venture out to the first Friday morning matinees got exactly what they were expecting. I was at one of those first Friday morning showings, and yeah, the horror… the horror. I recognized bits and pieces from the screenplay I had read but also noticed giant chunks of story missing as well as key trailer shots, including major action beats, not included in the theatrical cut. It was barely a complete movie, but it had just enough moments of charm and whimsy (the first act sword fight between Fiennes and Thurman is sexy as hell) to make you mourn for what might have been. Whatever it was, it did a face-first belly flop at the box office, coming in third place on its opening weekend behind the fourth weekend of Saving Private Ryan and the opening weekend of Stella Got Her Groove Back which had debuted with $11.3 million on its way to an eventual $37.6m domestic total. The Avengers, which had cost Warner Bros. and friends $60m to produce, opened with $10.3m on its way to a $23.3m domestic total. I will admit to being a mere 18-years young at the time, but it was the first time in the post-Batman era that a major would-be summer blockbuster didn’t just underperform in relation to expectations (Last Action Hero) or disappoint with regard to cost (Speed 2: Cruise Control) but outright crashed and burned both artistically and commercially. That is what was so surprising about what happened last weekend. Even G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra opened to $54.7m back in August of 2009 on the way to a $300m total. Oh sure there have been bigger flops than Fantastic Four (The Lone Ranger comes to mind), and there were bigger flops than The Avengers before and afterward. But the notion that a would-be major blockbuster that was in a seemingly safe genre would fail so spectacularly was almost and is still almost unheard of. Come what may, the big budget comic book superhero movie is as safe a genre as you can get in terms of at least snagging a decent chunk of change right off the bat (remember, even Green Lantern and Watchmen snagged $50 million+ debut weekends). And the irony is that it was a comic book superhero movie in August of 1998 that saved the proverbial day the next weekend. Stephen Norrington’s Blade wasn’t sold as a Marvel comic book movie perse, but rather a supernatural R-rated Wesley Snipes action movie that just happened to be based on a comic book. And yeah, its sheer competence and relative entertainment value was something of a relief after the horrors of the week prior. I surely didn’t know that this film was going to kick off a new era of comic book movies, but I did know that I was watching a rock-solid piece of studio programming. Blade earned $18 million in its opening weekend towards an eventual $131m worldwide cume. So yes, I do find a token irony in the fact that, almost 17 years to the day, a big budget, insanely troubled, heavily recut, and mostly disavowed comic book movie was utterly polluted our auditoriums while this week a mid-budget, star-driven, 60′s-based action spy romp is the one to provide some sort of relative relief. Maybe 2015 is bizarro 1998. I watched The Avengers three years ago so I could post something with the words “Review: The Avengers” the night after the Marvel film premiered but before the embargo broke, and I finally deduced what went wrong. The film goes through its fantasy-action plotline without a hint of emotional engagement or rising blood pressure. The running gag is that our two heroes are never really fazed by the chaos around them. The film is edited and staged in that mindset as well, meaning we the audience don’t have our pulse quickening either. People die, stuff blows up, cars get attacked by flying robotic bees, characters are attacked by their own double, and nobody seems to care all that much. The film wanted to remain faithful the stereotypical British ‘stiff upper lip’ mentality, but it renders what should be relatively exciting as almost dull. Despite that fact, I would still sell your left arm to get a copy of the original/director’s cut, even though I’m sure such a thing does not exist. 17 years later, The Avengers remains something of a groundbreaker, as it was among the first would-be mega blockbusters, one seemingly manufactured for box office glory, to arrive in theaters absent any buzz and existing in an empty shell of its former self. Obviously 1998 was a very different theatrical era than 2015, although you still got the whole “Things are worse than ever!” mentality by the end of the blockbuster season. But yeah, it’s not an exact match, but Fantastic Four and The Avengers feel like two peas from the same pod, would-be preordained smash hits undone by nervous studios, a less-than-appealing IP, and an untested filmmaker who delivered something both faithful to the alleged intent but wholly uncommercial. As far as Josh Trank’s fortunes, Jeremiah S. Chechik never directed another major feature film again. Heck, even screenwriter Don Macpherson went 17 years without a significant feature writing credit until The Gunman just this year. Ralph Fiennes recovered but mostly stayed out of the blockbuster game until the Harry Potter series and now the 007 franchise, while Uma Thurman pretty much died as a mainstream asset save the Kill Bill films. Director Stephen Norrington followed up Blade with the Alan Moore comic adaptation The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, which incidentally starred Sean Connery. Fortunately, that was a painless shoot and didn’t remotely result in both the star and director basically retiring from Hollywood altogether. Oh, wait… If you like what you’re reading, follow @ScottMendelson on Twitter, and “like” The Ticket Booth on Facebook. Also, check out my archives for older work HERE.

Image courtesy of Warner Bros./Time Warner Inc. *No, not THAT The Avengers. I'm talking about the other Avengers movie. No, not Age of Ultron, the OTHER Avengers movie. The one that turns 17 years old on Friday?  "Rain or shine, all is mine?" "How now, brown cow?"  Yeah, that's the one. Thanks to happenstance and random chance, I [...]

An Australian woman deported from the United Arab Emirates after being jailed in Abu Dhabi for “writing bad words on social media” says her punishment was extreme. Jodi Magi, 39, was sentenced for a cyber crimes offence after reportedly posting a photo on Facebook of a car parked across two disabled spots outside her Abu Dhabi apartment. Shortly after being deported on Tuesday, the 39-year-old West Australian said that during her two days in jail she was shackled at the ankles, strip-searched and made to sleep on a concrete floor with no access to toilet paper or eating utensils. “Obviously, I think a fine and deportation with [an] ... incarceration period was an extreme reaction to a jpg [image] of a car posted to a closed Facebook page, when I did not swear or mention a single name and blocked the registration plate,” Magi said in a Facebook post. “If you think what happened to me was insane, spend a couple of days in an Abu Dhabi jail. I have nothing to complain about compared to the vast majority of women I met.” She was “pretty traumatised” would be “forever heartbroken” by stories of the other women she met while in jail. Magi appeared in an Abu Dhabi court on 12 July and was taken into custody before being placed on a flight to Bangkok. The trouble began in February, when she posted on her Facebook page a photo of a car illegally parked across two places reserved for disabled drivers. The picture was accompanied by “insulting, degrading remarks”, said a judicial source. After a complaint from the vehicle’s owner, a European, Magi admitted having posted the photo but not the incriminating text, the source said. In April Magi was sentenced in absentia to pay a fine of $3,600 and deportation. She appeared in court in May with a lawyer and interpreter to appeal against the verdict but her sentence was confirmed in June. Magi said she will take some time to “decompress” in Laos.

Jodi Magi, arrested for cyber crimes after posting a photo of a car parked across two disabled spots, says she was shackled at the ankles during her two days in jail

Dec. 26, 2013 4:05 p.m. ET A period piece set in the Cold War era, "The Americans" (FX) was the outstanding drama series of the year—a work of steely vision, imaginative range and riveting psychological portraiture, all of it adding up to the kind of suspense that left a viewer feeling, unfailingly, that the week's episode had ended intolerably soon. The Americans of the title are sleeper KGB agents, selected for long years of training and an arranged marriage that enable them to pass themselves off as regular Americans at home in suburbia—small-business owners working and rearing a family—even as they serve the Soviets' spy network full time. The story, by writer-creator Joe Weisberg, unfolds in a time of special threat as perceived by the Soviets. It's 1981 and Ronald Reagan has been elected president—a veritable madman, as KGB officers instruct their agents. Loyalists to the motherland, the spy couple known to their neighbors in the Washington area as Philip ( Matthew Rhys ) and Elizabeth Jennings ( Keri Russell ) are exemplary soldiers, superb specimens trained in martial arts, which we got to see quite a lot of in their various encounters with adversaries. The physicality is no minor feature. It is like all other reflections of the training that went into the making of these agents, their history—the force that colors all, explains all, in these exquisitely rendered characters, the element that adds irresistible human dimension to this spy saga. Philip and Elizabeth each have a past, families, loyalties to certain superiors—all strands Mr. Weisberg and company weave into this tale to immensely potent effect. As Philip, a loyal operative but also a man beginning to appreciate the nature of life in America, Mr. Rhys gives an outstanding performance. Exactly the same is true of Ms. Russell's Elizabeth, the hard-core member of the couple, unyielding in her devotion to country and duty. "The Americans" returns Feb. 26. In the disguise and masquerade department, HBO's "Behind the Candelabra" cast its own gaudy spell—one that owes its life to Michael Douglas, who plays Liberace, a portrayal that verges on the miraculous. So it feels the moment Mr. Douglas utters the first sentence in the peculiar twang he'd worked up for the role, and so it remains throughout his performance—he's Liberace himself. The film ( Steven Soderbergh directed) is based on a book by Liberace's former lover Scott Thorson, ably played by Matt Damon. Also on hand, a bewigged and more than a little deranged looking Rob Lowe, stealing scenes as Liberace's cosmetic surgeon, Dr. Startz. "The Paradise" (PBS) was based on Emile Zola's novel "The Ladies' Paradise," set in a world of opulence and color, fitting for this buoyantly entertaining series about a large department store in an English city—a paradise indeed, for those who could afford its goods. And an enterprise meaningful, in a deeper way, to those who created and served it, the lowliest clerks included. A tale of upstairs-downstairs in a grand department store, complete with jealousy, heartbreak, misprized love—the works. A conspiracy involving a physician ( Toni Collette ) held captive by a terrorist ( Dylan McDermott ) bent on a presidential assassination, "Hostages" (CBS) has gone from smashingly lean and tense early episodes to increasingly implausible plot lines. Still, however wildly improbable the story lines grow—and they grow apace—the show maintains its spark. A concoction that includes a home invasion by masked terrorists, a doctor ordered to kill the president during an operation she was scheduled to perform, isn't easily dispatched. "The Blacklist" (NBC), a relentlessly blood-drenched enterprise, concerns an FBI profiler who has attracted the devoted attention of Raymond Reddington, former government agent turned rogue. It's a thriller with style—thanks, mainly, to James Spader's performance as Reddington, imperturbably haughty guide to the plans of the world's evil-doers. About a fixer valued for his ability to make the problems of Los Angeles studio heads and their stars disappear, Showtime's "Ray Donovan" solves problems with dispatch and, when necessary, unhesitating brutality. Ray (an impressive Liev Schreiber ) is a family man with an active moral sense, a problem father (a superb Jon Voight ), and a tendency toward heavy silences. An enormously engaging drama, and a splendidly written one. Season two of "Lilyhammer" arrived in time to be counted—an uproarious addition to the TV year and a continuation of this delectably derisive satire set in Norway, whose societal values come as a shock to a New York mobster, relocated there under the witness protection program. Steven Van Zandt stars as the transplanted American in this Netflix original, a man astounded by this society governed by social workers and multiculturalism run amok. "The Crash Reel" traces the history of a promising athlete whose career hopes ended when he sustained a critical brain injury. It's a work of astonishing depth. Steering clear of clichés, and heroics, the HBO documentary reports on snowboarding champion Kevin Pearce and his parents and brothers. The result is an unexpected, revelatory picture of a family. No one who sees it is likely to forget its riches anytime soon. "Our Nixon" is the product of 500 reels of home movies taken by top members of Richard Nixon's staff—aides, as this vivid CNN documentary shows, who had once considered themselves the luckiest of men to be serving in the Nixon White House. They worked countless hours, happily; they reveled in each other's company. The happiness came to an end with Watergate, whose story is recounted in detail, much of it from old film clips and interviews with John Ehrlichman and H.R. Haldeman. Everyone who shot this footage—Ehrlichman, security adviser, and Haldeman, chief of staff, both deceased, and special assistant Dwight Chapin—saw prison time. A film full of an undeniable sadness, but one also with a plentiful quotient of humor and optimism.

The Journal's television critic Dorothy Rabinowitz picks the best TV shows of the year.

Create the charade that the house is being lived in – set the lights on an automatic dimmer switch, or leave the radio playing. Some people go as far as setting the dining table or drawing the curtains. Certainly place precious items such as watches, jewellery, antiques and personal details into a safe or a secure attic. Tell your neighbours where you are going and when you get back. Leave an emergency contact number with them. If they have your keys, ask them nicely to clear your post and stop it piling up against the front door – a clear indication of a vacant property. If you have a milkman, why not order a bottle of milk to be delivered a day before you return? And, of course, make sure your contents cover is up-to-date and suitable for your needs. Once the house is secured, why not turn to your suitcase? Few holidaymakers are guilty of under packing, except perhaps when it comes to travel insurance. So, as you struggle to cram your belongings into a holdall – new designer wardrobe, handbag, laptop, camera and jewellery – it may be time to consider taking out a premier travel insurance policy. With volcanoes puffing out troublesome plumes and the increasing cost of healthcare abroad, you want to be covered for all eventualities. All the more reason, then, to ensure you’re properly covered before leaving for the airport. It doesn’t even matter if you’ve left it to the last minute – just click and buy insurance online. Thus armed, a delayed flight, mislaid bag or chipped tooth (curse those quaint cobbled streets) will seem a little bit less of an irritant. And you can enjoy that relaxing siesta in the sun, safe in the knowledge that you’re protected – both at home and abroad. Forgetting to pack their toothbrush is far from the most worrying omission for many UK travellers. According to Home office statistics (2010/11), 745,000 homes in England and Wales are robbed while their owners are away. There’s also the cost of the possessions in your suitcase to consider - there’s nothing so frustrating as realising your policy doesn’t cover that mislaid camera. It pays to have a solid policy. Select home insurance covers your possessions anywhere in the world, plus you can choose to add annual travel cover. For more information about insurance from Direct Line Select, or for a quote, call 0800 206 2819, or visit www.directline.com/select

Going on holiday? Make sure you’re protected both at home and away with home insurance and travel cover, says Elizabeth Walters.

NEW YORK (AP) – In a nod to rival social networks, Facebook is letting its users "subscribe" to news from other members — even those they are not friends with. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, center with unidentified co-workers. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, center with unidentified co-workers. Facebook said in a blog post Wednesday that it is rolling out the "subscribe" button to users in the next few days. This will let people hear from Facebook users they don't know personally — such as celebrities or political figures. Public figures have already been using Facebook to send news to their fans by creating public pages. By clicking the "like" button on these pages, users can see the updates in their own news feed. The new button will let people bypass creating public pages and send updates directly to their subscribers. Only updates that users publicly share will be seen by subscribers, and Facebook says the feature is entirely optional. Twitter and Google+ already have similar "follow" features. Facebook's button is a bit more customizable, as Facebook features tend to be. Once you subscribe to someone's posts, you can decide whether to see all updates, most updates (which is what you normally see now), or only important updates, such as a marriage or a new job. You can even decide what form of updates you want to see — photos only, games only or some combination. Users have to choose, or "opt in" to allowing subscribers. Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. , visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor . For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to . Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to We've updated the Conversation Guidelines. Changes include a brief review of the moderation process and an explanation on how to use the "Report Abuse" button.

The new feature is similar to features already found on Twitter and Google+.

Moving forward, Lemonis envisions Crumbs transitioning to a "sweets and snack destination" rather than just a cupcake shop. While it will add some items, customers shouldn't expect sandwiches, soup or hamburgers as part of the strategy shift, he added. Read MoreCrumbs' backer partners with another bakery In what he sees as a "herculean effort to make" Crumbs work, Lemonis said he'll be looking at the profitability of each location during the bankruptcy process. "This is not an opportunity just to open up all these stores and sell a bunch of products," Lemonis said. "We want to be disciplined about it. So if that store is a money maker, then it will reopen. And if it's not, I can't promise that it will." Disclosure: "The Profit," which stars Marcus Lemonis, is a CNBC show.

As Marcus Lemonis mulls how to save struggling Crumbs Bake Shop, one thing's for sure...

Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony stole the show on Thursday night as the Latin Grammy awards delivered an entertaining and unifying evening in Las Vegas. After months of enduring divisive comments towards immigrants and the Latino community by Trump’s campaign, there was an expectation of more political statements on the biggest night for the Latin music industry. Last year for example, legendary Mexican bands Maná and Los Tigres Del Norte performed the powerful Somos Más Americanos (We Are More Americans) and held up a sign that read Latinos Unidos No Voten Por Racistas (Latinos United Don’t Vote For Racists) in response to the president-elect’s comments about Mexican immigrants being criminals and rapists. Instead, the Grammys decided to take a note from Michelle Obama and go high by highlighting the importance of unifying and looking forward to the future as the gala celebrated the best from this past year’s music, including notable performances from J Balvin’s Safari which featured Pharell Williams, BIA and Sky and Bronx-born Prince Royce. “Music moves us, makes us think, allow us to feel,” said host and singer Roselyn Sánchez. “And tonight will make us feel so proud of who we are and where we come from.” There were some strong moments where artists expressed their views and spoke out, including the opening song by Pablo López and Juanes, Tu Enemigo (Your Enemy), where Cirque du Soleil acrobats joined them on stage to give a message of peace and unity. The Mexican actor Diego Luna, made the biggest political impression on the night when he said a few words as he was presenting the award for song of of the year. “I have a message for all of the Latinos on this side of the border,” he said as he stood next to Julieta Venegas. “Together we can fight hate and discrimination.” The night, however, belonged to Marc Anthony as the Grammys celebrated his illustrious career. In honor of his recent Latin Recording Academy’s Person of the Year award, the 48-year-old singer took center stage by performing a medley of his great successes including I Need to Know, Tu Amor Me Hace Bien and Vivir Mi Vida, the latter causing the ladies to take off their heels to leave their seats and dance. His ex-wife, Jennifer Lopez, then joined him on the stage to sing a great rendition of Olvídame y Pega La Vuelta (Forget Me And Get Out Of Here), originally made famous by the Argentine duo Pimpinela. After the song ended, the crowd roared and celebrated this once-adored couple. “Marc is a living legend who keeps giving us classics that will stay with us forever,” said Lopez after the performance. But the highlight of the evening came right after when the entire arena encouraged them to kiss, which they did. Un beso dice más que mil palabras. Loveit! ❤️ @JLO @MarcAnthony #LatinGRAMMY #UnidosPorLaMusica pic.twitter.com/w3i4bZtXUq The awards came at a difficult time for the Latino community and before the awards, stars had spoken out about fears over the election result. “Donald Trump has won – the results show it,” Puerto Rican rapper Wisin, who won song of the year with Enrique Iglesias, told Fox News Latino on Wednesday. “But it doesn’t mean that us as Latinos are going to sink. On the contrary, we must push forward and not see us by our nationalities – Mexican, Boricua, Cubans, Dominicans. We are all a family and that is how we should see it. If we do, big things will happen.”

The singer and her ex-husband Marc Anthony created the night’s most talked about moment to cap off overall theme of unity in difficult times ahead

BUTLER, Mo. — Buy a truck and get a free AK-47 gun. That's the deal a Missouri truck dealer is offering new customers who buy a pick-up truck in August. Mark Muller, owner of Max Motors in Butler, says he knows people will be bothered by the promotion. But not to worry, Muller is not handing out free guns. Instead, he will give buyers a voucher to use at a gun store after they obtain a license to carry a concealed weapon. The AK-47 is an upgrade on a previous promotion in which Muller gave away vouchers for the price of a Caltec pistol. The retail value of an AK-47 is $450 dollars but Muller says customers can spend their voucher on the gun of their choice.

Missouri Car Dealer Offers Free AK-47 With New Truck, Buy a truck and get a free AK-47 gun. That's the deal a Missouri truck dealer is offering new customers who buy a pick-up truck in August.

Erik Estrada's son caused pilots of a Northwest Airlines flight to make an emergency landing Thursday in Oklahoma City, where he was removed by FBI agents. Brandon Estrada, a student and athlete at USC, started behaving in a bizarre manner a couple of hours into the L.A.-to-Memphis flight, another passenger, who asked to remain nameless, tells us. "During the flight, he became agitated," said the fellow flier. "He was convinced that nobody was flying the plane. He jumped up and reached over the other passengers and lifted up their window cover. Then he tried to get out of the airplane. Then he tried to get into the cockpit. He kept saying there were no pilots. It was wild." Yet flight attendants remained calm as they handled the situation, our witness attests. "They found military and police passengers and quietly brought them up front, and they all restrained him," said the passenger. "Half the people didn't know what was going on. They kept it under wraps." Estrada was taken off the plane in Oklahoma City but not arrested. The flight continued, but arrived five hours late in Memphis, where Northwest footed the bill for hotel rooms, our passengers reports. The FBI spokesman for Oklahoma, Gary Johnson, told us: "We are conducting an investigation into an incident in which an aircraft was diverted to Oklahoma City as the result of an alleged unruly passenger." Northwest Airlines spokesman Roman Blahoski confirmed the incident with Brandon, whose mother is Estrada's second wife, Peggy Rowe. A family friend said, "He's a great kid and he's never been in any trouble." The senior Estrada - an East Harlem native frequently who starred in "CHiPS" and who trains as a cop on the CBS reality show "Armed and Famous" - weighed in on the incident. "Brandon informed us recently that he has had 'stress' and 'pressure' at college, and has elected to see an on-campus psychologist," said Estrada. "I told him that it was a good idea to talk to someone about his feelings and condition. "I would like to thank all the women and men of law enforcement, as well as Northwest Airlines, for helping my son when he was clearly not able to help himself. I am sorry that other passengers had to be negatively affected by this incident, and thank all of them for helping my son. He now can get the help that he clearly needs." Estrada also had a plea for his fans: "Please reach out to my son in your prayers during this time of need. I thank you all for your support."

Erik Estrada's son caused pilots of a Northwest Airlines flight to make an emergency landing Thursday in Oklahoma City, where he was removed by FBI agents. Brandon Estrada started behaving erratically a few hours into the L.A.-to-Memphis flight, another passenger tells us.

“You are the firefighters,” National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden told a tech savvy audience here yesterday, during my conversation with him at the SXSW festival. “The people in Austin are the ones who can protect our rights through technical standards.” Ed’s comments were a call to arms for the tech community to protect its users from indiscriminate mass surveillance by the NSA and the insecurity it creates. Despite the talk from Washington DC regarding cybersecurity threats – and you’ll hear more of it today during a confirmation hearing for the would-be next head of the NSA – it is now clear that the NSA’s mass surveillance efforts are not meant for good. Whether it’s systematically undermining global encryption standards, hacking communications companies’ servers and data links or exploiting so-called zero-day vulnerabilities, the nation’s cyberspies are focused on attacking online privacy and weakening the security of systems that we all trust. Forget all the government rhetoric on cybersecurity: the NSA simply isn’t here to make the Internet more secure. But that doesn’t mean the agency has to win. The global tech community can fight back, if developers ramp up efforts to build privacy and security into their products. By zeroing in on practical steps Ed and I discussed in our conversation here, we can build a more open, free and secure Internet. Unfortunately, for far too long, security has been an afterthought. Even for a lot of my fellow geeks here at SXSW. Until recently, many of the free email and social networking services used by consumers failed to integrate the most basic of encryption technology. That made the NSA’s job far too easy, so the real challenge for the NSA often became processing all of the intercepted communications data, rather than grabbing it in the first place. Right now, the most widely used communications tools and services – the ones we use to do business, have fun and connect with those we love – fail to deliver the reasonable and realizable trifecta of privacy, security and simplicity. As a result, people are forced to choose between technology that’s incredibly intuitive but fundamentally weak on privacy (such as Google’s Chrome browser and Android operating systems) and technology (like PGP email encryption and Tor) that remains far too difficult for the average person to use … even if those tools do a much better job of protecting private data. Nine months after Snowden’s documents leaked in these pages, though, the standards and practices of everyday security are truly beginning to change. Over the past few years, and even more so after Ed’s revelations, Silicon Valley companies have begun to enable – by default – basic security features, such as the use of HTTPS encryption to protect data as it is transmitted from their customers’ to the companies’ servers. While HTTPS encryption by default is a great start, isn’t enough. The tech companies must offer apps and services that are safe and secure by default. Far too often, security is an opt-in feature that few regular people will even know about, much less seek out and enable. In addition, big tech companies need to embrace end-to-end encryption technology. That is, they need to lock their products down, so they won’t be able to see their customers’ data. This kind of encryption technology, if deployed by several major service providers, will significantly thwart the ability of intelligence agencies, in the US and elsewhere, to engage in bulk surveillance. The more communications and data are encrypted, the less tenable mass surveillance becomes. It comes down to simple economics, really: if the NSA has to spend more time finding a way to break or otherwise circumvent encrypted communications, it will be forced to do what it should have done all along – use its extraordinary powers on high-value targets, rather than the hundreds of millions of innocent people currently subject to NSA surveillance. If you question the power of encryption, consider this: the US government still doesn’t know what documents Ed took, because he encrypted everything. As Ed stressed, tech companies can also begin to limit the data they collect from their customers and only store it for as long as it’s needed for genuine business purposes – and not one second longer. The impact of the government’s ability to demand data from companies like Google and Facebook is amplified because these tech companies collect and store everything. If the companies don’t have the data that the US government and other governments are seeking, they cannot be legally compelled to hand over what no longer exists or never existed in the first place. The problem, however, is a fundamental conflict of interest between the business model of so many tech giants – the collection, storage and monetization of your data – and your privacy and security. This is where the average Internet user can make a difference. Right now, the digital services up on which we all rely for swift communications and easy web browsing are largely reliant on advertising dollars. They sell the data you generate to third parties, or use it to deliver targeted advertisements for those third parties. Entire businesses are devoted to collecting, analyzing and then monetizing whatever data you produce. As a result, the apps, operating systems and services they provide us are optimized for one major thing: the collection of our private data. We, the everyday consumers, must make privacy and security profitable. If we want these companies to put our interests first, we must pay for the services that they provide us. We must demand that those products preserve privacy – again, by default. Until this business model changes, the services that are made for the mass market will remain insecure, vulnerable and optimized for data collection. By making it harder for the NSA to engage in mass surveillance, we force the agency to target the communications and devices of people genuinely suspected of wrongdoing without compromising the privacy rights of everyone else. I cannot stress enough what I said yesterday: the goal here isn’t to blind the NSA. The goal here is to make sure they cannot spy on innocent people, in bulk. Starting right now. It’s been said that the geeks shall inherit the Earth. If that’s true, it’s also our responsibility to secure it. One of our own, Edward Snowden, started this revolution. Now it’s time we finished it by using our skills and knowledge to preserve our privacy and civil liberties, not just the bottom line.

Christopher Soghoian: How to move beyond our SXSW talk: revenge of the nerds, one everyday security tool at a time

The Federal Reserve last week confirmed what most Americans already know. In its latest report on the state of the US economy, the central bank said 46 percent of Americans would “struggle to meet emergency expenses of $400.” “The new survey findings shed important light on the economic and financial security of American families seven years into the recovery,” said Federal Reserve Board Governor Lael Brainard. And that light is a flashing red beacon of warning. While I love the direct nature of this survey question, I wonder what it would have been like if the number were $500. Would that have put the percentage of Americans over 50 percent? While this is — in today’s economy — a lot of money to practically half the country, it is not a vast sum. In addition, 22 percent of those currently employed are working two or more jobs. So almost a quarter of those who are lucky enough to be working have to work two jobs to make ends meet before a $400 fender-bender forces them to go begging to their neighbor or borrow from a family member. Even this sad story of the “recovery” gets worse. A full 43 percent of those with family incomes below $40,000 don’t even have a bank account. And 31 percent of workers don’t have a retirement savings account or pension. So there is no hope that starving today will feed you tomorrow. In this recovery from the Great Recession, almost half of America is living hand to mouth. There’s an old saying that “Money talks and BS walks.” I’d propose changing it to “Money walks and hope floats.” If this was the “hope is on the way” rhetoric that President Obama promised, then I suspect half the country would gladly exchange that hope for $400, in case things don’t exactly pan out.

The Federal Reserve last week confirmed what most Americans already know. We’re broke! In its latest report on the state of the US economy, the central bank said 46 percent of Americans would “stru…

Linda Hogan Makes Ass of Herself in New 'MILF' Video let it all hang out in a new music video ... by flashing her behemoth badonkadonk in a thong and sheer dress type thing. The 52-year-old blonde bombshell stars in hip hop artist 's latest video entitled "MILF" and does her best Coco impersonation by exposing all of her orange mother-of-two posterior loveliness. Besides showing off all her God given talents, Linda did some serious method acting by making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in full face and a horrendous animal print bikini. Linda is now a video ho...gan. Get TMZ Breaking News alerts to your inbox

Hulk Hogan's ex-wife Linda Hogan let it all hang out in a new music video ... by flashing her behemoth badonkadonk in a thong and sheer dress type…

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) speaking on the Senate floor. (Senate TV via Associated Press) A funny thing happened on the way to the shutdown: The Senate Republicans, from whose midst the defund Obamacare scheme came, are more united than ever, in large part because the ringleaders of the defund gambit were shown to be failures and, worse, inept. A longtime Republican on the Hill explains, “The members have real life experience now. What [the defund Obamacare leaders] said didn’t happen.” Indeed, there is zero chance Obamacare will be defunded, and Democratic support for the defund effort never appeared as Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) had assured them it would. There is no sign the shutdown is forcing the president to cave; if anything he’s dug in even further. The entire escapade made it impossible for Republicans, at least for now, to obtain smaller gains and, most important, get onto the main event, the debt ceiling. Many on the GOP side in the Senate are openly disparaging Cruz, who only a week ago was presenting himself as the model conservative. The burning resentment members and staff were expressing over the weekend as Cruz targeted them, rather than Democrats, has turned to open fury, disdain and much eye-rolling. Ted Cruz faced a barrage of hostile questions Wednesday from angry GOP senators, who lashed the Texas tea party freshman for helping prompt a government shutdown crisis without a strategy to end it. At a closed-door lunch meeting in the Senate’s Mansfield Room, Republican after Republican pressed Cruz to explain how he would propose to end the bitter budget impasse with Democrats, according to senators who attended the meeting. A defensive Cruz had no clear plan to force an end to the shutdown — or explain how he would defund Obamacare, as he has demanded all along, sources said. He enraged colleagues further by refusing to repudiate his attack dogs at the Senate Conservatives Fund who savaged Republicans. A Senate source tells Right Turn, “Cruz got the brunt, but Lee too.” Perhaps most shocking, no senator, according to three GOP sources, rose in their defense. They have, to be blunt, been repudiated by a newly united GOP caucus. One Senate aide said, “I don’t think Sen. Cruz entered that meeting with a thick skin, but he left learning he needs one going forward, along with a strategy.” The behavior of the defund trio in this drama has changed markedly as well. Rubio has practically gone into hiding. Instead of news clips of his appearances hyping the defund strategy, his office sends out press releases about flood insurance. Having opposed any clean continuing resolution, Cruz and Lee now are backing the clean mini-continuing resolution strategy. Although he won’t take back the insults, you don’t hear Cruz excoriate fellow Republicans in public these days. Lee, meanwhile, had to backpedal on his initial decision to take his salary, something many Republicans have declined to do. They are now on defense and under the gun from all sides, trying their best not to remind the media and supporters that their plan has been a bust. Should there be another cloture vote on a continuing resolution that doesn’t defund or delay Obamacare, it’s doubtful Cruz would get anything near even the tepid support he did when 18 Republicans (and some of those voted with him only because of the sequester budget numbers) joined him on the original House continuing resolution. The “fear factor,” if you will, is gone. Cruz recently has been compared to Barack Obama. Both were freshmen senators with presidential aspirations, big talkers and solo acts rather than team players. But Cruz experienced what Obama was smart enough to avoid — a high-profile drubbing that deflated the image of an invincible new figure on the national stage. Moreover, Obama, unlike Cruz, was not openly hostile to his colleagues, thereby preventing a nonstop flood of criticism and embarrassing anecdotes. Maybe in the long run that will help Cruz, who could learn a lesson about attacking Republicans and promising supporters the moon and the stars. But, for now, the defund strategy designed to elevate him has exposed him as a disliked and inept lawmaker, giving rise to the question of what he is accomplishing for the voters of Texas. He might take a look at Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who was cagey enough to be opposed to the defund strategy, made a brief appearance during the 21-hour talk-a-thon, voted against the defund continuing resolution cloture (getting him out of Jim DeMint’s line of fire) and then promptly took up a conciliatory tone. Now Rand Paul suggests a shorter continuing resolution or muses that everyone should just sit down for a chat. He knows that vitriol can come back to bite you, especially if you make a spectacular belly-flop. The Senate Republicans lack a majority, of course, so any deals on the continuing resolution and the debt ceiling likely will have to come from the House. But you hear from many Senate offices now that they’ve “never been more united.” That will help in the battles ahead and may, with a divided and frenetic House GOP caucus, cast them once again as the voice of reason and as instrumental deal-makers (as they were in 2011). Call it karma or comeuppance or schadenfreude, but most members, for now, are satisfied to see Cruz on the receiving end of an angry GOP contingent and vivid confirmation of their misgivings about his defund strategy. There is nothing so satisfying as standing up to a bully. RELATED: The Right’s 25 most influential voices

The Texas senator is no longer the top dog in the CR fight.

SIZE: 750 square feet (estimated) SETTING: Highmount is a hamlet of Shandaken, a town of about 3,200 in the Catskills, about 2.5 hours from New York City. This house is in a heavily wooded rural area about 10 minutes from both Belleayre Mountain, a ski resort, and an entrance to the 290,000-acre Catskill Forest Preserve. The nearest commercial center is 10 miles away in Margaretville. INSIDE: The cylindrical house, inspired by a grain silo, was built in the mid-1970s. It has three levels: a kitchen on the bottom; a living room and a lofted bedroom on the second; and another bedroom on the third. The staircase winds along the walls. The bedroom on the top level has 360-degree views of the property. OUTDOOR SPACE: The property’s nearly eight acres are mostly wooded. CONTACT: Ray and Janet Pucci, Coldwell Banker Timberland Properties (607) 746-7400 ext. 13; timberlandproperties.net WHAT: A one-bedroom, one-bath condo in a converted warehouse SETTING: This condo is in the Northeast section of Minneapolis, so named because it is northeast of downtown, on the opposite side of the Mississippi River . Historically, the neighborhood has been home to families from Poland, Finland and Slovakia, and businesses established in the first half of the 20th century survive today, like Surdyk’s liquor store, which also sells wine, cheese and cigars, and Nye’s Polonaise Room, which has weekly polka performances. The area has a mix of single-family homes and recently converted commercial buildings. Restaurants, shops and art galleries are within five or six blocks. The Hennepin Street Bridge, which has a pedestrian and bike path, connects the area to downtown. INSIDE: This unit is one of 35 in the Calumet Lofts, a 1911 warehouse converted to condos in 2005. A large room with wood-beam ceilings, it has an exposed brick wall and concrete floors with radiant heating. The windows face southwest. At one end is a bedroom, at the other is a living area, which has a ceiling-mounted projector with a retractable screen and surround-sound speakers. Loft owners have access to the building’s common room. OUTDOOR SPACE: A shared deck off the building. TAXES: $2,040 annually plus $314 a month in condo fees CONTACT: Jason Huerkamp, Coldwell Banker Burnet (612) 306-8421; cbburnet.com

A Craftsman-style house in Birmingham, Ala.; a silolike house in the Catskills; and a loft in Minneapolis.

Today marks 100 years since the start of World War I. On July 28, 1914, Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria the month before, thrusting the world into a war unlike any seen before. It would rage on until November 1918, killing more than 5 million troops and reshaping the world in ways that only sent it hurtling toward the next world war. Here are some of the places that endured through the war and what they look like now, photographed by Peter Macdiarmid of Getty Images. Above: April 30, 1917, Reims Cathedral during a bombardment. (UIG via Getty Images) Underneath: Reims Cathedral on March 11, 2014, in Reims, France. (Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images) The Reims Cathedral in France is more than 800 years old, the site of 25 coronations of kings of France, including Louis VIII in 1223 and Charles VII in 1429, in the company of Joan of Arc. The cathedral was almost destroyed during World War I when German troops tried to reach Paris. Above: World War I, German airplanes at Place de la Concorde in Paris, wrecked by celebrating crowds on the day of the restoration of Alsace-Lorraine to France. Nov. 18, 1918. Underneath: Cars are parked near Place de la Concorde on March 12, 2014, in Paris. In the center of the Place de la Concorde sits the Luxor Obelisk, which dates back 3,300 years. The Luxor Obelisk was once an entrance to the Luxor Temple in Egypt. It was given to Paris by the Viceroy of Egypt in 1829. Above: (Rue des Archives/PVDE Via Getty Images) Underneath: Traffic runs from Basilica of Notre-Dame de Brebieres on March 13, 2014, in Albert, France. (Photo by Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images) “Lourdes of the North,” it was named by the pope in 1899, impressed by the 40,000 gold leaves placed on the sculpture of the Virgin Mary at the top of the basilica. The Star reports that 2,000 shells shattered the building during the war and by January 1915, the statue was left hanging “by her toes.” She came to be called the “leaning virgin.” Superstitious soldiers believed that “when the Virgin falls, the war will end.” According to The Star, the statue fell in April 1918 and the war ended seven months later. The Notre-Dame de Brebieres Basilica was rebuilt as almost an exact replica, and the statue was back atop the building by 1929. Above: November 1914: In Trafalgar Square, London street urchins dressed as soldiers with paper hats and canes as guns stand at attention watched by a small crowd. Behind them is a notice declaring “The Need for Fighting Men is Urgent.” (Photo by Topical Press Agency/Getty Images) Underneath: Trafalgar Square on March 17, 2014, in London. (Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images) Britain declared war on Germany on Aug. 4, 1914. On Aug. 5, Field Marshal Lord Kitchener, became secretary of state for war. He is credited with realizing early that the war would last for years, and he built up British forces from 20 to 70 divisions in two years. Above: A large crowd of men respond to a call by the War Office for married men aged between 36 and 40 to become munition workers. They gathered outside the Inquiry Office at Scotland Yard in London during World War 1. (Photo by Paul Thompson/FPG/Getty Images) Underneath: A gated barrier runs near Scotland Yard on March 17, 2014, in London. (Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images) Trafalgar Square has been the hub of London since its construction in the early 1800s. It celebrates a great British naval victory in the Napoleonic wars, the Battle of Trafalgar, and so is a symbol of British might and resolve. Above: Les Halles in the Belgium town of Ypres, the site of three major battles during World War I, and almost completely devastated by bombing. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images) Underneath: Cars are parked near Les Halles in the Grote Markt on March 10, 2014, in Ypres, Belgium. (Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images) By 1918, the town hall and the entire town of Ypres was flattened. Some of the biggest battles were fought there, as it was the “linchpin” that kept Germany from advancing to the English Channel. Above: German troops sitting on the steps of the Vareddes Town Hall, France, 1914. German soldiers taking a rest during the First Battle of the Marne. (Photo by The Print Collector /Getty Images) Underneath: A man stands near Vareddes town hall on March 12, 2014, in Vareddes, France. (Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images) The first Battle of the Marne in September 1914 helped bring a halt to the German advance. The second Battle of the Marne, in 1918, ended in a great victory for allied forces, turning the tide of war. Above: Soldiers standing outside the ruins of the railway station at Roye, France, during World War I in 1917. (Photo by Culture Club/Getty Images) Underneath: Cars are parked at the former railway station on March 12, 2014, in Roye, France. (Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images) The Battle of the Somme in 1916 is considered one of the bloodiest in history, with more than a million dead and injured in fighting over a 30-mile front. Above: The town hall and the belfry of Arras in ruins, seen from the main square. (Photo by Roger Viollet/Getty Images) Underneath: People walk near Place des Heros on March 14, 2014, in Arras, France. (Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images) Eight days before the battle of Arras in 1917, 24,000 British soldiers hid in a labyrinth of medieval quarries converted into an underground hideout under Arras. The Guardian published this report dated April 9-10, 1917: “The Battle of Arras is the greatest victory we have yet gained in this war, and a staggering blow to the enemy. He has lost already nearly 10,000 prisoners and more than half a hundred guns, and in dead and wounded his losses are great. He is in retreat south of the Vimy Ridge to defensive lines further back, and as he goes our guns are smashing him along the roads. It is a black day for the German armies and for the German women who do not know yet what it means to them.” Module development by Shelly Tan/The Washington Post This story has been updated, the Battle of the Somme happened in 1916 not 1918.

Today marks 100 years since the start of WWI. Here are some of the places that endured through the war and what they look like now.

However, Hong added he expects these sales will only slow, not stop, stock price rises, in what's become a frenzied market. China's benchmark stock indexes have surged nearly 150 percent over the past year, beating the rest of the world's major indexes, even as the country's economy slows. Shenzhen's start-up board has more than tripled in the last 12 months and is now trading at earning multiples of 140, meaning at the current level of profitability, investors need to wait 140 years to recoup their investments. Some shareholders are getting impatient. Between June 1 and June 3, Jia Yueting, Chairman and president of Leshi, sold 35 million shares in the internet firm he founded, making 2.5 billion yuan (£257.8 million). Leshi said on May 25 that Jia plans in total to sell up to 148 million shares over the next six months or 8 percent of the company, though he will remain the biggest shareholder after that with a 36.85 percent holding. Read MoreThis could open the door to China's hot market Leshi said that Jia will lend the proceeds of the sale to the company interest free. A spokeswoman declined to say whether the selling was prodded by a view that share prices are too high. It's not just company management who are selling; major cornerstone investors, freed from mandated lock-up periods, are also reducing their stakes. Cornerstone stakeholders slashed 109 billion yuan worth of China-listed shares in May, double the amount sold during the previous month, according to data from Southwest Securities. That doesn't include 3.5 billion yuan worth of banking shares dumped by sovereign investment firm Central Huijin on May 26. The reduction by Huijin, in its holdings in China Construction Bank (CCB) and Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), represents a reversal of strategy by the state investor. Huijin had been buying mainland-listed banking shares since the global financial crisis in 2008, in an apparent support to their share prices. Huijin confirmed in statement that it has sold the shares but did not provide its reasons for doing so. Read MoreChinese farmers hope to harvest bumper stock profits A similar trend was captured by an index compiled by Shenwan Hongyuan Securities that tracks major shareholders' trading activities. The index surged over the past month, to a record high, meaning major shareholders are reducing holdings at unprecedented levels. "It a barometer of how people in the real economy view stock valuations," said Liu Junwei, analyst at Shenwan Hongyuan. "It means at the current level, a correction is very likely".

Senior executives of listed firms in China have stepped up the pace at which they are selling shares in their own companies.

By LIGAYA MISHANMARCH 20, 2014 Fung Tu at night is a faint red glow on a block of almost Chinatown on the Lower East Side. Inside, the booths are puritanical, with stiff backs of dark stained wood, overlooked by mirrors and crimson wallpaper in a study of drifting leaves. The look suggests a modern cha chaan teng, the kind of old-school Hong Kong coffee shop celebrated in the film “In the Mood for Love,” which Maggie Cheung haunts in a cheongsam with swirled-up hair, slinky and demure at once. And while the menu here is loftier than a cha chaan teng’s roster of Western-ish Chinese comfort food, it too looks from East to West in surprising ways. In lieu of Chinese red jujubes, there are plump Medjool dates, steeped in soy, star anise and bark cinnamon, smoked over applewood and filled with duck confit, then buttermilk-battered and deep-fried. The layers astound: first salty crunch, then sweet chew, and finally the yielding center of succulent duck, still ticking with heat. Shrimp paste, served with dainty leaves of Shanghai bok choy, is made with shrimp rubbed with Old Bay spices, as if at a crab boil, and steamed rather than fermented. It still throws a punch, the shrimp’s brininess underscored by tomato paste and the Chinese threesome of ginger, garlic and scallions. Nubs of beef jerky, from Jung’s on Mulberry Street, are tossed with dill sprigs, dill pollen and peanuts fried in oxtail fat. How is it that this dish never existed before? It is less food than compulsion, bright, grassy and carnal, and entirely plausible as an entrant in the Chinese canon. The Bronx-born chef, Jonathan Wu, cooked at Per Se, a training that shows in the delicacy and technical intricacy of many of his dishes, like whorls of thin beet slices ornamented with gray-green thousand-year-old egg and dehydrated shards of twice-fermented bean curd, or a purée of broad beans set with kuzu flour and shaped into a terrine with a secret inner layer of minced bacon and pickled mustard greens. Fung Tu, which opened in November, is run by Mr. Wu, John Matthew Wells, Jason Wagner and Wilson Tang, who a few years ago revitalized the Chinatown dim-sum institution Nom Wah Tea Parlor. Mr. Wu makes his own version of the Nom Wah egg roll, packing it with pork belly, leeks, pickled Thai bird chiles and — genius! — olives, which keep it moist and give it a briny shiver. Mr. Wu isn’t quite as freewheeling as Danny Bowien, whose hysterically popular Mission Chinese Food operated just a few blocks north of Fung Tu until recently. Mr. Wu’s dishes are quieter and more scholarly, which means that sometimes they aren’t as immediate in their pleasures. It is hard to know what to make of silky tofu bathed in fish stock, which tastes mostly of the seaweed heaped on top, or soybean curd dumplings molded like gnudi and presented in a celery-mushroom consommé so subtle I couldn’t pinpoint any flavor at all. Celtuce, a kind of lettuce with a long, tubby stalk, is wilted with popcorn purée and topped with a soy-blackened egg, neither of which can rouse the vegetable from slumber. At times, classics are reinvented to no discernible improvement, like a Chinese breakfast crepe turned into an Indian dosa or steamed bao buns done in the style of Parker House rolls, with malt powder in the dough and a wash of butter. A scallion pancake made with Mexican masa, in homage to a huarache, is a downgrade, an unwieldy slab without the original’s lightness or verve. Entrees are more straightforward: a deep-fried pork chop; soybean sprouts and bacon stir-fried with black vinegar and heaped over rice, saline and comforting. Dumpling knots, or mian geda (best understood as a Chinese spaetzle), are thrillingly overrun by a Sichuan pork sauce akin to that in mapo tofu, which manages to be somehow brash and refined. Fung Tu is at its best when it traffics in nostalgia. The duck-stuffed dates are Mr. Wu’s attempt to recreate a long-lost street snack from pre-revolutionary Shanghai that his relatives still sigh over; a dessert of silken tofu harks back to a Mott Street shop where tofu was scooped like ice cream and doused with rock sugar syrup. And those chocolate-peanut-butter balls studded with sesame seeds? They’re a salute to Mr. Wu’s father’s favorite candy: Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. 22 Orchard Street (Hester Street), 212-219-8785, fungtu.com RECOMMENDED Bok choy with shrimp paste; duck-stuffed dates; peanuts, dill and beef jerky; beets; broad bean curd terrine; original egg roll version 2; dumpling knots with Sichuan pork sauce; sunchokes with shrimp paste. OPEN Tuesday to Sunday for dinner. WHEELCHAIR ACCESS The entrance is level with the sidewalk. The restroom has a handrail.

The look at Fung Tu suggests a kind of old-school Hong Kong coffee shop, but the menu is beyond Western-ish Chinese comfort food.

VALLEY FORGE, Pa., Aug. 18— Ross Perot, who four years ago won more votes than any independent Presidential candidate in 80 years, launched his campaign as the 1996 nominee of the Reform Party tonight with a denunciation of the two-party system and the promise to ''kill that little snake this time.'' The 66-year-old Texas billionaire told a crowd of 1,500 cheering party members, gathered in the convention center in this town east of Philadelphia for the second and final stage of a bicoastal convention, that he was honored and humbled to be their candidate. He promised, ''I will be your servant.'' But he conspicuously failed to win the endorsement of the man he defeated for the nomination, former Gov. Richard D. Lamm of Colorado. Lacing his speech with inspirational anecdotes from American history and his own life, preaching self-reliance and ridiculing big government, Mr. Perot lambasted budget deficits and trade agreements like Nafta, which he said exported jobs. He broke little new ground and proposed few specific solutions. A less formidable figure so far in 1996 than four years ago, partly because he is no longer a fresh face in national politics, Mr. Perot is expected to emphasize campaign finance reform in coming weeks. With Republicans and Democrats both waffling on that issue, the Reform Party could have a potent weapon. Mr. Perot said later tonight that he had decided to accept $30 million in Federal money that he qualified for because of his strong showing in 1992. By accepting that money, Mr. Perot will also be agreeing to spend no more than $50,000 of his own money on the campaign. Any other fund raising would also have to conform to current campaign finance limits. Although he did not mention President Clinton by name in his speech, Mr. Perot complained about the series of birthday parties tonight that raised millions in Mr. Clinton's name for the Democratic Party. He also mocked Mr. Clinton by asking the audience whether they wanted straight talk or a President who says, ''I feel your pain.'' And he said both major parties manipulated voters into casting ''an emotional vote'' with the help of Hollywood speech writers and other hired guns. He said the parties ''won't admit we have a problem, and therefore they cannot come up with real solutions.'' It is not clear whether Mr. Perot will take more votes from Mr. Clinton or Bob Dole, though some politicians believe he that would tend to split the anti-Clinton vote with the Republicans, helping the President's re-election bid. Mr. Perot made no announcement of a running mate. His associates say that he offered the job to Representative Marcy Kaptur, an Ohio Democrat, and that she turned it down. He is now reported to be seeking another woman or possibly an African-American for his ticket. A mercurial figure who entered, left, then re-entered the 1992 campaign, Mr. Perot won the 1996 nomination of the party he established, and has so far financed, by a margin of 2 to 1 over Mr. Lamm. In balloting by mail and telephone and over the Internet, Mr. Perot won 65.2 percent of the 49,226 valid votes, officials said, and Mr. Lamm got 34.8 percent. The results were announced here late Saturday night, a few miles from the campsite where George Washington's 12,000 battered troops spent the harsh winter of 1977-78. Lest anyone should miss the parallel, the Reform Party said in its official opening to the convention: ''Valley Forge will once again represent the turning point in American history.'' In Mr. Lamm's own speech tonight, he attacked the United States's continuing acceptance of immigrants, drawing cheers with the comment that ''when the bathtub overflows, one turns off the tap.'' In a rambling, disorganized and subdued presentation, the former Governor neither mentioned nor endorsed Mr. Perot. He praised the work of the Reform Party, asserting at the outset that ''our two major parties are not going to govern our country in the best long-term interests of our children.'' But in an interview later, he repeatedly declined to say whether he considered Mr. Perot qualified for the Presidency. Many Reform Party adherents, especially Lamm supporters, questioned the voting procedures. Many party members received ballots late, or not at all, although Russell J. Verney, national coordinator for the party, insisted that 1.13 million had been mailed. That would mean a response rate of 4 percent. The telephone voting was particularly suspect, with many party members saying they had found it unworkable. Mr. Verney said that since the balloting opened on Sunday -- after the first stage of the convention, in Long Beach, Calif. -- 64,078 invalid telephone votes had been cast, compared with 3,963 valid ones. ''We believe 50,000 is a very large number of votes,'' Mr. Verney said. ''We are proud of each and every one.'' The Perot campaign plans to use some of the techniques that served it well in 1992, when Mr. Perot, spending $60 million to $70 million of his own money, took 18.9 percent of the popular vote, which was the largest share for a candidate outside the two major parties since Theodore Roosevelt won 27 percent on the Bull Moose Party's ticket in 1912. The party is already on the ballot in 40 states and expects to qualify in all 50. As he did four years ago, Mr. Perot will spend a lot of time on television talk shows -- he appeared on Larry King's program on CNN tonight -- and he will produce 30-minute infomercials, replete with graphs. Such appearances propelled his campaign in 1992, erasing much of the bitterness his withdrawal had caused. In the last New York Times/CBS Poll, conducted Aug. 3-5, Mr. Perot was the choice of 10 percent of those surveyed in a three-way race. In a later poll, taken for Newsweek after last week's Republican National Convention, the Reform Party pulled only 3 percent. But in that survey, Mr. Perot's name was not mentioned, which undoubtedly caused his support to be understated. Mr. Verney said the party's Presidential and Vice-Presidential candidates will participate in the nationally televised debates with the Republican and Democratic nominees. Presumably, Mr. Perot will be invited to the debates. In 1992, he was included because he was running strongly in the polls, and it is widely expected that he will pick up strength by the first debate, scheduled for Sept. 25 in St. Louis. When he re-entered the race in October 1992, he was getting 7 percent support. The decision on invitations is to be made by a Federal panel, based on 11 criteria set by law. Mr. Perot has not had much success so far this year in drawing the kinds of crowds he had the last time out. Both Representative Richard A. Gephardt, the Democratic leader in the House, and Haley Barbour, the Republican chairman, argued in television interviews today that the Reform Party would not be an important factor in this fall's election. But Mr. Dole apparently took Mr. Perot seriously enough that he flew to Pittsburgh for a rally this afternoon, at which he admonished the crowd to ignore Mr. Perot because the Republican Party ''is the real Reform Party.'' Photos: ''I will be your servant,'' Ross Perot told the Reform Party he created. (pg. A1); The supportes of Ross Perot were exuberant when he accepted the nomination of the Reform Party last night in Valley Forge, Pa., at the second, and last, session of the fledgling party's convention. (Suzanne DeChillo/The New York Times) (pg. B8)

Ross Perot, who four years ago won more votes than any independent Presidential candidate in 80 years, launched his campaign as the 1996 nominee of the Reform Party tonight with a denunciation of the two-party system and the promise to ''kill that little snake this time.'' The 66-year-old Texas billionaire told a crowd of 1,500 cheering party members, gathered in the convention center in this town east of Philadelphia for the second and final stage of a bicoastal convention, that he was honored and humbled to be their candidate. He promised, ''I will be your servant.''

Bowels, especially those that don’t function properly, are not a popular topic of conversation. Most of the 1.4 million Americans with inflammatory bowel disease — Crohn’s disease or ulcerative colitis — suffer in silence. But scientists are making exciting progress in understanding the causes of these conditions and in developing more effective therapies. And affected individuals have begun to speak up to let others know that they are not alone. Abby Searfoss, 21, who just graduated from the University of Connecticut, shared her story not in a support group, but online. She was a high school senior in Ridgefield, Conn., when she became ill. After she researched her symptoms on the Internet, she realized that, like her father, she had developed Crohn’s disease. Her father had been very ill, losing 40 pounds, spending weeks in the hospital and undergoing surgery. Soon after Ms. Searfoss’s own diagnosis, her two younger sisters learned that they, too, had the condition. In Crohn’s disease, the immune system attacks cells in the digestive tract, most often the end of the small intestine and first part of the colon, or large intestine. Sufferers may experience bouts of abdominal pain, cramps and diarrhea, often accompanied by poor appetite, fatigue and anxiety. “You don’t go anywhere without checking where the bathroom is and how many stalls it has,” said Dr. R. Balfour Sartor, a gastroenterologist at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine and a patient himself. “The fear of incontinence is huge.” Neither Crohn’s disease nor its less common relative ulcerative colitis, which affects only the large intestine, is curable (except, in the latter instance, by removing the entire colon). But research into what predisposes people to develop these conditions has resulted in more effective treatments and has suggested new ways to prevent the diseases in people who are genetically susceptible. Two concurrent avenues of high-powered research are supported by the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation of America. One is the C.C.F.A. Genetics Initiative, in which scientists are exploring more than 100 genetic factors now known to influence the risk of developing an inflammatory bowel disease, or I.B.D. The other research effort, the C.C.F.A. Microbiome Initiative, has so far identified 14 different bacterial metabolic factors associated with the diseases. By combining findings from the two initiatives, experts now know that certain genes affect the types of bacteria living in the gut; in turn, these bacteria influence the risk of getting an inflammatory bowel disease. Genes identified thus far appear to account for about 30 percent of the risk of developing an I.B.D., according to Dr. Sartor, who is the chief medical adviser of the foundation. Studies of twins underscore the role of genetics. When one identical twin has Crohn’s disease, the other has a 50 percent chance of also developing it. In the general population, the risk among siblings of a Crohn’s patient is only 5 percent. Many people carry genes linked to either Crohn’s or ulcerative colitis, but only some of them become ill. Environmental factors that interact with susceptibility genes also play critical roles. Strong clues to these factors are emerging from a distressing fact: The incidence of I.B.D. is rising significantly both here and in other parts of the world, Dr. Ramnik J. Xavier, chief of gastroenterology at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, said in an interview. “There’s been a huge uptick in China and India as these countries move more toward a Western lifestyle and adopt Western work and dietary patterns,” Dr. Xavier said. “I.B.D. cases are now skyrocketing in well-to-do areas of China.” And when people migrate from a low-incidence area to a higher one like the United States, the risk of developing an I.B.D. rises greatly among their children. ‘This clearly shows there’s an environmental impact that we think is multifactorial,” Dr. Sartor said in an interview. “Diet is one obvious factor that affects both the composition of the gut biota and also its function,” he said, referring to the microorganisms that inhabit the gut. “Bacteria eat what we eat, and every bacterium has certain food preferences.” Diet influences the types and balance of microbes in the gut, and different microbes produce substances that are either protective or harmful. For example, Dr. Sartor said, “Certain bacteria that can metabolize the fiber in certain vegetables and grains produce short-chain fatty acids that are believed to protect the gut. They inhibit inflammation and activate immune responses that stimulate recovery from cell injury.” Another major contributor to the rise in Crohn’s disease in particular is the widespread, often inappropriate use of antibiotics, Dr. Sartor said. “Early exposure to antibiotics, especially during the first 15 months of life, increases the risk of developing Crohn’s disease, though not ulcerative colitis,” he said. “If there’s a family history of I.B.D., particularly Crohn’s disease, antibiotics should be used only for a documented bacterial infection like strep throat or bacterial meningitis. “And when antibiotics are needed, probiotics can be used during and afterward to minimize their effect and restore the normal bacterial population of the gut.” Dr. Sartor also noted that early exposure to common viruses and bacteria can strengthen the immune system and keep it from attacking normal tissues. “My advice to parents and grandparents is, ‘Let them eat dirt,’ ” he said. Dr. Sartor has lived with Crohn’s disease for 43 years and for the most part has managed to keep flare-ups at bay with a proper diet, medications and daily probiotics. He also suggests that those with a family history of I.B.D. avoid taking nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs like aspirin, ibuprofen and naproxen, which block the action of protective substances in the gut and can cause ulcers in the lower intestine and the stomach. Acetaminophen is safer, he said. Many patients say undue stress can cause flare-ups of an I.B.D. And a new study of 3,150 adults with Crohn’s, presented at a recent scientific meeting by Lawrence S. Gaines, a psychologist at Vanderbilt University, suggests that depression — feeling sad, helpless, hopeless and worthless — increases the risk of active disease a year later. This is the first of two columns about inflammatory bowel diseases.

With more awareness about the risk factors of inflammatory bowel diseases like Crohn’s and ulcerative colitis, those with a genetic predisposition can take precautions.

CAIRO, May 24— President Saddam Hussein of Iraq, who initiated the Arab world's diplomatic break with Egypt because of the peace treaty with Israel, says he would welcome the presence of Egyptian soldiers to help Iraq in its war with Iran. The Iraqi leader, quoted today in an interview with the Kuwaiti newspaper Al Siyasa, made the remark before reports from Teheran this afternoon that Iran had retaken Khurramshahr, the critical port city on the Shatt al Arab estuary that Iraq had held for 19 months. By tonight there was no official comment from Egypt on the Teheran reports. In recent days, President Hosni Mubarak has conferred several times with key aides on the Iraq-Iran war. Egypt, like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and other Arab nations on the Persian Gulf, has long called for a negotiated end to the fighting because of a fear that an Iranian victory would radically disturb the status quo around the gulf. Egypt, despite the diplomatic rupture with Iraq, has for over a year been selling it arms and ammunition to replace Soviet-made Iraqi military equipment. In recent months this aid has increased and in recent days, according to the military analyst of the official Government newspaper Al Ahram, it has included ''kinds of weapons that are part of Egypt's strategic reserve.'' So far, the official Egyptian position has been that it would provide Iraq with arms and other supplies but not with ground troops. Hundreds of thousands of Egyptians work in Iraq, mainly in agriculture, and it is likely that some have been pressed into military service. In addition, Egyptians are not forbidden to go to Baghdad to enlist. Recently, a key foreign policy adviser to President Mubarak, Osama el-Baz, said the extent of Egyptian involvement on Iraq's behalf would be ''measured by developments,'' adding that ''this is a matter that varies from week to week.'' Whether today's reports about Khurramshahr will change Egypt's strategy remained to be seen tonight.

President Saddam Hussein of Iraq, who initiated the Arab world's diplomatic break with Egypt because of the peace treaty with Israel, says he would welcome the presence of Egyptian soldiers to help Iraq in its war with Iran. The Iraqi leader, quoted today in an interview with the Kuwaiti newspaper Al Siyasa, made the remark before reports from Teheran this afternoon that Iran had retaken Khurramshahr, the critical port city on the Shatt al Arab estuary that Iraq had held for 19 months. By tonight there was no official comment from Egypt on the Teheran reports. In recent days, President Hosni Mubarak has conferred several times with key aides on the Iraq-Iran war. Egypt, like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and other Arab nations on the Persian Gulf, has long called for a negotiated end to the fighting because of a fear that an Iranian victory would radically disturb the status quo around the gulf.

. The World Wildlife Fund and Indonesian park officials have released video of Javan rhinoceroses obtained from camera traps in Ujung Kulon National Park, which is thought to be the last refuge of the critically endangered species. The video clips show young calves and a mother, implying the species, which once ranged through much of Southeast Asia but is now down to a few dozen individuals, is hanging in there. . Still, wildlife biologists say the rhinos in the park face threats from poaching — mainly due to demand in China for the purported medicinal properties of the horns — as well as from a nearby volcano. The wildlife fund, through a project with the government and other conservation groups, is trying to raise money to transfer some of the rhinos to another reserve. “There are no Javan rhinos in captivity — if we lose the population in the wild, we’ve lost them all,” Eric Dinerstein, chief scientist at the wildlife group, said in a news release. It’s a shame that humans (media included) have a habit of paying attention to wildlife mainly when it’s already driven close to the brink. When the Hudson River was so dense with huge Atlantic sturgeon that they were nicknamed Albany beef, did they cause the thrill I felt while accompanying biologists netting a single individual last year? I’d love to start posting video here of species that are not down to their last few dozen individuals, and will do so when time allows. In the meantime, offer up links to video of your favorite wild things — including those that remain abundant.

Hope for a species on the brink as young rhinos are glimpsed in an Indonesian park.

Tuesday, June 16, 2015, 3:44 PM He was looking for a family with benefits. Pennsylvania creep Daniel Schulties has pleaded guilty to a string of sex crimes after investigators caught him trawling for a sex date with young girl — and her parents, authorities said. “Looking to join an Incest Family,” the 24-year-old wrote in an online ad. His twisted solicitation caught the eye of the state Attorney General’s child predator unit, whose investigators posed as a willing family with an 11-year-old daughter. Schulties traded text messages and emails in 2014 with the fake dad and daughter, even forwarding nude pictures of himself to agents, authorities said. His downfall came on Aug. 16, 2014, when he drove to a hotel in the township of Moon, where he expected to have sex with the whole family, prosecutors said. He instead met a team of law enforcement agents who took him into custody. He pleaded guilty on June 9 in Allegheny County to five charges, including attempted indecent assault of a person less than 13 years old and unlawful contact with a minor related to sexual offenses. Prosecutors withdrew attempted child rape charges, court records showed. Schulties is scheduled for sentencing on Sept. 19.

Daniel Schulties pleaded guilty after trying to arrange sex with an 11-year-old and her parents at a Pennsylvania hotel, authorities said.

Drivers of super-luxury sports cars in Italy bemoan what they call unfair laws aimed at curbing tax evasion. As BBC News reports, Italian motorists have largely stopped buying or driving flashy cars altogether, for fear of being stopped and questioned by police about their tax filing status. In 2012, both Ferrari and Maserati experienced sharp declines in their home market, with Ferrari sales falling by 56% and Maserati’s by an astounding 72%. Although analysts have attributed these declines to Italy’s ailing economy, affluent motorists and industry representatives see things differently, as the BBC recently reported: "The head of the Italian motor traders' federation Federauto, Filippo Pavan Bernacchi, blamed 'an overdose of taxes aimed at hitting, if not criminalising, the acquisition, ownership and use of cars'. In addition to taxing motoring directly, Italian authorities have also been specifically targeting the owners of Ferraris and other supercars to check that they are paying enough tax. There have been numerous reports of police officers stopping such cars, and demanding that the driver produces his or her tax registration ID." It is not just affluent Italians who are feeling the pinch. In 2012, new car sales in Italy declined by 19.9% overall. The country has significant debts, unemployment is rising and both investment and consumer spending are down. To prevent the economy from deteriorating further, the government has enacted new measures aimed at catching tax cheats, including setting up checkpoints outside luxury resorts. Has the Italian government been too heavy-handed in its effort to ensure compliance with tax codes? Sound off on our Facebook page.

Wealthy car enthusiasts steer clear of super-luxury models in Italy, lest they be targeted by police.

Bruce Jenner and Kris Jenner; Ronda Kamihira (inset) Dan Steinberg/AP; AF/Star Max/FilmMagic; Inset: X17ONLINE updated 03/18/2015 AT 11:30 AM EDT •originally published 03/23/2015 AT 07:45 AM EDT 's relationship with his ex-wife may have stirred up drama in the , but whether the pair ever had a real romance is still up in the air. "Everyone assumed he was dating her," a family insider tells PEOPLE of "Who knows how intimate things got, but they knew each other for a very long time." Which might explain why Jenner was so close with Kris's former assistant just months before the Olympic gold medalist made headlines with the news that he is transitioning from "It seems more like he confided in her," says the insider. "She would buy him feminine things he wanted. They had some kind of special bond." to define his relationship with Kris's longtime friend during the March 15 episode of E!'s , Jenner denied that he was dating Kamihira. "I don't need to explain my relationship to anybody," he said. "Nothing is going on. Certainly my intentions are not to hurt Kris. I don't want anybody upset, but Kris is not going to tell me who I can and cannot hang out with." While Jenner continues to lie low amid the , the famed decathlete is focusing on his quiet life outside of the spotlight for now, telling cameras, "Living by myself out in Malibu has been really good. I kind of have my freedom."

The former Olympian had a "special bond" with his former wife's close friend

Mayim Bialik is no stranger to going against the grain. The "Big Bang Theory" actress, who just slammed pop singer Ariana Grande's billboard ad for being too sexual, took to her blog again, this time to speak out against Disney's wildly popular flick "Frozen." "I know everybody loved 'Frozen' and that I am going to get so much hate for this. But I’m just keeping it real, yo," Bialik wrote on Kveller.com, citing three main reason why she disliked the movie. The first issue? Besides not being a fan of musicals, Bialik noted that the film lacks female agency. RELATED: The cast of 'Blossom' nearly 20 years later "Sure, it’s sort of hidden, but the search for a man/love/Prince is still the reigning plot line in the movie, as it is with pretty much all movies for young people which are animated," she wrote. "The sister's desire to marry this guy she just met, and the other sister getting mad at her — we still have a plot about the identification of a woman being based on her desire and search to meet a man...I’ve had just enough already with this finding a man business in most every kids’ movie." Next up on Bialik's list of reasons not to like "Frozen?" The film bashes men, she said. "What happens in 'Frozen?' The Prince/hero turns out to be a scheming villain," the former "Blossom" star noted. "He pretended to love her and then he double crosses her and she gets the lesson taught to her not to trust those nasty scheming conniving men. Because you know, men can’t be trusted? Meh." But Bialik's biggest issue with the animated film? RELATED: What Kaley Cuoco really thinks about her breast implants "My biggest problem with this movie was the way the female characters are drawn and animated," the 38-year-old star concluded. "The male characters look like cartoon men. They have some exaggerated features, sure. But by and large, they look like they have the proportions of human beings. Not so with our lead ladies. They have ginormous eyes. Like really ridiculously big. Teeny-tiny ski slope noses … Barbie doll proportions of their bodies in general: tiny waists, ample busts, and huge heads. They look like dolls. They don’t look like the same species as the male characters even! What’s up with that?!" WATCH: Four4Four: Duke porn star the next Vogue star?

The Big Bang Theory actress admits she and her sons hated Frozen.

THE DNA lab made famous by the Jeremy Kyle Show will be the first to offer a simple paternity test… BEFORE a baby has even been born. AlphaBiolabs, the largest independent DNA testing laboratory in Europe, based in Warrington, Cheshire, has been responsible for all the revealing DNA tests that nail cheating partners on the ITV show. Previously the only way to find out the dad of an unborn child was a risky invasive test, which involved withdrawing fluid from the amniotic sac that contains and protects a fetus in the womb. Now AlphaBiolabs has developed a revolutionary blood test that can separate a pregnant mother’s DNA from her unborn baby’s foetal DNA. The simple test can be done at one of their walk-in centres in London, Birmingham, Manchester and Liverpool, or at home by their staff with a swab sample from the potential dad. The tests only work on would-be mums who are at least eight weeks pregnant, as that is when the child’s foetal DNA begins to be present in the mother’s blood stream. AlphaBiolabs, which has received a Queen’s Award for Innovation, says its cutting edge equipment is more accurate and reliable than similar tests available abroad at a handful of US-based labs. David Thomas, managing director of AlphaBiolabs, said the test will revolutionise the industry and reassure thousands of families across Britain. Mr Thomas said: “People are crying out for this test and finally we have the science and the equipment to offer it. “Women unsure of the father can become very anxious during the pregnancy. “They worry about the child bonding with the wrong parent. The test could help stop this happening before the child is born. “We are thinking of bringing it out in the common months.” But he stressed that the accuracy of the test is not currently high enough for the Jeremy Kyle Show. He added: “It’s not accurate enough for the Jeremy Kyle Show. “We would hate to think about someone having the test and getting the wrong answer, without having a second test afterwards. “We would want to make the test 100 per cent accurate and then maybe, one day, it could be used on the show.” But they hope they will be able to develop the tests to a level of 100 per cent accuracy, which would mean it could one day be used by the Jeremy Kyle show. The prenatal test is currently priced at £1170 but within months it is expected to be as cheap as £300 as they get their UK lab up and running with the new “overnight service” processes. Similar tests that separate the foetal DNA from their mother’s DNA can also be used to tests for genetic diseases such as Down’s Syndrome.

THE DNA lab made famous by the Jeremy Kyle Show will be the first to offer a simple paternity test… BEFORE a baby has even been born. AlphaBiolabs, the largest independent DNA testing laborat…

Three of Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush’s fundraising consultants have left the campaign, Fox News confirmed Saturday. The consultants are Kris Money, Trey McCarley and Debbie Alexander, and they voluntarily left the campaign Friday, according to multiple sources. Politico first reported the departures and suggested they were the result of personality conflicts and concerns about the strength of the campaign. However, a Bush campaign source attempted Saturday to minimize the impact of the departures by saying the consultants remain involved in multiple projects outside of the campaign. In addition, Bush spokesman Tim Miller told Fox News: "Governor Bush has the widest and deepest fundraising operation of any candidate in the field.” He also said Ann Herberger, a longtime aide with more than two decades of experience in state and national politics, will continue to lead fundraising operations at campaign headquarters in Miami. Bush, a former Florida governor, was the 2016 GOP presumptive frontrunner. And he had a superior fundraising advantage over essentially all of the other candidates in the party’s huge primary field, in large part because of his family name and connections with Washington Republicans. Bush and the super-PAC Right to Rise raised a combined $114 million in the first quarter of this year, according to federal records, meeting often-talked-about expectations that the operation could indeed raise that much money. However, Bush’s poll number have steadily declined since billionaire businessman and first-time candidate Donald Trump entered the race in mid-June. "This is the time of year that campaigns make staffing changes before settling a final team going forward," Joe Desilets, a Republican strategist and managing partner at the Washington firm 21st & Main, said Saturday. "Jeb is far and away the fundraising leader in the race and has announced other major fundraisers joining his team. ... If Jeb starts dropping in fundraising, it may prove to be a bigger deal, but ... I don't see this as a major problem going forward." Bush led the GOP field in mid-July with 17.8 percent of the vote, but is now at 9.8 percent, behind Trump at 23.5 percent and retired Dr. Ben Carson at 10.3 percent. Trump has aggressively and consistently attacked Bush as the frontrunner, criticizing several of his positions including those on immigration and federal spending on women’s health. Trump’s attacks have also been more personal, saying Bush is “low energy.” Meanwhile, Bush appears to be taking a non-confrontational approach by largely not responding to the attacks and referring to himself as a “joyful tortoise." Money, McCarley and Alexander will continue to work for Right to Rise, sources also told Fox News. Fox News’ Serafin Gomez and Kathleen Reuschle contributed to this story.

Three of Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush’s fundraising consultants have left the campaign, Fox News confirmed Saturday.

By Adrian Sainz, The Associated Press It was a brazen and surprisingly long-lived scheme, authorities said, to help aspiring public school teachers cheat on the tests they must pass to prove they are qualified to lead their classrooms. For 15 years, teachers in three Southern states paid Clarence Mumford Sr. — himself a longtime educator — to send someone else to take the tests in their place, authorities said. Each time, Mumford received a fee of between $1,500 and $3,000 to send one of his test ringers with fake identification to the Praxis exam. In return, his customers got a passing grade and began their careers as cheaters, according to federal prosecutors in Memphis. Authorities say the scheme affected hundreds — if not thousands — of public school students who ended up being taught by unqualified instructors. Princeton, N.J.-based Educational Testing Services writes and administers Praxis teacher certification examinations. Mumford faces more than 60 fraud and conspiracy charges that claim he created fake driver's licenses with the information of a teacher or an aspiring teacher and attached the photograph of a test-taker. Prospective teachers are accused of giving Mumford their Social Security numbers for him to make the fake identities. The hired-test takers went to testing centers, showed the proctor the fake license, and passed the certification exam, prosecutors say. Then, the aspiring teacher used the test score to secure a job with a public school district, the indictment alleges. Fourteen people have been charged with mail and Social Security fraud, and four people have pleaded guilty to charges associated with the scheme. Mumford "obtained tens of thousands of dollars" during the alleged conspiracy, which prosecutors say lasted from 1995 to 2010 in Arkansas, Mississippi and Tennessee. Among those charged is former University of Tennessee and NFL wide receiver Cedrick Wilson, who is accused of employing a test-taker for a Praxis physical education exam. He was charged in late October with four counts of Social Security and mail fraud. He has pleaded not guilty and is out of jail on a $10,000 bond. He has been suspended by the Memphis City Schools system. In this photo taken Friday, Nov. 23, Neal Kingston, director of the Center for Educational Testing and Evaluation at the University of Kansas, talks about testing fraud in his Lawrence, Kan., office. If convicted, Mumford could face between two and 20 years in prison on each count. The teachers face between two and 20 years in prison on each count if convicted. Lawyers for Mumford and Wilson did not return calls for comment. Prosecutors and standardized test experts say students were hurt the most by the scheme because they were being taught by unqualified teachers. It also sheds some light on the nature of cheating and the lengths people go to in order to get ahead. "As technology keeps advancing, there are more and more ways to cheat on tests of this kind," said Neal Kingston, director of the Center for Educational Testing and Evaluation at the University of Kansas. "There's a never-ending war between those who try to maintain standards and those who are looking out for their own interests." Cheating on standardized tests is not new, and it can be as simple as looking at the other person's test sheet. The Internet and cell phones have made it easier for students to cheat in a variety of ways. In the past few years, investigations into cheating on standardized tests for K-12 students have surfaced in Atlanta, New York and El Paso, Texas. Still, most of the recent test-taking scandals involved students taking tests, not people taking teacher certification exams. Cheating scams involving teacher certification tests are more unusual, said Robert Schaeffer, public education director for the National Center for Fair & Open Testing. Schaeffer notes that a large-scale scandal involving teacher certification tests was discovered in 2000, also in the South. In that case, 52 teachers were charged with paying up to $1,000 apiece to a former Educational Testing Services proctor to ensure a passing grade on teacher certification tests. Teachers from Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, Tennessee and Mississippi took tests through Philander Smith College in Little Rock, Ark., in 1998. The college was not accused of wrongdoing. Educational Testing Services also writes and administers the Praxis examinations involved in the Memphis case. ETS spokesman Tom Ewing said the company discovered the cheating in June 2009, conducted an investigation and canceled scores. The company began meeting with authorities to turn over the information in late 2009, Ewing said. "These cases are rare, but we consider them to be very serious and something we have to guard against happening for all the honest test-takers, students and teachers," Ewing said. Ewing said ETS observes test-takers and reviews test scores to try to root out cheaters. ETS also has received anonymous tips that have led them to cheaters, Ewing said. Prosecutors in the Mumford case say he, the teachers and test-takers used the Internet and the U.S. Postal Service to register and pay for the tests, and to receive payment. The indictment does not say how much he allegedly paid the test-takers. An experienced educator, Mumford was working for Memphis City Schools when the alleged scam took place. Authorities say Mumford defrauded the three states by making the fake driver's licenses. "What happens at many testing centers is that a whole bunch of test-takers show up simultaneously, early on a Saturday morning, and the proctors give only a cursory look to the identification," Schaeffer said. "It's not like going through airport security where a guy holds up a magnifying glass and puts our license under ultraviolet light to make sure it has not been tampered with." Mumford was fired after news of the investigation came out, and others, like Wilson, have been suspended. But at least three teachers implicated in the scandal remain employed with their school district. Kingston, the university professor, said prospective teachers may not be confident in their knowledge base to pass the test. Or, the cheaters may believe they are smart enough to pass on their own but also know they are poor test takers. Kingston said his research has shown that cheating on exams is getting more prevalent. "The propensity to cheat on exams both through college and for licensure and certification exams seems to be increasing over time," said Kingston. "People often don't see it as something wrong." The pressure of passing the test could make people do things they normally would not do. And it could take a while for authorities and test-taking services to catch up with the cheaters. "When people come up with a new method for cheating, it takes some time for folks to figure it out, partly because this has been an understudied area in the field of assessment," Kingston said. Nina Monfredo, a 23-year-old history teacher at Power Center Academy in Memphis, has taken Praxis exams for history, geography, middle school content, and secondary teaching and learning. Monfredo, who passed all her tests and is not involved in the fraud case, said the exams she took were relatively easy for someone who has a high school education. She said some people use study aids to prepare, but she didn't. And she didn't feel much pressure because it was her understanding that she could take the test again if she did not pass. "If you feel like you can't pass and you hire someone it means you really didn't know what you were doing," she said. "I think it would be easier to just learn what's on the test."

It was a brazen and surprisingly long-lived scheme, authorities said, to help aspiring public school teachers cheat on the tests they must pass to prove they are qualified to lead their classrooms. For 15 years, teachers in three Southern states paid Clarence Mumford Sr. &mdas …

Updated AUG 13, 2015 at 2:41p ET How do you sculpt a physique like this? Two things: Lift lots of weight and eat lots of food. Like 9,000 calories worth of food. In June, J.J. Watt discussed his eating habits on colleague Jimmy Traina's podcast, and now in an interview with ESPN he adds more. Watt explained how he noticed his energy level was down during a tough workout this offseason. He didn't understand why until he spoke with his longtime trainer and realized the problem was simple: He wasn't eating enough. "My body was grabbing for something that wasn't there," Watt said in the interview. "It was trying to fuel itself with no fuel." What Watt needed to do was add more fat, more carbs and more calories back into his diet. The Houston Texans stud targeted between 6,000 and 9,000 calories per day depending on his activity level (for example, during two-a-days, he's pushing for the upper end of that range). To consume that many calories, Watt started scarfing tons of protein, quality fats and bringing cheat days back into his life once a week. "I started crushing avocados," Watt said. If Watt ate, say, eight chicken breasts in one sitting, his trainer suggested wrapping three of those in bacon in addition to adding more sweet potatoes, more pasta and more olive oil, among other fats, to his day. Watt didn't reveal his specific diet plan in detail, but ESPN's Tania Ganguli concluded that it would take 20 chicken breasts, 50 slices of bacon and 13 full avocados to reach 9,000 calories in one day (those aren't the only things Watt is eating, though, of course). The best part of Watt's new license to consume an incredible amount of food? His once-a-week brunch cheat day. "I love brunch," Watt told ESPN. "Brunch is my favorite meal. I went there, had brunch, had a massive potato pancake omelet, which is an omelet inside a potato pancake. Then I had stuffed French toast with berries and stuff. My cheat meals aren't even that exciting. That was my cheat meal. The omelet is still pretty darn healthy. The stuffed French toast was the cheat meal, but that was delicious." Watt isn't going quite as crazy as swimmer Michael Phelps, who famously trained for the 2008 Olympics on a 12,000-calorie-per-day diet, but he admits eating has pretty much become his second job. "It's literally, if I'm not working out, I eat the whole time I'm not working out," Watt said. "It's exhausting. You have to force feed. You have to force yourself to eat food." Read the full piece for more. Teddy Mitrosilis works in social content development at FOX Sports Digital. Follow him on Twitter @TMitrosilis and email him at [email protected].

The Houston Texas star is a B-E-A-S-T.

A Russian banker accused of participating in a Cold War-style spy ring pleaded guilty Friday to a conspiracy charge and agreed to spend up to two and a half years in prison, making it likely he'll be returning to his homeland in the next year. Evgeny Buryakov, 41, pleaded guilty to conspiring with others to act as an agent of a foreign government without registering with the U.S. government. When Buryakov was arrested last year, prosecutors said he had teamed up with diplomats from 2012 through January 2015 to gather sensitive economic intelligence on potential U.S. sanctions against Russian banks and on U.S. efforts to develop alternative energy resources. In this Feb. 11, 2015, file courtroom sketch, Assistant U.S. Attorney Anna Skotko, foreground left, addresses the court at the arraignment of Russian citizen Evgeny Buryakov, on charges that he participated in a Cold War-style Russian spy ring in New York. Image: AP Photo/Elizabeth Williams, File They also said he purposely failed to register as a foreign agent to conceal his true role as a covert operative embedded at a Manhattan branch of Vnesheconombank, or VEB. There was no mention of spies during the plea proceeding, but U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara embraced the secretive nature of the alleged scheme in a statement. "This sounds like a plotline for a Cold War-era movie, but in reality, Evgeny Buryakov pled guilty today to a federal crime for his role in just such a scheme." "An unregistered intelligence agent, under cover of being a legitimate banker, gathers intelligence on the streets of New York City, trading coded messages with Russian spies who send the clandestinely collected information back to Moscow. This sounds like a plotline for a Cold War-era movie, but in reality, Evgeny Buryakov pled guilty today to a federal crime for his role in just such a scheme," Bharara said. Assistant Attorney General John P. Carlin added in the same release that foreign nations which "attempt to illegally gather economic and other intelligence information through espionage pose a direct threat to U.S. national security." Earlier U.S. government claims that Buryakov worked for the SVR, the foreign intelligence agency headquartered in Moscow, were not included in the charge Friday. Buryakov has been behind bars and will remain so until sentencing, which was scheduled for May 25. Prosecutors and the defendant agreed as part of the deal that a 30-month sentence is appropriate. Buryakov told U.S. District Judge Richard Berman on Friday that he had agreed to let an official with Russia's Trade Mission in New York to direct him to take certain actions without having registered with the U.S. attorney general's office as a Russian agent. He said he spoke on the telephone in May 2013 with the official about information the official had requested. Outside court afterward, defense attorney Scott Hershman declined to comment. The defense previously had argued that laws exempted Buryakov from registering because he already was a visa-carrying official with a financial institution that is an arm of the Russian government. The government said Buryakov had obtained a work visa by lying on paperwork and saying he wouldn't commit espionage. The case was announced less than five years after the arrest of 10 covert agents — a sleeper cell referred to as "The Illegals" by the SVR, the foreign intelligence agency headquartered in Moscow — who led ordinary lives for several years in the United States using aliases. All 10 pleaded guilty in federal court in Manhattan to conspiracy charges and were ordered out of the country as part of a spy swap for four people convicted of betraying Moscow to the West. Before his arrest, Buryakov lived in the Bronx with his Russian wife and two children. Have something to add to this story? Share it in the comments.

Evgeny Buryakov, who posed as a banker, agreed to spend up to two and a half years in prison.

The same cannot be said of the off-screen campaign. Morning news conferences by the political parties have been scaled back, regional tours by leaders in their “battle buses” have been reduced and large-scale election rallies have become a rarity. Instead, attention has been focused ruthlessly on the TV debates, prompting questions about whether this innovation has increased — or curtailed — real scrutiny. Many analysts believe that the television debates have simply sucked the oxygen out of the rest of the campaign. “I think this is having a swamping effect in terms of our perception,” said Charlie Beckett of the London School of Economics. “And for their own reasons, the political parties have bought into it.” Following good performances by Nick Clegg, leader of the small, centrist Liberal Democrats, the TV debates have transformed the May 6 contest into a three-horse race, pitting him against Prime Minister Gordon Brown of Labour and David Cameron of the Conservatives. But other expected changes have failed to materialize. “People said this was going to be an Internet election,” said Philip Cowley, professor of parliamentary government at Nottingham University, “but there are two things dominating the election: television and direct mail. Both go back to the 1950s or 1960s in America.” In fact, the parties have had little difficulty calculating where their effort is best focused. The first TV debate won about 9.4 million viewers and captured the public imagination to such an extent that, according to an opinion poll in The Times of London, 49 percent of respondents claimed to have watched the face-off — more than twice as many as actually did so. Even the second debate last week, which was less readily available to many viewers, was seen by about 4.4 million viewers. The final debate, this Thursday, will be on the BBC and accessible to all. Andrew Grice, political editor of the Independent, said that, on balance, he approved of the debates but thought they had “completely skewed” the campaign. “You have at least two days of build-up, then you have the debate and then the inquest,” said Mr. Grice, who is reporting his seventh general election. “Then the opinion polls days later appear to be driven by the TV debates.” Such is the importance of the TV debates that, during the last one, Mr. Grice said he had received 20 to 30 e-mail or text comments from the political parties. All this is new in British politics. Until recently, parties put forward specific policy ideas each morning at news conferences to try to set the agenda for the day, though this system started to become more fluid over the course of elections in 2001 and 2005 to satisfy the 24-hour TV news, Mr. Grice said. According to Professor Cowley, the election debates may reduce scrutiny and prevent a consistent challenge of the leaders on policy. That is because if one candidate confronts another, he risks being seen by viewers as hectoring. “The daily press conferences used to be a good way of providing scrutiny by people who knew what they were talking about,” he said. The debates, however, have also reduced the power of the print media — parts of which are fiercely partisan — to set the agenda, since voters are reacting directly to what they see. Even the most staunch Conservative-supporting titles can no longer ignore Mr. Clegg. Meanwhile, the new media have had a more subtle effect, proving significant for internal party communication and local campaigns in constituencies, and deemed important enough to merit some party advertising. For example, a Google search Friday on the TV debates also brought up a sponsored link to a Conservative Party Web site highlighting the most favorable opinion poll for Mr. Cameron. But the Internet has also acted as a check on the parties. When Conservative-supporting newspapers launched a series of attacks on Mr. Clegg, an ironic Twitter campaign, “#nickcleggsfault,” sprung up satirizing them. Thousands of Twitter messages suggested, tongue in cheek, that the Liberal Democrat leader was responsible for almost every ill, including the eruption of the Icelandic volcano that grounded European air travel. “Nick Clegg was seen two weeks ago poking Eyjafjallajokull with a stick,” said one message, while another added, “Nick Clegg lived in same town as a seriously ill man and never visited him, though he knows he has a spare kidney.” Meanwhile, both Labour and Conservative election posters have also been parodied on the Internet. Mr. Beckett, of the London School of Economics, believes that the existence of new media, along with the fear that candidates who stray off-message will be instantly exposed, have led parties to mount minimalist, risk-free campaigns. One key crucial will be whether the advent of the TV debates increases voter turnout, which was 61.4 percent in 2005. Either way, Mr. Beckett believes they have been a big benefit. “For 90 minutes, on a weekly basis, the public are able to look at the candidates and judge their values directly — and they also get through a lot of policy — unedited by the newspapers,” he said. “The TV debates are a terrific way to engage the voters.”

Thanks to the first-ever televised debates, the election is shaping up to be the most intriguing in a generation.

So that’s how one of the most divisive, scrutinized and debated seasons in recent television history ends — with bullets, hearbreak and survival. Did it leave you satisfied? For all its faults, the gonzo, gripping, silly, bleak and dense L.A. noir season of Nic Pizzolatto‘s “True Detective” ultimately made for entertaining television. Even the viewers and critics who ended up disliking what this season had to offer were “hate watching” to see what kind of crazy stuff would happen next (a guy in a bird mask shooting someone; an “Eyes Wide Shut”-style sex party) or what advanced vocabulary word (apoplectic, stridency, etc.) would come out of Frank Semyon’s (Vince Vaughn) mouth next. Even its detractors would likely admit, however, that the second season built some momentum in its second half. Would that continue in the 90-minute season finale, though? For a while it did, but the last 20 minutes alternated between tense and bizarre moments, some strong, others head-scratching. The episode begins with some personal business before the big plunge into the climax. First it’s Ray and Ani, then it’s Frank and Jordan. Ray and Ani “enjoy” the moment after their coupling by working through her childhood trauma with that creepy guy at her father’s commune. Four days of blackness. Maybe he gave her something, but she does remember that he didn’t force her. “Everytime I remember that feeling, like pride, I get sick to my stomach,” she says. “I was proud that he thought I was pretty.” But Ray is quick to remind her that it wasn’t her fault. Then it’s Ray’s turn to confess about killing a guy he had been led to believe had raped his wife. Right when the guy turned around, Ray says, that’s when he made his move. He didn’t even say anything. “It didn’t make anything better. It made it worse,” he says. “People, whole cultures, wouldn’t blame you. I don’t,” Ani says. But it wasn’t him, Ray says. The real guy was caught weeks ago. All of these moments are intercut with scenes from later in the morning, which feel much colder and more distant. On Frank’s side of things, he is having trouble talking Jordan into splitting the scene with his henchman Nails. “Take your payout, and get the f— gone!” he tells her just as he throws his ring out. She refuses to leave. How do we know she’s serious? She tosses her ring, too, and that one has a huge diamond. Jordan isn’t buying Frank’s martyrdom play. But there’s no way out — a classic noir trope — and Frank isn’t leaving. He has a big move in mind, but they’ll keep coming after him, and he refuses to let his wife be there for what would happen to him. “If you love me, I cannot do the things I have to do unless I know you’re safe,” he tells her. He pledges to meet her in two weeks or less, at a park. He’ll wear a white suit with a red rose in his jacket, and she’ll be wearing a white dress. Born again pure. Take the Quiz: “True Detective” Dialogue or SAT Vocabulary Word? Frank also has a personal moment with Nails, who brings up why he’s so loyal to Frank — and why he’s called Nails. Frank saved him after he was being assaulted with a nail gun, and for that Nails swears to protect Jordan from anything. Then there’s poor Paul, who’s being zipped up in a bodybag with his killer, Kevin Burris, standing over him and answering his phone when Ray calls. Burris tries to put pressure on him by blaming Ray for Paul’s death, but Ray tells him that he knows everything, including that Caspere was holding the stolen diamonds over his head. Burris changes his tune, and starts to offer Ray big money and safety. Ray placates him before letting Ani know what happened, and the news of Paul’s death devastates him. “He deserved better,” Ray says. But now they have nothing. Erica/Laura is in the wind. Wait a minute, though, says Ray. What about the set photographer? He even kind of looked like Erica/Laura, and the ages match up. So now they have a choice: Pursue the orphaned kids from the 1992 robbery, or take off. Ani wants to take the chance, and Ray isn’t much for running, either. Now Frank begins to make his play. First, he stops by Mayor Austin Chessani’s house, only to find the mayor floating dead in the pool and a bunch of paperwork about the rail corridor. He then encounters Mayor Chessani’s wife, who, it turns out, met the man through his son, Tony, who has been running high-end sex parties with Frank’s rivals, particularly Russian gangster Osip. Frank believes Tony killed his own father and made it look like a suicide. Elsewhere, Ray and Ani start looking for the orphans, who are now the top suspects in Caspere’s murder. They stop by a house where they find the bird mask, surveillance shots of the cops who killed their parents (Burris and Holloway, in particular). They also find Laura handcuffed to a bar near a fireplace. She spills about how she met Caspere, how she remembered him visiting her mother. She changed her name, dyed her hair red, fooled him. Her brother, Len, and she had been split up and put into foster care after they were orphaned. They met years later, and she got him a job on the movie set where Caspere was a producer. Together, they set up Caspere and drugged him with the intention of getting him to talk. He did indeed talk about everything. Even the rail corridor. Len got carried away, though, and killed Caspere. Len and Laura also had the hard drive, but it automatically erased itself. Still, Len is using it to try and cut a deal with Holloway, only Len is doing it just to get close enough to Holloway to kill him. Ani then puts a weepy Laura on a bus to parts unknown. Ray goes off to stop him, but he first calls Frank, who has just finished threatening Osip. Frank is also going to the mattresses, literally, as he sets up shop in a makeshift bedroom in the dive bar where he and Ray usually drink and talk. Frank also has the kind of arsenal that might have saved Tony Montana at the end of “Scarface.” Ray, meanwhile, rolls up wearing a cowboy hat and sunglasses at the new train station where set photographer and Caspere’s murderer Len is going to meet with Chief Holloway. Ray’s face is all over the TV. He’s wanted for killing state police bigwig Davis and probably Paul, too, so a disguise is necessary. He sneaks up on Len and tries to talk him out of it. Instead, he should try to break everything wide open in the sunlight, let them all go down, but Len wants blood. Holloway shows up, and Burris is already there watching his back. It’s Ray who catches Holloway’s attention at first. He’s holding a bag with the hard drive, as well as documents about the land deal, while Len sits behind them on a bench. Ray threatens him, saying everything will go into “the cloud” if something happens to him. He wants a payout (a few blue diamonds will do), and he wants his name cleared. But Ray wants more information, so he keeps pressing. Holloway wants him to put it all on Bezzerides. Even Attorney General Geldof is onboard with that. Then, the huge bomb drops. Holloway reveals that Caspere had a personal issue with the jewelry store owner’s wife — and Caspere was Laura’s father. This revelation sends Len into a rage, who springs up and starts stabbing Holloway. Burris then starts shooting, Ray hits the deck and starts shooting back. Then Ani, also in disguise shows up, and plugs Burris. All the while, Len is stabbing Holloway, but the police chief fires a few shots into his chest. Ray and Ani get away as uniformed cops descend on the scene. Now Ray and Ani are holed up with Frank in the dive bar’s basement/utility room, making for Frank and Ani’s first ever meeting. He tells Ani that if she gets to Venezuela first, she should meet Jordan for him. Then it’s Ray’s turn to talk to Frank, who tries to coax him into fleeting to Venezuela, too. He also reveals that Blake was the one who told him about the wrong guy in his wife’s rape. “Maybe I spared you that one,” Frank says, alluding to Blake’s brutal death. It’s clear what Frank wants: for Ray to come along with him to Ojai and kill all of Frank’s enemies. After all, Ray is going to need money to flee to Venezuela. Ani suggests maybe getting others on the record in the case, but Ray says he has heard enough confessions for the day. Venezuela it is, then, right? Ray wants to join Frank, though, but he considers running at that moment when Ani asks him about possibly doing that. “I just might,” he says. But she doesn’t ask him to run, and they hold hands, understanding each other perfectly. Next thing you know, Ani is poking through the weird Dr. Pitlor’s files — Pitlor himself is dead, wrists slashed — while Ray and Frank head up to the big meeting between Osip and the Catalyst honcho McCandless. Frank and Ray begin their assault with gas bombs and a hail of bullets, quickly taking out a slew of Osip’s goons. Inside the smoky cabin, they find McCandless and Osip, whom they riddle with bullets. Now there’s a mountain of cash for them to deal with. They start packing the bags, and then they’re gone. Getting to Venezuela shouldn’t be a problem now. They part ways. Frank has made other arrangements to head south, while it looks like Ray feels like he needs to deal with other business first. Still, two loose ends remain: Tony and Betty Chessani. Ray gets on the horn with Ani, who is eager for him to get back so they can make the boat on time. She’s all packed, but again, it looks like Ray has some unfinished business. Ani probably suspects it, and indeed Ray is moved to do something. Even after he swore to his ex-wife Gena that he would no longer bother her or try to see his son, Chad, he just can’t let go. So what does he do, with freedom just minutes away? He stops by Chad’s school, and his kid is enjoying recess with his friends — and he has his grandfather’s badge, which his father gave him a few episodes back. Chad spots him, and they exchange salutes before Ray slips away. As he walks back to his car, though, he finds that has attached something with a red light to the bottom, likely a tracking device or a remote-control bomb. So, as any rational person would do, Ray lights a cigarette and waits for whoever might have done it. Frank, meanwhile, starts settling his debts and preparing to leave. Once it looks like he’s all done, though, he is trapped beneath an underpass by two cars. It’s the Mexicans he thought he had a deal with, but apparently they had never gotten over how he cut them out of trafficking deals at his clubs. They drive him to the desert, where he meets the gang leader, who is still miffed over the deal. Frank trades the million dollars in cash he has on him for his life, but he doesn’t get a ride back to town for his trouble. They also want his suit, but Frank has too much pride and strikes out. He’s overmatched, though, and one of the gangsters stabs him. They leave him to bleed out in the desert all alone. He walks off into the sunset, but this isn’t a happy western ending. Instead, he’s haunted by the taunting memory of his father as blood pours from a gash in his side. He re-lives other miseries, too, including neighborhood toughs picking on him and one of his victims weeping him. Buzzards trail him after a while. Finally, though, he sees Jordan in a white dress. “What’s a guy like you doing in a place like this?” Eventually, he stands upright and starts walking normally. “You can rest now,” she tells him. Here lies Frank Semyon, a wordsmith and a criminal with a code. Ray calls Ani — who is sporting freshly shorn locks — to tell her that he will be late, but he also implores her to get on the boat, even if it’s without him. He’s being tailed, and he’s confident he’ll lose them. However, he’s just saying this so Ani will get out. He gets on the phone with Felicia, who owns the bar and is helping them flee to Venezuela, tells her that he isn’t going to make it, and that she must do everything in her power to make sure Ani gets on that boat. Ray is preparing for the end, meanwhile. He creates another recording for Chad, telling him that the kid is better than he is. “Hell, son, if everyone was stronger they’d be more like you,” he says before leading his pursuers into a forest. His car is out of gas, and his message to his son has yet to upload. He grabs a gun, heads off to hide in the woods, but Burris (who survived the shootout at the train station in spite of being wounded) and a bunch of guys with heavy firepower chase him. Burris demands the incriminating papers and “the woman,” meaning Bezzerides. Ray, though, is a killing machine, taking out two of the guys trailing him. After a while, though, Ray comes out firing only to be quickly mowed down. The message to Chad failed to upload, too. Here lies Ray Velcoro, loving father, reluctant hero. Ani gets on the boat with Felicia, a new life awaiting her, but she keeps eyeing the waves. It becomes clear to her after a while that she’s on her own. The aftermath: Tony Chessani becomes mayor of Vinci, the rail project gets under way with Catalyst spearheading it. At least Paul had a highway named after him. But that’s not all. We hear Ani narrate the end of the story to someone, likely a reporter. She gives him all the evidence, saying she owes the idea of a better world to Ray and his sons, meaning Chad and the little baby Ani apparently had while in Venezuela. Jordan is there, too. A long journey awaits them, but not before Ani loads up on knives. Nails is also there, acting as a guardian angel, and the four of them slip out as a religious festival goes on in the streets. All the light blurs together, and we cut to black. Join the WSJ TV Club. For the latest entertainment news Follow @WSJSpeakeasy

That's a wrap for season two of 'True Detective.' Are you satisfied with the ending?

The iPhone has been around for nearly four years. And in that time, millions of people have bought and used iPhones, swiping and tapping their way through life. Most of those people believe they know how the iPhone works. But dig a little deeper into the iPhone’s latest operating system, iOS 4.3 — available for the iPhone 3GS and the AT&T iPhone 4 — and there’s another layer to master. (Sorry, Android users, but that OS has so many versions and skins that a quick guide would be neither very quick nor much of a guide.) Beyond the realm of those basic iPhone controls is an advanced level of shortcuts and tweaks, some of which even hard-core users may not know exist. DOUBLE-TAP Even while your iPhone is locked, you can access the audio controls by double-tapping on the home button when the lock screen appears. This saves you the time it takes to unlock your phone, open a music-playing app like iPod and get to the volume and track controls. This feature is not limited to Apple’s iPod app. If you are using Pandora, for example, the same technique will bring up its controls. VOICE ACCESS If you press and hold the home button while the phone is locked, you can still access Voice Control to place a phone call (or FaceTime call) or get to any of the iPhone’s other voice commands. TELL TIME Voice control can dial phone numbers (“dial 212-555-1212”) or people (“Dial Mom, mobile”), and it can control music (“Play music,” “Play artist Earth, Wind & Fire,” Play album “That’s the Way of the World,” “Play more songs like this,” “Shuffle,” etc). But did you know that it can also tell you what time it is? Say “What time is it?” and your phone will say the time back to you. It may sound silly, but it comes in handy if you are rushing and do not have the time or inclination to pull out your phone. (And who wears watches anymore?) SHORTCUT TO SEARCH Swiping to the right from your first home screen pulls up the search window, where you can pull up any contacts, apps, e-mails, calendar appointments and media that have the word you are seeking. But the search screen is also a shortcut to Google and Wikipedia. The last two search results for any entry are always “Search the Web” and “Search Wikipedia,” saving you the time it takes to open browsers or apps. FORCE-QUIT APPS Double-tapping the home button while your phone is unlocked reveals a panel of most recently used apps. Swiping to the left moves through the apps in reverse chronological order to aid in quick app switching. This is advanced-beginner stuff. But serious iPhone ninjas know that pressing and holding an app icon in this panel will cause minus signs to appear beside each app. Touching an app in this state forces it to shut down, a useful move if you have an app that is running in the background and causing trouble. MUSIC SHORTCUTS Swipe that same previously used app screen to the right and you get another shortcut to music-playing controls. If you have the latest operating system, iOS 4.3, you will also see a button that will call up controls for AirPlay, Apple’s wireless audio feature. It is here that you also gain access to the screen rotation lock button, so you can turn on or off the iPhone’s ability to switch from portrait to landscape mode. Swipe once more to the right from this screen and the iPhone’s volume control appears. VOLUME LOCK If you want to limit the iPhone’s volume (because it is being used by your children, for example), you can go into Settings, then iPod. Under “Volume Limit” you can adjust the maximum volume and set a code to lock the setting. This code can be different from the lock code for the entire phone, if you have set one of those. SAVE WEB IMAGES When you’re looking at Web pages in Safari, tapping and holding any image will call up buttons that can save the image to your camera roll or copy it to the clipboard. FIND WORDS Safari’s search bar will not only look up sites, it can also be used to find a word or phrase on a Web page. Type in your search term and scroll to the bottom of the results; the last result is always “On This Page”; tap that and you can see where that term appears on the page you are viewing. MULTIPLE KEYBOARDS You can add keyboards in other languages. Go to Settings, then General, then Keyboard, then International Keyboards. Add as many keyboards as you like. The next time the keyboard appears, it will have a small button next to the space bar with a globe icon on it. Tapping that will cycle through the languages you have selected (the name of each language will appear on the space bar).

Knowing a few tricks can make an iPhone easier to use and more efficient.

Before you go, we thought you'd like these... Nigerian scams often involve a prince, but years ago somebody went above and beyond and penned a letter asking for help in retrieving a stranded astronaut. That plea for $3 million assistance has resurfaced and getting The letter itself tells a story about a Nigerian astronaut who was rocketed to a top secret Soviet space station in 1989 but bumped from the ride home. Plans to retrieve him later fell through the cracks when the Soviet Union crumbled. The $15 million he is owed can't be claimed until he returns, but those who offer financial assistance towards his rescue will be richly rewarded. Surprisingly, the letter passes a fact check Parts about Soviet missions, spacecraft used, and, of course, the dissolution of the USSR all have elements of truth to them. Further, a cosmonaut really did have to postpone his return due to political upheaval. While impressively researched and executed, make no mistake – the letter is still

Nigerian scams often involve a prince, but somebody went above and beyond and penned a letter asking for help in retrieving a stranded astronaut.

Enterprise companies find that deploying a single, global ERP system can lead to unmanageable IT complexity. As all CIOs know, the more complex the technology environment, the more difficult and expensive it is to keep the entire operation running seamlessly. Yet over time, many companies find the complexity of their applications has gradually increased to an almost unmanageable degree. They’re paying very high prices to operate their core business, or they feel paralyzed by their systems. Some worry that they’re can’t easily support future change or execute on strategic direction. They’ve reached a point where IT complexity is preventing the business from realizing its potential, and they wonder how they got there… In the 1990’s many companies embraced an idealized vision for enterprise IT, which was predicated on putting in place a single, global ERP system from end-to-end. But as many companies and many CIOs have discovered, this isn’t necessarily a practical vision. The world around us changes fast, and business requirements change right along with it. And monolithic ERP systems can have a hard time keeping up. Organizations found that the reality of the global ERP vision failed to live up to its promise, for three reasons: To respond quickly to a specific business need in a single local office, most companies put in place a point solution rather than undertaking a major change to the global ERP. It’s a reasonable short-term response. But multiply that point solution by the number of offices around the world and the number of unique business needs that crop up, and an enterprise can one day find its ERP surrounded by dozens or even hundreds of smaller applications. Take into account the integrations between these small applications, individually as well as to the main ERP, and the enterprise IT environment will grow extraordinarily complex—ironically, as a result of attempting to “standardize” on a single, global system. This is a story we’ve heard again and again, from some of our biggest enterprise clients. And we have a solution. Microsoft Microsoft Dynamics ERP solutions can strike the perfect balance: support for standardized industry best practices and the ability to implement global processes, while allowing rapid deployment and even faster modification and reconfiguration at the local level. By deploying Microsoft Dynamics business solutions across their operations, companies like Revlon Revlon and Dell Dell have consolidated hundreds of smaller applications onto a single, global platform, reducing IT complexity, saving millions in IT costs, and increasing the speed and agility of their businesses. Where they were once faced with overwhelming complexity, today our customers can actually act on their strategy and adapt rapidly, realizing tremendous return on their technology investment and saving significantly on IT costs while reaching new levels of strategic agility. Microsoft is another great example. Ten years ago, if you had suggested that we would be operating retail stores and selling hardware in the year 2013, people might have looked at you funny. And yet, here we are, 10 years later, with a global retail presence, and we’ve transformed into a devices and services company. The world changed. And our business changed to stay relevant. And we wouldn’t be here if our business solutions hadn’t been able to change, as well. What does the next ten years hold? It’s anyone’s guess. According to “Back to the Future,” by 2015, kids will be riding hover boards and we’ll all be driving flying cars (not to mention the Cubs will win the World Series). That may seem far-fetched, but one thing’s for sure: nothing stays the same. And you need business solutions that allow you to keep up with change.

Enterprise companies find that deploying a single, global ERP system can lead to unmanageable IT complexity. As all CIOs know, the more complex the technology environment, the more difficult and expensive it is to keep the entire operation running seamlessly. Yet over time, many companies find the complexity of their applications [...]

After the final agreement with Iran over its nuclear program was announced in Vienna last week, references to one long-gone politician surged on social media: Neville Chamberlain. This is not surprising. The late British prime minister, who presided over the ill-fated Munich agreement with Adolf Hitler in September 1938, is the metaphor of choice for all who prefer confrontation to mediation. As my colleague Philip Bump noted, Twitter mentions of “Neville Chamberlain” spiked on July 14, with neo-con hawks and others on the American right lambasting the Obama administration’s supposed “appeasement” of the Islamic Republic. [The Iran deal: How it works.] The historical talking point centers on Chamberlain's negotiated pact with Nazi Germany, which granted Hitler the right to extend his rule over German-speaking areas of Czechoslovakia rather than risk the prospect of a full-blown invasion. In a speech delivered upon his return to Britain, Chamberlain quoted a phrase first uttered by an earlier 19th century British premier who had also conducted diplomacy with the Germans. Europe, he said, borrowing words from former British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli, now had "peace for our time." He then exhorted his countrymen to "go home and get a nice quiet sleep." If there's any doubt over how that contention sealed his fate in the eyes of history, just see the recent comments of prominent GOP politicos and presidential candidates. For example, when President Obama had a brief, friendly encounter with Cuban leader Raul Castro on the sidelines of a memorial service for the late South African President Nelson Mandela in 2013, Sen. John McCain (R-Az.) was less than impressed. “Neville Chamberlain shook hands with Hitler,” the outspoken senator reminded listeners during a radio interview. The deal in Vienna, agreed between Iran and six world powers, including the U.S., rankled presidential hopefuls, too. “This isn’t diplomacy, it's appeasement,” declared former Florida governor Jeb Bush last week. On Tuesday, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said Obama was the "Neville Chamberlain of our time." [Don't forget how the Soviet Union defeated Hitler.] Neville Chamberlain’s mistake – acceding to a territorial compromise that did little to check Hitler’s continental aggression – is seen as a kind of original sin, a fatal act of foolishness and moral cowardice that had to be redeemed by nobler, braver men in the hideous years to come. “This is the greatest appeasement since Chamberlain gave Czechoslovakia to Hitler,” said Sen. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.), reacting to the Iran deal last week. “[President Obama] is doing this because of his very poor understanding of history and what happened to Neville Chamberlain.” Today’s “appeaseniks,” Kirk and his allies argue, are either blind to or deluded about Iran’s evil ambitions, like Chamberlain supposedly was eight decades ago. But beyond the crude flimsiness of the analogy (Obama is patently not Chamberlain, and Iran does not pose a fraction of the threat represented by Nazi Germany in the late 1930s), WorldViews reckons Chamberlain also deserves a fairer hearing. A scholarly consensus has emerged over time in the wake of World War II revising the image of Chamberlain as a feckless, blundering dove. “Chamberlain made mistakes in the 1930s. He overestimated his ability to reach a settlement with the dictators; he probably clung too long to the hope of averting war,” writes British historian David Dutton. “But it is doubtful if anyone else would have done much better, [Winston] Churchill included.” [The dark side of Winston Churchill.] Indeed, Chamberlain, a conservative politician with a long, accomplished political career and a reputation for intelligence and hard work, was operating in a very fraught context. The painful memory of World War I -- a continental disaster -- was still fresh in Europe and guided the thinking of many its leading statesman. Nor was the Nazi regime, in a time before its concentration camps and wartime atrocities, seen in such a monstrous light. It commanded sympathy within the corridors of power in Britain and in the United States, which was even more aggressively trying to avoid Europe's simmering maelstrom than the British under Chamberlain. Here's Dutton once more on some of the underlying realities guiding Chamberlain's actions: Chamberlain was no fool. But no individual could change the basic facts of the international scene, which made fighting Germany almost unthinkable for most of the decade. Like all his generation, Chamberlain had been deeply scarred by the memory of the First World War. Expert opinion predicted that any future war would be even worse: to the slaughter of the battlefield would be added unspeakable destruction from the air. Extrapolating from the Spanish Civil War, it was estimated that the first few weeks of a German air assault would bring half a million casualties: Britain was defenceless in the face of the bomber. Moreover, there were fears overall about Britain’s military preparedness in 1938, as Nick Baumann, now an editor at the Huffington Post, detailed in a 2013 article in Slate: In March 1938 the British military chiefs of staff produced a report that concluded that Britain could not possibly stop Germany from taking Czechoslovakia. In general, British generals believed the military and the nation were not ready for war. On Sept. 20, 1938, then-Col.Hastings Ismay, secretary to the Committee of Imperial Defense, sent a note to Thomas Inskip, the minister for the coordination of defense, and Sir Horace Wilson, a civil servant. Time was on Britain’s side, Ismay argued, writing that delaying the outbreak of war would give the Royal Air Force time to acquire airplanes that could counter the Luftwaffe, which he considered the only chance for defeating Hitler. British strategists, including Ismay, believed their country could win a long war (so long as they had time to prepare for it). This was a common belief, and doubtless factored into Chamberlain's calculations. Time, though, was not on Chamberlain's side. His overture to Hitler in 1938 was framed less as a strategic error than an act of "dishonor," as his political rival Winston Churchill put it. Yet even after Chamberlain was compelled to resign his post in 1940, he served in important roles in the country's government until his death from cancer later in the year. Chamberlain stood by his record in the last phase of his career and life. The following is from a speech he delivered in 1939, justifying his methods of appeasement. It displays both idealism as well as a certain pragmatism: Armed conflict between nations is a nightmare to me; but if I were convinced that any nation had made up its mind to dominate the world by fear of its force, I should feel that it must be resisted. Under such a domination life for people who believe in liberty would not be worth living; but war is a fearful thing, and we must be very clear, before we embark on it, that it is really the great issues that are at stake, and that the call to risk everything in their defense, when all the consequences are weighed, is irresistible. Chamberlain worked hard to stave off a war and, set against that truly "wicked man" Hitler, could not. "It's not such a bad epitaph," Baumann concludes. In October 1940, just weeks before death, Chamberlain expressed optimism about how he would be remembered in the years to come. "On the whole, although I have in a sense failed in everything I set out to achieve," he wrote, "I do not believe that history will blame me for that." At least on this count, Chamberlain was most definitely wrong. Iran deal: What they said. What they got. How not to write about Iran

The late British prime minister gets a bad rap.

For Tiana Stephens, the pictures helped her learn more about a cherished grandfather she'd lost a few years back. For Harry "Bud" Quehl, they offered a chilling reminder of the friends he lost as a crewman on a B-29 bomber. And for Betty Perkins-Carpenter, the images allowed her to honor the memory of her beloved uncle. All three are remembering their connections to the Korean War, as the world marks its 65th anniversary on Thursday. The images -- more than 100 black and white photos taken by the Department of Defense -- show various scenes from the Korean War, including many unidentified Koreans and Americans. In 2012, a veterans group gave them to Perkins-Carpenter, in hopes she could find out who the people were in the photos and get them to family members. During the next three years, an amazing chain of supporters stepped up to help ID people in the photos. Their efforts are touching families around the nation. Stephens first saw the photos on local TV news and thought one of the soldiers looked a lot like her grandfather, Crawford Flynn, who died in 2005. She tracked down Perkins-Carpenter and brought along an old family photo to compare with the one from the box. "As soon as I put that photo down next to it, it was like a mirror image," she said. "We were literally jumping up and down." Tiana Stephens realized her grandfather Crawford Flynn's picture was among a collection of newly found Korean War images. She compared a family snapshot of Flynn, left, with a Department of Defense photo, right. Flynn is on the far right. Perkins-Carpenter, 84, still gets choked up when she remembers that moment. "These are more than snapshots," she said. "These are treasures. Family treasures. We have to get them in the right hands." Stephens flew home to Colorado and gave that photo to her grandmother, Nobuko Flynn. It was an image she had never seen of her late husband. The couple had met in Japan while she was working at a little coffee shop at an Air Force base. "He saw her and fell in love with her," Stephens said. "I wouldn't be here now if he hadn't served." Stephens opened up about the experience in a poignant blog post. With so many aging Korean War veterans dying each year, Stephens told Perkins-Carpenter, "We have to put these out there where everyone can see them, because time is running out." Stephens connected her with Kodak Alaris, an information management company spun off from Kodak, which devised the best method to safely scan the images. She also helped connect Perkins-Carpenter to the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, which built a web page, allowing the images to be seen worldwide. Soon, unidentified people in the photos began getting names. Perkins-Carpenter sent Korean War veteran Quehl a photo of him standing next to a B-29 in July of 1950. He was just 22 years old. "I was dumbfounded, I really was," said Quehl, now 86. "I think it's exciting that people are trying to do this. It's a good thing." The photo shows Quehl inspecting bombs at an Air Force base in California before he deployed to Okinawa, Japan. There, he would spend the war flying 16-hour bombing missions over North Korea. "We were often under attack by (fighter jets) trying to shoot us down and we saw a lot of our friends get killed," he said. "A lot of people thought Korea was just a mild skirmish, but it really was a war that killed a lot of people." On July 25, 1950, about 135,000 North Korean soldiers invaded South Korea. Three years of fighting among troops from many nations, including the United States, led to the deaths of more than 36,000 U.S. troops, according to the Department of Defense. Nearly 3 million Chinese and North and South Koreans -- civilian and military -- were reported killed or missing. The fighting ended with a ceasefire that remains in place today. Take a look at the images. If you recognize someone, send inquiries to [email protected]. For Perkins-Carpenter, the project has been very personal. She's a veteran herself, who lost her beloved Uncle Art in the 1940s during a World War II naval battle. By the time she was 18, Perkins-Carpenter realized she wanted to join the military like her uncle. When the Korean War broke out, she was serving in Florida in the Air Force, teaching troops about water survival before they shipped out to Korea. After that, Perkins-Carpenter went on to a long career as a champion diving coach, businesswoman and adviser to the President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports. On Thursday, the anniversary of the war's beginning, Perkins-Carpenter plans to lead the Pledge of Allegiance during a veterans ceremony at a local cemetery. The flag will be lowered to half staff. She'll be thinking about the pictures, she said, because "Uncle Art didn't come home." "If I had a picture of Uncle Art serving in the war, I'd treasure that picture," she said. "Those people in the pictures, their families would treasure those pictures. I want them to have that. It's important."

Air Force vet works to identify troops in more than 100 newly found Korean War photos. Another vet was "dumbfounded" when he saw himself in one of them.

The re-election of President Obama was like a Rorschach test, subject to many interpretations. In this election, each side debated issues that deeply worry me: the long malaise into which the economy seems to be settling, and the growing divide between the 1 percent and the rest — an inequality not only of outcomes but also of opportunity. To me, these problems are two sides of the same coin: with inequality at its highest level since before the Depression, a robust recovery will be difficult in the short term, and the American dream — a good life in exchange for hard work — is slowly dying. Politicians typically talk about rising inequality and the sluggish recovery as separate phenomena, when they are in fact intertwined. Inequality stifles, restrains and holds back our growth. When even the free-market-oriented magazine The Economist argues — as it did in a special feature in October — that the magnitude and nature of the country’s inequality represent a serious threat to America, we should know that something has gone horribly wrong. And yet, after four decades of widening inequality and the greatest economic downturn since the Depression, we haven’t done anything about it. There are four major reasons inequality is squelching our recovery. The most immediate is that our middle class is too weak to support the consumer spending that has historically driven our economic growth. While the top 1 percent of income earners took home 93 percent of the growth in incomes in 2010, the households in the middle — who are most likely to spend their incomes rather than save them and who are, in a sense, the true job creators — have lower household incomes, adjusted for inflation, than they did in 1996. The growth in the decade before the crisis was unsustainable — it was reliant on the bottom 80 percent consuming about 110 percent of their income. Second, the hollowing out of the middle class since the 1970s, a phenomenon interrupted only briefly in the 1990s, means that they are unable to invest in their future, by educating themselves and their children and by starting or improving businesses. Third, the weakness of the middle class is holding back tax receipts, especially because those at the top are so adroit in avoiding taxes and in getting Washington to give them tax breaks. The recent modest agreement to restore Clinton-level marginal income-tax rates for individuals making more than $400,000 and households making more than $450,000 did nothing to change this. Returns from Wall Street speculation are taxed at a far lower rate than other forms of income. Low tax receipts mean that the government cannot make the vital investments in infrastructure, education, research and health that are crucial for restoring long-term economic strength. Fourth, inequality is associated with more frequent and more severe boom-and-bust cycles that make our economy more volatile and vulnerable. Though inequality did not directly cause the crisis, it is no coincidence that the 1920s — the last time inequality of income and wealth in the United States was so high — ended with the Great Crash and the Depression. The International Monetary Fund has noted the systematic relationship between economic instability and economic inequality, but American leaders haven’t absorbed the lesson. Our skyrocketing inequality — so contrary to our meritocratic ideal of America as a place where anyone with hard work and talent can “make it” — means that those who are born to parents of limited means are likely never to live up to their potential. Children in other rich countries like Canada, France, Germany and Sweden have a better chance of doing better than their parents did than American kids have. More than a fifth of our children live in poverty — the second worst of all the advanced economies, putting us behind countries like Bulgaria, Latvia and Greece. Our society is squandering its most valuable resource: our young. The dream of a better life that attracted immigrants to our shores is being crushed by an ever-widening chasm of income and wealth. Tocqueville, who in the 1830s found the egalitarian impulse to be the essence of the American character, is rolling in his grave. Even were we able to ignore the economic imperative of fixing our inequality problem, the damage it is doing to our social fabric and political life should prompt us to worry. Economic inequality leads to political inequality and a broken decision-making process. Despite Mr. Obama’s stated commitment to helping all Americans, the recession and the lingering effects of the way it was handled have made matters much, much worse. While bailout money poured into the banks in 2009, unemployment soared to 10 percent that October. The rate today (7.8 percent) appears better partly because so many people have dropped out of the labor force, or never entered it, or accepted part-time jobs because there was no full-time job for them. High unemployment, of course, depresses wages. Adjusted for inflation, real wages have stagnated or fallen; a typical male worker’s income in 2011 ($32,986) was lower than it was in 1968 ($33,880). Lower tax receipts, in turn, have forced state and local cutbacks in services vital to those at the bottom and middle. Most Americans’ most important asset is their home, and as home prices have plummeted, so has household wealth — especially since so many had borrowed so much on their homes. Large numbers are left with negative net worth, and median household wealth fell nearly 40 percent, to $77,300 in 2010 from $126,400 in 2007, and has rebounded only slightly. Since the Great Recession, most of the increase in the nation’s wealth has gone to the very top. Meanwhile, as incomes have stagnated or fallen, tuition has soared. In the United States now, the principal way to get education — the only sure way to move up — is to borrow. In 2010, student debt, now $1 trillion, exceeded credit-card debt for the first time. Student debt can almost never be wiped out, even in bankruptcy. A parent who co-signs a loan can’t necessarily have the debt discharged even if his child dies. The debt can’t be discharged even if the school — operated for profit and owned by exploitative financiers — provided an inadequate education, enticed the student with misleading promises, and failed to get her a decent job. Instead of pouring money into the banks, we could have tried rebuilding the economy from the bottom up. We could have enabled homeowners who were “underwater” — those who owe more money on their homes than the homes are worth — to get a fresh start, by writing down principal, in exchange for giving banks a share of the gains if and when home prices recovered. We could have recognized that when young people are jobless, their skills atrophy. We could have made sure that every young person was either in school, in a training program or on a job. Instead, we let youth unemployment rise to twice the national average. The children of the rich can stay in college or attend graduate school, without accumulating enormous debt, or take unpaid internships to beef up their résumés. Not so for those in the middle and bottom. We are sowing the seeds of ever more inequality in the coming years. The Obama administration does not, of course, bear the sole blame. President George W. Bush’s steep tax cuts in 2001 and 2003 and his multitrillion-dollar wars in Iraq and Afghanistan emptied the piggy bank while exacerbating the great divide. His party’s newfound commitment to fiscal discipline — in the form of insisting on low taxes for the rich while slashing services for the poor — is the height of hypocrisy. There are all kinds of excuses for inequality. Some say it’s beyond our control, pointing to market forces like globalization, trade liberalization, the technological revolution, the “rise of the rest.” Others assert that doing anything about it would make us all worse off, by stifling our already sputtering economic engine. These are self-serving, ignorant falsehoods. Market forces don’t exist in a vacuum — we shape them. Other countries, like fast-growing Brazil, have shaped them in ways that have lowered inequality while creating more opportunity and higher growth. Countries far poorer than ours have decided that all young people should have access to food, education and health care so they can fulfill their aspirations. Our legal framework and the way we enforce it has provided more scope here for abuses by the financial sector; for perverse compensation for chief executives; for monopolies’ ability to take unjust advantage of their concentrated power. Yes, the market values some skills more highly than others, and those who have those skills will do well. Yes, globalization and technological advances have led to the loss of good manufacturing jobs, which are not likely ever to come back. Global manufacturing employment is shrinking, simply because of enormous increases in productivity, and America is likely to get a shrinking share of the shrinking number of new jobs. If we do succeed in “saving” these jobs, it may be only by converting higher-paid jobs to lower-paid ones — hardly a long-term strategy. Globalization, and the unbalanced way it has been pursued, has shifted bargaining power away from workers: firms can threaten to move elsewhere, especially when tax laws treat such overseas investments so favorably. This in turn has weakened unions, and though unions have sometimes been a source of rigidity, the countries that responded most effectively to the global financial crisis, like Germany and Sweden, have strong unions and strong systems of social protection. As Mr. Obama’s second term begins, we must all face the fact that our country cannot quickly, meaningfully recover without policies that directly address inequality. What’s needed is a comprehensive response that should include, at least, significant investments in education, a more progressive tax system and a tax on financial speculation. The good news is that our thinking has been reframed: it used to be that we asked how much growth we would be willing to sacrifice for a little more equality and opportunity. Now we realize that we are paying a high price for our inequality and that alleviating it and promoting growth are intertwined, complementary goals. It will be up to all of us — our leaders included — to muster the courage and foresight to finally treat this beleaguering malady. Joseph E. Stiglitz, a Nobel laureate in economics, a professor at Columbia and a former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers and chief economist for the World Bank, is the author of “The Price of Inequality.”

Our economy won't come back strong unless it also becomes more fair.

By Ben Mutzabaugh, USA TODAY - The Atlanta Journal Constitution reports that "an apparently intoxicated pilot was pulled from the cockpit of his Delta Air Lines jet" in Amsterdam earlier today. The Newark-bound flight was canceled. Citing the National Police Corps in Amsterdam, the Journal-Constitution reports the 52-year-old pilot registered a .023% blood alcohol level in a breath test. Delta would not confirm one of its pilots was involved, though the airline did confirm to various media outlets that it canceled Flight 53 from Amsterdam to Newark after an unspecified crew member reported to work "unfit for duty." DELTA PRESS RELEASE: Flight No. 35 Information Atlanta TV station WXIA writes that "without confirming that the crew member was a pilot nor elaborating on the circumstances of the flight's cancellation, [Delta spokesman Anthony Black] said the employee had been suspended pending the findings of an internal investigation. He said Delta is also cooperating with Dutch officials on their investigation." Still, Black pointed out in an e-mail to Bloomberg News that "Delta's policy is that pilots shall not report for duty with the presence of any alcohol in their system." "Our policy is among one of the strictest in the industry and we have no tolerance for violations," Black adds to ABC News. Bloomberg reports Dutch authorities acted after they received an anonymous tip, according to police spokesman Jos Klaren. The suspect was arrested and later released on 700-euro ($900) fine, according to The Associated Press. The Journal-Constitution says the Federal Aviation Administration also is investigating the incident. The agency forbids pilots from flying with a blood alcohol level that exceeds .018, according to the newspaper. The Journal-Constitution adds "if the FAA finds that the pilot attempted to take off with a blood alcohol level of .023, the pilot could lose his medical certificate -- and his ability to fly." Bloomberg notes today's arrest is "at least the third involving a U.S. pilot and alcohol in 16 months." Posted Sep 14 2010 7:36PM

The Atlanta Journal Constitution reports that "an apparently intoxicated pilot was pulled from the cockpit of his Delta Air Lines jet" in Amsterdam earlier today. The Newark-bound found was canceled.

The smoldering Jamie Dornan from the set of his fall 2009 Calvin Klein underwear ad campaign. Author E L James has officially welcomed actor Jamie Dornan to the "Fifty Shades" family. James took to Twitter Thursday to confirm Dornan will play the lead role of Christian Grey in the film adaptation of her best-selling S&M-themed books. PHOTOS: HOTTEST CELEBRITY BEACH BODIES "Stow your twitchy palms ladies … our man is here. Welcome to #TeamFifty @JamieDornan1," she wrote. The 31-year-old smoldering Irishman will be replacing "Sons of Anarchy "actor Charles Hunnam, who backed out of the erotic blockbuster in mid-October. RELATED: JAMIE DORNAN TAPPED AS HUNNAM'S 'FIFTY SHADES OF GREY' REPLACEMENT "I have had some family stuff going on, so just trying to stay focused and stay positive and keep trying to do a good job at work and be with my family and stay positive," Hunnam told E! News earlier this week of his departure. His replacement, Dornan, is best-known for his former role in the ABC drama "Once Upon a Time," playing a part in Sofia Coppola's 2006 film "Marie Antoinette" and his career as a Calvin Klein model. RELATED: JAMIE DORNAN CAST IN ‘FIFTY SHADES OF GREY’: CELEBRITIES, FANS REACT The actor has had an outpouring of responses from the Twitterverse; however, he has yet to send out a tweet since early October. Dornan will be playing opposite Dakota Johnson, who has been cast in the role of Anastasia Steele. On a mobile device? Click here to watch video.

Author E L James has officially welcomed actor Jamie Dornan to the "Fifty Shades" family. James took to Twitter on Thursday to confirm Dornan will play the lead role of Christian Grey in the film adaptation of her best-selling S&M-themed books.

Friday, April 10, 2015, 1:39 PM FALL RIVER, Mass. — The jurors in the Aaron Hernandez murder trial failed to reach a verdict at the Fall River Justice Center Friday afternoon before breaking for the weekend. It was the third day dedicated to deliberations. The seven women and five men were told to avoid any coverage of the case while away from the courthouse. "Please keep your minds suspended," Justice E. Susan Garsh said. RELATED: AARON HERNANDEZ TRIAL JUDGE BANS CAMERAMAN, WARNS MEDIA Hernandez, 25, faces a first-degree murder charge, as well as illegal possession of a firearm and ammunition charges related to the murder of Odin Lloyd. Prosecutors proved exhaustive in trying Hernandez. There were 135 witnesses called and 439 pieces of evidence introduced since proceedings commenced on January 29. During closing arguments earlier in the week, Hernandez's attorney, James Sultan, acknowledged that Hernandez was at the murder scene, but Sultan maintained that Hernandez had nothing to do with the killing. Lloyd was shot to death in the undeveloped section of an industrial park less than a mile from Hernandez's house in North Attleborough, Mass. There were no questions seeking clarification on legal issues from the jurors on Friday. Hernandez's fiancée, Shayanna Jenkins, was in attendance. Hernandez has been in jail since June 26, 2013. He will face a separate trial for a 2012 double homicide in Boston after the Lloyd case is over.

The jurors in the Aaron Hernandez murder trial will break for the weekend.

Sunday, September 25th 2011, 4:00 AM Jesus Montero is 21 years old, too young to be knocking around big-league pitchers like this and way too young to become a righthanded designated hitter - especially on a team that needs to reserve the spot for Alex Rodriguez over the next four or five years. But there you go.The Yankees have yet another debate on their hands, yet another embarrassment of riches. They already own a starting catcher, Russell Martin. What are they going to do with this kid who simply will not stop ripping apart American League pitching? What are they going to do with him in October, and then next spring and the spring after that? "We've said he's a dangerous batter, said that all along," Joe Girardi was saying Saturday after Montero went 3-for-4 with four RBI and a homer during a 9-1 rout of the sad-sack Red Sox. "This guy can put three or four RBI up against a lefty and it's not going to shock you." Girardi was being obtuse again, refusing to commit to Montero for the postseason as the backup catcher, as the righthanded DH or as anything else. The Yankee manager doesn't want to make those decisions yet, doesn't need to. This much is becoming abundantly clear, however: The Yanks need to find a position for Montero soon enough, because he's too good to sit around, rust and wait. Montero ripped a double and single against Jon Lester Saturday, the same starter who embarrassed Montero in his first game in the big leagues. Montero swung at a pitch over his head in that game at Fenway on Sept. 1, struck out and went 0-for-4. He looked foolish. He looked anything but that Saturday, knocking in three runs against Lester and taking Junichi Tazawa deep over the right-field wall in the seventh. Montero is batting .346 with four homers and 12 RBI in 15 games, an outrageous pace. Pitchers were supposed to catch on quickly to Montero and start moving the ball inside, cutting down his power to the opposite field. That hasn't happened yet. Actually, it happened and then stopped happening, somehow. The kid adjusted. "All the time I'm trying to hit the ball to right field," Montero said. "That's the way I learned how to hit." So now it's late September and Girardi is waiting on Francisco Cervelli, recovering from a concussion. The sensible thing, it would seem, is to forget Cervelli and name both Montero and Jorge Posada to the roster. That way, you have a righthanded and lefthanded DH plus two emergency backups at catcher. It is probably the way Girardi will go, though he won't say that yet and shouldn't. Meanwhile, Montero is trying to keep from getting worse defensively, which was never his strength in the minors. He is catching bullpen sessions, hoping to stay sharp and waiting for some cue from Girardi about his future. "Yeah, sure," Montero said, about wanting to catch. "I think about next year. But I don't know what's going to happen. I don't decide that. I'm here to help the team. (Girardi) hasn't told me anything." Montero should probably catch a few of these last meaningless regular-season games, just to see how that works. There is not much point in using Austin Romine. The game Saturday was a wasted opportunity. Montero could have caught and Martin could have been at DH. Girardi started his A-team, though, an indication of just how badly the Yankees want to shove Boston farther down the slide. The game turned into another day of pain for the Sox, who are spinning wheels and hoping to back into the playoffs despite abominable pitching; it was another good day for Freddy Garcia and for Montero, creating more difficult decisions for Girardi. Garcia has surely earned the No. 3 starter spot in the playoffs. He has been more effective than Bartolo Colon, no matter what the radar gun says. He has an outstanding postseason record. Montero, too, has earned a spot on the playoff roster. He can't possibly do any more except throw out a runner at second base.And he can't do that from the dugout.

Jesus Montero is 21 years old, too young to be knocking around big-league pitchers like this and way too young to become a righthanded designated hitter - especially on a team that needs to reserve the spot for Alex Rodriguez over the next four or five years. But there you go. The Yankees have yet another debate on their hands, yet another embarrassment of riches.

Decades after they were first published to the accompaniment of headlines and fanfare, three huge-selling novels have recently been reissued in paperback editions: ''The Naked and the Dead'' by Norman Mailer, ''Peyton Place'' by Grace Metalious and ''Doctor Zhivago'' by Boris Pasternak. When ''The Naked and the Dead'' was published by Rinehart & Co. in 1948, Mr. Mailer was a 25-year-old former G.I. from Brooklyn. Literary critics generally hailed it as one of the finest war novels ever. They also hailed its precocious author, who later won two Pulitzer Prizes, for ''The Armies of the Night'' (1969), and ''The Executioner's Song''(1980). ''The Naked and the Dead'' has sold 250,000 copies in 23 hardcover printings, and a New American Library paperback edition has sold 3 million copies in 28 printings since the mid-1950's. But the rights recently reverted to Holt, Rinehart & Winston. The new edition, published last month with a first printing of 25,000 copies, sells for $7.95. ''Peyton Place'' was a war novel of another kind, specifically, about the sexual and moral combat being waged in a mythical New Hampshire town. Turned down by many publishers before Julian Messner Inc. published it 25 years ago, the book has sold 10 million copies and was the basis of two movies and an evening televison soap opera. The last paperback edition of the book by Miss Metalious, who died in 1964, was published in 1977. ''We recently sold the rights for a soft-cover edition to Lafont in France,'' said Marti Freirich, a publicist for Simon & Schuster, which purchased Messner. ''Angela Miller, editor in chief of our Fireside Books, said if the French were still interested in a 25-year-old book, we still should be.'' The result is a $5.95 ''25th anniversary edition'' that the publisher hopes will appeal to those who missed the book the first time around - either because they overlooked it or because their parents wouldn't let them near it. ''Dr. Zhivago'' was published by Pantheon in September 1958, the same year its author was expelled from the Soviet Writers Union and was unable to accept the Nobel Prize for Literature because of the villification campaign waged against him in his homeland. The book had been published in Italy 10 months earlier by a Communist publisher, Giangiacomo Feltrinelli, who refused to bend to pressure from the Soviet Writers Union and who, in November 1958, announced that he had left the party the previous year partly because of the Pasternak affair. In her recent book ''The Terror Network,'' Claire Sterling describes how Mr. Feltrinelli subsequently helped such terrorist groups as the Red Brigades in Italy, the Palestine Liberation Organization, the Baader-Meinhoff Gang in West Germany and Basque separatists in Spain. She said he established hideouts for the terrorists, organized an international terrorist conference and advocated the killing of innocent people - to draw attention to the cause and to force a harsh response by the state. Eventually he was killed when an explosive he was planting exploded prematurely. Pasternak died in May 1960, but his book, a love story set against the backdrop of the Russian Revolution, has been published in 18 languages. New American Library held the paperback rights before Ballantine (like Pantheon, an imprint of Random House) decided to reissue it in its $3.50 mass market edition. In another development involving a paperback publisher, Pocket Books, the mass market imprint of Simon & Schuster, has announced that it will publish 10 to 12 hard-cover titles a year beginning next spring. The new line, to include fiction and nonfiction, will be produced, sold and distributed by Simon & Schuster. Pocket Books will handle advertising, promotion and publicity. A spokesmen said that paperback rights to the hard-cover Pocket Books titles will not automatically accrue to Pocket Books; that is, some will be submitted to rival paperback publishers, in much the same way that Simon & Schuster submits hard-cover books to a variety of paperback houses. As to why Pocket Books is not content to let its parent company acquire the hard-cover books, Carol Fass, the Pocket Books director of publicity, said that although they are members of the same family, Simon & Schuster and Pocket Books think of themselves as essentially different companies and friendly rivals. Vladimir Voinovich, exiled from the Soviet Union in December, is the author of three books published in the United States and his fourth, ''Pretender to the Throne: The Further Adventures of Private Ivan Chonkin,'' is scheduled for publication on July 31. But he never saw the United States until a month ago, when he arrived from Munich on a two-month tour that has taken him from one end of the country to the other. ''The University of Southern California paid his trans-Atlantic fare because he'll be participating in a conference there,'' said Helen Atwan, publicity director of Farrar, Straus & Giroux, Mr. Voinovich's publisher. ''The University of Michigan paid for his stopovers in this country. And we were on the phone calling universities with Slavic-language departments setting up talks at Harvard, Princeton, Columbia and the University of Massachusetts. His agent, Leonard Schroeter, in Seattle, did the same thing on the West Coast.'' Farrar Straus also provided a translator for some of the author's engagements, including talks at the P.E.N. American Center and the New York Institute for the Humanities. While Mr. Voinovich seems to be completely in his element in the United States, he and his wife are still trying to decide where to settle. He said that Soviet authorities usually opposes allowing writers to leave. ''But in my case,'' he said with a smile, ''they were so sick of me they wanted me to go anywhere.'' Illustrations: photo of Norman Mailer in 1949

Decades after they were first published to the accompaniment of headlines and fanfare, three huge-selling novels have recently been reissued in paperback editions: ''The Naked and the Dead'' by Norman Mailer, ''Peyton Place'' by Grace Metalious and ''Doctor Zhivago'' by Boris Pasternak. When ''The Naked and the Dead'' was published by Rinehart & Co. in 1948, Mr. Mailer was a 25-year-old former G.I. from Brooklyn. Literary critics generally hailed it as one of the finest war novels ever. They also hailed its precocious author, who later won two Pulitzer Prizes, for ''The Armies of the Night'' (1969), and ''The Executioner's Song''(1980).

For all the attention focused on next-generation smartphones like the iPhone 4, Droid X and Evo 4, there's evidence that some of the largest companies in the wireless industry are also interested in a different kind of smartphone: a low-cost one. Much of Qualcomm's ( QCOM - news - people ) annual developer conference, which kicks off Wednesday, will focus on Brew MP, the company's software for mass-market smartphones. The San Diego event, called Uplinq, will feature a "super session" overview about Brew MP, as well as 14 specific sessions on topics such as Brew MP's graphics capabilities and security features. By the end of the two-day conference, approximately 2,000 attendees from the U.S., Asia, Europe, Latin America and South America will know how to develop applications for entry-level smartphones, says Qualcomm. Qualcomm is eyeing a large potential opportunity. It estimates that low-end phones make up 60% or more of most cellphone markets, depending on the country. (Though some in the industry disagree, Qualcomm characterizes Brew MP as a smartphone operating system because it enables phones to host "smartphone-class" applications, has its own user interface and supports an ecosystem of developers.) Qualcomm is already the world's biggest maker of cellphone chips. Porting the advanced capabilities associated with premium smartphones to lower-cost phones will help the company sell even more chips by enticing consumers to upgrade their handsets, says Steve Sprigg, a Qualcomm senior vice president of engineering. That, in turn, should please manufacturers because they will sell more phones, and make operators happy because they will sell more wireless data plans, adds Sprigg. Some of these mass-market devices, like the Samsung Reality (for $80 after rebate in the U.S.), are already on sale. A number of others are in development. Sprigg says his team is working on devices with manufacturers around the world. Qualcomm has said it expects HTC, LG and Pantech to release Brew MP phones later this year or by early 2011. It also anticipates that Brew MP will power 90% of AT&T's ( T - news - people ) affordable, text-centric devices, known as quick-messaging phones, by 2011. Like Google's ( GOOG - news - people ) Android mobile operating system, Brew MP can be adapted to non-phone gadgets. Several upcoming projects utilize Brew to tie machines to the Internet in a so-called "machine-to-machine" setup, says Sprigg. Qualcomm also plans to show some brand-new Brew MP features at Uplinq, including tweaks to the software tools that developers use. Several other large wireless companies are working to democratize smartphones, as well. Nokia ( NOK - news - people ) recently released two $70 smartphones--the Nuron and E73 Mode--with T-Mobile USA. Mark Slater, a vice president of sales at Nokia, calls the price "headline-grabbing," noting that both phones run on the Symbian operating system, giving them access to Nokia's online mobile applications store, free GPS navigation service and other specialized software. "We're not expecting customers to compromise on their expectations of smartphones just because these devices are priced a certain way," says Slater. The E73 Mode has only been on sale a few weeks, but Slater says Nokia is "extremely pleased" with the Nuron's uptake among target consumers, such as teenage girls. "A value smartphone makes sense for kids who want a smartphone and parents who don't want to pay a ton of money," he adds. In February smartphone maker HTC debuted a low-cost, Brew-based handset it calls Smart. (See "HTC To Bring Budget Smartphone To United States.") Though it has yet to come to the U.S., Smart is available in India and six European countries (Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway and the U.K.).

Qualcomm, Nokia and HTC are bringing lower-priced smartphones to mass audiences.

PARIS — Of all the places to part with fistfuls of money in St.-Tropez, few have more cachet than Le Club 55. Patrice De Colmont, the owner of Le Club 55 and a leader of the local fight against plans to dismantle beach amenities to protect fauna and dunes. Perched on the white stretches of Pampelonne, one of the Côte d’Azur’s most stunning beaches, Le Club offers a private patch of sand where habitués can pay around $255 a day to rent a couple of lounge chairs with an umbrella and enjoy a light lunch — not including wine. But that traditional St.-Tropez luxury is in danger of being upended there, and at 27 other clubs and restaurants that have catered for decades to famous Côte d’Azur visitors from Brigitte Bardot to Paris Hilton. The mayor’s office says the establishments pose a threat to the environment. Officials have proposed dismantling existing beach amenities and shrinking the area allotted for private beaches to protect delicate flora and what officials say are dunes worn down by the crush of manicured feet. As a result, despite the August atmosphere of hedonism, an unusual air of rebellion is stirring in St.-Tropez, with businesses contemplating their first ever “strike.” “It’s completely stupid — everybody thinks so,” said Patrice de Colmont, the owner of Le Club 55 and a leader of the local fight against the government’s plans. “If we said buildings in Paris couldn’t be above a certain height you wouldn’t cut off the top of the Eiffel Tower,” Mr. de Colmont said. “Well, this is the Eiffel Tower of the French Riviera.” The mayor is seeking a compromise, but has not backed down. The town hall at Ramatuelle, where Pampelonne is situated, is planning to open its doors, starting Monday, to receive comments from the public. “We all want to be here for the long term,” said Guy Martin, the chief of staff for Mayor Roland Bruno. “That’s why we need to make sure there’s a sustainable equilibrium between the environment and the community.” Like much in France, though, the dispute is not so simple. Opponents of the move claim that it is really an effort to clear the way for big, well-connected companies to move in on the local businesses’ turf. Officials respond that the ruckus being raised by Mr. de Colmont and his colleagues is mostly in defense of their own form of crass commercialism. French law prohibits private development on public beaches. But decades ago, residents built on Pampelonne by obtaining renewable one-year permits that allowed them to offer “public services,” like Jet Ski rentals and lifeguards, if the construction was dismantled when the contract expired. If applying annually for permits was a nuisance, it at least protected small business owners, since no large company was willing to put up with the risk of losing a substantial investment, said Carole Balligand, the chairwoman of Save Pampelonne, a group that represents the local businesses that are in danger. From the government’s perspective, however, all the activity stemming from the permits has hastened the erosion of an important dune on Pampelonne filled with rare native plant species. In 1986, the French Parliament passed a law to restore the area. Four years ago it ordered those in the area to strike a better balance between the environment and commercial activity. Under the government’s plan, the commercial operators would be allowed on 20 percent of the beach rather than 30 percent, meaning their plots would be reduced to 23 from 28. As for the dune, it would be cordoned off to let nature do its work. Local people are upset at another proposal, to require commercial beach activities to end on Sept. 1 every year — still the high season — rather than sometime in October, and to allow new businesses that build behind the restored dune 10-year operating permits. That, they suspect, is less about protecting the environment than attracting mass vacation companies with deep pockets, like Club Med. ''This would mean the total destruction of everything that has been here for nearly half a century,'' Mrs. Balligand said. She and others have calculated that the new plots could accommodate about four large hotel chains. ''They will turn us into a place like Cannes, where there is no soul,'' she said. What is more, Mrs. Balligand’s group, after digging up photos from the Allied landing on Pampelonne beach in August 1944, contends that no large dune ever existed. She accuses the government of using environmental arguments as an excuse to bring in bigger businesses.

In Saint-Tropez, environmental measures may upend the business of spoiling the pampered.

NORWALK MINERVA CHAPMAN and Baekland Roll are names as unfamiliar as they are imposing. However, the current exhibitions by both artists should help to correct the imbalance. A small selection of the late Miss Chapman's oils is on view at the Lockwood-Mathews Mansion, in Norwalk (295 West Avenue, through May 30); Mr. Roll's watercolors can be seen at the Richard Greene Gallery, in Guilford, where they share space with wood reliefs by Jill Disque (closing today). Beyond the fact that her paintings belong to a collateral descendant, Morse Dial Jr. of Redding and New York City, Miss Chapman seems to have had no ties with Connecticut. She was born in Altmar, N.Y., in 1858, and after attending Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Mass., studied at the Art Institute of Chicago and the Academie Julian, in Paris. Though primarily a miniaturist, the artist exhibited with various types of groups, mostly in Chicago and Paris, as well as in California, where she spent the latter part of her life. She died in Palo Alto in 1947. Plans for a New York show are under way and presumably it will offer more information than has been available so far. To judge from this selection dating from the late 1880's to around 1912, and from a catalogue of a Washington show of 11 years ago, the artist's style ranged from a dark academism influenced by Fantin-Latour - as in the quite handsome study of pink and white flowers in a glass jar - to Impressionism, expressed in several landscapes. But unlike other artists of the time, Miss Chapman dallied with Impressionism only to revert to the more conventional approach - or so it seems from the few legible dates to be found on the pictures. The aforementioned flower piece and a self-portrait were done in 1912 and 1911, while a high-keyed view of fields divided by a line of trees and bearing the imprint of Corot and Monet, is of 1892. One of the strongest works, a narrow view of Parisian streets freely impasted in muted but rich colors, may represent an intermediate stage in the artist's development. On the basis of this show, which features some solid, early life drawings but no miniatures, Miss Chapman was a capable draftsman and painter, thoroughly attuned to French art, including that of Degas. Still, while there are several attractive canvases, such as the small view of white-blossomed trees against a brownish wall, there's no reason to think that Miss Chapman, like so many other artists now being plucked from historical oblivion, was unjustly overlooked. A word about the Lockwood-Mathews Mansion itself, a National Registered Historic Landmark named for the two families that lived in it successively: It was built in 1869 by the German-born architect, Detlef Lienau, for LeGrand Lockwood, a Norwalk native and investment banker in New York during and after the Civil War. Thanks to the efforts of Norwalk citizens, the mansion was saved from destruction some 20 years ago and has been the object of scrupulous but slowmoving renovation - it still has to regain its period furniture. A magnificent jumble of classical, Gothic, Renaissance, Turkish and other styles, the place cost $2 million to build. Still, its coffered, frescoed ceilings and carved woodwork, including the staircase that inspired the one in ''Gone With the Wind,'' all testify eloquently to the skills of the Italian artisans who were imported for the job. The house also sported what then was the last word in technology - a burglar alarm and a heating system involving four boilers, each capable of burning a ton of coal a day. The octagonal reception hall where Miss Chapman's paintings are hanging has a magnificent parqueted floor inlaid with colored woods. Here hung Albert Bierstadt's huge ''Domes of the Yosemite'' when it was owned by LeGrand Lockwood - it's now at the Athenaeum in St. Johnsbury, Vt. The reviewer has lately encountered several artists who, like Baekland Roll, have ''hatched'' after spending most of their careers underground. An alumnus of New York University's Institute of Fine Arts and of the Art Students League, Mr. Roll has been painting in seclusion for some 30 years. He has participated in group shows in Connecticut and New York, but this appears to be the closest he's come to a solo. The 30 or so watercolors are less abstractions than plans and ideograms alluding to landscape and figures. They are beautifully drawn in a fine, ink line on paper that has been mottled and washed in soft colors. Several are bird's eye views of imaginary gardens and fields and maplike images of an estuary looking a bit like that of the Connecticut River. But if the colors are not necessarily contained by the lines, the effect is often of quilts with some patches left plain, others patterned with dots and fine, vertical lines. Exceptions are those involving figures and faces or, in an especially lovely specimen, one of the ''White Horses'' that were cut, supposedly during the Iron Age, into the chalk hills of southern England. Springing full blown, Mr. Roll gives no sign of his earlier metamorphosis from academic painter in oils to poet in watercolors. Still, he does show affinities to the Belgian graphic artist, Folon, to Paul Klee and, in his gouaches, to Miro, and his wit is not unlike Steinberg's. A very graceful performance. In her assemblages of organic shapes, painted and otherwise, Miss Disque conveys little more than an infatuation with her saber saw. Admittedly, this tool encourages delusions of omnipotence, but that is no excuse for essaying trompe l'oeil effects, cutting wood so that it resembles flat pebbles stuck between flat rocks. Illustrations: photo of 4 paintings displayed

NORWALK MINERVA CHAPMAN and Baekland Roll are names as unfamiliar as they are imposing. However, the current exhibitions by both artists should help to correct the imbalance. A small selection of the late Miss Chapman's oils is on view at the Lockwood-Mathews Mansion, in Norwalk (295 West Avenue, through May 30); Mr. Roll's watercolors can be seen at the Richard Greene Gallery, in Guilford, where they share space with wood reliefs by Jill Disque (closing today). Beyond the fact that her paintings belong to a collateral descendant, Morse Dial Jr. of Redding and New York City, Miss Chapman seems to have had no ties with Connecticut. She was born in Altmar, N.Y., in 1858, and after attending Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Mass., studied at the Art Institute of Chicago and the Academie Julian, in Paris. Though primarily a miniaturist, the artist exhibited with various types of groups, mostly in Chicago and Paris, as well as in California, where she spent the latter part of her life. She died in Palo Alto in 1947.

A judge has decided in favour of Rihanna to ban Topshop from selling T-shirts with Rihanna's image on them. Photograph: Robert Cianflone/Getty Images Rihanna has won a high court battle with Topshop over T-shirts bearing her image. The US singer had accused the fashion chain of passing off, or attempting to pass off, the garments as being approved by her. Topshop disputed her claim. Judge Mr Justice Birss ruled in her favour on Wednesday after a hearing in London. Birss said Topshop's sale of a Rihanna T-shirt at the centre of the dispute was an act of passing off. But he said the mere sale of a T-shirt bearing the image of a famous person was not necessarily an act of passing off. He said a substantial number of buyers were likely to have been deceived into buying the Rihanna T-shirt because of a false belief that it had been authorised by the singer. The judge said that was damaging to her goodwill and represented a loss of control over her reputation in the fashion sphere. He said it was for the singer not Topshop to choose what garments the public thought were endorsed by her. Rihanna had claimed that she was entitled to damages for the unauthorised use of her picture. The judge did not make any assessment of damages in a written judgment.

Judge rules in favour of US singer saying buyers would have believed T-shirts had been authorised by her

ORLANDO - A radiator that doubles as chic wall art? Door locks with built-in alarms to keep burglars out and teens in? An inexpensive, quick way to charge electric cars at home? These are some of the hundreds of innovative products showcased here this week at the International Builders' Show. The U.S. housing market may still be weak, but manufacturers are positioning themselves for future growth. Single-family home starts will likely jump 21% this year, compared with 2010, according to a forecast by David Crowe, chief economist for the National Association of Home Builders. Many of the new products at NAHB's annual trade show, which has attracted more than 50,000 attendees from about 100 countries, tout green features such as recycled content and energy efficiency. Others focus on comfort, convenience, aesthetics or safety. Among them are GE's new Profile front-loading washer that's designed to also dry clothes, Matrix Lighting's Viribright low-cost LED replacement bulbs for 40-watt incandescents and Kohler's ultra-efficient Wellworth toilet (1.28 gallons per flush) for about $150. Consumer Reports gives snapshots of each in its coverage of the trade show, which runs through Saturday. I spent hours on Thursday and Friday checking out the exhibitor booths. As I research products for the eco-friendly home my family is building in Falls Church, VA., I've come across many of the products before, but it was fun to see and touch them. Here's a snapshot of some of my favorites: Countertops. I saw huge slabs of Zodiaq's Terra quartz collection by DuPont, which offers 25% post-consumer recycled content. "You can't burn through this," said Chad Marlowe, a DuPont distributor, citing its heat resistance. While also care-free and stain resistant, it's not cheap. Marlowe says it can run $70 per square foot installed. Yet other beautiful countertops with higher recycled content, such as IceStone and Eco by Consentino, can cost even more. CaesarStone, a company making quartz counter tops in Israel, last year added four colors to its Environment First recycled collection. Tile: Shaw Floors sells U.S.-made tiles with up to 40% post-industrial recycled content in its Lunar, Matrix and Brushtone collections. They generally cost less than $4.00 per square foot. Dal-Tile Corp. has two new U.S.-made tile collections -- Dal-Tile's Colour Scheme and American Olean's Urban Tones -- that have 60% recycled content, including post-consumer recycled glass. Another U.S.-based manufacturer of tile with recycled content is Stonepeak Ceramics, which recently displayed its wares at the U.S. Green Building Council's annual Greenbuild conference in October. Cabinetry. Major manufacturers that have adopted eco-friendly practices, including Merillat and Kraftmaid, exhibited gorgeous products here, but my preference is the much smaller South Carolina-based Executive Cabinetry, which offers sustainably-harvested, formaldehyde-free cabinetry. Solar products. Lennox Industries has a new SunSource Home Energy System that uses solar panels to power a home's heat pump or air conditioner. Plug 'n Save Energy Products offers home solar shutters that produce electricity. Another company, Echo, showcased solar panels that it says produce at least twice as much power as a basic photovoltaic system. There were other nifty products, including Delta Faucet's Touch 2O kitchen faucet that can be turned on and off simply by tapping it (no need to touch the handle when hands are dirty), as well as these: "It's a piece of art," Michael Mosti told me of the electric radiator that can be wall mounted as glass art in American Ecopower's booth. His company, which has been selling in Italy for six years but is branching out to the U.S. market next month, also offers an efficient radiant floor heating system using carbon fiber. Also next month, electrical giant Leviton will begin offering its Evr-Green home charging station for electric vehicles. Ford Motor Company recently announced a partnership with Leviton to offer it for the upcoming Focus Electric at a reported retail price of $1,499. Leviton's not the only company entering this market. Eaton Corporation's Pow-R-Station, which looks somewhat like a gasoline pump, can be used indoors on a garage wall or outside in the driveway on a freestanding pedestal. The station, retailing for about $1,000 without professional installation, runs on 240 volts so the company says it can charge an electric car in three to four hours. Worried about security? Schlage is introducing a door lock with a built-in alarm that will sound if burglars are trying to sneak in. It can also be set to notify homeowners if anyone is trying to leave, such as hard-to-monitor toddlers or teenagers.

Spiffing up your home? Products add flair, efficiency - Green House - USATODAY.com

From staff and wire reports PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Haiti's government has declared the search and rescue phase for survivors of the earthquake over, the announced Saturday, saying there is little hope of finding more people alive 11 days after much of the capital was reduced to rubble. But another survivor was rescued Saturday. French officials said they reached the 23-year-old man by digging a tunnel through the wreckage of a fruit and vegetable shop where the man had been buried for 11 days. The statement declaring the search and rescue over from the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs came a day after an Israeli team reported pulling a man out of the debris of a two-story home and relatives said an elderly woman had been rescued. Experts say the chance of saving trapped people begins diminishing after 72 hours, but one mother still missing her children said it's too soon to give up. "Maybe there's a chance they're still alive," said Nicole Abraham, 33, wiping away tears as she spoke of hearing the cries of her children — ages 4, 6 and 15 — for the first two days after the Jan. 12 quake. The 7.0-magnitude quake killed an estimated 200,000 people, according to Haitian government figures cited by the European Commission. The U.N. said Saturday the government had preliminarily confirmed 111,481 bodies, but that figure does not account for corpses buried by relatives. Countless dead remain buried in thousands of collapsed and toppled buildings in Port-au-Prince, while as many as 200,000 have fled the city of 2 million, the U.S. Agency for International Development reported. Meanwhile Saturday, mourners gathered near the ruins of the shattered cathedral to pay final respects to the capital's archbishop and a vicar in a somber ceremony that doubled as a symbolic funeral for all the dead. Archbishop of Haiti Monsignor Joseph Serge Miot and chief vicar Charles Benoit perished when they returned to church office during the earthquake and the church collapsed. They were pulled from the rubble two days later by a Mexican rescue team. "I came here to pay my respects to all the dead from the earthquake, and to see them have a funeral," said Esther Belizaire, 51, whose cousin is among the dead. "Monsignor Miot love the poor and he lived like the poor," one priest said. "I am again going to take the liberty to propose to the government, even under these circumstances, to walk in the path of the monsignor and to follow his motto: 'Not to be served, but to serve,'" the priest said in a nod to the government's reputation for personal excess and corruption. Haitians have complained on radio programs that Haitian president Rene Preval, who attended the mass, has not visited the neighborhoods most damaged by the Jan. 12 earthquake. "The one's who didn't die are now saying thank you God for protecting me. After this tragedy, that's when they remember there is a God," he said. "This is God saying to us that we need to change. We need a new world, a new country….. All Haitians should start thinking about a better Haiti." With the local government essentially incapacitated, the U.N. has coordinated rescue efforts alongside the U.S. and teams from around the world. Spokeswoman Elisabeth Byrs said the Friday afternoon decision does not mean rescue teams still searching for survivors would be stopped from carrying out whatever work they felt necessary. "It doesn't mean the government will order them to stop. In case there is the slightest sign of life, they will act," Byrs told The Associated Press. She added, however, that "except for miracles, hope is unfortunately fading." All told, some 132 people were pulled alive from beneath collapsed buildings by international search and rescue teams since the Jan. 12 disaster, she said. Some 49 teams — down from 67 — were still in Haiti as of Saturday, the U.N. said. Col. Gili Shenhar, a senior officer on the Israeli Defense Forces team in Haiti, said team members were still investigating potential rescue sites in Port-au-Prince on Saturday. However, he said it is unlikely more people will be found alive under the rubble and described being called to scenes by relatives who believe, usually incorrectly, they hear voices from the debris. "Maybe there is one person somewhere, but the problem is how to find them," Shenhar said. A day earlier, the team reported saving a 21-year-old man who told The Associated Press he drank his own urine to survive. With the rainy season on the way, U.N. relief workers are concerned that many Haitians are still homeless and Byrs said the focus now will be squarely on providing shelter and medical treatment. About 609,000 people are homeless in the capital's metropolitan area, and the United Nations estimates that up to 1 million could leave Haiti's destroyed cities for rural areas already struggling with extreme poverty. On Saturday morning, more than 1,000 people, many weeping and clutching handkerchiefs, gathered in a small park for the funerals of Msgr. Joseph Serge Miot, the archbishop of Port-au-Prince, and the vicar Charles Benoit. Classical music wafted over their two closed white caskets covered with flowers. "This is for everyone," Cleopas Auza said of the ceremony before it began. Nepthalie Miot, a niece of the archbishop, choked back tears as she described the man who would have worked to comfort the nation after the disaster had he not been killed himself. "He was a very compassionate person. He tried to help the poor," she told the crowd, which included President Rene Preval, New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan and the Vatican's ambassador to Haiti, Archbishop Bernadito Cleopas Auza. Only a small number of funerals have been held since the quake, with most people buried anonymously and without ceremony in mass graves on the outskirts of the city, or burned in the streets. "The hardest thing for us is the smell of all the dead bodies," said Josette Elisias, 45, wearing a red handkerchief to cover her nose and mouth on Saturday as workers cleared rubble and debris from streets with brooms, rakes and wheelbarrows. Scores of aid organizations, big and small, have stepped up deliveries of food, water, medical supplies and other aid to the homeless and other needy in seaside city. In the U.S., celebrities and artists made impassioned pleas for charitable donations during an internationally broadcast telethon Friday night. "The Haitian people need our help," said actor George Clooney, who helped organize the two-hour telecast. "They need to know that they are not alone. They need to know that we still care." More than a dozen Latin pop stars including Shakira, Ricky Martin, Gloria Estefan, Paulina Rubio, Daddy Yankee and Juanes were to appear Saturday on a special live edition of a popular Univision variety show to raise money for the American Red Cross to help aid earthquake victims. Contributors: Donna Leinwand, USA TODAY 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.

Haiti's government has declared the search and rescue phase for survivors of the earthquake over, the United Nations announced Saturday, saying there is little hope of finding more people alive 11 days after much of the capital was reduced to rubble.

Oct. 3, 2015: Two members of the Buffalo Soldiers of the American West place flags beside the new headstone for Pvt. George Washington in Roselawn Cemetery in Pueblo, Colo. (AP) PUEBLO, Colo. – Gravestones have been dedicated to four Civil War soldiers who had been buried in unmarked graves at Roselawn Cemetery in Pueblo and went unidentified for more than a century. The soldiers, including three African Americans born into slavery, fought for the Union in the Civil War and came to Colorado to make lives for themselves after being discharged from the military. They have been identified as Pvt. James W. Williams, born in 1844 and died in Pueblo in 1921; Pvt. George Washington, born in 1838 and died in Pueblo in 1899; Cpl. Thomas Walker, whose birthdate is unknown and died in Pueblo in 1900; and 1st Lt. Louis Young, who was born in 1843 and died in Pueblo in 1901. The stones were dedicated by members of the Buffalo Soldiers of the American West. R. Kenneth O'Neal, an Army veteran, honored the soldiers at a ceremony earlier this month, attended by about 100 people. "Today we set aside a moment to right a wrong and to honor four brave men as a profound gesture of our appreciation for their service to this country," O'Neal said. The unmarked graves were discovered while putting together a presentation about the history of Roselawn, said Lucille Corsentino, founder of Concerned Citizens of Roselawn Cemetery. More than 350 Civil War veterans are buried in the cemetery, the Pueblo Chieftain reported (http://tinyurl.com/q6wteka). While checking burial records, Corsentino said the number of graves didn't add up and four were missing. It took research done at the library scanning obituaries and a book of burial records to identify them. O'Neal said many Civil War soldiers came west after the war, seeking fame and fortune. Many were broke, and the West offered new opportunities and a way to forget the death and disease they saw in the war.

Gravestones have been dedicated to four Civil War soldiers who had been buried in unmarked graves at Roselawn Cemetery in Pueblo and went unidentified for more than a century.

In referring to the Standard & Poor's decision to downgrade U.S. creditworthiness, they focus attention on the debt aspect but fail to note that the S&P's decision was based in part on the unwillingness of Congress to let the Bush-era tax cuts expire. Instead, Boehner and Cantor cling to the Republican mantra that raising taxes kills jobs and hurts the economy. Perhaps they should take a look at recent history. Early in his first term, President Clinton raised taxes on the wealthiest Americans, and the increase was met by doomsday predictions from Republicans — similar to the right-wing clamor of today. Despite the dire claims, the economy prospered for nearly a decade. USA TODAY receives about 300 letters each day. Most arrive via e-mail, but we also receive submissions by postal mail and fax. We publish about 35 letters each week. We often select comments that respond directly to USA TODAY articles or opinion pieces. Letters that are concise and make one or two good points have the best chance of being selected, as do letters that reflect the vibrant debate around the nation on a particular subject. We aim to make the letters platform a place where readers, not just writers representing institutions or interest groups, have their say. By comparison, while the Bush-era tax cuts have been in place for a decade, private-sector job growth has been stagnant and the nation's debt has exploded. After 10 years of this failed approach, Boehner and Cantor are now recommending more of the same. Dan Sales; La Porte, Ind. Obama must work with others Regarding John Boehner and Eric Cantor's open letter to President Obama, some pundits might be asking: "At what point will legislators stop cajoling the chief executive in print and start charging the American people to send in new leadership?" Instead, the American people ought to ask: "When will the president act like a leader who wanted to usher in post-partisan change and work with the legislators whom we elected?" Unfortunately, President Obama has made it very clear that he is not concerned with the interests of the American people. He wishes to pursue an elite, statist agenda that will enlarge the federal government at the expense of the states and the people. Of course, this course of action will only slow the economy further. As long as the Republican majority in the House presses its attempts to create agreement and compromise, Obama is seen as an aloof stalwart stymieing attempts at change. If all continues in the same manner as in the bitter partisan holdup over the debt ceiling, then perhaps Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell will achieve his goal of turning Obama into a "one-term president." Arthur Christopher Schaper; Torrance, Calif. In their Forum piece, Reps. John Boehner and Eric Cantor state, "The jobs and savings of too many Americans are at stake for Washington to continue ducking the toughest choices." Yet under their leaders, the GOP has been unwilling to make the simple choice of having corporations, millionaires and billionaires pay their fair share in taxes in order to reduce our country's debt. More than half of Americans support raising taxes on corporations and the wealthiest Americans. Boehner, Cantor and other members of the GOP have demonstrated their allegiance to the wealthiest 2% of Americans and Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform. They have thumbed their noses at the middle class and the poor. The GOP has taken Nancy Reagan's "Just Say No" slogan to new heights. The GOP has said no to health care reform, regulating Wall Street to protect Main Street, saving auto industry jobs, eliminating the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest 2% and doing away with subsidies to oil companies that continue to reap billions in profits. It is time for Americans to just say no to this Congress, lobbyists, corporate political influence and unending political campaigns. Pedro Ramirez; Fort Collins, Colo.

Boehner, Cantor cling to mantra that hikes kill jobs, hurt economy.

Whether it's called "suffocation roulette," "cloud nine," or simply the "choking game," it's a dangerous activity that's been around for millennia, the Washington Post notes—and it's just resulted in another teen death. Memphis Burgess, a 13-year-old from Colorado Springs, Colo., was found by his dad Dec. 10 kneeling against his closet wall with a soft rope nearby, KKTV reports. "I thought he was messing with me and I shook his shoulder," Brad Burgess tells the station. "That's when he turned around [and] I noticed he was all blue and not breathing." The choking game creates a sense of euphoria by cutting off the brain's oxygen supply, typically by tightening an item like a tie or scarf around a person's neck, then loosening it right before the participant passes out. It's thought to have resulted in at least 1,000 deaths since 1934, according to GASP stats cited in the Post, and was documented in medical journals at least as far back as 1951. Many of these deaths are thought to be suicides by parents and cops who may never have heard of the game, per the Post. And it's a type of "recreation" that's alluring to certain teens, the Post adds: It's known as the "good kids' high," per Salon, appealing to children who wouldn't normally drink or do drugs, and a slew of YouTube videos showing other kids taking part makes it seem innocuous. "This is the age where kids are engaging in high-risk behaviors," an Ontario pediatrician who co-authored a study on YouTube and asphyxiation games tells the Post. "That's just what they do." It's an activity that Memphis' parents wish he had never heard of. "I [feel] robbed," his mom, Annette, tells KKTV. "He brought joy to everyone he met." She adds that her son had a cognitive delay that may have prevented him from realizing the possible consequences, and that she hopes parents broach the subject with their kids so "no other parent has to go through what we're going through right now." (Chicago police once issued an alert about the dangerous game.) This article originally appeared on Newser: Colo. 13-Year-Old Latest Victim of 'Choking Game'

Whether it's called suffocation roulette, cloud nine, or simply the choking game, it's a dangerous activity that's been around for millennia, the Washington Post notes—and it's just resulted in another teen death.

With the help of some very skilled makeup artists and stylists, this model transformed into seven distinct Disney characters in the above time-lapse video. It was created by Disney Style, a YouTube channel dedicated to Disney-inspired makeup and clothing tutorials. In the clip, you’ll see the model become Elsa from Frozen, Belle from Beauty and the Beast, Ariel from The Little Mermaid and more. If you’re already starting to plan your Halloween costume (it’s never too early to start thinking about it!) feel free to take some hair, makeup and costume inspiration from this video.

Including Elsa, Belle and Snow White

This inexpensive hack might just make your liquor cabinet tastier. (iStock/Brita) Nestled in the back of your liquor cabinet there’s a dusty handle of vodka that’s so cheap and so harsh you won't even mix it with cranberry juice. Your friend (acquaintance, really) gifted it to you at a house party you threw half a decade ago, and every time you see it, you feel you should really just toss the thing. But what if I told you this vodka could actually get a little more palatable? Luckily, there's a simple trick that bridges the gap between well-caliber swill and top-shelf booze. All you need to do is run that cheap vodka through a standard-issue Brita filter. At least, that's what the internet says. My question: Could this possibly work? A little bit of knowledge about the vodka distillation process reveals that the idea isn't totally crazy. In vodka distillation, a producer takes fermentable materials (anything from wheat to heirloom single-variety potatoes) and mills and cooks them into a pulp know as the mash. The mash gets a little yeast added to it, and it ferments until the sugars have converted to alcohol. Once it finishes with distillation, the vodka gets blended with water and then filtered, using activated charcoal to remove any impurities. The internet's theory: The Brita, which also uses charcoal to filter tap water, just continues that process. To test this theory out, I poured some low-tier vodka (it comes in a plastic bottle and costs $19) through the Brita filter four times. To my surprise, the vodka had less of a burn and a less sharp aroma—and it absolutely tasted better than a swig of the bottle that remained unfiltered. Then I tried the method with a higher-end vodka (this one came in a frosted glass bottle and cost $67). After a few trips through the filter, it, too, was smoother and less hot. So, it kind of works! David Kargas, a representative from Brita, didn't discount the filter's ability to work magic on vodka—he’s just uncertain about what, exactly, he’s filtering out. But I wanted to know what I was removing from the vodka. So I called Brian Facquet of Prohibition Distilling in Roscoe, NY. “What separates well vodka from premium vodka is oil and sugar,” says Facquet. Glycerol is an alcoholic compound that changes the mouthfeel of the vodka, while sugar often gets added to change the flavor and mask some of vodka's burn. Both of these additions are common in European vodkas such as the ones I tested with, and are likely what the Brita helped remove. Thirsty for more vodka tips? Check out the full story. 12 Lightning-Fast Chicken Dinners to Make Now 14 Main Course-Worthy Vegetarian Salads The 12 Easiest No-Cook Pastas Ever 15 Foods That Are Just Plain Better on Sticks

We put an internet theory to the test to see if we can turn bad vodka good.

Over a decade ago, Tesla CEO Elon Musk had a vision to create an electric car for the masses, but the technology just wasn’t good enough or cheap enough yet. In the early days that car had a code name: Bluestar. Tesla will finally unveil that dream car, now called the Model 3, at a buzz-filled event Thursday night in Hawthorne, Calif. Musk’s vision is finally becoming a reality. Tesla’s Model 3 is the next step in the company’s evolution, from high-end luxury electric car maker, to a manufacturer of an affordable product for mainstream car owners. The move is both a major risk for Tesla, which isn’t yet profitable, and also a massive opportunity for the company to continue to disrupt the auto industry. Expect the usual fanfare of Tesla events on Thursday: an open bar, a legion of Tesla-obsessed customers in the audience, and brief remarks by Musk including inside jokes only his engineers will really understand. Oh, and Tesla says attendees will get a chance to ride in a working Model 3. The company has prohibited professional cameras and videos from the event, and will only allow photos from cell phone cameras. Instead, Tesla says it will provide all the stock imagery. To me that doesn’t exactly install confidence in what the Model 3 prototype will look like close up. Tesla didn’t explain the decision. But we’ll see shortly—as soon as Tesla’s livestream and media live blogs (like ours) start—what Tesla fans, would-be buyers, and critics really think of the Model 3’s design, specs, and value. The car is both a big gamble and a very big deal for Tesla’s future. Like it tends to do with all its major decisions, Tesla is betting its future on the Model 3. It had a successful run with its second car, the Model S electric sedan, and followed that up with an electric SUV, the Model X, which is loosely based on the basic design of the Model S. For more on Tesla’s lithium strategy read: A Lithium Gamble That Could Win Big for Tesla But those cars, with added bells and whistles, commonly sell for over $100,000 each. That’s a little over three times what the Model 3 is supposed to cost ($35,000) when it finally ships in late 2017 (translation: you won’t likely get yours until 2018 and 2019). The Model 3 represents a major step in Tesla’s evolution as a car company. While Tesla has shipped about 100,000 electric cars to date, the company plans to boost that number dramatically over the next four to five years with help from the mainstream Model 3. To create a car that it can sell so cheaply, Tesla has had to make some big, risky decisions. The company is building a massive multi-billion-dollar factory outside of Reno, Nev., that will mass produce batteries to help make them and the cars they power cheaper. Musk has said that Tesla couldn’t make the Model 3 without the battery factory, and Tesla wants to churn out enough batteries at the facility to make 500,000 electric cars annually. The company wants to reduce the costs of its batteries by 30% using various techniques like large scale manufacturing, innovative supply chain sourcing, and new chemistry. In general, lithium-ion batteries have been falling in cost over the years as Asian giants like Tesla-supplier Panasonic have been investing heavily in increasing supply. Betting on a drop in lithium-ion battery costs has been a critical part of Tesla’s business model since the company was formed in 2003. Adding in the Gigafactory just helped to accelerate that decline. Will it be enough to enable Tesla to make the $35,000 car with a 200 mile range? Likely yes. Years ago, Musk was actually hoping that Tesla’s mainstream car could be priced as low as $20,000 or even $30,000. $35,000 now appears to be a more conservative estimate for the car. So what can we expect from the Model 3? Analysts have speculated that the body will be made of steel, instead of aluminum, which would lower costs, would be easier to manufacture, but is a heavier metal. The basic autopilot features that Tesla showed off last year are also supposed to be included in the Model 3 from the start. A couple years ago, Tesla’s chief designer, Fran von Holzhausen, told me that the Model 3 could be more expressive and almost couture in its style, than the almost staid Model S sedan that he designed. However, analysts are now speculating that the Model 3 could look and operate like a toned-down cheaper version of the Model S. If that were true, Tesla would then also try to differentiate the Model S from the Model 3 by giving the premium car even more added goodies. For more on Tesla autopilot watch our video. Even if Tesla fans don’t love what they see at the premiere on Thursday, they will likely bombard the company with reservations for the car. Tesla and SpaceX employees can already reserve their Model 3s while the general public can start submitting them on Thursday morning at Tesla stores. Anyone on the Internet can reserve online starting at 8:30 PM pacific time on Thursday night. Model 3 reservations cost $1,000. Expect to see lines overnight at Tesla stores throughout California, and maybe even the world, on the night of March 30, so that die-hard fans can get earlier on the wait list. Many Tesla-lovers will probably be willing to put down a deposit sight unseen. Toning down a car, and fitting it under $35,000, will be a new experience for Tesla. So far, Tesla has focused on one upsmanship its cars with wow-inducing features like the swooping doors of the Model X and the 17-inch dashboard screen of its cars. In hindsight, though, some of these over-engineered features have caused Tesla delays and frustration. Get Data Sheet, Fortune’s technology newsletter. But for all the risks that Tesla is taking with the Model 3, the company is usually pretty good at adjusting early products to make its customers happy. If it doesn’t get it quite right, the company has consistently worked hard at using adjustments, refinements, and software updates to get closer to what it’s customers want. Still, the unveiling of the Model 3 is a very big deal for Tesla. It’s one of the final steps in Musk’s plan to build a business out of expensive luxury (and cool) electric cars and use it to eventually build a mass market product. Musk gets handsomely rewarded when he hits milestones like ‘deliver Model 3 prototype’ and eventually ‘ship final Model 3 production car.’ If the Model 3 somehow falters badly, it could send a big scare to Tesla investors. Earlier this year, Tesla’s shares dropped substantially, partly over slow production of its Model X car, but the company has always benefited from enthusiastic shareholders. If the company gets its first mainstream push wrong, that could spook even the most bullish Tesla’s Wall Street analysts. To get the first glimpse of what the Model 3 actually looks like, come back to Fortune.com on Thursday night and see what the world’s most interesting electric car company has in store.

Its electric car for the masses is finally being unveiled.

Tax season is in full swing and if you haven't gotten your return in yet, the clock is ticking. If you're married, one of the things you'll need to decide before you file is whether to opt for a joint return or do your taxes separately. Typically, a joint return is the smartest move, since you can cash in on some valuable tax breaks. But there are a few scenarios where it makes sense to file on your own. Here are 3 reasons married couples should consider filing taxes separately. Find out now: How much do I need to save for retirement? When you work as a freelancer, independent contractor or you own a small business, your tax situation looks very different from someone who works a traditional 9 to 5 gig. Not only are you responsible for paying income tax on the money you earn, you're also on the hook for covering your Social Security and Medicare tax. As of 2015, the self-employment tax rate is 15.3%. Since your taxes aren't being taken out during the year, you're generally expected to make estimated quarterly payments (every three months) to cover the amount of tax you owe. If you haven't been doing that or you underestimated what you needed to be setting aside, that can add to your joint tax liability or take a big bite out of your refund. Splitting your taxes up may disqualify you from claiming certain credits or deductions but it can also sometimes minimize the amount of tax you'll owe overall. RELATED: Important tax dates to know 3 reasons married couples should consider filing taxes separately January 15, 2016: Those who are self-employed or have fourth-quarter income that requires payment for quarterly estimated taxes must have them postmarked by this date (Photo via Tetra Images/Getty Images) April 18, 2016: Individual tax returns are due for the 2015 tax year April 18, 2016: Requests for an extension on filling out your taxes must be filed by this date (Photo by Chris Fertnig via Getty Images) April 18, 2016: Those who are self-employed or have first-quarter income that requires payment for quarterly estimated taxes must have them postmarked by this date April 18, 2016: This date is also the deadline to make a contribution to an IRA account for 2015 (Photo by Garry L., Shutterstock) June 15, 2016: Those who are self-employed or have second-quarter income that requires payment for quarterly estimated taxes must have them postmarked by this date September 15, 2016: Those who are self-employed or have second-quarter income that requires payment for quarterly estimated taxes must have them postmarked by this date October 17, 2016: 2015 tax returns that received an extension are due by this date (Photo by Juan Camilo Bernal via Getty Images) October 17, 2016: Today is the last chance to recharacterize a traditional IRA that was converted to a Roth IRA during 2015 January 15, 2017: Those who are self-employed or have fourth-quarter income that requires payment for quarterly estimated taxes must have them postmarked by this date (Photo by Pascal Broze via Getty Images) Student loan debt in the U.S. has reached staggering proportions and approximately 70% of students leave school with loans. The average debt load hovers right around $30,000 and for grads who are struggling to find their way in the job market, paying it down can be a challenge. Opting for an income-dependent repayment plan can offer some short-term relief but qualifying can be a challenge if you're married. Check out our student loan calculator. If you file your return jointly, both you and your spouse's income will be considered for an income-based repayment plan even if only one of is responsible for paying the debt. When you file separately, only your income is taken into account to determine what kind of payments you qualify for. Again, you're sacrificing certain other tax benefits but if you don't have kids and you normally take the standard deduction, you may not feel as much of a pinch. Deductions can be a major boon at tax time, since they reduce your taxable income. But the IRS limits how much you can write off based on what you make. If one or both of you has a substantial amount of deductions you want to claim and there's a pretty sizable gap in what you earn, filing separate returns can allow both of you to get the full amount of tax benefits you're entitled to. 4 Reasons to File Your Taxes Early For example, if you experienced a serious illness or injury and you racked up some big out of pocket medical expenses, you can deduct the amount that exceeds 10% of your adjusted gross income. If you earn $25,000 but your spouse earns $150,000, combining your income on your taxes is going to significantly reduce the tax benefit you'd get from the deduction, if you were able to claim it all. In this case, going solo would probably yield the bigger advantage. These are just some of the most important things married couples should keep in mind when planning their tax strategy. If you're getting divorced or you're worried about being liable for your spouse's tax debt, filing separately may be a no-brainer. When you're trying to decide what the best choice is, running the numbers can give you an idea of how much you stand to gain or lose either way. Check out ways to avoid a tax audit: 3 reasons married couples should consider filing taxes separately Double check your figures to assure there are no mistakes Be sure to be 100% honest, and report your numbers realistically Those in the highest and lowest income brackets are most often targets of fraud, and thus, audits (Photo by Gary Conner via Getty Images) Don't draw too much attention with unusual or unrealistic deductions (Photo by Rita Maas via Getty Images) Filing returns electronically drastically reduces errors

A joint return is often the smartest move for married couples, but there are a few scenarios where it makes sense to file on your own.

Yael Stone, left, and Uzo Aduba in a scene from "Orange is the New Black."The Associated Press Yael Stone who plays lovelorn inmate Lorna Morello in “Orange is the New Black,” revealed to Huffpost Live during an interview with co-star Selenis Leyva that she was a virgin when she filmed her first sex scene reports The New York Daily News. When discussing the sex scenes on the hit Netflix show, Stone was asked if she had filmed any previously. “That’s interesting that you would ask that,” she said. “I’ve never said this, but I did my first sex scene before I’d actually had sex in real life.” “It was a leap of imaginative faith,” Stone added, “A lot of times we create roles and their experiences we haven’t had but we have to imagine it. I happened to do that as a young 15-year-old person.” The scenes were in a 2001 miniseries called “The Farm.” When Leyva asked what research she did, Stone laughingly replied, “Made out a little.” Earlier the Aussie actress spoke about the often graphic sex scenes in the prison show. “The sex scenes are also a privilege, and we have to see it that way,” she said. “'If it’s written by great people — these people that write the show are really smart, we can trust them — I do feel like those scenes are really necessary. It’s a big part of (prison) life.”

Yael Stone who plays lovelorn inmate Lorna Morello in “Orange is the New Black,” revealed to Huffpost Live during an interview with co-star Selenis Leyva that she was a virgin when she filmed her first sex scene reports The New York Daily News.

The U.S. government has said that iPhone owners are officially allowed to “jailbreak” their devices for “educational purposes.” The new rule was one of a number of exemptions to 1998’s Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) anti-circumvention protections. These exemptions are reviewed and authorized every three years to ensure that work protected by copyright can be used in non-infringing ways. While the “jailbreaking” exemption is surprising, it’s not the only one of note. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), which filed for three of these exemptions, is understandably ecstatic. Its statement says in part: “The first of EFF’s three successful requests clarifies the legality of cell phone ‘jailbreaking’ — software modifications that liberate iPhones and other handsets to run applications from sources other than those approved by the phone maker. More than a million iPhone owners are said to have “jailbroken” their handsets in order to change wireless providers or use applications obtained from sources other than Apple’s own iTunes ‘App StoreApp Store,’ and many more have expressed a desire to do so. But the threat of DMCA liability had previously endangered these customers and alternate applications stores. In its reasoning in favor of EFF’s jailbreaking exemption, the Copyright Office rejected Apple’s claim that copyright law prevents people from installing unapproved programs on iPhones: ‘When one jailbreaks a smartphone in order to make the operating system on that phone interoperable with an independently created application that has not been approved by the maker of the smartphone or the maker of its operating system, the modifications that are made purely for the purpose of such interoperability are fair uses.” While we expect the jailbreaking news to get all of the attention, the ability for amateurs and educators to use short commercial video clips in their noncommercial or educational works is actually a much bigger deal. In essence, this makes the art of the video mashup “legal” and, in theory, should put a stop to many of the DMCA removal requests sent to services like YouTubeYouTube. What do you think of the most recent DMCA exemptions? Jobs In this exciting and challenging role, the Website Managing Editor will be an integral member of the Public Relations team, striving to build the hospital’s local, national and international reputat...

The U.S. government has declared that iPhone owners are officially allowed to “jailbreak” their devices for “educational purposes.”

In 13 short years, killer drones have gone from being exotic military technology featured primarily in the pages of specialized aviation magazines to a phenomenon of popular culture, splashed across daily newspapers and fictionalized in film and television, including the new season of “24.” What has not changed all that much — at least superficially — is the basic aircraft that most people associate with drone warfare: the armed Predator. The Predator, with its distinctive bubble near the nose and sensor ball underneath, is the iconic image of drone warfare, an aircraft that grew out of 1980s work supported by the Pentagon’s future-thinking Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Originally developed to perform surveillance, the CIA added Hellfire missiles and began using the Predator to hunt down members of the Taliban and al Qaeda after the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. Though the CIA and Air Force now fly an updated version of the Predator — named Reaper — the drone is still relatively easy to detect, and easy to shoot down, at least for a country with a modern military. A MQ-9 Reaper during a 2009 combat mission over southern Afghanistan.Photo: AP In fact, as terrifying as drones sound, they actually aren’t all that sophisticated compared to other weapons in the US arsenal. The original Predator plodded along at a pokey 84 miles an hour. A ShadowHawk drone with the Montgomery County, Texas, SWAT team. Civilian cousins of the drone are being sought by police departments, border patrols, power companies, and news organizations who want a bird’s-eye view.Photo: AP Its missiles, though lethal, are decades-old technology developed to destroy tanks, not terrorists. And despite concerns about autonomous killing machines, the Predator must be operated by a pilot (albeit remotely). The Predator has proved effective, but it is not exactly the sci-fi miracle that many might imagine. Under development, however, is a new generation of drones that will be able to penetrate the air defenses of even sophisticated nations, spotting nuclear facilities, and tracking down — and possibly killing — terrorist leaders, silently from high altitudes. These drones will be fast, stealthy and survivable, designed to sneak in and out of a country without ever being spotted. In fact, the Predator may someday be to drone warfare what the V-2 was to long-range ballistic missiles: a crude, but important, first step in a new era of warfare. 1980 — The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) launches “Teal Rain,” a top-secret study on high altitude, long endurance unmanned aircraft. An SR-71A Blackbird in flightPhoto: Getty Images 1984 — DARPA contracts with Abe Karem to design a UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) called “Amber.” 1990 — General Atomics buys Abe Karem’s company, Leading Systems. It sells Karem’s UAV, now called “Gnat,” to the CIA. In 1994, General Atomics is given contract to develop the Predator, a successor to the Gnat. 1990s — Pentagon secretly funds development of an unmanned successor to the SR-71 Blackbird (a stealth plane introduced in 1964 and famous in popular culture; it’s even used by the “X-Men”). Boeing, Northrop Grumman and Lockheed compete. The Dark Star at the National Museum of the United States Air Force.Photo: US Air Force 1998 — Retirement of SR-71 Blackbird. The Pentagon pursues two new spy drones: the Global Hawk, a high-altitude surveillance drone, and the RQ-3 DarkStar, a stealthy spy drone, which crashes and is cancelled. A Global Hawk at Edwards Air Force Base in California in 2001.Photo: AP 2001 — October 7: First armed Predator strike in Afghanistan. The CIA attempted to kill Taliban leader Mullah Omar. 2007 — General Atomics delivers the Reaper, an upgraded version of the Predator, to the Air Force. The Reaper can fly higher and faster than the Predator, and carries a variety of weapons. 2009 — A photographer in Kandahar, Afghanistan, captured an image of the stealth RQ-170 drone, which aviation watchers called the “Beast of Kandahar.” Its mission: slip past air defense radar into countries like Pakistan and Iran. US officials soon leaked that RQ-170 had been used to keep tabs on Osama bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad in 2011. One RQ-170’s life was cut short, however, when it was captured by Iran later that year, possibly after Iran intercepted the signal used to control it. Last week, Iran claimed it had cloned the drone. It’s unclear how many RQ-170s exist. Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, seated left, listens during an aerospace exhibition in Tehran Sunday. The exhibition revealed an advanced CIA spy drone, captured in 2011, and its Iranian-made copy, pictured in back.Photo: AP After the retirement of the SR-71 Blackbird spy plane, the military had an obvious gap in its arsenal. In 2007, satellite pictures emerged showing new construction at Area 51, the Pentagon’s top-secret testing area in the Nevada desert. Veteran watchers of “black,” or secret, aircraft, immediately suspected that the Pentagon was preparing to test a new secret aircraft, and the most likely candidate was a stealth drone. Aviation Week produced this artist’s concept of the RQ-180, a stealth drone that spies from high altitudes.Photo: Aviation Week Now, two unmanned spy drones are under development. One that appears almost ready for combat is the RQ-180, a stealthy spy drone built by Northrop Grumman. Though the Pentagon refuses to confirm its existence, Aviation Week & Space Technology ran this artist’s concept earlier this year and revealed a little about its rumored design. The RQ-180 is designed to fly very high, for a very long time (perhaps as long as 24 hours). According to Aviation Week, it has a 130-foot wing span and a “cranked kite” stealthy design that would allow it to slip past enemy radar. Chances are it will only be used for surveillance, not attack, though it could carry out an electronic attack. Another, recently revealed project is a high-altitude drone being developed by Lockheed Martin that can travel up to six times of the speed of sound. The drone would be both a spy and strike aircraft, according to Lockheed. But the SR-72, as Lockheed is calling the twin-engine aircraft, wouldn’t be ready to fly until 2030. Lockheed’s SR-72 will fly at six times the speed of sound, and could strike targets. What about a replacement for a Predator? The original Predator was essentially a surveillance aircraft that was turned into an armed drone, so any future replacement aircraft would likely look very different. The Pentagon has openly funded work on unmanned combat aircraft, including Northrop Grumman’s X-47, a diamond-shaped drone that can take off and land from aircraft carriers. But aerospace watchers have long presumed that these programs are hiding even more secretive work. The X-47, a combat drone from Northrop Grumman.Photo: Zumapress.com Part of the difficulty of deciphering the world of drones is that the Pentagon for over three decades has run a series of overlapping projects, often using unclassified programs as “covers” for more secret unmanned aircraft work. Aviation Week, for example, says the RQ-180 was part of a secret, three-way contest that involved competing drones from Lockheed and Boeing. What happened to those other unmanned aircraft is unclear. Figuring out which are “real” drone project meant for deployment, and which are covers for secret drones, is a shell game. Even the stealthy killer drones known or suspected to be under development fall short of some of the unmanned aircraft depicted in science fiction or thriller novels, which often feature swarms of autonomous killing machines. It is true that the Pentagon has been funding work to make drones operate with greater autonomy — for example, one of DARPA’s latest proposals calls on researchers to design ways to have drones collaborate with each other, such as having drones share information about a target. But drones that can operate completely without the need for a pilot sitting in an air-conditioned trailer on a base in Nevada are still several years away, at least, and the Pentagon has long insisted that drones won’t be allowed to use weapons without a “man in the loop.” Yet another longtime goal of military work is to create tiny drones, possibly disguised as birds or even insects (the CIA did develop a robotic dragonfly, though it never proved useful). In terror expert Richard Clarke’s new novel, “Sting of the Drone,” the CIA operates stealthy mini-drones that are capable of assassinating someone inside a bar, and there is certainly evidence such drones are of interest. A four-minute animated video created by the Air Force Research Laboratory showed up on the Web in 2009, illustrating the lab’s work on micro aerial vehicles. The video featured a kamikaze insect-sized drone loaded with high explosives. But drones of that level of sophistication — able to perch on telephone wires or hunt down terrorists inside a building — still belong to the future. The real drone revolution may come not through sophistication of drones, but the proliferation of drones. So far, unmanned aircraft have largely been the weapons of technologically advanced nations, but that is changing as drone technology becomes cheaper and more accessible. A model of an insect size US Air Force drone.Photo: Reuters Just as improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, fast became the No. 1 killer of US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, experts are now warning that crude drones — in some cases essentially sophisticated model airplanes — could be the real threat in the years to come. Dr. Gregory Parker, Micro Air Vehicle team leader, holds another small winged drone.Photo: Reuters Indeed, Hezbollah has already bragged of sending spy drones into Israeli territory, and Israeli leaders have warned of the possible drone threat that Hamas could pose from Gaza. And a recent report by the Rand Corporation warned that, in the future, terrorist groups might be able to buy small, armed drones: “Smaller systems could become the next IEDs: low-cost, low-tech weapons that are only of limited lethality individually but attrite significant numbers of US or allied personnel when used in large numbers over time.” The US military holds an annual exercise called Black Dart, which looks at ways to counter hostile drones, particularly small drones. Among the possible defenses are lasers to shoot down drones or systems that can jam the radio signals used to control drones. But this sort of counter-drone technology is scarce today.

In 13 short years, killer drones have gone from being exotic military technology featured primarily in the pages of specialized aviation magazines to a phenomenon of popular culture, splashed acros...

updated 03/18/2015 AT 12:00 PM EDT •originally published 03/18/2015 AT 10:35 AM EDT Check out this Jaw dropper taken tonight @ Fort Dunree here in Donegal of The aurora borealis. Pic by @DerryPhotos pic.twitter.com/i2Gk24K32O , caused by eruptions on the surfaces of the sun, have been especially visible this week, including in the U.K.; the lights are usually only visible in Norway and Iceland. The #AuroraBorealis could be visible in the midlands & northern parts of the UK tonight if there are clear skies pic.twitter.com/Pip99qz9CO Earlier this week, an explosion of magnetically charged particles called a coronal mass ejection trigged a strong geomagnetic storm, which resulted in the lights' further reach. In a pleasant coincidence, they showed up in the hue of green, just in time for St. Patrick's Day. Happy Saint Patrick's Day! Green from space. We have @Space_Station aurora views: (video) https://t.co/UG1x2YutsO pic.twitter.com/FBpXJ5OIhd The video at the top of this post was taken by Steven Graham in Templeton, Christchurch, New Zealand, on Tuesday. The video below comes from CJ Barr, who shot the time-lapse footage in Penmon Point, North Wales. And if all this natural majesty wasn't enough for you, just you wait: There's going to be (and our hearts) this Friday. What a time to be alive.

The Lights were visible in the U.K., a rare occurrence

A Sydney teenager charged over an alleged Anzac Day terror plot has pleaded not guilty. The 16-year-old's lawyer Zemarai Khatiz entered the plea on his client's behalf in the Parramatta Children's Court today. The teenager was not in court, and Mr Khatiz said he there would be a bail application on Friday, with supporting evidence from a psychologist's report. The 16-year-old boy, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was arrested near his Auburn home on Sunday on suspicion of trying to get a gun and carry out a terrorist act at an Anzac Day service. Police swooped after the apprentice electrician allegedly sent messages on an encrypted mobile app seeking to buy a gun, and the date April 25 mentioned. "Extremist propaganda" was also allegedly found by police at the boy's home. No weapons or explosives were found during the search. He first became known to police last May as part of an investigation into a Melbourne terror plot, foiled on the eve of Mother's Day, the ABC reports. He was said to have been communicating online with senior Australian Islamic State recruiter Neil Prakash. After the boy's home was raided, he was reportedly signed up to an intervention program jointly run by the Australian Federal Police, NSW Police and Victorian Police. The program involves psychologists, teachers and religious leaders working to deradicalise potential young terrorists. The boy is expected to apply for bail today, which police said they will oppose. During a press conference yesterday morning, NSW Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione said the risk from the particular threat had been "thwarted". The teenager has been charged with one count of acts in preparation for, or planning, a terrorist act, which carries a maximum penalty of life imprisonment. Mr Scipione said there was an "online component" to the alleged offences and believed the teenager was acting alone.

A Sydney teen accused of plotting an Anzac Day terror attack had been part of an intensive deradicalisation program with Australian police since last year.

The real meaning of the creepy new anti-Obamacare ads For all of the political fighting in Washington over defunding the Affordable Care Act, a pair of jarring new anti-Obamacare ads shows that some leading opponents have shifted their focus to sabotaging the law once it’s in place. The spots feature a creepy, clownish Uncle Sam character performing gynecological and prostate exams on patients who signed up for insurance under the ACA. “Don’t let the government play doctor. Opt out of Obamacare,” the ads tell viewers. Not surprisingly, they’ve gone viral. The canny bit of marketing is part of a reported $750,000 campaign by Generation Opportunity, an anti-Obamacare group backed by the billionaire conservative donors Charles and David Koch, to convince young adults that their best option is to remain uninsured once the health care law kicks in next year. What’s most notable about the ads – besides the unfortunately positioned patriotic symbol – is who they target. Young adults are crucial to the ACA’s success. The law’s state-based health insurance marketplaces, called exchanges, will keep premiums affordable only if enough young, healthy people sign up for coverage to offset the cost of insuring older and sicker enrollees. The White House has said the exchanges will need to enroll 2.7 million healthy 18-25-year-olds to remain solvent. According to Yahoo! News, Generation Opportunity is planning a series of campaigns on college campuses, replete with a game that includes a “Wheel of Misery” and “informative palm cards,” as a counter-effort to groups working to enroll young people in the exchanges. Generation Opportunity’s staff is packed with conservative recent college graduates and some more experienced political hands, including a failed 2012 congressional candidate from Pennsylvania and a former vice president of Americans United for Life. (MORE: Insane Anti-Obamacare Ad: Creepy Uncle Sam Wants to Probe You) Some young people could spend less by paying a penalty for not having insurance under Obamacare than what it will cost to buy coverage. But new federal subsidies will dramatically cut the cost of coverage for individuals earning up to about $44,000 per year and low-cost, high-deductible plans often favored by the young and healthy will be available to those under 30. Older Americans, by contrast, will need more comprehensive coverage to avoid paying federal fines for not having insurance. Persuading younger, generally healthy people that they don’t need insurance is an acknowledgment by conservatives that their only true hope of sinking Obamacare is to try and make it function poorly. House Republicans are poised to pass a stopgap spending measure this week that will tie funds to keep the government running to a measure that would defund Obamacare. With the Senate under Democratic control, the effort amounts to little more than political theater. Campaigns like Generation Opportunity’s represent the real new front in the fight over Obamacare: persuading young people to opt in or out.

The real meaning of the creepy new anti-Obamacare ads

The political significance of the hacking scandal has been through many metamorphoses: first, it was no more than a cloud the size of a man’s hand over David Cameron; later, the hand curled into a fist, and Andy Coulson resigned as Downing Street director of communications in January 2011. In July of that year, the saga was reframed as Parliament standing up to corporate might, when Rupert and James Murdoch appeared before the Commons Culture, Media and Sports select committee. Throughout, Murdoch’s company, News Corp, had struggled to keep its bid for BSkyB separate from the mire into which the News of the World was slipping – a distinction which the Government respected. But the disclosure that the Sunday red-top had hacked Millie Dowler’s phone forced the bid to be dropped, the arrest of Coulson, and the appointment of the Leveson Inquiry. Ed Miliband enjoyed a moment of stardom, having shown undoubted guts in taking on Murdoch, and (ludicrously) the embarrassment of News Corp was described as the “British Spring”. When Leveson’s report was published in November 2012, the political story was reframed yet again as a battle between statutory regulation and the free press. Subsequently, Cameron always insisted that he had been given “assurances” by Coulson. But Coulson’s clear memory, as he put it at the Leveson Inquiry, was this: “I was able to repeat what I’d said publicly, that I knew nothing about the Clive Goodman and Glenn Mulcaire case in terms of what they did”. His “assurances”, in other words, were limited to the single court case in 2007, when Goodman, the NoW’s former royal editor, and Mulcaire, a private investigator, were jailed for plotting to intercept voicemail messages left for royal aides. This was not the blanket guarantee Cameron heard, or chose to hear. To which you may say: Coulson ought to have revealed to Cameron what he told the court in April – namely, that he had heard voicemail messages relating to David Blunkett in 2004, even if, as he claimed, he was not aware at the time that the material had been acquired illegally. Yet Coulson did make clear to Cameron over the years that any party leader hiring a former red-top editor is taking a calculated risk. “I wasn’t running a sweet shop, Dave,” he would say. After The Guardian reported in 2009 that News International had paid Gordon Taylor, boss of the Professional Footballers’ Association, to drop legal action, Coulson offered to resign. “You’ll get no quarrel from me,” he told Ed Llewellyn, the PM’s chief of staff. Determined to call it a day after the 2010 election, he was again persuaded by Cameron to follow him to No 10. Coulson later reflected that, had he parted company with Dave four years ago, “none of this” would have happened. What is forgotten is how good at his job Coulson was, bringing maturity and professionalism to the party’s dilapidated communications organisation. This is not a fashionable thing to say, only five days after his conviction. All the more reason to do so. He was less given to outright spin than his Labour predecessors and rarely lost his temper. In the first months of the Coalition, before his departure, he was increasingly sought out by senior Lib Dems, including Nick Clegg, seeking discreet advice. Cameron’s relationship with Coulson was an example of what the old News of the World would probably have called “Top Tory Toff’s addiction!” The Conservative leader became utterly dependent upon his adviser’s insights – not only because Billericay always has something to tell Bullingdon, but also because Coulson took to politics quickly and easily, and understood how to translate Cameron’s strategy into messages that would be picked up by the media. Inevitably, much has been made of his past in the Murdoch print stable and the mystique that held for Cameron – as if his comms director had only ever been on secondment from Wapping. But Coulson’s principal task was to get the Tory party on to our television screens. Beyond his formal remit, Coulson became a confidant whom the Tory leader routinely referred to as “a genius”. Like many genial people, Cameron makes true friends slowly and very cautiously. Coulson was one of them. It was said that there were only three colleagues who could change Dave’s mind: George Osborne, Steve Hilton – and Coulson. As the attack intensified, the Tory leader grew more determined to hold on to his ally. Coulson knew that the game was up well before Cameron – a case study in what Margaret Heffernan calls “wilful blindness” in her marvellous book of the same name. Now, General Hindsight – an elderly relative of Wilful Blindness – stomps through Westminster, honking, braying and stroking his damp moustache as if it had all been so obvious. Expect to hear a lot between now and the election about Cameron’s failed judgment and lack of ethical perspective. But the moral of the story, funnily enough, is not moral. It is psychological. Where friendship is concerned, we hear what we want, or often need, to hear, filtering out warnings even (as in this case) when they are issued by our friends themselves. As Cicero knew, no understanding of politics is complete without an understanding of friendship and its formidable power. And it is this power – rather than Murdoch, hacking, or Leveson – that has brought David Cameron and Andy Coulson alike to this wretched point. 'In It Together: The Inside Story of the Coalition Government’ (Penguin) is in paperback with new chapters

David Cameron was utterly dependent on his spin doctor’s insights – and was remarkably incurious about the precise details of his past

Seek sanctuary from the hustle and bustle of your busy life at this oceanfront oasis, the Sea Wellness Spa, located in the luxurious Casa del Mar hotel. Drop your car off at the complimentary valet parking and let the “me” day begin. Offering an enchanting escape, the serene spa setting fosters the wellness that comes from within with their state-of-the-art HydraFacial procedure. This non-invasive, non-surgical treatment administered by expert estheticians sooths and moisturizes skin and improves the appearance of fine lines, wrinkles, enlarged pores, oily skin, hyper-pigmentation and brown spots. Quick and effective, a HydraFacial combines cleansing, exfoliation, extraction and hydration simultaneously, resulting in clearer, more beautiful skin with no discomfort and no downtime. Continue your spa day poolside with a complimentary glass of bubbly and spectacular coastal views. Book your appointment today at the Sea Wellness Spa, one of L.A.’s favorite destinations for the ultimate in pampering and rejuvenation. The HydraFacial has been a favorite pre-red carpet treatment for the stars and is even enjoyed by the Prince of Monaco! It’s been featured on Fox, NBC, ABC, CBS, Allure Magazine, Essence Magazine, In Style Wedding Magazine and more.

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Fuel pumps are the unsung heroes for your vehicles. They are safe, require little maintenance and are rarely thought about unless they fail. But when they do, it’s usually in epic fashion, and can potentially leave you stranded. It’s a relatively easy fix though. While there are few signs of impending failure, you want to make sure you don’t hurt your fuel pump at the gas station. Always make sure you are putting the right octane fuel in your car, according to your owner’s manual. Some people make the mistake of putting in a higher or lower octane because they don’t read the owner’s manual. You also want to make sure that you’re going to a reputable gas station because if you don’t, they may actually sell a lower quality fuel than advertised. In other words, it may be a name brand gas station, but what they are selling, in reality, is an off-brand. Cars have come a long way over the years when it comes to fuel pump technology. Basically, there are two different types of pumps, electric or manual. Electric fuel pumps are the latest technology, have the gas line connected and are fairly straightforward. Then you have the older ones, which are manual and actually have a lever connected to the pump – sort of like a well, pushing up and down, pumpin g the fuel. You also had carburetors back then, a totally different situation from what you see today. Many of these pumps are as old as 25 years. But one thing is for sure, safety has always been an important component. Click here for videos and more from Joe on Speed.com Manufacturers do a lot to insure that there are no issues with pumps exploding, creating fires or anything like that. Many of these pumps have toggle (cut-off) switches, so if you get into an accident, it cuts the fuel off to prevent a fire. If these switches weren’t there, the line could break during an accident, and gasoline would pump out. It’s basically like spraying fuel everywhere through a hose… really dangerous stuff. When purchasing a fuel pump, you want to make sure you stick with name brands such as Carter or Airtex. I also recommend the original equipment manufacturer (OEM) fuel pumps as well, like AC Delco or Bosch, but it really depends on your car. Another issue is whether or not you have to replace just the fuel pump itself, or do you also have to replace the sending unit. You may need to replace both in certain situations. It’s also important to note that misdiagnosing fuel pump issues is a common problem, as an inexperienced shop, for instance, may mistake a faulty relay switch. If you know your mechanic, they're certified and trustworthy, always look their direction for this fix. Joe Ferrer, is the owner of BS&F Auto Parts in New York City and host of the SPEED original series "Hard Parts: South Bronx " Tuesday nights at 9pm ET on SPEED

Fuel pumps are the unsung heroes for your vehicles.

Martin Bureau | AFP | Getty Images A student works on an Apple computer at a computer programming school in Paris. While Apple's cash flow didn't help the stock in mid-2013, Reitzes said things are different this time. Read MoreCan Apple give Tesla a 'run for its money'? Back then, Samsung had the momentum, and some doomsday scenarios had Apple generating a fraction of the cash flow it has now, he said. "Now I think the big surprise over the last year is that Apple … is really beating Android to the punch, and that changes the game completely." For Reitzes it all comes down to the numbers, and with a "staggering" 12 percent enterprise value to cash flow yield, Apple is cheaper than Wal-Mart, Johnson & Johnson, Microsoft and "anybody in the mega cap range," he said. Read More4 Internet stocks too rich to keep hoarding cash He also believes CEO Tim Cook and chief financial officer Luca Maestri have come of age in the past year. "[They] really show they care about the stock in addition to products," he said. "They are shepherding a story now better than they ever have." Disclosure: Reitzes and Barclays do not own Apple. Apple is an investment banking client.

Apple's free cash flow is "mind-blowing" and can propel the stock to $150, Barclays analyst Ben Reitzes tells CNBC.

A teenager has been seriously injured after he was attacked and beaten in Omagh, County Tyrone. It happened at about 03:00 BST on Saturday. The 18 year old was walking along Hospital Road when a number of men got out of a black car. They hit him with a club or bat and he suffered injuries to his head and body. He was taken to hospital. Another 18 year old, arrested on suspicion of causing grievous bodily harm, has been freed unconditionally. Police have appealed for witnesses. A spokesperson for the Western Health Trust said the teenager was in a serious but stable condition in hospital.

A teenager is in a serious but stable condition after he was attacked and beaten in Omagh, County Tyrone.

He has told aides that he hopes the trip, which includes a stop in Aberdeen on Saturday, will provide a much-needed “reset” for his campaign. But some of the aides have said privately that they wished he would cancel it. Mr. Trump’s self-image as a successful businessman is important to him, and, even though he has said publicly that he is relying more on his children to run the Trump Organization nowadays, he remains closely tied to it. He also believes that many of his supporters are drawn to his persona of a brash billionaire, born out of his decades in the business world. He does not like to be away from his business operations for long. Save for just over a dozen nights during the primaries, he has returned to one of his homes at the end of each day, usually to his New York City apartment, which allows him access to his 26th-floor office in Trump Tower, where he works and takes part in interviews. And he tends to rely on Trump-connected businesses while he is campaigning, further bringing together the two worlds in which he operates. Perhaps the most stark example of his business empire intruding on his political career came late last month. Mr. Trump delivered scathing criticism of Judge Gonzalo P. Curiel — first at a San Diego rally and then again in interviews — that was less a result of a politically strategic calculation than of Mr. Trump’s concerns about rulings the judge made in a federal lawsuit against his now defunct Trump University. Mr. Trump accused the Indiana-born judge of being unable to render fair rulings because of his “Mexican heritage.’’ The political backlash was swift, with many of Mr. Trump’s supporters distancing themselves from him and calling his comments racist. What’s next for a campaign with a big fund-raising gap. The Scotland trip, too, is potentially fraught. Since clinching the Republican nomination, Mr. Trump has squandered numerous opportunities to unify the Republican Party behind him, or exhibit the discipline party leaders and donors are eager to see. When Barack Obama headed to Europe as a presidential candidate in 2008, and Mitt Romney, the 2012 Republican nominee, traveled to England, Israel and Poland during his campaign, both men went to demonstrate their global savvy and stature, in meticulously planned visits. (Mr. Romney’s trip, nonetheless, was a gaffe-ridden disaster and many of his aides later said they wished he had stayed home.) “Foreign trips are an inherently risky endeavor,” said Lanhee Chen, a fellow at the Hoover Institution who advised Mr. Romney in 2012. “Ideally, they will boost a candidate’s credibility on and familiarity with the geopolitical issues of the region they visit. But they require a lot of planning and logistical coordination. Seems to me that a foreign trip driven solely by personal financial interests — as Trump seems to be planning later this week — would be unprecedented.” Showing up right after the Brexit vote, in the middle of a tumultuous time, is leaving Mr. Trump especially vulnerable to criticism, as well as creating the potential for an international blunder. When asked about the vote in an interview this month with The Hollywood Reporter, Mr. Trump seemed not to be familiar with Britain’s referendum, first answering, “Huh?” and then, “Hmm.” Finally, after the Brexit vote was explained to him, Mr. Trump answered with his trademark decisiveness: “Oh yeah, I think they should leave,” he said, a sentiment he has since repeated. On Wednesday morning, however, Mr. Trump told Fox Business that his opinion on the issue was not significant since he had not followed it closely. But business has always been inextricably bound with politics for Mr. Trump, dating back to his previous flirtations with presidential bids, which served largely to elevate his public profile and business interests. The latest documents submitted to the Federal Election Commission, for instance, show that Mr. Trump paid at least $1.1 million in May to his business and family members for campaign-related expenses. The largest payment, for $423,000, went to his Mar-a-Lago Club, for the use of that private Florida resort, but he also reimbursed costs associated with his private airplanes, Trump Restaurants, and even Trump Tower, which houses his campaign headquarters on the fifth floor. “Why would I use someone else’s properties?” Mr. Trump said, through Hope Hicks, a campaign spokeswoman, in response to a question about why he had hosted campaign events at his properties. “Mr. Trump owns some of the finest properties anywhere in the world and he has to host events, news conferences, etc. which might as well be hosted at those properties,” Ms. Hicks added, in an email statement. “They are paid, in accordance with F.E.C. regulations, their approximate fair market value for goods and services.” Mr. Trump also sometimes reserves the front rows at his news conferences for members of his private clubs, almost as a membership perk. And at a primary election event in March at Trump National Golf Club in Jupiter, Fla., Mr. Trump spoke flanked by bottles (and cases) of Trump-branded wine, Trump-branded water, and a mound of raw steaks, which he tried to pass off as his brand. Even Mr. Trump’s private 757, emblazoned with his name across the side and a tool for his businesses, now occupies a central role in his campaign imagery, rolling up to airport hangars during primary rallies as a symbol of power and success. People in the crowd gawk in awe, pointing to the plane, unprompted, as a reason they believe in Mr. Trump. Yet some Republicans still think Mr. Trump should simply disentangle the personal (and business) from the political. Mr. Chen, for instance, had a suggestion for Mr. Trump’s trip: “If he’s going to Europe anyway,” he asked, “why not take some time to visit with the NATO allies that would be affected by his plan to pull back on the U.S. commitment to the organization?”

Presidential contenders usually try to burnish their foreign policy credentials when abroad. Mr. Trump plans no meetings with government or political leaders.

Noor Ellis is escorted to her trial. (AAP) The Australian family of murdered businessman Robert Ellis is in shock at the 12-year sentence handed down to his wife, who ordered the Bali hit. Perth students John and Peter Ellis had prepared themselves for their mother Noor Ellis, 45, to go to prison for 15 years as prosecutors had recommended, for planning the murder of Robert Ellis. But today, the court handed down a 12-year term in recognition of her remorse and "prolonged mental pressure". She could have received a maximum penalty of death. Peter Ellis told reporters his father's death had left a huge hole in his life and John's, as well as for Mr Ellis' older children Kelvin and Christina. "We as a family are extremely disappointed by the outcome of 12 years," he said. "We would have expected a sentence of at least 20 for the brutal, premeditated murder of our father. "For the verdict to be a sentence of only 12 years is unjust not only for us as a family, but Indonesia in general." The prosecutor said he was considering an appeal. The body of Mr Ellis was found wrapped in plastic in a rice field last October. The popular expat, who had made his wealth in telecommunications, aviation and property, had been set upon in his own villa, held down on the kitchen floor and his throat slashed with a knife. His wife had been sitting in the next room. She helped dispose of the body and ordered her two maids to clean the bloody kitchen. She initially reported Mr Ellis missing and lied to her sons about their father's whereabouts. When she did confess to orchestrating the crime, she claimed she was desperate after years of neglect and being denied a divorce. The Ellis family claims she was not neglected, and that her manipulation extended to submitting to the court a false statement purportedly signed by John Ellis, asking for a lenient sentence. "We are very upset about the accusations against our father which Noor has fabricated in order to defend herself," Peter Ellis said outside court. "We are also still in disbelief over the falsified statement, which is now being used as evidence to support Noor, and would have thought such forgery was both a crime in itself and further evidence of guilt of Noor and other accomplices." Ellis' story changed a number of times after her arrest. She first claimed she only wanted to teach her husband a lesson, and was shocked to find the five men she paid $14,000 had killed him. Later, she admitted she had ordered Mr Ellis killed, but "not sadistically" - a deal she had sealed with a pinky swear. Judge Wirakanta said he accepted Ellis ordered the murder because she felt hurt. She had enough time to change her mind, but didn't, he said. "It's true the defendant and the victim have not lived harmoniously for about 11 years and the defendant wasn't given adequate mental and physical care," he said. Two of the five men involved, known as Urbanus and Yohannes, were also sentenced to 12 years' jail today. The others as well as two maids are expected to be sentenced soon for their roles. Mr Ellis has been laid to rest in New Zealand. Do you have any news photos or videos?

The family of Australian businessman Robert Ellis will be in court when his wife of 25 years is sentenced for arranging his brutal murder in Bali.

MIAMI – In the Fort Lauderdale suburb of Pembroke Pines, students returning to school this year are being greeted not only by their teachers and principal. They're also meeting the armed school resource officer who will be stationed permanently on campus. Crime in this middle-class community has been on a steady decline, but city officials decided to place a school police officer at every elementary, middle and high school after a gunman killed 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Conn., last year. "It is a relief to have them here," Lakeside Elementary School Principal Linda Pazos said Monday, on the first day of school. In the aftermath of the massacre at Sandy Hook, many districts across the nation are increasing the number of school resource officers on campus and, in a few cases, permitting teachers to carry concealed weapons themselves. An armed security presence is now standard in many of the nation's middle and high schools, but it has been rarity at elementary schools. Few districts can afford to place a school resource officer at every elementary school, because there are so many and they tend to have fewer incidents requiring a police response than middle and high schools. Lawmakers in every state in the nation introduced school safety legislation this year, and in at least 20 states those proposals became law, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. The new laws range from one authorizing a volunteer, emergency security force at schools in Franklin County, Ala., to one allowing Missouri state employees to keep firearms in a vehicle on state property, if the car is locked and the weapon is approved by authorities and not visible. Bernard James, a professor of constitutional law at Pepperdine University in Malibu, Calif., said one clear trend among legislation introduced since Newtown has been assessing the security of elementary school campuses. Past efforts to prevent school violence had not focused on elementary schools, James said, "and that lack of dedicating resources is what was under examination." There are more than 67,000 elementary schools nationwide, more than twice the number of middle and high schools combined. Sandy Hook Elementary had all the standard safeguards and more, including a locked, video-monitored front door. It did not have a school resource officer. Instead, like most districts, there were police officers at nearby middle and high schools. There are many advantages to having an officer stationed at school: Students who see or hear something suspicious immediately know who to tell; the mere presence of an officer can deter would-be attackers; and if a gunman does attack, a school resource officer is already there to respond, saving critical minutes between a 911 call and dispatchers mobilizing police. "That first, immediate shot, chances are nobody is going to be able to stop," Kevin Quinn, president of the National Association of School Resource Officers, said. "The difference is going to be responding to it." Quinn said his group has trained twice as many new officers as last year, more than 90 since January. While some question the need for an armed presence on campus, arming teachers and others when a school resource officer can't be hired is even more controversial. At least three states have passed laws allowing teachers to be carry handguns on campus. State Rep. Brett Hildabrand supported one such law in Kansas. It would allow teachers and staff with concealed carry permits to bring guns to school. He said the law has been misperceived as requiring teachers to carry, rather than letting districts determine their own policy. "If a district doesn't want to adopt, then they don't have to," he said. Few if any districts in the state have adopted the law as local policy. A major reason is that Kansas' main school insurer, EMC Insurance Cos., has said it won't renew coverage for schools that allow teachers and other staff to carry concealed weapons. "We've been writing school business for almost 40 years, and one of the underwriting guidelines we follow for schools is that any onsite armed security should be provided by uniformed, qualified law enforcement officers," said Mick Lovell, vice president of business development for the company. "Our guidelines have not recently changed." Quinn and others worry that an armed teacher may actually put kids more at risk, rather than protect them. If a shooter did come on campus, for example, teachers might have to choose between safeguarding students and leaving them to respond to an incident. Having an armed teacher on campus also could complicate matters for a responding officer who doesn't know if the teacher is an employee or the shooter, Quinn said. "Who's the bad guy?" he said. "Who's the teacher with the gun?" Christine Aron, a speech and language pathologist at Pines Lakes Elementary in Pembroke Pines, Fla., said she would not feel safer taking a handgun to school. "I just think there's the potential for further injury, unnecessary injury, should God forbid a student get ahold of a weapon," Aron said. "It happens all the time that kids get ahold of guns in their own homes that belong to their parents." Parents, for their part, have mixed feelings about having an armed presence on campus. Renee Lindberg has three children in Pembroke Pines schools, each now staffed with a full-time school resource officer. "If it were 20, 30 years ago, you might go, `Is that really necessary?"' she said. But after shootings like Sandy Hook, "It does bring a little peace of mind." Dara Van Antwerp, the school resource officer at Panther Run Elementary, the school one of Lindberg's children attends, said she used to have to monitor three or four schools at once. Having just one school, she said, lets her focus completely on campus security and better watch for suspicious activity. "I'm not en route to another school and have a call come out at the one I just left," she said.

Students returning to school this fall are being greeted not only by their teachers and principal.

The arrest of Gavrilo Princip. 'If there is one single historical figure who still provokes controversy, it is without doubt the Bosnian Serb who assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914.' Photograph: Popperfoto As the date approaches when all countries will mark 100 years since the "shot heard around the world", it gives rise to more discussions about the meaning of the first world war. If there is one single historical figure who still provokes controversy, it is without doubt the Bosnian Serb who assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914. His shot led directly to the first world war when the Austro-Hungarian empire issued an ultimatum against Serbia and then declared war. Russia and France mobilised their armies, followed by Germany, and soon all the great powers had gone to battle. Never before had a 19-year-old man provoked so much trouble: at the end of the four years of war, four powerful empires – the Austro-Hungarian, German, Turkish and Russian – disappeared from the world map, 16 million people were dead and 20 million wounded, and in 1917 the Bolsheviks came to power. These things may have happened at some point anyway, but it was Gavrilo Princip who sparked it all off. The Wall Street Journal recently compared him to Osama Bin Laden, and reviewing Christopher Clark's bestseller The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914, one author goes so far as to state that Princip "did a great deal to make the Holocaust possible". Not only was the second world war a consequence of the first world war, but in an irony only history can invent, the young terrorist died miserably in April 1918 in the same prison that later became the concentration camp of Theresienstadt. Although blaming a single person for the Holocaust is similar to the controversial theory in The Jew of Linz – which claims that the incident responsible for Adolf Hitler becoming antisemitic was a schoolboy interaction in Linz in 1904 with the Jewish philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein – for the first time a Serbian weekly recently published a picture that proves how important Princip was to Hitler. It shows Hitler being given a memorial stone that commemorated Princip, taken by the Nazis from the Sarajevo street where Princip opened fire on Ferdinand. The weekly paper Vreme says the memorial was presented as a gift to Hitler by German officers during the second world war as he celebrated his 52nd birthday on 20 April 1941. Three days earlier Yugoslavia had capitulated after being invaded by Nazi Germany and its allies. About the same time as this picture was published in Serbia, neighbouring Bosnia – where the "Sarajevo, the heart of Europe" celebration will take place on 28 June – announced a new monument to Ferdinand. A few months later the Serbian government announced that it will build a big monument to Princip. So who was the hero and who was the victim? It seems the old formula could be applied once again: "One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter." In the case of Princip, which side should we choose? The answer is clear: both are wrong. What is missing here is the third option. None of the above monuments gets the picture right; both represent historical revisionism at its worst. According to the historical archives, during the hearing of Princip on 12 October 1914, when asked by the judge what kind of idea stood behind the assassination, the young terrorist answered plainly: "I believe in the unification of all south Slavs." Although he was surely used by the Serbian ultra-nationalist organisation Black Hand, Gavrilo and his comrades were not nationalists. This can also be proved by the books they had read: the evening before the assassination, Gavrilo was reading Peter Kropotkin's "Memoirs of a Revolutionist", while on the same evening another member of their revolutionary organisation Young Bosnia (Mlada Bosna), Danilo Ilić – only three years older than Princip and already a translator of Kierkegaard, Ibsen and Edgar Allan Poe – was translating Oscar Wilde. Another member of Young Bosnia and its main ideologist, Vladimir Gaćinović, was a friend of Victor Serge, Julius Martov and Leon Trotsky. If we want to explain the shot that was heard around the world, we should first explain its historical context. It was not Princip but imperialism that drove us to the first world war. And contrary to the current trend for historical revisionism – be it the Serbian version of Princip as a "nationalist hero" or the Bosnian obsequiousness to Ferdinand – those young people were primarily political romantics and anti-imperialists. So why does Princip still matter? Usually we think 100 years is a long period, sufficient to learn some lessons from history, but if anything, it is exactly the first world war centenary that proves again that maybe the only thing we learn from history is that we do not learn from it at all. As long as the worldwide competition for the best commemoration of 28th June remains a self-congratulatory spectacle, European nations might be sleepwalking into war again.

Srećko Horvat: It was not the 'shot heard around the world' that caused the 1914-18 war but imperialism – anything else is revisionism

Foxconn announced a third employee has died as a result of injuries sustained in that explosion on May 20 inside the factory that makes iPads. In a statement, Foxconn revealed that 15 others were injured in the accident, and six of the injured had been treated in a hospital and released. The explosion originated in “one of the polishing workshops at our company’s Hongfujin Precision Electronics (Chengdu) Co. Ltd. facility in Chengdu,” according to the Foxconn statement. The company is still investigating the cause of the accident, but said the initial findings show “the accident was caused by an explosion of combustible dust in a duct.” All production at the factory has been halted, but the company expects to resume operations on Tuesday, according to M.I.C. Gadget. The site reports that the Chinese government in Chengdu has taken over the plant, censoring the information flow to the extent that local newspapers aren’t reporting about it. With numerous workers committing suicide at the company’s Shenzhen-based iPad plant last year, Foxconn attempted to remedy the situation by giving them raises, but still needed to increase the production capacity to meet increasing demand. As a result, the new factory was built, an enormous eight-building complex hastily constructed in a record-breaking 70 days to accommodate the voracious demand for the iPad 2. Soon after the factory was built, according to M.I.C. Gadget’s Star Chang, Apple’s inspection team visited the facility, taking two days to inspect the buildings, production lines and “especially the workers’ dormitories.” After its inspection, Apple approved the plant for manufacturing iPads. So is this what it takes to bring a $499 iPad to our doorsteps? What are the limits of human costs that consumers are willing to accept in the manufacturing of their electronics products? Would you be willing to pay, say, an extra $100 for an iPad if you could be assured that those workers who manufactured it were toiling in safe conditions, paid fair wages and not driven to suicide?

Foxconn announced a third employee has died as a result of injuries sustained in that explosion on May 20 inside the factory that makes iPads. In a statement, Foxconn revealed that 15 others were inj

8/2/2010 3:40 PM PDT by TMZ Staff TMZ has learned Charlie Sheen's actual "jail" sentence will last only seconds. TMZ broke the story ... under the plea deal just approved by the court, Charlie will get a 30-day sentence which will be "administered and executed" at Promises rehab facility in Malibu -- where Charlie stayed either full or part-time for more than a month earlier this year. Sources connected with the case tell TMZ that Charlie will receive credit for "time served" ... translation, we're told Charlie will check into Promises on August 23 and immediately leave.And it gets even better for Sheen -- he's already completed his 36 hours of anger management, another element of the plea deal. The plea bargain is a victory for Yale Galanter, who shockingly represents the alleged victim in the case -- Brooke Mueller. Galanter ended up negotiating the plea with the Pitkin County DA. Tags: Charlie Sheen, Brooke Mueller, Celebrity Justice

TMZ has learned Charlie Sheen 's actual "jail" sentence will last only seconds. TMZ broke the story ... under the plea deal just approved by the court,…