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After being labeled as one of most expensive cities for air service for years, prices at Memphis International Airport are falling.
Memphis, which ranked among the nation's highest airfares while it served as a fortress hub for Delta, dropped to 14th on the list of the top 100 airports in the country, according to fourth-quarter numbers from the U.S. Department of Transportation.
Average roundtrip domestic airfares at Memphis fell to $434.43 from a year earlier, down 10.8 percent. The national average for the same period was $381.05. The airport has experienced a $65 decline in average ticket prices since 2011.
The drop in fares was welcome news for airport officials, who are transforming Memphis from a hub dominated first by Northwest and then by Delta into an origin-and-destination airport with more competition and a focus on lower fares.
Southwest Airlines began service at the airport in November and plans on adding a second flight to Baltimore this summer. Frontier Airlines began serving Memphis again in March and American Airlines/US Airways announced it will add three daily nonstop flights between Memphis and Philadelphia starting June 5.
"This is very encouraging news for our passengers," said Scott Brockman, president and CEO of the Memphis and Shelby County Airport Authority. "The addition of low-cost carrier Southwest Airlines and enhanced competition among other carriers has had a positive impact on fares. We still have work to do, but we are trending in the right direction."
Origin-and-destination traffic increased at Memphis. For the fiscal year 2014, origin-and-destination passengers, people who begin or end their trip in Memphis, have increased by nearly 65,000 compared to the fiscal year 2013.
Memphis Grizzlies point guard Mike Conley has been named the 2013-14 NBA Sportsmanship Award winner.
Conley is the first Grizzlies player to receive the Joe Dumars Trophy, named for Hall-of-Famer Joe Dumars – the award's first recipient.
The NBA will make a $10,000 donation to Conley's charity of choice, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, specifically for research related to sickle cell anemia.
Conley was one of six divisional winners (Southwest) and received 77 first-place votes out of a possible 334. For the 10th straight year, NBA players cast ballots for the Sportsmanship Award, which is meant to reflect ideals such as ethical behavior, fair play and integrity.
Final Symphony First Tennessee Masterworks Concert Planned
The seventh and final concert of the Memphis Symphony Orchestra's First Tennessee Masterworks series will be "Beethoven's Pastorale," featuring Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, conducted by MSO music director Mei-Ann Chen.
Beethoven's Fifth is a more turbulent-sounding piece, while "Pastorale" celebrates peace and is a kind of love letter to nature in general and the surroundings of Vienna in particular.
The May 3 concert starts at 7:30 p.m. at the Cannon Center for the Performing Arts. There will be a second performance May 4 at 2:30 p.m. at the Germantown Performing Arts Center. Tickets range from $15 to $85; student tickets are $5.
The United Auto Workers announced Monday it is withdrawing its appeal of the outcome of a union vote at Volkswagen's assembly plant in Tennessee.
In a statement released one hour before the scheduled start of a National Labor Relations Board hearing in Chattanooga, Tenn., UAW President Bob King said the union decided to abandon the challenge because it could have taken months or even years to come to a conclusion.
"The UAW is ready to put February's tainted election in the rearview mirror and instead focus on advocating for new jobs and economic investment in Chattanooga," King said.
The UAW had filed its appeal after Volkswagen workers rejected the union in a 712-626 vote in February, arguing that public statements from U.S. Sen. Bob Corker, Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam and other GOP officials had raised fears about the plant's future if workers there organized.
Leaked documents later revealed that Tennessee had tied a $300 million incentive offer for expanding the plant to the satisfactory outcome of the labor situation there.
Volkswagen wants to introduce a German-style works council at the plant to represent both salaried and blue-collar workers, but the company's interpretation of U.S. law has been that it can't do so without the involvement of an independent union.
The company issued a statement Monday welcoming the UAW decision as "an important gesture for a constructive dialogue in Chattanooga." Volkswagen said it will continue to pursue its efforts to establish "a new, innovative form of co-determination in the USA."
Corker and Haslam oppose UAW expanding its reach in Tennessee, arguing that a win at Volkswagen would hurt the state's ability to attract other manufacturers and suppliers.
A special state Supreme Court panel has refused to rehear a case that challenged the constitutionality of the way Tennessee selects its judges.
John Jay Hooker, a former Democratic candidate for governor who has long been a foe of the way Tennessee picks its judges, asked the court to rehear the case after it ruled against him last month.
Hooker has argued that the state constitution calls for judges to be chosen by contested popular election. Tennessee has a system that calls for the governor to pick someone to fill a judicial vacancy from a list of nominees submitted by a commission.
Voters will get to decide in November whether they want to change the state constitution to allow the governor to appoint judges and get legislative confirmation.
Big companies are finally starting to spend money, and that could mean a better economy and more jobs.
Industrial companies such as General Electric, Honeywell and Caterpillar make expensive equipment that other companies need to buy to grow their business. They've been posting strong financial results in recent weeks and telling investors that orders are strong.
That's a sign to economists that businesses are confident enough to invest and hire because they see an economy strong enough to support growth.
Following the Great Recession, big industrial companies cut costs, slimmed down and gathered cash. They had to because their customers – other big businesses – found plenty of reasons not to spend.
Even with the turbulence of severe winter storms and stubbornly high fuel prices, many of the major airlines are cruising and their stock prices are soaring.
On Thursday, American Airlines and Southwest Airlines reported record profits for the first quarter, usually the weakest time of year for the airlines. That followed a rousing report from Delta Air Lines a day earlier.
Still stuck on the tarmac: United Airlines, which lost another $609 million during the first three months of the year.
The No. 2 airline company behind American, United Continental Holdings Inc. is struggling to make the 2010 merger of United and Continental work. As costs rise, United is taking in less per mile from passengers – it's not charging fares high enough to cover expenses.
The Japanese Consul General from Nashville is at Graceland Friday, April 25, along with a delegation from Japan to present three Somei Yoshino cherry trees for planting on the grounds of Elvis Presley's former Whitehaven home.
Another Japanese delegation presented three of the trees in September 2012 to the Memphis Botanic Garden during the garden's annual Japanese Bon Festival to commemorate the centennial anniversary of cherry trees being planted around the tidal basin in Washington, D.C.
Chihiro Kon of Hokkaido also donated 10 trees to be planted along Cherry Road by the garden and on Mud Island in honor of her daughter, son-in-law and granddaughter, who made their home on Mud Island.
Trustmark Corp. had a strong start to 2014.
The parent company of Trustmark Bank reported net income of $29 million in the first quarter, up 13.2 percent compared to one year earlier. Trustmark president and CEO Gerard Host said the quarter's results, coupled with its profitability and strong capital base, mark a positive start to its 125th year in business.
Among Trustmark's other results for the quarter: Commercial real estate loans grew by almost $50 million, while the bank's construction and consumer lending portfolios were relatively flat. Mortgage loan production during the first quarter was $230 million, down 16.6 percent from the prior quarter.
The bank said that reflected a decline in refinance activity following an extended low interest rate environment.
Hope Presbyterian Church will be the site of the Agape Child & Family Services' 16th annual HeartLight event Aug. 15 at 7 p.m.
Dr. Geoffrey Canada, president and CEO of Harlem Children's Zone, will be the featured speaker. Fortune Magazine recently named Canada one of "The World's 50 Greatest Leaders," due in part to the Harlem Children's Zone educational reform program.
Ten-time Grammy Award winner CeCe Winans will also take part in the event.
Ticket prices range from $15 to $40 and are on sale at agapemeanslove.org/heartlight-2014.
More than 1,000 moms and sons are expected to be part of the second annual Mother-Son "Date Knight" to kick off Mother's Day weekend Friday, May 9, from 4:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. at the Memphis Pink Palace Museum.
A portion of the event's proceeds will be donated to Memphis Athletic Ministries.
Chick-fil-A is sponsoring the event, which will include a dinner, horse-drawn carriage rides, a climbing wall, a mother-son dance and arts and crafts.
For more information, visit chickfilamemphis.com.
The patients and families at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital have moments they would like to share with other family members and friends, but public social media isn't necessarily the best avenue.
ProudOnTV, a private online diary solution, allows users to connect and share, but only with those they choose. St. Jude and ProudOnTV have come together with an ongoing fundraising effort by which supporters can purchase St. Jude gift cards with credit for their own basic ProudOnTV diary plan.
Fifty percent of the gift card proceeds will be donated directly to the hospital.
All parents and caregivers of St. Jude patients are being given complimentary ProudOnTV diaries.
Primary Care Group LLC-Mid-South Family Medicine in Memphis has been named an EHE-certified preventive care center by EHE International, the oldest and largest preventive medicine specialist in the country.
Deborah McKeever, president of EHE International, said the continued expansion into the Memphis area and across the country is "a sign that more and more employers are realizing the benefits of standardized clinical protocols in preventive health and annual exams." She called Mid-South Family Medicine a "perfect fit."
For more information about EHE, visit eheintl.com.
Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam says he will rely on prayer and advice from experts when he is faced with last-minute appeals from death row inmates facing execution.
The Republican governor stressed at a forum hosted by the Christian group Q Ideas on Wednesday that he has yet to be confronted with death penalty decisions because of court-ordered delays.
"So I can't honestly answer when it comes down to 11 o'clock the night before exactly what that would feel like and look like," Haslam said.
Haslam said he would gather a team of experts in mental health and law enforcement and prosecutors to help him sort through the intricacies of each case.
"I feel like my responsibility is to literally dive into each individual situation, talk to as many smart people about that situation as I can, pray about it and make a decision at that point in time," he said. "Again, that literally hasn't happened yet, but there are quite a few coming."
At the start of the year, 10 of the state's 76 inmates on death row had scheduled execution dates. One of them, Nickolus Johnson, had been scheduled to die April 22, but was granted a stay last month.
Haslam told reporters earlier this week that he is also carefully considering whether to sign into law a bill to allow the state to electrocute prisoners in the event that it can't obtain drugs used in lethal injections.
The National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis has increased security after finding a broken window and a man sleeping inside.
WMC-TV reports police responded to a call at the museum early Wednesday after security officers noticed a smashed window on the second floor.
The main section of the newly renovated museum reopened April 5, the day after the 46th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination in Memphis. King was killed on April 4, 1968, while standing on the balcony of the old Lorraine Motel, which was later converted into the museum in downtown Memphis.
Police say they found a man asleep in a bed of the motel, just a few doors down from where King was staying on the day he died.
The number of Americans buying new homes plummeted in March to the slowest pace in eight months, a sign that real estate's spring buying season is off to a weak start.
The Commerce Department said Wednesday that sales of new homes declined 14.5 percent last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 384,000. That was the second straight monthly decline and the lowest rate since July 2013.
Sales plunged in the Midwest, South and West in March. But they rebounded in the Northeast, where snowstorms in previous months curtailed purchases.
New-home sales have declined 13.3 percent over the past 12 months.
"Our core view is that the housing market has stalled and won't contribute" to overall economic growth this year, said Ian Shepherdson, chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics.
Rising home prices have caused some buyers to back off at the lower end of the market, while new-home buyers at the top continue to buy. As a result, median sales prices jumped 12.6 percent during the past month to $290,000.
Home sales usually improve with the start of the spring. More would-be buyers venture to open houses. Families with children often begin to look for homes so that they can move once the school year ends.
Eleven students from Memphis College of Art instructor Elaine Blanchard's Storytelling class will present "The Art of Storytelling" Saturday, April 26, at 8 p.m. at Theatre South, 1000 S. Cooper St.
As part of their class study, students practiced improving their listening skills by visiting five groups of marginalized neighbors, including homeless people, incarcerated women, adults with developmental disabilities, residents in long-term care facilities and men who were recently released after long periods of incarceration. They engaged in conversation with members of each group, then chose one person as the focus of their individual class project, creating artwork inspired by their stories.
Blanchard – a storyteller, writer, nurse and ordained minister – was recently recognized as the Vision Award Winner among the 2014 Women of Achievement for her project "Prison Stories," in which female inmates were given the chance to tell their life stories as part of a play.
Paragon National Bank has made a flurry of recent personnel changes.
The bank has promoted Emily Friedman to portfolio manager and George Daley to commercial credit analyst. Friedman will be working with Paragon's commercial lenders on developing their larger prospects and relationships by providing credit analysis, underwriting and related documentation.
Before the promotion, Friedman, who has been with Paragon since 2008, developed and managed a loan portfolio of $40 million.
Daley has been with Paragon for more than eight years, serving most recently as manager of the Saddle Creek banking center. In his new position, Daley is responsible for completing full financial analyses of borrowers, including global cash flow, generating credit memos for new and existing loans, verifying covenant compliance and borrowing base certificates, and researching industry information.
Meanwhile, Paragon has tapped Jon Roskos as vice president and Saddle Creek banking center manager.
Roskos will be working with the team at the Saddle Creek location to meet the needs of existing customers and to introduce others to Paragon.
St. George's Independent School is moving toward a new fundraising source for the school and its programs based on converting airline miles and credit and debit card affinity points into a kind of currency for charitable giving.
The school's administrators are still finalizing details of how the program, called Kula, will be used at the private school. St. George's has been promoting Kula along with other options for giving – including grocery cards, cereal box tops and canned food labels – and Kula giving is starting to outpace those sources.
Rising costs for materials and labor appear to be pressuring businesses, according to a quarterly survey from the National Association of Business Economics.
During the first quarter of the year, 31 percent of businesses surveyed reported higher material costs, more than double the 15 percent that saw costs rise in the previous survey. Additionally, 35 percent reported rising wages and salaries at their businesses in the past three months, up from 23 percent in January.
Yet those who said they raised the prices they charge in the past three months remained unchanged at 20 percent, according to the latest NABE survey of 72 members, which was conducted between March 18 and April 1.
"It appears that businesses were not able to pass on costs increases, resulting in increased pressure on margins," the survey findings said.
The quarterly survey by NABE is intended to gauge business conditions at members' firms or industries. The April survey reflects first quarter results, as well as the near-term outlook.
Despite the cost pressures, businesses seem more upbeat about the direction of the broader economy. The survey found that 80 percent said they expect the GDP to rise at least 2 percent over the next year. Nearly three-quarters also said they expect labor market conditions to improve, with unemployment easing to between 5 percent and 6 percent in the next one to three years. And over the next six months, 43 percent of respondents expect their firms to expand employment.
Penny Aviotti has joined the Baptist Memorial Health Care Foundation staff as a development officer. Previously, she managed First Tennessee Foundation, evaluating the distribution of dollars to nonprofit agencies throughout Tennessee.
Her chief focus at Baptist is supporting Baptist Trinity Hospice, including the Baptist Trinity Hospice House, the area's first residential hospice. The hospice has served more than 800 patients since its inception, including those without the means to pay for their care.
Aviotti also supports the Kemmons Wilson Family Center for Good Grief, which offers free grief counseling, seminars and workshops to the community. More than half the individuals who attend grief counseling have experienced the sudden loss of a loved one through a traumatic experience such as an accident, suicide or murder. The Hospice House and Grief Center are located on the campus of Baptist Memorial Hospital-Collierville.
Gov. Bill Haslam has signed a bill into law to ban the shredding of Imagine Library books delivered to the incorrect addresses.
The governor's office announced Tuesday that Haslam signed the measure sponsored by Rep. Craig Fitzhugh of Ripley and fellow Democratic Sen. Lowe Finney of Jackson last week.
The bill directs the U.S. Postal Service to instead donate the books to pre-kindergarten or other programs.
The Governor's Books from Birth Foundation is a partner to the Imagination Library, which was created by country singer Dolly Parton in 1996. The program provides a book every month to children from birth to age 5 at no cost to the family, regardless of income.
The House passed the bill on a 93-0 vote, while the Senate approved its version 31-0.
Thirteen communities in the Southeast, including Memphis/Shelby County, are hoping to be designated as sustainable communities by the Tennessee Valley Authority.
TVA designated 13 locations as Valley Sustainable Communities last year and says 13 more are about to begin the review process. TVA executive John Bradley says the idea is to help communities be prepared when companies look for a site for their business.
Bradley says corporate executives report sustainability is increasingly important in locating a site.
The communities beginning the process in 2014 are Blount County, Tenn.; Crossville/Cumberland County, Tenn.; Florence, Ala.; Glasgow, Ky.; Huntsville, Ala.; Logan County, Ky.; Maury County, Tenn.; Memphis/Shelby County, Tenn.; Morristown/Hamblen County, Tenn.; Murfreesboro, Tenn.; Scottsboro, Ala.; Starkville, Miss.; and Tupelo, Miss.
First State Bank has been named the 2013 Small Business Administration Community Bank of the Year for Tennessee.
The SBA Tennessee District Office each year recognizes and honors top lenders serving the small business community, and SBA lenders are awarded for their success in helping to provide capital necessary to grow small businesses and create jobs.
First State Bank, through its Small Business Lending Division, provides government-guaranteed lending to small businesses predominately in Tennessee and surrounding states.
First State Bank is owned by Community First Bancshares, a holding company headquartered in Union City, Tenn. The company has branches around the state, including in Memphis.
In another sign of good economic news, Tennessee's unemployment rate continues to dip.
The state's unemployment rate dropped to 6.7 percent in March, which is down from 6.9 percent in February, according to the Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development. Last March, the state unemployment rate sat at 8.3
March's decline was the seventh month in a row that Tennessee's unemployment rate has dropped.
A measure of the U.S. economy's health rose in March for the third consecutive month, a sign of stronger growth after harsh winter weather caused the economy's pace to slow.
The Conference Board said Monday that its index of leading indicators increased 0.8 percent in March after a 0.5 percent rise in February and modest 0.2 percent gain in January. It was the best showing since a 0.9 percent gain in November.
Both hiring and consumer outlooks have improved, which along with interest rates fueled much of the index's improvement. That offset a negative contribution from building permits. The index looks at a series of different indicators to spot peaks and troughs in economic growth.
Conference Board economists say the gains last month point to "accelerated growth for the remainder of the spring and the summer," although it remains to be seen whether employers continue to hire at their March and February pace of almost 200,000 workers a month.
"The economy is rebounding from widespread inclement weather and the strengthening in the labor market is beginning to have a positive impact on growth," said Ken Goldstein, an economist at The Conference Board. "Overall, this is an optimistic report."
Many economists expect the overall growth rate in the January-March quarter will dip below 2 percent because of the weather disruptions but they are forecasting a rebound in coming quarters to growth of around 3 percent.
Iberiabank has announced branch managers for the new bank branch locations it got as a result of the recent Trust One Bank acquisition.
Ruby Fenton, who has 15 years of banking experience, has joined Iberiabank as vice president and branch manager for the Wolf River branch at 7860 Wolf River Blvd. Rick Vollmer, who has 17 years of banking experience, is vice president and branch manager for the Forest Hill branch at 3100 Forest Hill-Irene Road, and Robert Wiles – who has five years of banking experience – is assistant vice president and branch manager for the Cordova branch at 1010 N. Germantown Parkway.
Finally, Stephanie Crosslin, who has 16 years of banking experience, is vice president and branch manager for the Laurelwood Branch at 370 S. Grove Park Road.
Iberiabank completed the Trust One acquisition in January.
Early voting in advance of the May 6 election day in Shelby County was poised to top 1,000 at the beginning of the Easter weekend.
The first two days of the early voting period in the Shelby County primary elections showed 847 citizens voted early or cast absentee ballots, according to figures from the Shelby County Election Commission. With no balloting on Good Friday, the voting period was to resume Saturday for a third day with several campaigns planning to include early voting rallies in their weekend plans.
The early voting period expands April 25 to early voting sites across Shelby County.
The entire early voting period runs through May 1.
Memphis Grizzlies head coach Dave Joerger has been selected as the Western Conference Coach of the Month for April. Joerger previously won the monthly award in January.
In April, the Grizzlies posted a 6-2 (.750) mark, including a perfect 4-0 record at home. Memphis topped the Miami Heat on April 9, their first of five consecutive wins to finish the season. The team's 97-91 win over the Phoenix Suns on April 14 clinched a playoff berth. On April 16, a 106-105 overtime win over the Dallas Mavericks earned Memphis the seventh seed in the Western Conference Playoffs.
The Grizzlies finished the regular season with a mark of 50-32 (.610) in Joerger's first year as head coach..
The Economic Club of Memphis closed out its spring series Thursday, April 17, with a presentation from syndicated columnist and author Amity Shlaes.
Her book about the Great Depression, called "The Forgotten Man," has been named by The Wall Street Journal as one of the best books to read during a financial crisis. Her biography of president Calvin Coolidge was released in February, and next month, a graphic novel edition of "The Forgotten Man" will be released.
The Economic Club will start back up again with a new slate of presentations by keynote speakers in September.
Funding for U.S. startup companies soared 57 percent in the first quarter to a level not seen since 2001, as venture capitalists piled more money into a growing number of deals, according to a report due out Friday.
Startup investments totaled $9.47 billion in the first three months of the year, up from $6.01 billion in the first quarter of 2013.
It was the highest since the second quarter of 2001, when investments reached $11.5 billion.
There were 951 deals completed in the quarter, up from 916 in the same period a year ago.
Software companies received the most money – $4 billion. Biotech was a distant second with $1.06 billion. The last time the software sector received this much money was in the fourth quarter of 2000, right as the dot-com bubble was about to burst.
The sharp increase in venture funding in the first three months of the year comes amid a cooling of investor sentiment toward publicly traded technology stocks. Since March, shares of companies such as Netflix, Twitter and Facebook have sagged. With some technology stocks down as much as 40 percent, as in Twitter's case, the sharp decline is raising questions about whether the downturn is temporary or a sign that another bubble is about to pop.
That said, one reason for the high level of funding activity may be that VCs are investing in maturing companies. Later-stage deals are bigger than early-stage investments because they help startups expand rather than get off the ground.
The MoneyTree study was conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers and the National Venture Capital Association, based on data from Thomson Reuters..
More than two-thirds of the states reported job gains in March, as hiring has improved for much of the country during what has been a sluggish but sustained 4 1/2-year recovery.
The Labor Department said Friday that unemployment rates dropped in 21 states, rose in 17 and were unchanged in the remaining 12. Meanwhile, hiring increased in 34 states and fell in 16.
The unemployment rate varies from as low as 2.6 percent in North Dakota to as much as 8.7 percent in Rhode Island. South Carolina has experienced the sharpest rate decline over 12 months to 5.5 percent from 8 percent.
The rate nationwide stayed at 6.7 percent in March for the second straight month. That national rate stayed flat because someone was hired for almost every person who entered the job market last month.
Tennessee's rate fell to 6.7 percent in March.
Employers added 192,000 jobs nationwide in March, close to the average monthly gains of the past two years.
Ohio experienced the largest month-to-month drop in its unemployment rate: 0.4 percentage points to 6.1 percent. That steep drop occurred because the state added 12,000 jobs last month, while the total number of people in its job market fell 11,200 to 5.75 million.
Unemployment rates can fall when people leave the job market, as well as when employers hire.
Several states continue to lag the gains made across the country.
Unemployment remains elevated in Nevada (8.5 percent), Illinois (8.4 percent), California (8.1 percent) and Kentucky (7.9 percent).
On May 3, 2013, Lionel Hollins was overseeing the Memphis Grizzlies' first-round playoff-series-clinching victory over the Los Angeles Clippers at FedExForum.
This year on May 3, Hollins will be at the Landers Center in Southaven delivering the commencement address to Southwest Tennessee Community College's 2014 graduating class.
The Grizzlies did not retain Hollins after last season, which included the Grizzlies winning a franchise-high 56 games and reaching the Western Conference Finals for the first time.
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by The Daily News Publishing Co. Inc. - All Rights Reserved


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The Cisco Prime Collaboration Manager has been retired and is no longer supported.
End-of-Sale Date: 2013-07-03
End-of-Support Date: 2016-07-04
Cisco's End-of-Life Policy
You can view a listing of available Cloud and Systems Management offerings that best meet your specific needs
If you want support information for the Cisco Prime Collaboration Manager documentation, it may be available through Cisco.com Search or in the Cisco Support Community

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Israel assassinates Hamas military chief in Gaza
Israel carried out a blistering offensive of more than 50 airstrikes in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, assassinating Hamas' military commander and targeting the armed group's training facilities and rocket launchers in Israel's most intense attack on the territory in nearly four years.
Israel said the airstrikes, launched in response to days of rocket fire out of Hamas-ruled Gaza, were the beginning of a broader operation against the Islamic militants codenamed "Pillar of Defense." Israeli defense officials said a ground operation was a strong possibility in the coming days though they stressed no decisions had been made and much would depend on Hamas' reaction. There were no immediate signs of extraordinary troop deployments along the border.
The attack came at a time when Israel seems to be under fire from all directions. Relations have been deteriorating with Egypt's new Islamist government, Egypt's lawless Sinai desert has become a staging ground for militant attacks on Israel, and the Syrian civil war has begun to spill over Israel's northern border. Earlier this week, Israel fired back at Syria — for the first time in nearly 40 years — after stray mortar fire landed in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights.
With at least 10 Palestinians dead, including two young children, Wednesday's offensive was certain to set off a new round of heavy fighting with Gaza militants, who have built up a formidable arsenal of rockets and missiles.
It also threatened to upset Israel's relations with neighboring Egypt and shake up the campaign for Israeli elections in January. In a preliminary response, Egypt recalled its ambassador to Israel in protest.
In a nationwide address, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel could no longer stand repeated attacks on its southern towns. Days of rocket fire have heavily disrupted life for some 1 million people in the region, canceling school and forcing residents to remain indoors.
"If there is a need, the military is prepared to expand the operation. We will continue to do everything to protect our citizens," Netanyahu declared.
The Israeli military said it was ready, if necessary, to send ground troops into Gaza. The defense officials who said a ground operation was likely in the coming days spoke on condition of anonymity because they were discussing sensitive military plans.
"We are at the beginning of the event, and not the end," Defense Minister Ehud Barak said, in a joint appearance with the prime minister. "In the long run I believe the operation will help strengthen the power of deterrence and to return quiet to the south." In a sign that the operation was expected to broaden, the military was cleared to call up reserve units.
Residents in both Israel and Gaza braced for prolonged violence. Gazans rushed to stock up on food and fuel. After nightfall, streets were empty as the sounds of Israeli warplanes and explosions of airstrikes could be heard in the distance.
Israel declared a state of emergency in its south and canceled school across the area for Thursday. Calling it a "special situation," Barak sought permission to call up special reserve units for the operations. Israeli police stepped up patrols around the country, fearing that Hamas could retaliate with bombing attacks far from the reaches of Gaza.
Hamas has in the past staged dozens of suicide bombings against Israelis and while its capabilities to do so today have been curtailed by Israeli and Palestinian crackdowns, it still has a network in the West Bank.
More than 65 rockets landed in southern Israel late Wednesday. One projectile struck a shopping mall in the southern city of Beersheba, causing heavy damage but no casualties, police said.
The Israeli military said 25 rockets were intercepted by the "Iron Dome" rocket-defense system. Israeli media said the rockets had been headed toward Beersheba. Israeli aircraft continued to pound Gaza into the night with some 50 airstrikes, with no reports of casualties.
The deadly attack on Hamas mastermind Ahmed Jabari marked the resumption of Israel's policy of "targeted killings," or assassinations of senior Hamas men. Israel has refrained from such attacks, which have drawn international condemnations, since a fierce three-week offensive in Gaza that ended in January 2009.
The earlier Gaza offensive killed more than 1,400 Palestinians, including hundreds of civilians. Israel has blamed Hamas for the heavy civilian casualties, accusing the group of using schools and residential neighborhoods as cover. Nonetheless, Israel was harshly criticized internationally for the heavy civilian death toll.
Jabari was the most senior Hamas official to be killed since that war. He had long topped Israel's most-wanted list, blamed for masterminding a string of deadly attacks that including a bold, cross-border kidnapping of an Israeli soldier in 2006. He also was believed to be a key player in Hamas' takeover of Gaza in 2007 from a rival Palestinian faction, the Western-backed Fatah movement.
"I would call him the No. 1 terrorist in the Gaza Strip, whose hands are stained with blood," said Brig. Gen. Yoav Mordechai, Israel's chief military spokesman.
Israel and Hamas have largely observed an informal truce for the past four years.
But in recent weeks, the calm has unraveled in a bout of rocket attacks out of Gaza and retaliatory Israeli airstrikes. From Israel's perspective, Hamas escalated tit-for-tat fighting in recent days with a pair of attacks: an explosion in a tunnel along the Israeli border and a missile attack on an Israeli military jeep that seriously wounded four soldiers.
Israeli defense officials warned earlier this week that they were considering resuming the assassination policy.
Even so, the Jabari killing, carried out in broad daylight, was shocking. Hamas officials had brushed off the Israeli threats, illustrated by Jabari's decision to drive in public. Hamas leaders typically go into hiding at times of rising tensions. Over the past two days, the fighting had shown signs of petering out as Egyptian mediators tried to broker a truce.
The Israeli military released a black-and-white video of the airstrike, showing a sedan moving slowly along a road before going up in flames in an explosion so powerful that a large chunk of the vehicle flew high into the air.
Crowds of people and security personnel rushed to the scene of the strike, trying to put out the fire that had engulfed the car and left it a charred shell. Plumes of black smoke wafted into Gaza City's skies following other airstrikes. Ambulance sirens blared as people ran in panic in the streets and militants fired angrily into the air.
The Israeli military also released footage of its strikes against weapons depots and rocket-launching grounds. Barak said these airstrikes hit "terror infrastructure" and launchers used to fire Iranian-made Fajr rockets. The rockets, capable of reaching Tel Aviv, are among Hamas' most powerful weapons.
The military said it hit dozens of medium-range rocket launch sites, many of which are located in residential buildings, military officials said. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the operation. The military also said the navy was striking Hamas targets located by the shore. Hamas denied that any of its weapons stores were hit.
Hamas announced a state of emergency in Gaza. It evacuated all its security buildings and deployed its troops away from their locations.
Outside the hospital where Jabari's body was taken, thousands of Gazans chanted "Retaliation!" and "We want you to hit Tel Aviv tonight!"
"I was sitting on my bed with my grandson when suddenly the wall collapsed on both of our heads," said Mahmoud Bana, a 62-year-old man who was slightly wounded along with his 11-year-old grandson. "We don't know what happened but we know it is going to be a few hard days ahead."
In a statement, Hamas' prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh, eulogized Jabari and vowed revenge.
"We mourn our late leader who walked the path of jihad while he knew the end, either victory or martyrdom," Haniyeh said. "There is no fear among our people and our resistance, and we will face this vicious attack."
The airstrike bore many similarities to the start of Israel's previous offensive in December 2008. That operation also began with an air raid on Hamas buildings, and also took place in between American presidential elections and Israeli parliamentary elections.
Hamas accused Netanyahu of launching Wednesday's operation to win votes in the Jan. 22 parliamentary election. But major Israeli parties, including the dovish opposition, all lined up behind Netanyahu.
Still, the region has changed greatly over the past four years. Most critically for Israel, Egypt is now governed by Hamas' ideological counterpart, the Muslim Brotherhood.
Israel and Egypt signed a peace accord in 1979. Relations, never warm, have deteriorated since longtime Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak was ousted in a popular uprising last year. The assassination threatened to further damage those fraying ties.
On its official Facebook page, the Freedom and Justice Party, the Muslim Brotherhood's political arm, called Jabari's assassination a "crime that requires a quick Arab and international response to stem these massacres against the besieged Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip."
It accused Israel of trying to "drag the region toward instability."
In Washington, the United States lined up behind Israel. "We support Israel's right to defend itself, and we encourage Israel to continue to take every effort to avoid civilian casualties," said State Department spokesman Mark Toner. He denounced Hamas rocket attacks.
Netanyahu spoke to Obama and thanked him for the support, said a statement from his office.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called for calm and urged both sides to respect international humanitarian law.
On Wednesday night, the U.N. Security Council met behind closed doors to consider an Egyptian request for an emergency meeting on Israel's military action in Gaza.
Israel's use of targeted killings is one of the most contentious policies used against militants.
Advocates say targeted killings are an effective deterrent without the complications associated with a ground operation, chiefly civilian and Israeli troop casualties. Proponents argue they also prevent future attacks by removing their masterminds.
Critics say the killings invite retaliation by militants and encourage them to try to assassinate Israeli leaders. They complain that the strikes amount to extrajudicial killings.
During a wave of suicide bombings against Israel a decade ago, the country employed the tactic to eliminate the upper echelon of Hamas leadership.
During that period, Israeli aircraft assassinated the previous commander of Hamas' military wing, Salah Shehadeh, the movement's founder and spiritual leader, Sheik Ahmed Yassin, his successor, Abdel Aziz Rantisi, and dozens of other Hamas military commanders.
The practice set off a wave of criticism from rights groups and foreign governments, particularly the strike that killed Shehadeh — a one-ton bomb that killed 14 other people, most of them children.
Pro-Palestinian groups have attempted, unsuccessfully, to arrest Israeli officials involved in the Shehadeh killing on war crimes charges. While charges have never been filed, fears of arrest have forced a number of Israeli officials to cancel travel to Europe over the years.
Federman reported from Jerusalem. Additional reporting from Aron Heller, Lauren E. Bohn and Tia Goldenberg in Jerusalem, Sarah El Deeb in Cairo and Bradley Klapper in Washington.


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Conservative Political Action Conference snubs Chris Christie because he's not nutty enough
Pat Cunningham
I somehow suspect that the man is not going to lose any sleep over THIS:
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, seen as one of his party's top prospects for the White House in 2016, has not been invited to speak at the annual conservative gathering hosted by CPAC, a source familiar with the decision confirmed.
The list of speakers for the March confab currently includes the party's failed 2012 nominee, Mitt Romney, as well as former VP hopeful Sarah Palin and a string of current officials and 2016 hopefuls like Sen. Marco Rubio.
But Christie, who infuriated some Republicans ...


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OMAHA, Neb. (AP) – Warren Buffett's failure to beat the stock market in four of the past five years has raised the issue of whether Berkshire Hathaway's 83-year-old CEO has lost his touch.
Buffett is likely to face questions about the conglomerate's performance when more than 30,000 shareholders gather for Berkshire's annual meeting in Omaha, Nebraska, on Saturday.
It's not the first time people have wondered if Buffett is off his game. Criticism of Buffett reached its peak during the 1990s tech bubble because he refused to invest in dot-com businesses he didn't understand. Berkshire's Class A stock sunk to roughly $56,000 a share.
When the tech bubble burst, many of those businesses failed while Berkshire continued to prosper through acquisitions and investments. These days, Berkshire's A stock trades at more than $193,000 a share.
Author and investor Jeff Matthews, who wrote "Warren Buffett's Successor: Who It Is and Why It Matters," says criticism of Buffett is a byproduct of where the overall market is because Berkshire tends to trail a surging stock market. The Standard & Poor's 500 index soared 30 percent in 2013 and has nudged up another 2 percent this year.
"Buffett always looks less exciting when everyone else does great," Matthews says.
Many investors focus too much on recent history. Critics point out that Berkshire lagged the market in four of the past five years, based on Buffett's own yardstick. That measurement, Berkshire's book value, gained 18.2 percent in 2013, lagging S&P 500's rise of 32.4 percent, including dividends.
But that short-term view obscures the fact that Berkshire Hathaway has only trailed the S&P 500 10 times since Buffett took over in 1965. And cumulatively, Berkshire has delivered compounded annual gains of 19.7 percent to the S&P 500's 9.8 percent. Berkshire is also sitting on at least $48 billion in cash.
Buffett has told investors for several years that the massive size of Berkshire makes it impossible for him to match the investment gains he delivered decades ago, but he still believes Berkshire will beat the overall market.
Bill Smead, founder of Smead Capital Management, says most people have a hard time relating to someone who thinks in terms of decades, and in his last shareholder letter, Buffett emphasized he thinks Berkshire subsidiaries like BNSF railroad and MidAmerican Energy will be thriving a century from now.
"He is the ultimate long-duration thinker," says Smead, who recently increased his firm's Berkshire investment.
Smead says he expects Berkshire will trounce the S&P 500 over the next five to ten years because so many of its subsidiaries thrive when the economy is growing.
"I don't think people realize what a machine he has created to milk the U.S. economy," Smead says.
Last year, Berkshire's profit grew more than 31 percent to $19.48 billion on revenue of $182.15 billion.
Those figures include $4.3 billion in paper gains on investments and derivative contracts Berkshire holds, up from $2.2 billion the previous year.
Even without those mostly unrealized gains, most of Berkshire's roughly 80 subsidiaries are performing well.
Berkshire subsidiaries include BNSF railroad, Acme Brick, Shaw Carpet and Home Services of America. Berkshire also holds major investments in American Express, Coca-Cola, and IBM. Its first-quarter results will be released Friday.
Andy Kilpatrick, author of "Of Permanent Value: The Story of Warren Buffett," says he thinks Berkshire is set up to consistently beat the S&P 500 by a narrow margin.
"The whole thing is up and running better than it ever has been," Kilpatrick says.
Besides routine items, Berkshire investors will vote on a shareholder proposal that would encourage the company to pay a dividend. Berkshire's board opposes the proposal.
Buffett has said he believes that reinvesting Berkshire's cash is worth more for shareholders than they would receive in a dividend. Since Buffett controls 34 percent of the voting power, it's difficult for proposals to pass without his support.
Follow Josh Funk online at www.twitter.com/funkwrite
Copyright 2014 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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by The Daily News Publishing Co. Inc. - All Rights Reserved


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[This post first appeared in November 2006 and ranks among the 10 most popular posts of all time on the site. I am on a short semi-vacation.]
For One More Day: A Novel. By Mitch Albom. Hyperion, 197 pp., $21.95.
By Janice Harayda
It's official: Mitch Albom writes at a third-grade reading level, according to the readability statistics on Microsoft Word 2004.
I know this because For One More Day struck me as so dumbed-down – even for Albom – that it fell below the level of the sixth-grade books I once edited for a test-prep company. So I typed a couple of paragraphs from the novel into my computer and ran the Word spelling and grammar checker, which gives you the Flesch-Kincaid Readability Statistics at the bottom. Albom, it showed, writes at the level of Grade 2.8. This was startling enough that I wondered if the paragraphs I had used, from page 24, were atypical. So I typed in the full text of pages 24 and 25 and found that they were atypical. Albom actually writes at a third-grade level, Grade 3.4, according to Flesch-Kincaid.
I used pages 24 and 25 because the first pages of a book sometimes don't represent the whole of it: Authors may be clearing their throats or writing in a different tone than they will use after they have found their rhythm. So it's often fairest to look not just at the first chapter but also at something that comes later. A chapter typically has about 20 pages, so I used the first full section of Albom's book that follows page 20, a total of 305 words.
All of this raised a question: Does a novel written at a third-grade level deserve the same sort of review as books by authors who write at higher levels? Especially if the book appears to be a naked attempt to combine the theme of the movie It's a Wonderful Life with the kind of framing device Robert James Waller used in The Bridges of Madison County (which tries to lull you into believing that a novel tells a true story)? Maybe not. So here instead are the grade levels I got for a half dozen other authors when I checked the readability statistics for 305 words of their prose:
Nora Ephron I Feel Bad About My Neck Grade 12.0
Alex Kuczynski Beauty Junkies Grade 10.3, an exposé by a New York Times reporter
James Boswell The Life of Samuel Johnson Grade 8.6
Stephen King Lisey's Story Grade 8.3
Danielle Steel Toxic Bachelors Grade 4.8
Emily Arnold McCully An Outlaw Thanksgiving, a picture book for 4-to-8 year olds by a Caldecott Medalist Grade 4.3
Mitch Albom For One More Day Grade 3.4
I also ran the statistics for the Lord's Prayer, using the punctuation in a 20th century edition of The Book of Common Prayer. And it turns out that Jesus, too, "wrote" at a third-grade level, Grade 3.8, according to Microsoft Word (although he spoke the prayer). So there you have it. Mitch Albom, writing at the Grade 3.4 level, doesn't quite come up to the level of Jesus at Grade 3.8. But who would know it from all the attention he is getting?
Best Line: A quote from Louis Armstrong: "If ya ain't got it in ya, ya can't blow it out."
Worst line: Many. Samples: "He chuckled." "My mother chuckled."
Editors: Leslie Wells and Will Schwalbe
Furthermore: This review has a reading level of Grade 9.5, excluding the supplemental information at the end, according to the Flesch-Kincaid Readability Statistics on Microsoft Word 2004.
Published: September 2006. Albom also wrote Tuesdays With Morrie (Anchor, 2005).
How to find the reading level of a book: Go to the Microsoft Word pull-down "Help" menu. Search for "readability statistics." Select "display readability statistics." This will walk you through the process of finding the grade level for any text you enter, including your own writing.
Grade levels and their corresponding ages in American schools: In the U.S, children typically begin grades at these ages: kindergarten, 5; first grade, 6; second grade, 7; third grade, 8, fourth grade, 9; fifth grade, 10; sixth grade, 11; seventh grade, 12; eighth grade, 13; ninth grade, 14; tenth grade, 15; 11th grade, 16; 12th grade, 17.
© 2009 Janice Harayda. All rights reserved.


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A Conditioned Crawlspace Checklist
Experience is the best teacher, when it comes to crawlspaces.
About 20 years ago, I was teaching some young men and women to install insulation in crawlspaces using the conventional method at the time—batts of unfaced insulation between the floor joists, held in place by wires wedged between the joists. The vents in the crawlspace walls remained. These were unheated spaces.We put plastic sheeting on the soil, mostly to keep from getting dirty and to make it easier to slide around the space. In one of the crawlspaces there was so much ductwork, piping, wires, and so on, that it was nearly impossible to get at the joist spaces. I decided to try something different. We would not insulate the floor joists, but we would insulate the perimeter walls of the crawlspace.
We ran the plastic up the sides of the crawlspace and stapled it to the sill plates to keep moisture out of the batts of insulation that we had placed up through the band joist area and stapled to the joists and/or the flooring.We stapled the edges of the insulation backing together to keep the batts tight to each other and let them extend out a bit onto the floor of the crawlspace. We blocked the vent openings and then left the entries to the crawlspace open to the heated basement space. I must confess that there was not a lot of building science at work—just some instinct! Imagine my surprise and pleasure about two weeks later when the lady who lived there called to say that the area above that crawlspace was comfortable for the first time in all the more than 30 years she had lived there.
I was hooked and from then on we started making all the crawlspaces conditioned. We kept getting positive feedback, but it was also the beginning of my education on what would work best and why.
Over time,with the help of much better building science minds than mine, I began to develop a checklist of things to consider when doing a conditioned crawlspace:
Remove all debris from the crawlspace (especially any cellulose-based materials that could be moldy). We have learned how to do this more carefully!
Look for evidence of termite tubes and termite damage and address both problems.
Deal with any moisture issues. If there is standing water in a crawlspace and mold growing on any surfaces, eliminate the moisture before you do anything else. This can include installing a sump pump, but always seal the soil with a plastic covering of some kind, and make sure that the exterior soil grade is carrying water away from the walls. Cleaning up the mold is a must.
Repair holes in the masonry or concrete walls of the crawlspace. This includes shutting off the crawlspace vents.
Seal air leaks under sill plates, through the band joists, through utility openings, and so on, using foam insulation. Block air leakage up through walls from the crawlspace if the exterior walls are not insulated. In fact, you should do this even if the walls are insulated, primarily to keep the insulation from falling into the crawlspace. In a nowconditioned space, you are not likely to reach dew point on or in the insulation. (I have seen balls of ice on rafters from moisture moving from the crawlspace up into the attic, where it condensed and froze.The moisture could be coming from other interior openings, but the location of the ice balls near the perimeter of the structure in the attic makes it likelier that the moisture was coming from the crawlspace. I've seen the same phenomenon when basement showers—used by factory workers when they returned home dirty from work—supplied moisture for ice on rafters directly over the area where the shower was located.)
Install plastic sheeting of some kind on the soil surface, carrying it up at least above soil level. If there are significant radon levels in the area in which this work is being done, the plastic should be sealed to the walls or to the sill plate, and the seams in the plastic should be sealed. (The radon should stay under the plastic. You could install a subpoly vent out through the band joist, but I have never done this, since we have almost no problems with radon in this area.)
Install a rat slab. If there is a history of rats or other rodents coming in under the crawlspace foundation walls, you may need to install a rat slab—2 inches of concrete slurry on top of the plastic sheeting—to eliminate this entry.
Install insulation appropriate to the type of masonry walls you are treating. Since the crawlspace will now be open to the interior, you may be required to use insulation with a fire-retardant surface or apply a fire-retardant material on top of the insulation. R-value should be at least 10 and preferably more. (In our area, an R-10 is good; but this may differ for other regions of the country.) Install a horizontal strip of insulation at least 2 ft wide around the inside perimeter of the foundation, to reduce heat transfer under the foundation wall.The R-value should be the same as that of the wall insulation.
Install insulation in the band joists. Make sure that moisture cannot get around this insulation and condense on the band joists to cause damage. (I use blocks of 2-inch Styrofoam cut to fit the band joist space, then I seal around the perimeter of each piece with foam. I do not use fiberglass insulation.)
Installing 2 inches of expanded foam under the plastic and before pouring a rat slab can even make the crawlspace usable as a storage space once the concrete has dried. (Do this if there is sufficient headroom to add the expanded foam; on some crawlspaces, if soils are not too hard to work with, you can remove soil to increase working room.)
Seal the seams of all the ductwork passing through the crawlspace with mastic. (In many of our older homes, heating systems were installed using the crawlspace as a cold-air return, with grilles into the crawlspace; all the dirty air in the crawlspace was sucked through the furnace and into the living space!)
Vent? Consider the usefulness of venting the crawlspace to the exterior (size of the crawlspace may be the critical factor here).Two of my colleagues install 50-70 CFM fans in the crawlspace that vent to the exterior and depressurize the house on a continuous basis, so that warm interior air is pulled down into the crawlspace and no stale crawlspace air is drawn up into the living space by stack effect. I have never done this, but they insist that it works very well.They say it costs only about $10 a month. Sometimes when they do this, they do not open the crawlspace to the rest of the basement so that they do not risk backdrafting the furnace and/or the hot water tank. If I were to use a fan, I would probably want to be sure that the heating equipment was changed to sealed-combustion units.
Install a heavy-duty screen frame in the opening between the basement space and the crawlspace to keep rodents out if a rat slab is not poured.
Be aware that this work has some potential side effects. Hardwood flooring above the crawlspace can sometimes crack, due to the dramatic reduction in moisture. Plaster on walls and ceilings in rooms above the crawlspace can sometimes crack for the same reason.
Saving Energy?
Does this work result in energy savings, in addition to greater comfort? In my early attempts at crawlspace work, there was not much reduction in energy cost. I assumed that this was because we were now heating some rather large spaces, and as long as we were not getting higher fuel bills I was not concerned. Also, homeowners were so pleased with the new comfort levels that they generally didn't care about energy savings. But building performance folks who use blower doors were able to help me see that stopping the enormous air leakage from the exterior through the crawlspace walls, and from the crawlspace up through the house walls,was the key to energy savings that residents could take to the bank. (In a recent crawlspace job, a full third of the air leakage in the house was via these routes.)
Crawlspace work is hard. It is claustrophobic. You are likely to find yourself nose to nose with all kinds of critters. It is dirty.You need to wear protective clothing and proper masks or respirators. It can be incredibly cold lying on the ground in the dead of winter. A tip: Using a sheet of radiant barrier insulation (the kind with little air bubbles) to lie on while working can help you to keep from transferring so much of your body heat to the ground, and it provides a bit of a cushion. But crawlspace work is productive—one of the most productive measures in our weatherization kit bag. And it is always nice to know that when you are done, it is the kind of work that is more likely than not to get you a genuine expression of gratitude from the homeowner.
Different Approaches
While we have much in common in terms of the basics, the authors of "Crawlspaces Solutions" (p. 27) and "Crawlspaces: Considering the Options" (p. 30) differ with me on some details, the vent fan being one. John Davies, the housing services manager at The Building Performance Center, in Bellingham,Washington, does crawlspaces with lots of water in them and leaves it there. He finds that conditioning the space reduces the dew point and venting it carries away moisture vapor. I am still trying to adjust to such a notion, but he has his physics right.
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LOS ANGELES (AP) — Rapper and actor 50 Cent was charged this week with attacking his ex-girlfriend and trashing her Los Angeles condo, city attorney Mike Feuer said Wednesday.
The 37-year-old "In da Club" singer, whose real name is Curtis Jackson, was charged with domestic violence and four counts of vandalism in papers filed Monday. If convicted, he faces up to five years in jail and $46,000 in fines.
A representative for Jackson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Jackson had already left when officers arrived June 23 at a Toluca Lake condo belonging to a woman who had a baby with him, police said.
During an argument, the woman told police, Jackson began destroying her property before she locked herself into her bedroom. The woman said Jackson kicked open the bedroom door and kicked her, causing injury.
Police said they estimated about $7,100 in damage to the woman's home. They observed many broken items in the ransacked and clothes-strewn condo, including chandeliers, furniture and a television.
The woman told police she had been in a three-year relationship with Jackson.
"Regardless of perceived celebrity or notoriety, domestic violence is a serious crime and alleged perpetrators will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law by this office," Feuer said.
The Queens-reared rapper has referenced drug-dealing and violence in many songs, and is known for having survived nine gunshots in an attempted assassination.
Jackson has also worked as an actor in recent years. He starred in an autobiographical account of his life as a drug dealer in "Get Rich or Die Tryin'."
Jackson is due for arraignment July 22.
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Brennan: Notre Dame forgets the woman who really died
- Lizzy Seeberg committed suicide in September 2010 after accusing a player of sexual assault
The peculiar mysteries at Notre Dame are almost too numerous to detail today, but one stands out among all the rest:
Why did the university show more public concern for a fake dead woman than a real one?
Notre Dame athletics director Jack Swarbrick actually teared up publicly Wednesday night when speaking about the bizarre story of Manti Te'o and his made-up dead girlfriend.
Did Swarbrick or any other Notre Dame official ever shed a tear for Lizzy Seeberg, a 19-year-old St. Mary's College freshman who committed suicide in September 2010 after accusing a Notre Dame football player of sexually assaulting her?
If they cried publicly for Seeberg, no camera caught it.
In fact, if they had even the remotest public interest in finding out what happened to her, and how the football team was involved, they have kept that a secret to this day.
After Seeberg accused a Notre Dame football player of sexually assaulting her, and after she wrote up a description of what happened, which she then gave to the campus police, Seeberg received a text message from a friend of the player:
"Don't do anything you would regret. Messing with notre dame football is a bad idea."
Little more than a week later, she committed suicide.
Then, and now, the allegations surrounding Seeberg's tragic death beg for answers. One might have thought that Notre Dame officials would have immediately launched a thorough investigation to find out exactly what happened, as Swarbrick said he did with the alleged Te'o hoax on Dec. 26.
But in the Seeberg tragedy, the opposite occurred. For more than a week after receiving Seeberg's account of the alleged attack, Notre Dame's campus police didn't even attempt to contact the player. For more than 2½ months, Seeberg's accusation and her death did not become public knowledge, until the Chicago Tribune broke the story.
Notre Dame's president, the Rev. John Jenkins, even refused to meet with members of Seeberg's family.
And what happened to the accused football player? He was not charged in the case, at least in part because Seeberg's written report was not admissible -- because it was hearsay, because she was dead.
What's more, the player has been a member of the football team all this time, and still was a member of the team that participated in last week's BCS national championship game, losing to Alabama, 42-14.
Even as Swarbrick went on and on in his news conference about how the naive Te'o had been duped and how much Notre Dame cared about him, there was one common denominator between the way Notre Dame handled the Seeberg and Te'o stories:
In neither situation have Swarbrick and other officials come close to coming clean. Swarbrick said Notre Dame knew on Dec. 26 that the Te'o story was a hoax. Yet Te'o continued to mention his dead girlfriend in interviews, and no one at Notre Dame apparently ever told one news outlet to avoid the topic, much less say why.
Swarbrick simply let the whole bizarre charade carry on for nearly two weeks to the BCS title game, then another week before Deadspin finally spilled the beans.
So now the Fighting Irish are embroiled in perhaps the most preposterous scandal to ever visit a college football team. Eventually we'll hear from Te'o, and more from Swarbrick, and probably get to the bottom of this strange tale.
Meanwhile, no one at Notre Dame bothers to mention the name Lizzy Seeberg much anymore.
They avoid her because she is much too real.


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Editor's note: This is Part II in a series. Part I can be found here.
Once we recognize that large differences in achievement among races, nations and civilizations have been the rule, not the exception, throughout recorded history, there is at least some hope of rational thought -- and perhaps even some constructive efforts to help everyone advance.
Even such a British patriot as Winston Churchill said, "We owe London to Rome" -- an acknowledgement that Roman conquerors created Britain's most famous city, at a time when the ancient Britons were incapable of doing so themselves.
No one who saw the illiterate and backward tribal Britons of that era was likely to imagine that someday the British would create an empire vastly larger than the Roman Empire -- one encompassing one fourth of the land area of the earth and one fourth of the human beings on the planet.
History has many dramatic examples of the rise and fall of peoples and nations, for a wide range of known and unknown reasons. What history does not have is what is so often assumed as a norm today, equality of group achievements at a given point in time.
Roman conquests had historic repercussions for centuries after the Roman Empire had fallen. Among the legacies of Roman civilization were Roman letters, which produced written versions of Western European languages, centuries before Eastern European languages became literate. This was one of many reasons why Western Europe became more advanced than Eastern Europe, economically, educationally and technologically.
Meanwhile, the achievements in other civilizations -- whether in China or in the Middle East -- surged ahead of achievements in the West, though China and the Middle East later lost their leads.
There are too many zig-zags in history to believe that some single over-riding factor explains all, or even most, of what happened, either then or now. But what seldom, if ever, happened were equal achievements by different peoples at the same time.
Yet today we have bean counters in Washington turning out statistics that are solemnly presented in courts of law to claim that, if the numbers are not more or less the same for everybody, that proves that somebody did somebody else wrong.
If blacks have different occupational patterns or different other patterns than whites, that arouses great suspicions among the bean counters -- even though different groups of whites have long had different patterns from each other.
When American soldiers were given mental tests during the First World War, those men of German ancestry scored higher than those of Irish ancestry, who scored higher than those who were Jewish. Mental test pioneer Carl Brigham said that the army mental test results tended to "disprove the popular belief that the Jew is highly intelligent."
An alternative explanation is that most German immigrants came to the United States decades before most Irish immigrants, who came here decades before most Jewish immigrants. Years later, Brigham admitted that many of the more recent immigrants grew up in homes where English was not the spoken language and that his earlier conclusions were, in his own words, "without foundation."
By this time, Jews were scoring above the national average on mental tests, instead of below. Disparities among groups are not set in stone, in this or in many other things. But blanket equality of outcomes is seldom seen at any given time either, whether in work skills or rates of alcoholism or other differences among the various groups lumped together as "whites."
Why then do statistical differences between blacks and whites set off such dogmatic assertions -- and "disparate impact" lawsuits -- when it is common for different groups to meet employment or other standards to different degrees?
One reason is that "disparate impact" lawsuits require nothing more than statistical differences to lead to verdicts, or out of court settlements, in the millions of dollars. And the reason that is so is that so many people have bought the unsubstantiated assumption that there is something strange and sinister when different peoples have different achievements.
Centuries of recorded history say otherwise. But who cares about history anymore? Certainly not as much as they care about the millions of dollars available from "disparate impact" lawsuits.


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Amethyst Design
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For our freshest, most beautiful blooms, please shop our Florist's Choice options, as we may be experiencing delays in receiving shipments of certain flower types.
Please note that for all other orders, we may need to replace stems so we can deliver the freshest bouquet possible, and we may have to use a different vase.
We promise to always deliver a fresh, beautiful, and completely one-of-a-kind gift of the same or greater value as what you selected.
Deliveries may also be impacted by COVID-19 restrictions. Rest assured that we are taking all recommended precautions to ensure customer satisfaction and safety.
Delivery impacts may include:
In addition, we may be using "no contact" delivery procedures. After confirming that the recipient is available to accept, their gift will be left at the door and the delivery driver will step back a safe distance to ensure they receive their gift.
Please see our About Us page for more details. We appreciate your understanding and support!×
Better than a gift card, send smiles twice! We are now offering Gift Now, Deliver Later, so you can still send a gift for your loved one during this time.
Please note that we cannot currently commit to any specific delivery dates when you place a Gift Now, Deliver Later order. We will personally contact your recipient when we are able to schedule a delivery date for this gift.
When you give a Gift Now, Deliver Later arrangement, you won't need to select a delivery date. You complete your purchase and we'll send a beautifully designed virtual gift right away via email, including your card message and a picture of the flowers you chose. When we are back up and running, we'll contact your recipient to complete delivery of your fresh, beautiful arrangement. Thanks for supporting our local business during this time!
Check out our best selling florist choice!×
Please note that we cannot currently commit to any specific delivery dates when you place a Gift Now, Deliver Later order. We will personally contact your recipient when we are able to schedule a delivery date for this gift.
Step 1
Complete your purchase like you normally would, including your card message, delivery information, and recipient's email.
Step 2
We'll let your special someone know they received a gift. A photo and your card message will be included in a beautifully designed email for smile number 1!
Step 3
When we're able to deliver your gift, we'll fulfill the promise of your gift and coordinate directly with your recipient to schedule delivery of the arrangement for smile number 2!
Wine for every occasion
We offer a wide-selection of premium wines to perfectly pair with your floral gift.
Ordering a bottle (or two!) from our site is easy. Just make sure that:
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* Free local delivery is available for local online orders only. For orders being sent outside of our local delivery zone, a delivery fee based on the recipient's address will be calculated during checkout.×
We take pride in our work, and stand behind every arrangement we deliver. If you are not completely satisfied with your order, please contact us so that we can make it right.
We've been Los Angeles local florist since 2008 and we are proud to serve this community. There are a lot of "online companies" that pretend to be a local florist, hurting both you and small businesses like ours. You can feel confident that you will get an amazing arrangement that is supporting a real local florist!
Buying from us means that all arrangements are designed by artists who know the floral trade. We hand-deliver every single arrangement so your recipient is sure to love their gift! No wilted, sad, flowers in a box here! Your design will be exquisitely arranged and sure to be loved!
Our customers and the happiness of their friends and family are our top priority! When you buy from us, you are getting an arrangement that is sure to impress and delight! We will personally ensure that you're happy with your arrangement!


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House painting service in Rajendra Nagar | Hyderabad
Home painting is a tedious and complex task. There are a lot of things that need to be done before you can renovate your home. It's a time consuming task, and you can get frustrated if you don't know who to hire or who to trust. AapkaPainter is a place where you can get access to the best painters in Rajendra Nagar and get home renovations done easily and quickly. AapkaPainter offers you the best painters and top products for a stunning home painting experience!Let's talk now


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Raber to host fish derby
The Raber Area Sportsmen's Club is inviting all participants in the Last Chance Walleye Derby on Munuscong Bay to increase their take home pay in the event of landing a large fish.
Boundaries for the Raber Area Sportsmen's Club Fishing Tournament will include all waters of the St. Marys River with a top prize of $200 for the largest walleye and $100 for second place. A similar cash structure has also been established for the top two northern pike iced by participating anglers. Bonus prizes include $100 for the largest yellow perch and $200 for the event's heaviest losh.
Early registration can be done at Wilderness Treasurers, Raber Bay Bar and Grill, Yooperman's Bar and Raber Bay Outfitters.
The event will run for 24 hours beginning at noon Friday and concluding at noon Saturday.


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