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the pit stop.
"I was very thirsty as my water wasn't working. I pushed hard for fourth but Jarno did a great job.
"The great thing is I was able to drive the race without water and I feel better than I did last year but we just have to do a better job in qualifying at the next race."
Results of the Malaysian Formula One Grand Prix at Sepang:
1. Kimi Raikkonen (Fin) Ferrari one hour 31 minutes 18.555 seconds
2. Robert Kubica (Pol) BMW Sauber +19.570secs
3. Heikki Kovalainen (Fin) McLaren-Mercedes +38.450
4. Jarno Trulli (Ita) Toyota +45.832
5. Lewis Hamilton (GB) McLaren-Mercedes +46.548
6. Nick Heidfeld (Ger) BMW Sauber +49.833
7. Mark Webber (Aus) Red Bull-Renault +1:08.130
8. Fernando Alonso (Spa) Renault +1:10.041
9. David Coulthard (GB) Red Bull-Renault +1:16.220
10. Jenson Button (GB) Honda +1:26.214
11. Nelson Piquet Jr (Brz) Renault +1:32.202
12. Giancarlo Fisichella (Ita) Force India-Ferrari one lap behind
13. Rubens Barrichello (Brz) Honda 1 lap
14. Nico Rosberg (Ger) Williams-Toyota 1 lap
15. Anthony Davidson (GB) Super Aguri-Honda 1 lap
16. Takuma Sato (Jpn) Super Aguri-Honda 2 laps
17. Kazuki Nakajima (Jpn) Williams-Toyota 2 laps
R Sebastian Vettel (Ger) Toro Rosso-Ferrari 39 laps completed
R Felipe Massa (Brz) Ferrari 30 laps
R Adrian Sutil (Ger) Force India-Ferrari 5 laps
R Timo Glock (Ger) Toyota 1 lap
R Sebastien Bourdais (France) Toro Rosso-Ferrari 0 laps
Fastest lap: Nick Heidfeld 1:35.366, lap 55
Key: R = retired | 1,000 |
CODE Avicii to Release Debut Album '#TRUE' in September: Exclusive
"Disruption is good when a scene is half stuck," says EDM sensation, whose debut will be released on PRMD Music/Island Records
Swedish DJ Avicii has accomplished musical milestones like selling out Radio City Music Hall and collaborating with Madonna, but this fall he will do something he has not done before: release a studio album.
"This is about me being true to my sound but also to my own influences and musical preferences," Avicii (AKA Tim Bergling) exclusively told Billboard. "This album consists 100% of songs I personally love. It's true to me, true to my brand, true to Avicii."
On Sept. 17, the 21-year-old DJ-producer widely known for his mega-hit "Levels" will release the aptly-titled "#TRUE," his hotly anticipated freshman album. Avicii debuted selections from the album at Ultra Music Festival this past March, performing live alongside several collaborators including Aloe Blacc, Joakim Berg, and Audra Mae. The list of other supporting acts includes Nile Rodgers, Mac Davis, and Incubus' Mike Einziger -- not typical 'EDM' artists.
"Disruption is good when a scene is half stuck," Avicii said of the mixed reactions to the set, which presented unexpected live instruments to a fist-pumping-inclined Main Stage crowd. "We wanted to bring 15 minutes of something fresh to break [Ultra] up. We knew people would be provoked."
The album's release also marks the beginning of a new relationship between PRMD Music and Island Records, which will be co-releasing the set when it hits in the fall. Avicii's manager Ash Pournouri is a founder of PRMD Music, which Bergling called the "most innovative artist-centered label out there." Regarding Island's involvement, Avicii said "the partnership… adds muscle and experience."
No matter the initial reactions, Avicii says he has nothing to prove.
"For me it will be successful if it resonates with people -- no matter how many," he said. "It's what I stand for, so whoever loves it loves what I love. That's what fans are to me."
The album's first single, "Wake Me Up," goes to radio and iTunes on June 25: | 1,001 |
Former Assassin's Creed game designer Patrice Desilets believes his former employer, Ubisoft, should invest the time and effort to give players the choice to play as a woman in Assassin's Creed Unity, something the developer pulled back on due to "the reality of production."
At E3 this week, Unity creative director Alex Amancio explained why the cooperative multiplayer game features four versions of protagonist Arno and why the developer excluded the option to play as a female assassin.
"It's double the animations, it's double the voices, all that stuff and double the visual assets," Amancio said. "Especially because we have customizable assassins. It was really a lot of extra production work."
In an interview with Polygon, Desilets said that Amancio's reasoning — that it would create extra work — was valid, but that Ubisoft should put in the effort to let players have gender options.
"It's true. If you do a big giant character and a small character, or a woman and a guy, it's different," Desilets said. "But that shouldn't stop you. With all the time, money and people on that project, you could've done it."
The game designer, who was terminated by Ubisoft last year and is currently involved in litigation with his former employer but still has friends on the Assassin's Creed team, hoped that the publisher would be bolder with its game design choices as they relate to diversity.
"You know what would have been really awesome? Four women," he continued. "Then people would be like, 'Wow, they've got big balls.' Imagine four girls. It would have been really a strong message of what Assassin's Creed Unity is about."
Desilets, who has two young daughters, said he thinks that some game publishers and developers get caught in a cycle of making and selling games to a particular audience, and that informs decisions like the choice to prioritize male avatars over offering gender options.
"They always try to sell the same thing," he said, referencing the commercial underperformance of female-led games like Remember Me as cited evidence for why certain games don't sell well. "So it's easy to win the argument: 'See, that's the only thing that sells' — because that's the only thing to buy.
"That's why the game that I'm designing, I'm giving control back to the player," he said. "Which gender do you want to play? Let's start there." | 1,002 |
Another day at IAGON and we got another new and exciting team-up to announce. We’re partnering with a well known business-driven security solution that helps organizations manage risk and protect what matters most — their data! We’re presenting RSA!
Security has always been a number one priority for IAGON and is also a extremely important reason why we have decided to change the cloud and web services market. Current dominant companies in this market utilize central and less trusted storage and computation facilities. This is why we aim at providing companies and individuals storage and processing services at a fraction of the market prices and at a better security level. We use a dual layer security, military style encryption and Blockchain technology to provide our users with highly secure platform.
IAGON works on the unbreakable Blockchain encryption technology that ensures the complete protection of data files and databases of any size. Besides this, IAGON ensures the rapid retrieval and update of any stored file. No one can retrieve, encrypt or read the contents of an uploaded file except from the user who uploaded it and has the key to it. IAGON’s technology ensures that even when information systems are breached, the data and files cannot be accessed, deleted or modified in any way.
RSA SecureWorld Partner Program:
Iagon has enter the RSA SecureWorld Partner Program which will provide us with new opportunities, great benefits and new resources. RSA solutions are designed to effectively detect and respond to any attacks, including manage user identities and access, reduce cybercrime, fraud and business risk. RSA protects millions of users worldwide and works with some of the biggest companies worldwide.
We believe that RSA SecureWorld Partner Program will positively affect IAGON’s path to provide its clients a reliable, extremely secure and cost effective platform. With the boost of their specialization, knowledge and resources we believe we can bring IAGON to achieve true greatness in the cloud and web service market.
We are proud to add RSA SecureWorld to the growing lists of our partners and truly believe that they will be of great help in making IAGON platform even more secure for its users.
Revolutionize the cloud with us and make sure to save the date May 27th, 2018 to join our Pre-Sale!
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As one of the coldest places in the solar system, Titan, Saturn’s largest moon, is also one of the most dynamic. A new collection of 13 studies about Titan reveal previously undetected craters, rivers, and have provided maps of its surface and interior.
The studies have also revealed new details about the moon’s eerie 29.5-Earth-year-long seasonal cycle.
The findings come from 8 years of observations by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft in the Saturn system. Ralph Lorenz, from John Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory, co-authored the new studies published in the journal Planetary and Space Science.
Cassini’s tour of Saturn began in July 2004 and showcased the hazy clouds made up of ethane and methane that shrouded Titan’s lake-covered north pole. In 2009, the haze layer dropped, which allowed astronomers to use Cassini’s optical and infrared instruments to probe the moon.
The dynamic atmospheric veil has allowed Cassini to partially map Titan, which is marked by craters left by asteroids, comets, and meteorites. Planetary scientists have identified a strange, ring-shaped feature called Paxsi on August 25th, 2009. It wasn’t until 2012 that it was confirmed that this was a 75-mile wide impact crater.
Other craters on Titan are between 1 billion and 200 hundred million years old. This indicates that the surface of Titan is relatively young. The surface is studded with lakes and rivers in which liquid hydrocarbons flow. Ethane and methane are found in gaseous form on Earth but on Titan, where surface temperatures hover at around -291˚F (93.7˚K), the compounds coalesce into liquids.
Lorenz hopes to launch a nuclear-powered robotic boat in 2016 called the Titan Mare Explorer (TiME) into the Sea of Ligeia.
Titan’s atmosphere is twice as thick as the Earth’s, making it difficult for astronomical instruments to image its surface in the visible light spectrum. Researchers had to combine several image data sets to get the most accurate map of Titan yet.
Doppler tracking has allowed them to measure Titan’s gravitational field, which has given the researchers an idea of the internal composition of Titan. The layers include a water-ice crust, subsurface ocean, a shell of high-pressure and a rocky interior.
[via Wired, images via NASA] | 1,004 |
The Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) is calling on the Rowan-Salisbury School District in North Carolina to put a stop to church-sponsored Bible classes in elementary schools.
WBTV reported last week that the FFRF had sent a letter to the district informing them of a “serious constitutional violation” after learning that at least three schools — Cleveland, Woodleaf, and Mount Ulla Elementary — were providing weekly 45-minute Bible classes.
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According to FFRF, one of the course instructors presented the 7-day creation story and others as “literal fact.” The teacher also told students that the universe was created with a plan, and that the Bible predicted scientific discoveries, the group said.
“These classes are fragrantly unconstitutional,” the letter charged, adding that the class went beyond historical purposes by trying to influence “the District’s youngest, most impressionable students.”
Salem Lutheran Pastor Doug Hefner confirmed to Time Warner Cable News that his church helped to fund three Bible teachers for the course.
“I think this program dates back to the 60s as a matter of fact,” he explained. “I’ve only heard great things, and how it’s been a great program and helped the children and the young people learn about history.”
“The youth, the young people, based on what their parents want to do, can opt out of that as well, and there’s something else for them at that point.” the pastor noted.
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But FFRF argued that it was “irrelevant that parents may excuse students from the elementary bible classes.”
“Suggesting that children who do not wish to be subjected to religious activity at their school be segregated from their classmates is reprehensible,” FFRF staff attorney Patrick Elliot wrote. “It shames students into either outing themselves as different or showing deference to a religion they do no believe in and to which their parents to not want them subjected.”
District superintendent Dr. Lynn Moody told WBTV that the school board met on Thursday to discuss the FFRF letter, but did not wish to make a statement at that time.
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Watch the video below from WBTV, broadcast Oct. 6, 2014.
WBTV 3 News, Weather, Sports, and Traffic for Charlotte, NC | 1,005 |
Ex-Sunderland midfielder Darron Gibson admits drink-driving Published duration 17 April 2018
image copyright PA image caption Darron Gibson also has a previous drink-driving conviction
Ex-Sunderland midfielder Darron Gibson is facing jail after he admitted drink-driving.
The 30-year-old Republic of Ireland player was three times the legal limit when he smashed into parked cars on Dovedale Road on St Patrick's Day.
Gibson, from Hale, Greater Manchester, admitted drink-driving at South Tyneside Magistrates' Court.
The case was adjourned until 25 May. Sunderland have cancelled Gibson's contract.
The court heard a number of "aggravating factors", including a previous drink-driving conviction, meant a custodial sentence must be considered.
The former Manchester United player was on his way to the club's training ground when he knocked a taxi's wing mirror off, before carrying on and crashing his Mercedes 4x4 into parked cars, the court heard.
image caption Gibson was three times over the limit when he crashed into parked cars
Rebecca Laverick, prosecuting, said an initial roadside breath test recorded 105 micrograms of alcohol per 100ml of breath. The legal limit is 35.
When he was formally tested again at the police station he was found to have 95mg of alcohol per 100ml and he was charged using that lower figure.
Mrs Laverick said: "The defendant was spoken to at the roadside, police officers established he was under the influence.
"He said he had had two drinks the night before. That didn't coincide with the manner he was presenting in, his speech was slurred and he smelled of alcohol."
Mrs Laverick said Gibson had a previous conviction for drink-driving and driving without due care and attention in September 2015.
image copyright Martin Emmerson image caption Gibson claimed he only had two alcoholic drinks the night before
One of the cars damaged was a Seat Ibiza owned by 21-year-old Lewis Gowland.
Speaking to BBC Newcastle, his mother Elaine Gowland said: "My son's car was completely written off by Darron Gibson.
"The damage is horrendous - he's lucky someone didn't get killed. If someone had been on the pavement they would have been gone.
"Gibson had actually ploughed into the back of my son's car, moving it down the street and into a wall." | 1,006 |
Jerry Foxhoven, former director of Iowa’s Department of Human Services, might have lost his job because of his love of Tupac.
On June 14, Foxhoven, 66, sent an email to all 4,300 of his coworkers to remind them that the late rapper Tupac Shakur’s birthday was imminent.
“I am sure that you are already aware that this Sunday (June 16th) is also 2pac’s birthday. (He would be 48 if he were alive),” Foxhoven wrote in his email. " So, of course I will be celebrating both Father’s Day and 2pac’s birthday. I hope you all enjoy the day as well — and take the time to enjoy one of his songs.”
The director of @IowaDHS sent this email lauding Tupac to all 4,300 staff on Friday, June 14 - his latest missive in a quirky fixation with the late rapper. The governor told him to resign the next work day but won't say why https://t.co/2GIANXzbTZ pic.twitter.com/BmZqc53FPX — Ryan J. Foley (@rjfoley) July 16, 2019
The following workday, June 17, Foxhoven was fired.
He told the Associated Press that he was not given a reason for his firing. This naturally led to thinking that he was fired because of his email. But Foxhoven does not believe that, noting that his boss had decided to “go in a different direction” prior to the offending message.
However, this wasn’t the first time the sexagenarian has expressed his affinity for the L.A. rapper to his coworkers.
In his two years at DHS, Foxhoven sent 350 Tupac-related emails, including a birthday email very similar to the message in question. He also hosted “Tupac Fridays,” in which he would play Shakur’s music in the office.
Part of the reason Foxhoven dispersed so many notes about the “California Love” artist was to “break down racist stereotypes about rap music,” pointing to Shakur’s masterful and layered lyricism.
While many of Foxhoven’s coworkers either appreciated or didn’t mind the constant emails, there was at least one confirmed complaint from a former coworker. | 1,007 |
If Maccagnan drafts from the three spot for a second consecutive spring, it's a strong possibility his Round 1 pick will be a defender for a fourth time in five selection meetings. Most pundits have narrowed the decision down to a quartet of players: edges Nick Bosa (Ohio State) and Josh Allen (Kentucky) and the defensive tackle pair of Quinnen Williams (Alabama) and Ed Oliver (Houston). At least one or possibly two will be off the board when the Jets are scheduled to go on the clock.
"We're going to do anything that we feel is in the best interest of the team. If we stay at 3 and pick a player, we feel really good about the potential players who will be there," Maccagnan said. "If we have an opportunity to move back and acquire more draft capital, I think we'd be interested in that too."
Maccagnan, who surprised absolutely no one by declaring the Jets wouldn't be taking a quarterback in the first round, did talk favorably in terms of depth at various positions including defensive line, pass rushers, tight ends, safeties, offensive line and wide receivers. He also provided some interesting intel in terms of value on Day 1 and Day 2.
"There are some really good players at the top of the draft, but I think there is sort of an area where there will be some good value if you're sitting there bottom third of the first round to top quarter or third of the second round," he said. "I think there will be some players in that spot based on how we see them and how we sort of look at some of the mock drafts."
Threes are wild for Maccagnan right now. He has the No. 3 overall selection and a pair of third-rounders after getting an additional selection from the Saints in exchange for Teddy Bridgewater last August. Will a team offer an enticing package to Maccagnan in the next 48 hours, allowing him to still remain in the first round and perhaps picking up an additional second-rounder in the process? If he has a price in mind, we are about to find out soon.
"The nuance is when you make that decision to make a trade and you feel good about a spot, you may actually take a little less in return because you want to be in a certain spot," he said. "Or to move beyond that spot, you may ask for a little bit more in return if you are going to drop out of a certain spot." | 1,008 |
I’d pretty much decided to leave yesterday’s lunch off the blog until my husband came home and devoured the leftovers, saying “This is the best hummus ever!” I pointed out that it’s not really hummus. “It doesn’t have any tahini at all, and the flavors are Southwestern rather than Middle Eastern. And it’s super-spicy. Maybe I’ll just call it a dip.”
So it’s a dip. And a sandwich spread. I ate it for lunch in a wrap, along with lettuce, spinach, tomatoes, green pepper, and red onions. For our end-of-the-workday Cinco de Mayo snack, we ate it as a dip with crackers. Either way, if you like spicy foods, you’ll probably love this. And if you’re trying to cut out fat, this recipe’s a winner: with all that spiciness, you won’t miss the tahini.
Print Recipe Ingredients 1 large clove garlic, peeled
15 ounces (1 1/2 cups) chickpeas (no salt added, if possible), drained and liquid reserved
2 tbsp. lime juice
1/2-1 tbsp. chopped canned chipotle peppers (adjust according to how spicy you like it)
1 tbsp. chopped red onion
1 tbsp. tomato paste
1/4 tsp. chili powder
1/4 tsp. cumin
salt to taste
more red onion for garnish Instructions With the food processor running, drop in the garlic and process until chopped. Add the chickpeas and lime juice and begin processing. If it’s too dry, add 1-2 tablespoons of cooking liquid from chickpeas or, if you’re using canned, just use water. Add the remaining ingredients and process until smooth. Adjust salt to taste. Serve garnished with chopped red onions. Preparation time: 10 minute(s) | Cooking time: 0 minute(s) Number of servings (yield): 4 Nutrition (per serving): 136 calories, 11 calories from fat, 1.3g total fat, 0mg cholesterol, 361.2mg sodium, 241.8mg potassium, 26.2g carbohydrates, 5g fiber, <1g sugar, 5.6g protein, 3.8 points.
| 1,009 |
SEATTLE -- Ezekiel Elliott finally made his Dallas Cowboys debut Thursday night at Seattle after missing the first two preseason games with a strained right hamstring. The fourth overall pick looked as good as advertised.
The rookie running back out of Ohio State rushed for 48 yards on seven carries, showing the Cowboys a little bit of everything, from pass protection to power to quick cuts.
Elliott played the first quarter and was on the field for 15 plays.
"It felt great to finally get out there," Elliott said. "I've been waiting so long to put the pads on and go up against a different team. It felt good.
"It makes my job really easy when I play behind that great offensive line. I can only think of one run where someone tackled me when I wasn't in the second level. When you're running on safeties all day it makes your job real easy."
Seattle defensive players were talking trash to Elliott after his first couple of runs and the rookie didn't back down.
"They thought they had to welcome me in because I'm a rookie, so they were giving me all that rookie talk," Elliott said, "but I had to let them know I belong here.
"The NFL game is a little different. There's a lot more talking in it. Normally I don't talk, but they were being chippy, man, and I'm not soft."
Seattle safety Kam Chancellor nailed Elliott after a short pass over the middle sailed by him incomplete. Chancellor was called for a 15-yard personal foul.
"I don't know what that was. That was a little dirty. It's whatever," Elliott said. "That's just one of those you've got to walk away. That's all you can do in a moment like that."
Elliott also nailed Chancellor a few times on runs into the secondary.
"The type of runner I am, I'm a physical guy and I try to set the tone early in the game, so you're going to see it a lot in the first and second quarter," Elliott said. "I'm going to finish my runs hard and I'm going to try to set the tone."
Elliott said he'd like to play next Thursday in the Cowboys' preseason finale against Houston but doesn't believe he'll get the chance.
Twitter: @DMN_George
Get the latest Cowboys news here | Follow dmn_cowboys on Twitter | Like our Cowboys Facebook page here | 1,010 |
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Commission on Tuesday imposed countervailing duties of 8% to 18% on imports of subsidized biodiesel from Indonesia, saying the move aimed to restore a level playing field for European Union producers.
“The new import duties are imposed on a provisional basis and the investigation will continue with a possibility to impose definitive measures by mid-December 2019,” the EU executive said in a statement.
Last week Indonesia’s trade minister said he would recommend to an inter-ministerial team a 20% to 25% tariff on EU dairy products in response to the EU targeting the country’s biodiesel, adding that he had asked dairy product importers to find sources of supply outside the 28-nation bloc.
The EU duties are another blow to Indonesian biodiesel producers after the bloc said in March that palm oil should be phased out of renewable transportation fuels due to palm plantations’ contribution to deforestation.
The European Commission, which coordinates trade policy for the EU, launched an anti-subsidy investigation in December 2018 following a complaint by the European Biodiesel Board.
It said its investigation showed that Indonesian biodiesel producers benefit from grants, tax benefits and access to raw materials below market prices.
The EU biodiesel market is worth an estimated 9 billion euros ($10 billion) a year, with imports from Indonesia worth about 400 million euros, the commission said.
Indonesia Biofuels Producers Association (APROBI) Chairman M.P. Tumanggor told Reuters that companies affected by the anti-subsidy duties will likely be forced to renegotiate their contracts with buyers in the EU and it may reduce the country’s 2019 biodiesel exports.
“We initially targeted 1.4 million tonnes in export this year to Europe. That will not be reached,” Tumanggor said. The exports would likely reach around 1 million tonnes, he said.
He said the association is in consultation with the government on a response to the EU duties.
Indonesian Trade Minister Enggartiasto Lukita told reporters the government will file an official objection within five days.
He also reiterated that the government is encouraging dairy product importers to start looking for new sources of supply outside the EU.
The ministry will start a program for Indonesian dairy importers to help them find replacements for dairy products they usually import from the EU with products from the United States or other countries, he said. | 1,011 |
Call of Duty Mobile reached 180m downloads in launch quarter Sensor Tower: It's the most-downloaded mobile game of Q4 2019, and the second-most-downloaded of the year
Rebekah Valentine Senior Staff Writer Tuesday 14th January 2020 Share this article Share
Call of Duty: Mobile was the most-downloaded game on both the App Store and Google Play in Q4 2019, and the second-most downloaded game of the full-year 2019.
Launched at the start of the quarter on October 1, Call of Duty: Mobile secured over 180 million downloads according to Sensor Tower's Q4 2019 Data Digest. In its launch quarter, it had the second-best quarter of any mobile game ever in terms of worldwide downloads, losing out only to Pokemon Go's launch in Q3 of 2016.
It was also a standout in revenue in the US in particular, grossing nearly $50 million in its first 90 days. Since 2017, only Fortnite has had a better first 90 days in the US, grossing over $60 million after its mobile launch despite only releasing on the App Store, and not Google Play (it reached $100 million worldwide).
Across both Google Play and the App Store, Sand Balls was the second most-downloaded game in Q4 2019, reaching just under 100 million downloads. It was also No.2 on Google Play.
Mario Kart Tour was the second most-downloaded game on the App Store with over 80 million downloads in Q4. It was No.9 overall across both stores.
Fortnite was No.188 on the App Store, growing 8% quarter-over-quarter. This was Fortnite's first quarter of positive download growth since its 2018 mobile launch.
Games were the top category of download in Q4 on the App Store and Google Play, growing 11.3% year-over-year on the App Store to 2.33 billion downloads, and growing 18.8% year-over-year on Google Play to 8.59 billion downloads.
For the full year, PUBG Mobile was the most-downloaded game, reaching 285 million downloads combined across both store. Garena Free Fire was in second and also surpassed 250 million downloads, putting Subway Surfers in 3rd at over 200 million.
Fun Race 3D was the most-downloaded new game in 2019, with over 200 million downloads. Call of Duty Mobile came in second with its relatively late-year release. | 1,012 |
A woman goes into labor, and gives birth. The newborn is swaddled and placed to sleep in a nearby bassinet, or taken to the hospital nursery so that the mother can rest. Despite this common practice, new research published in Biological Psychiatry provides new evidence that separating infants from their mothers is stressful to the baby.
It is standard practice in a hospital setting, particularly among Western cultures, to separate mothers and their newborns. Separation is also common for babies under medical distress or premature babies, who may be placed in an incubator. In addition, the American Academy of Pediatrics specifically recommends against co-sleeping with an infant, due to its association with Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, or SIDS.
Humans are the only mammals who practice such maternal-neonate separation, but its physiological impact on the baby has been unknown until now. Researchers measured heart rate variability in 2-day-old sleeping babies for one hour each during skin-to-skin contact with mother and alone in a cot next to mother's bed. Neonatal autonomic activity was 176% higher and quiet sleep 86% lower during maternal separation compared to skin-to-skin contact.
Dr. John Krystal, Editor of Biological Psychiatry, commented on the study's findings: "This paper highlights the profound impact of maternal separation on the infant. We knew that this was stressful, but the current study suggests that this is major physiologic stressor for the infant."
This research addresses a strange contradiction: In animal research, separation from mother is a common way of creating stress in order to study its damaging effects on the developing newborn brain. At the same time, separation of human newborns is common practice, particularly when specialized medical care is required (e.g. incubator care). "Skin-to-skin contact with mother removes this contradiction, and our results are a first step towards understanding exactly why babies do better when nursed in skin-to-skin contact with mother, compared to incubator care," explained study author Dr. Barak Morgan.
More research is necessary to further understand the newborn response to separation, including whether it is sustained response and whether it has any long-term neurodevelopmental effects.
However, skin-to-skin contact has known benefits, and certainly, most would agree that unnecessarily stressing a newborn is unacceptable. Thus, as further evidence emerges, the challenge to doctors will be to incorporate skin-to-skin contact into routine treatment whilst still safely providing the other elements of newborn medical care. | 1,013 |
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Sources tell POLITICO that Democratic senators have been unable to secure a meeting with Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly. | Getty Senate Democrats denied immigration meeting with Kelly
For more than two weeks, a group of Democratic senators has privately sought a meeting with Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly to press him on the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement policies.
That meeting has yet to materialize, according to Democratic sources — even as the DHS chief heads to Capitol Hill on Friday to field questions from House Democrats about the same tactics.
Instead, DHS offered a meeting with Thomas Homan, the acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and Kevin McAleenan, the acting commissioner of Customs and Border Protection, according to two sources and emails obtained by POLITICO that detail the Democrats’ attempts to secure a meeting with Kelly.
DHS acting deputy assistant secretary David Lapan responded that the department has been working with the offices of Democratic Sens. Dick Durbin of Illinois and Claire McCaskill of Missouri to arrange a sit-down between Kelly and senators. The group of Democrats includes 16 senators who closely follow immigration policy, according to one of the sources.
"There has been no refusal to meet," Lapan said in an e-mail. "The secretary looks forward to meeting with House members tomorrow and senators once the meetings are scheduled."
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The Trump administration has enacted new policies that give immigration enforcement officials broad discretion to arrest and deport immigrants in the United States illegally, as well as legal immigrants with criminal records. But the new administration’s crackdown has alarmed immigrant-rights activists and Democratic lawmakers.
The caucus-wide meeting with House Democrats on Friday is the group's first meeting with a Trump Cabinet official, although that confab isn't arriving without its own controversies. A small group of about a dozen House Republicans and Democrats met privately with Homan in mid-February. But that meeting with the acting ICE head occurred after he canceled a meeting with House Democrats, with the lawmakers being told that Republicans needed to be represented.
When the briefing was rescheduled, some members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus — which had initially requested the ICE sit-down — were kicked out or not allowed in to the meeting. | 1,015 |
hard enough."
As Kosmix and other search engines improve, he says, they will make the internet truly transparent: "You will be on the same level playing field as the bad guys." The internet as a sort of electronic panopticon, everything on it unforgivingly visible and retrievable – suddenly its current murky depths seem in some ways preferable.
Ten years ago Tim Berners-Lee, the British computer scientist credited with inventing the web, wrote: "I have a dream for the web in which computers become capable of analysing all the data on the web – the content, links, and transactions between people … A 'Semantic Web', which should make this possible, has yet to emerge, but when it does, the day-to-day mechanisms of trade, bureaucracy and our daily lives will be handled by machines talking to machines." Yet this "semantic web" remains the stuff of knotty computer science papers rather than a reality.
"It's really been the holy grail for 30 years," says Bergman. One obstacle, he continues, is that the internet continues to expand in unpredictable and messy surges. "The boundaries of what the web is have become much more blurred. Is Twitter part of the web or part of something else? Now the web, in a sense, is just everything. In 1998, the NEC laboratory at Princeton published a paper on the size of the internet. Who could get something like that published now? You can't talk about how big the internet is. Because what is the metric?"
Gold Rush
It seems likely that the internet will remain in its Gold Rush phase for some time yet. And in the crevices and corners of its slightly thrown-together structures, darknets and other private online environments will continue to flourish. They can be inspiring places to spend time in, full of dissidents and eccentrics and the internet's original freewheeling spirit. But a darknet is not always somewhere for the squeamish.
On Freenet, there is a currently a "freesite" which makes allegations against supposed paedophiles, complete with names, photographs, extensive details of their lives online, and partial home addresses. In much smaller type underneath runs the disclaimer: "The material contained in this freesite is hearsay... It is not admissable in court proceedings and would certainly not reach the burden of proof requirement of a criminal trial." For the time being, when I'm wandering around online, I may stick to Google. | 1,016 |
recovery, SCP-3165 was found wearing soiled cotton underwear and a pink thermal. Testing has revealed that dried spots of blood caking the clothing are from 17 different sources; all sources are individuals who were reported as missing from 19██-19██ around the location of SCP-3165's recovery. A biopsy of SCP-3165 shows that it relied heavily on human beings as its primary food source, but was unable to gather sufficient nutrition from this diet.
Less than 100m away, Foundation personnel discovered a cave that SCP-3165 utilized for shelter. Several objects hoarded by SCP-3165 have been recovered, none of which possess anomalous properties. These items include twelve pieces of stainless steel jewelry, including a locket which contains the image of a young blonde woman, who has since been identified as Elizabeth ██████. She was reported missing in 19██ after a visit to Ukraine with her partner; both individuals are presumed to have been killed by SCP-3165. Additional discoveries include a face that has been separated from the head, peeled up by the dermis. Rough cuts have been made around the eye sockets and oral cavity, suggesting the use of the skin as a mask.
Addendum-1: On 09/09/20██, a Foundation-cleared child psychologist assessed SCP-3165's mental capacity and determined that it is able to understand at least two hundred words of the English language. SCP-3165 also possesses the developmental reasoning and behaviors of a roughly six to seven-year-old human being, including a desire for physical contact. Researchers communicating with SCP-3165 have been advised accordingly to use simple language.
Addendum-2: To date, SCP-3165 has made the following requests:
A weighted blanket to simulate human comfort (approved)
Jewelry (approved), limited to plastic jewelry.
A female companion to remain in its containment chamber at all times (denied)
A synthetic wig (denied)
Drawing utensils (approved), crayons provided for additional communication in further testing.
Non-toxic makeup (approved) and assistance in applying it from Foundation personnel (pending approval)
Books and reading lessons (approved)
Indoor roaming privileges (denied)
Physical recreation (approved), access allowed to Foundation gymnasium when accompanied by two guards and an assigned physical therapist, due to the abnormalities of SCP-3165's physique.
Addendum-3: | 1,017 |
WASHINGTON (AP) — The State Department said Wednesday it has terminated support for an online project aimed at fighting Iranian disinformation after it tweeted harsh criticism of individual human rights workers, academics and journalists, some of whom are U.S. citizens.
Lea Gabrielle, the head of the department’s Global Engagement Center, said at a congressional hearing that funding for an outside contractor that ran the @IranDisinfo Twitter feed has been eliminated. The funding had been suspended last month pending a review of the tweets in question. Gabrielle told the House Appropriations Subcommittee that the review determined the tweets violated the terms of the State Department’s agreement with the contractor.
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“The intent was to unveil Iranian disinformation,” she said, adding that the tweets “were not in the context that was intended. They were outside the scope of the agreement that we had.”
“We have since terminated our agreement with that implementer,” Gabrielle said. “It was never the intent of the Global Engagement Center to have anyone tweeting at U.S. citizens.”
She did not say exactly when the agreement was canceled or how much money the contractor had received.
When its funding was suspended in June, the year-old account had a modest audience of fewer than 2,000 followers. At least some of those followers are fierce opponents of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal from which President Donald Trump withdrew last year.
The suspension came after several people targeted by @IranDisinfo pointed out what they called harassment by a U.S. government-linked account. They suggested they were being targeted for criticizing or questioning the Trump administration’s hard-line stance on Iran.
Among those criticized by the now-deleted tweets were a researcher for Human Rights Watch, a Washington Post columnist, a BBC journalist and a professor at Georgetown University, according to Negar Mortazavi, an Iranian-American commentator who was also targeted and has been outspoken on the matter.
“This is great news for democracy and rule of law but it is not enough,” Mortazavi said Wednesday. She said other projects run by the same contractor should also be reviewed to ensure their compliance with the standards.
The Global Engagement Center was created by Congress to run online efforts to combat extremism. That portfolio was later expanded to include fighting foreign government propaganda, particularly from Russia, after Russian attempts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election, in part by using social media. | 1,018 |
Clearly Utah is not diverse enough yet, but it is, with this smoking backpack at Pine View High School, rapidly approaching an acceptable level of diversity.
“Student who left explosives had posted ISIS propaganda, police say,” by Pat Reavy, KSL, March 6, 2018 (thanks to Reed):
ST. GEORGE — St. George police continued Tuesday to investigate why a student allegedly left a backpack with explosive materials in a high school and has been posting ISIS propaganda.
The student, whose name and age were not released Tuesday, was arrested Monday after a backpack with explosives was found in the commons area of Pine View High School, the area where students eat lunch.
Alert students spotted the backpack was “smoking” and immediately contacted school administrators and the school resource officer, according to police.
“From that initial investigation, it was determined that a homemade explosive device was inside the backpack,” according to a prepared statement Tuesday from police. “After examining the device, bomb squad members indicted that if it had detonated, the device had the potential to cause significant injury or death.”
The school was evacuated while local and federal officials investigated. A male student who attends a class at Pine View was identified as the suspect.
“A warrant was served on the residence of that juvenile and items were located that were consistent with the materials used to build the device placed at Pine View. Based on our investigation we can confirm this was a failed attempt to detonate a homemade explosive at the school,” police wrote.
“It was also determined that the male had been researching information and expressing interest in ISIS and promoting the organization.”
Police believe the same teen is responsible for graffiti spray-painted on a wall at Hurricane High School that stated, “ISIS is comi–” and for replacing the high school’s flag with an ISIS flag in February….
According to the Washington County School District, the student was only taking one class at the high school because he was part of the Success Academy, a partnership with Dixie State University that allows students to enroll concurrently for high school and college classes. The program is typically for accelerated learning students, according to the district….
St. George police on Tuesday praised the students who immediately reported the backpack that had smoke coming from it, as well as the Washington County School District for previously practicing evacuations, leading to “a quick and seamless evacuation” of Pine View High on Monday. | 1,019 |
Nuclear Engineers Arrested for Mining Cryptocurrency Using Government Supercomputer
Russian nuclear scientists working at a top-secret nuclear center have been arrested for allegedly using the center’s computer facilities for the purpose of mining cryptocurrencies.
Also Read: Russia’s Largest Bank Caught Employees Mining For Crypto
Russian Nuclear Engineers Arrested for Secrectly Mining Cryptocurrencies
Engineers working for the All-Russian Research Institute of Experimental Physics at the Federal Nuclear Centre in Sarov have been arrested for using the power of a supercomputer to mine cryptocurrencies. The Federal Nuclear Center in Sarov is a restricted area, with the Soviet Union’s first nuclear weapon having been developed at the facility.
It has been reported that the engineers commandeered a supercomputer which is not meant to be connected to the internet in order to prevent intrusion. Upon connecting the computer to the internet, the nuclear center’s security department was immediately alerted. The unnamed scientists are now in the custody of the Federal Security Service.
Tatyana Zalesskaya, the head of the research institute’s press service, stated that “There has been an unsanctioned attempt to use computer facilities for private purposes including so-called mining,” adding, “As far as we are aware, a criminal case has been launched against them.” Zalesskaya noted that similar attempts have been made by the employees of Russian private companies possessing large computation power, describing such as a “criminal offense.”
Crimean Officials Previously Fired for Mining Cryptocurrencies
In October 2017, two officials of the Crimea Council of Ministers were fired for mining cryptocurrencies using government computer facilities. The Russian Federal Security Service identified the unsanctioned activities and fired the officials before they were able to realize their profits.
The Chairman of the Anti-Corruption Committee of the Republic of Crimea, Alexander Akshatin, stated at the time that the culprits “put malicious software on the server of the Crimean government, which opened access to the information stored on it. Concurrently, more than a dozen computers in the basement of the building were also used which gave this same access.”
Do you think that employees using their employers’ computer facilities and power to mine crypto will become a widespread issue in future? Share your thoughts in the comments section below!
Images courtesy of Shutterstock
Want to create your own secure cold storage paper wallet? Check our tools section. | 1,020 |
Harley-Davidson Inc. surged past expectations for first-quarter profit on Tuesday and drew a change of tack from US President Donald Trump, who vowed to protect the motorcycle maker from European tariffs, driving its shares up 3 percent.
Trump had previously criticized Harley for its plans to shift some US production overseas to avoid European Union duties imposed in retaliation for the tariffs the White House placed on imported steel and aluminum last year.
But ahead of a speech Saturday in Wisconsin, where Harley is based, the president said on Twitter that the bloc’s treatment of the company had been “unfair” and vowed to reciprocate.
“The shares have rallied (we think) in anticipation of potential tariff relief … we remain cautious in our outlook for the U.S. motorcycle industry, and continue to rate the shares Hold,” Stifel analyst Drew Crum said.
The costs of Trump’s trade wars have only added to the troubles of the world’s most iconic motorcycle brand, which has struggled to attract younger fans as its core customers won in the rebel heyday of the 1960s and ’70s grow older.
Earlier this year, Harley said the retaliatory import duties imposed by the European Union on its bikes would cost the company between $100 million and $120 million in 2019.
EU tariffs on US-manufactured motorcycles, which increased to 31 percent from 6 percent last June, are set to rise to 56 percent in 2021.
Similarly, China’s tariffs on the bikes exported from the US have increased to 55 percent from 30 percent as a result of the trade war between the world’s two biggest economies.
The company topped expectations for first-quarter profit by more than 30 cents per share and stuck to shipment forecasts for the whole of 2019, which some analysts had expected to be cut.
Overall sales, however, continued to fall. US retail motorcycle sales, or sales by dealers to customers, fell 4.2 percent in the first quarter ended March 31. European sales were down 2.1 percent.
The company’s overall net income fell 26.7 percent to $127.9 million in the quarter, while revenue from motorcycles and related products fell 12.3 percent to $1.19 billion, roughly in line with forecasts.
That generated earnings per share, excluding items, of 98 cents, compared with the average analyst estimate of 65 cents per share, according to IBES data from Refinitiv. | 1,021 |
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Mardy Fish was at a rock bottom. He had just blown a fifth set lead in the second round of the 2007 U.S. Open to Tommy Robredo on Armstrong Stadium. There are no other words to put it, it was a brutal choke. 64 36 64 67 64.
After the match at the press conference, a local reporter named Lloyd Carroll of the Queens Chronicle asked Fish, then in his mid 20s – an unintentionally provocative question which struck a nerve.
Carroll asked if Fish, ranked #40 at the time, if he was “content to be a journeyman on the ATP circuit after getting bounced yet again in the second round of the U.S. Open” by Robredo. Fish, a bit hurt, replied, “So you think I suck?!”
This impromptu reporter-athlete interaction seemed to light a fire inside of Fish. At the 2008 Australian Open, Fish thrashed Robredo 61 62 63. A year later Fish came back to the 2008 U.S. Open ranked #24. More injuries and setbacks stunted Fish’s progress and his ranking dropped again. But before the 2010 season, Fish lost 30 pounds and got in the best shape of his life. By June of 2011, Fish was in the top 10 and was beating players like Murray and Nadal.
The turning point of Fish’s career clearly seemed to be the press conference episode with Carroll. Lloyd and myself joked about it though we also knew it was not entirely a joke.
At one of the U.S. Open press conference by Fish in a following year, Carroll, a very jocular and personable sort with a built-in smile, cracked to Fish that he felt he deserved partial credit for his career turnaround and Fish replied with a smile himself, “And so you should.”
So there it was, the official confirmation from Fish himself.
Yes, it actually happened in tennis. A journalist calling an ATP pro a “journeyman” at a press conference actually sparked one of the most remarkable hot streaks of the decade.
“Clearly I motivated him to a higher level!” says a proud Lloyd Carroll about the spontaneous incident in 2007 which slipped unnoticed by most all of the tennis media.
"Journeyman" Fish became a star
<< Wondering If Rafa Will Ever Be Rafa Again
Silent Tennis Art Auction By Andres Bella >> | 1,022 |
You probably know that this game is a shooter where your main objective is to splatter the other person's territory with ink. In your ink you You probably know that this game is a shooter where your main objective is to splatter the other person's territory with ink. In your ink you can turn into a squid ant move 2x faster and you refill your ammo. If you didn't Know, well there you go. Let's Get straight to the Points (Overall I give it a 8.9)
Pros:
+ AMAZING IDEA that is implemented very well
+ Customization
+The game's online runs at a gorgeous 60 frames/sec and has little to no lag
+ Fun and addicting Story Mode
+Addicting as all heck
+The music is AMAZING
+Controls are absolutely brilliant
+Great Central Hub
+Shop Keepers
+Squid Kids are a interesting and great idea
+Enemy Designs and Bosses are absolutely INK- CREADIBLE
Cons (most are minor things)
- No Voice Chat (although it would have been great to have, It didn't make too much of a difference in my opinion)
- Lack of content on release (will gain more in the form of free DLC)
- The signal player is super short
- The Squid Sisters (Basically they tell you the maps every 2 hours or when you boot up the game... It gets really annoying and there should totally be a skip option)
- Bland local player
- It's annoying that you cannot customize your Squid person when in the lobby
- NO GAMEPAD ONLY PLAY (This is more personal because my T.V looks like **** so I will not deduce points for this)
Neutral:
=Decently long loading times in which you can play a mini game
Final comment:
This game is extremely fun and is addicting as all hell. The online is INK-mayzing and the signal player is a work of art. Unfortunately, the bland local mode, lack of modes/ stages altogether(on launch), lack of voice chat, short single player and other minor details SPLAT on my enjoyment of this game, and stopped what could have been the best Nintendo game of the decade. That being said, this game is still amazing and will PAINT the way for it's predecessors to walk on. … Expand | 1,023 |
Orion Sang
Special to the Detroit Free Press
The past two years have seen a grad transfer from the Michigan basketball team catch on with a Big Ten team.
Two years ago, Max Bielfeldt finished his career with Indiana, and last season Spike Albrecht played his final year with Purdue this past season.
Now, their former teammate appears to be following their footsteps. According to Jeff Goodman of ESPN, former U-M guard Andrew Dakich will be transferring to Ohio State to play under new coach Chris Holtmann. Because Dakich graduated from Michigan, he does not have to sit out a year and will be eligible to play for the Buckeyes immediately.
Dakich appeared in 49 games during his career at Michigan, averaging 4.6 minutes per game, 0.4 points per game and 0.5 rebounds per game.
The news comes as a relative surprise, as Dakich had previously announced in May he would be transferring to Quinnipiac. Now, he’ll be playing against Michigan for one of its conference rivals. The two teams are slated to meet twice this upcoming season.
Dakich arrived in Ann Arbor as a walk-on and quickly proved to be an important member of the team. In his second season, he burnt his redshirt when the Wolverines were saddled with injuries, playing in 13 games and averaging 5.3 minutes per game. He sacrificed his redshirt once again the following season to come off the bench in 24 contests and average 4.6 minutes per game as a backup guard. This past season — his senior year — Dakich finally redshirted to preserve one final year of eligibility. Though he didn’t play, his last year in Ann Arbor still provided some highlights, including a viral moment where two police officers accosted Dakich during a team meeting before revealing he had been awarded a full scholarship.
Schedule: U-M released its nonconference schedule Monday, though many of the matchups had been reported. Michigan will open the season Nov. 11 vs. North Florida after a Nov. 3 exhibition against Grand Valley State. Highlights include Nov. 13 vs. Central Michigan, Nov. 16 vs. Southern Mississippi, Nov. 20-22 in the Maui Invitational, Nov. 29 at North Carolina, Dec. 9 vs. UCLA, Dec. 12 at Texas and Dec. 16 vs. Detroit Mercy at Little Caesars Arena.
Download our Wolverines Xtra app for free on Apple and Android devices! | 1,024 |
employees and customers alike. They spent July and August sending their beloved grocer into a nosedive until Arthur T. bought it out at market value. (Arthur S. and his side were hardly losers, having walked away with more than $1.5 billion.)
Store employees watched on television as Arthur T. addressed the company the day after he struck a deal to buy Market Basket, ending the weeks-long standoff. —AP
There were casualties after last summer’s drama reached its conclusion.
Two company leaders who refused to walk out on new management—a third Demoulas cousin, Jack Demoulas, and human resources official Stephanie Messina—left the business in the months after Arthur T. returned to power.
Tim Malley, whose seafood company at the time (he has since retired) cut off relations with the new management last August, said he heard through the grapevine that at least one vendor who kept working with Market Basket throughout the summer is no longer doing business with the company. He declined to identify the vendor. Trainor characterized these scenarios as the normal course of business.
The company also established a new board of directors after the deal closed in December. Keith Cowan, the chairman of the board that fired Arthur T. and later worked with the dueling cousins to strike a deal, declined to speak for this article unless, he said in an email, the story was about “how a nearly thirty year old shareholder dispute was carefully managed by the first-ever independent members of the board.’’ Many business experts told the Globe last summer that they felt the board handled the situation quite poorly.
Arthur T. Demoulas declined to speak for this article, and Arthur S. Demoulas could not be reached for comment.
A year after the two sides of the Demoulas family reached a deal, Market Basket has become the subject of a book, a documentary, business school case studies, and the stump speech of the frontrunning Democratic presidential candidate. As Market Basket’s story develops into legend, though, those who wrote it are keeping their eyes on the reason they did so: the future of the company.
They point to Market Basket’s success since last summer as evidence.
“Yeah, it’ll be a hell of a story to tell my grandkids,’’ said Trainor. “But that’s not the reason we did it.’’ | 1,025 |
A federal judge dismissed Sarah Palin’s defamation lawsuit against The New York Times on Tuesday.
Palin sued the Times for defamation after an editorial in the newspaper on mass shootings tied an ad run by the former vice presidential nominee to the 2011 shooting of former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (R-Ariz.).
"Nowhere is political journalism so free, so robust, or perhaps so rowdy as in the United States," Judge Jed Rakoff wrote in an opinion dismissing the case.
"In the exercise of that freedom, mistakes will be made, some of which will be hurtful to others."
Rakoff found that Palin did not meet the legal standard of proving malice toward a public figure, noting that the paper issued two corrections to the editorial in the hours after it was published.
“Such behavior is much more plausibly consistent with making an unintended mistake and then correcting it than with acting with actual malice,” he wrote.
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Updated 4:05 p.m.
He also noted that Palin would have to sue the individual responsible for the alleged defamation and not the entire publication, but that her case would still fall short if she had done so."Here, plaintiff's complaint, even when supplemented by facts developed at an evidentiary hearing convened by the Court, fails to make that showing. Accordingly, the complaint must be dismissed," the decision reads."Negligence this may be; but defamation of a public figure it plainly is not."Rakoff, who was appointed by former President Clinton in 1996, is a senior United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.Palin alleged in the lawsuit that the Times falsely accused her of "inciting a mass shooting at a political event in January 2011” and of running a claim it “knew to be false.”Theeditorial had initially stated that Palin’s political action committee had run an ad showing Democratic lawmakers faces under crosshairs, when, in reality, the clip depicted their districts, not their faces.The editorial was in response to the shooting at a GOP congressional baseball practice in June that left House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) severely wounded.The newspaper issued a correction on the editorial saying the piece "incorrectly stated that a link existed between political rhetoric and the 2011 shooting of Representative Gabby Giffords.""In fact, no such link was established," the correction read. | 1,026 |
Cleverbot, is another believer in the imminence of the AI revolution. He believes that "we are a long way from having the computing power or developing the algorithms needed to achieve full artificial intelligence, but believes it will come in the next few decades".
Atanu Basu, the founder of Ayata, a platform that uses artificial intelligence software to improve mission-critical processes and Michael Simmons, the co-founder of Empact, a company which helps build the entrepreneurship, recently wrote an article in online magazine Inc.com The Future Belongs To Leaders Who Get Artificial Intelligence in which they descibed what they feel the adoption of AI and machine intelligence will be like in the future. They wrote:
“The transition from human intelligence to machine intelligence in our daily lives and in the enterprise is going to be messy.
It will challenge our identity.
It will go against our expert intuition that we've spent our careers building.
It will inherently require giving trust and control away to decisions we don't understand.
It will create larger and more diverse opportunities than we can even fathom today.
That's why we call it the surprise-fear-embrace curve, and that's why we'd argue that one of the most important skills we can learn is how to ride it.”
David Ferrucci, the principal investigator in creating perhaps currently most famous AI software, IBM Watson is also quoted in this article explaining that he thinks it’s going to be a strange transition for people to start listening to computers for expert advice and opinions rather than humans renowned for being experts in their specific fields.
So there you have a short history of AI and some thoughts on what the future of AI may look like. It will be very interesting to see how this future plays out.
What are your thoughts? How do you think AI will change our lives and in particular in relation to business and contracting?
ContractRoom is a contract management software system. It uses machine learning and artificial intelligence to change the way deals get done and decisions are made with Predictive AgreementTM. To find out more about ContractRoom go to www.contractroom.com and/or book a demo here:
* Mind as Machine: A History of Cognitive Science. Margaret A. Boden. Two volumes, xlviii + 1631 pp. Oxford University Press, 2006.
This article was written with assistance from Jennifer Tran who is interning with ContractRoom over the summer. | 1,027 |
Chinese officials, and those overseeing the security apparatus in particular, have long been suspicious of the efforts of lawyers to ensure that everyone is protected equally under the law. The ability of lawyers to practice has been curtailed, and some have been punished, particularly those championing issues related to civil rights and political expression. Some lawyers who were detained secretly during a broad security crackdown last year say they were beaten and tortured.
Several prominent rights lawyers have been subjected to lengthy and sometimes unexplained detentions, including Gao Zhisheng, who was initially convicted of inciting subversion in 2006 and is now in prison in Xinjiang; Chen Guangcheng, who has been forcibly confined to his home in Shandong Province with his wife and daughter since completing a four-year, three-month prison term in September 2010; and Jiang Tianyong, who said he was tortured during an illegal two-month detention last year.
On Wednesday, the Justice Ministry posted an explanation with the oath that said its goal was to, among other things, ensure that lawyers followed the core values of “loyalty, devotion to the people, justice and probity.” The aim of the oath is also to “effectively improve the ideological and political quality, professional ethics and skills of lawyers.”
But some critics said the oath was a farce. “The oath itself is full of contradictions,” said Pu Zhiqiang, a lawyer who has represented Lu Qing, the wife of Ai Weiwei, the rebel artist who was detained without charge in two secret locations for 81 days last year. “Lawyers swear loyalty to the party and to the sanctity of the law? We all know that the party’s interference is often the reason why the law can’t be implemented.”
Politics and the law are inseparable under Communist rule. This month, there was much debate during the National People’s Congress over proposed revisions to the criminal procedure law. Legislators eventually passed a law that had one notable victory for legal reformers and rights lawyers: family members of detainees must be notified within 24 hours of the detention. But the police do not have to say where or why the person is being held, and the new law has been widely criticized for a clause that allows the police to hold a suspect in secret for up to six months in cases involving national security, terrorism or serious bribery. The police tend to define “national security” or “state security” in broad terms. | 1,028 |
By Moises Castillo and Romina Ruiz-Goiriena / Associated Press
Thousands of indigenous Guatemalans shouted in anger Friday and some threw themselves at the coffins of six local people who were shot to death during a protest over electricity prices and educational reform in a poor rural area.
A seventh victim died later at a hospital in the western city of Quezaltenango.
President Otto Perez Molina acknowledged that government forces had opened fire during the protest Thursday, after saying earlier that police and troops on the scene had been unarmed and the protesters had provoked the clash.
Human rights groups condemned the government’s actions and charged they were part of a pattern of excessive use of force against protesters.
The protesters were blockading a highway near the town of Totonicapan, about 90 miles west of Guatemala City, when two vehicles carrying soldiers arrived to help police who had been ordered to evict the demonstrators. Gunfire erupted after the troops came. Bullets killed seven people and wounded 34, officials said.
“We were protesting right next to them when they opened fire on us,” said Rolando Carrillo, a 25-year-old protester with a bandaged arm and lacerated face that he said resulted from being hit during the clash.
The president told reporters Friday afternoon that armed security guards had driven the soldiers to the protest. One of the guards apparently was the first to start shooting and then an unspecified number of others fired at the crowd, Molina said.
He said seven soldiers injured in the confrontation had said they only fired into the air to protect themselves from what they considered to be a threatening crowd.
Interior Minister Mauricio Lopez Bonilla said the president had suspended the order to evict the protesters from the highway.
Some 20 human rights organizations called an emergency meeting in the capital to discuss the incident and called for a protest in front of the presidential palace.
“We’ve been saying for a long time that the army’s use of force brings with it the risk that something like this could happen,” said Francisco Soto, a representative of the Center for Legal Action and Human Rights.
Six of the dead were buried Friday afternoon in Totonicapan, where thousands gathered to watch their coffins pass through the town’s central square. Hundreds shouted “Justice! Justice!” while dozens of mourners hurled themselves toward the coffins in grief.
Read more from The Washington Post: | 1,029 |
The Dáil’s Committee on Procedures is to discuss on Wednesday whether to penalise politicians who dress inappropriately in the House.
The committee will meet to consider if a dress code should be imposed in the Dáil and Seanad.
The TDs will receive a 45-page research paper on issues relating to the standards of dress in 40 other parliaments.
The report was requested by the Ceann Comhairle Seán Ó’Fearghaíl following a number of complaints regarding members’ attire.
The document, seen by The Irish Times, says 16 parliaments, including those in Portugal and Israel, as well as the European Parliament, have no dress code or regulations concerning what members wear.
However, the report adds that their custom and practice is to “dress formally and neatly” without explicit rules.
Specific regulations
The paper says 24 parliaments, including the United Kingdom, Spain and France, have specific regulations.
Poll
These include the banning of jeans, bathing shorts, sports clothes, hats, headdresses, caps and shirts that contain political statements.
In Canada, turtlenecks and ascots are prohibited while in Bosnia and Herzegovina slippers, backless shoes and a naked torso are described as inappropriate.
The report analyses what penalties can be enforced if members fail to abide by the regulations imposed.
Written censure, suspension from sittings or direct discipline from their party are examples of potential enforcement measures.
In the UK and Canada, members will not be called to speak and may be asked to leave the chamber if dressed inappropriately.
In many cases it says the dress code is enforced by the speaker of the house while in others the security service prevents those not suitably dressed from entering premises.
Declined entry
The report also explores written dress rules for visitors similar to parliament in Latvia and Israel. Persons not dressed appropriately will be declined entry.
Current Dáil rules state merely that members should dress “in a manner that reflects the dignity of the House”.
The introduction of a dress code has been proposed several times in recent years but has never come to pass.
The committee is expected to prepare a draft proposal based on the research supplied to it.
Mr Ó’Fearghaíl is understood to advocate a dress code, given the number of complaints which have been made to his office about the matter. | 1,030 |
Game Informer's December coverage is focused on Arkane's Prey, scheduled for release in Spring 2017 on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC.
The first video interview with Lead Designer Ricardo Bare sheds some interesting details on the team's design inspirations and choices.
Initially, the first few spaces you traverse are more constrained but then once you emerge into the space station proper, you pretty much have free reign. But there are some natural gameplay barriers. For instance, there's an elevator that takes you to all the major decks of the space station, but it's broken. If you figure out how to fix it, then you open up much more of the space station. [On Prey being a mesh of System Shock and Super Metroid] There's a fair analogy there, people have said "Metroidvania", that style of game because of the fact that it is one giant interconnected mission with a lot of retraversal and a lot of gating. There's a fair comparison there and that's one of the ways Prey is different than Dishonored, which is a mission based game whereas this one is more like another game that Arkane made, Arx Fatalis. This was one big underground interconnected dungeon and in fact, early on we called Prey our space dungeon game. I guess it's definitely a difficult game. Especially as the game goes on, I expect players will have to change their strategies and experiment a lot when they encounter some of the Typhon creatures. If there's a spectrum, you could probably describe a game like Dark Souls as pretty hardcore and some of us are big fans of that game. There's a little bit of splash of that in there, there's some survival elements and some really hard challenges to overcome.
The interviewer then pressed to learn more about these survival elements.
For instance, we have the trauma system. If you fall from great height, your bones can break. If you run into an engineering operator, which is kind of a robot in our game, it's malfunctioning and it might give you third-degree burns. When that happens there are some penalties and you need to go find a medical operator to remove them.
While Arkane's Prey might not be the sequel Human Head was developing, it seems to be an interesting game in its own right. Stay tuned on Wccftech for more information as we get closer to the Spring 2017 launch.
In the meantime, you can check out the latest gameplay video showcased at The Game Awards 2016. | 1,031 |
Mansfield Woodhouse restaurant turns away blind man and guide dog Published duration 1 June 2016
media caption Guide dog refused at Chinese restaurant
A blind man has said he was "incredibly disappointed" to be turned away from a restaurant because his guide dog was deemed a "hygiene risk" by the manager.
Nathan Edge filmed the moment he, his girlfriend and dog, Hudson, were turned away from the Shangri-La, near Mansfield, on Saturday where they had planned to celebrate his birthday.
Eating establishments are legally required to let assistance dogs in.
The restaurant has since apologised and said it was due to a lack of space.
image copyright Guide Dogs image caption Mr Edge has campaigned for better rights for people with assistance dogs
The video of them being refused entry has been viewed more than 50,000 times.
Mr Edge, 21, said most places he eats "go above and beyond" to make him feel welcome.
He said: "I was surprised and incredibly disappointed. All I wanted to do was have a nice night out with my girlfriend and have an equal choice.
"I wasn't asking for any special measures just to be treated equal, so it was very hurtful."
Guide dogs and the law
Under the Equality Act, service providers must make reasonable adjustments to make sure disabled people are not treated less favourably, including amending "no dogs" policies to allow guide dogs entry.
Guide dogs and assistance dogs are highly trained and hygienic, according to Kelly France from the Guide Dogs for the Blind Association.
"Guide dogs are there to give people independence and mobility. To have someone say 'you can't come in here' is terrible."
Jason Liu, from the Shangri-La in Mansfield Woodhouse, said the incident was not about discrimination but "purely around adequate spacing and health and safety".
"I would like to apologise and understand this incident has greatly upset Mr Edge and his party," he said.
"I would like to make it very clear that we have no issues accepting guide dogs into our establishment, this is a proven fact as Mr Edge has dined with us previously."
image copyright Google image caption Nathan Edge had visited the Shangri-La Chinese restaurant in Mansfield Woodhouse with his guide dog on a previous occasion
Mr Edge said he joined over 100 campaigners in Westminster last week to lobby MPs to do more for the rights of assistance dog owners. | 1,032 |
A dead whale that washed ashore in eastern Indonesia had a large lump of plastic waste in its stomach, including drinking cups and flip-flops, a park official said Tuesday, causing concern among environmentalists and government officials in one of the world's largest plastic polluting countries.
Rescuers from Wakatobi National Park found the rotting carcass of the 9.5-meter (31-foot) sperm whale late Monday near the park in Southeast Sulawesi province after receiving a report from environmentalists that villagers had surrounded the dead whale and were beginning to butcher the rotting carcass, park chief Heri Santoso said.
Santoso said researchers from wildlife conservation group WWF and the park's conservation academy found about 5.9 kilograms (13 pounds) of plastic waste in the animal's stomach containing 115 plastic cups, four plastic bottles, 25 plastic bags, 2 flip-flops, a nylon sack and more than 1,000 other assorted pieces of plastic.
"Although we have not been able to deduce the cause of death, the facts that we see are truly awful," said Dwi Suprapti, a marine species conservation coordinator at WWF Indonesia.
She said it was not possible to determine if the plastic had caused the whale's death because of the animal's advanced state of decay.
Indonesia, an archipelago of 260 million people, is the world's second-largest plastic polluter after China, according to a study published in the journal Science in January. It produces 3.2 million tons of mismanaged plastic waste a year, of which 1.29 million tons ends up in the ocean, the study said.
Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan, Indonesia's coordinating minister of maritime affairs, said the whale's discovery should raise public awareness about the need to reduce plastic use, and had spurred the government to take tougher measures to protect the ocean.
"I'm so sad to hear this," said Pandjaitan, who recently has campaigned for less use of plastic. "It is possible that many other marine animals are also contaminated with plastic waste and this is very dangerous for our lives."
He said the government is making efforts to reduce the use of plastic, including urging shops not to provide plastic bags for customers and teaching about the problem in schools nationwide to meet a government target of reducing plastic use by 70 percent by 2025.
"This big ambition can be achieved if people learn to understand that plastic waste is a common enemy," he told The Associated Press. | 1,033 |
New York Times reporter, R. W. Apple. Jr., reported on July 31, 1967, that Captain John K. Beling, the Forrestal's commanding officer, stated:
"for some unknown reason, a plane parked near the carrier's island, midway up the 1,045 foot flight deck, experienced an 'extreme wet start.'
"This malfunction, comparable to what happens when a cigarette lighter is ignited after having been filled to full, occurs about once a week on attack carriers, but almost never so severely as it did yesterday."
"A thick tongue of flame lashed backward from the parked jet, igniting a missile on one of the dozen or so planes parked near the fantail, their engines turning over in readiness for a strike launching scheduled for 11 a.m.The rocket ‘shot across the deck,’ Captain Beling said, 'and by a quirk of fate smashed into a fuel tank under a plane on the port side.'”
The plane struck by the missile was McCain’s A-4 Skyhawk, a fitting “quirk of fate” since it was McCain’s “wet start” that triggered the firing of the missile that hit his jet in the first place.
From the point of ignition of the missile in the conflagration on the Forrestal, McCain leapt from his jet and rolled out of the flames. No mention was ever made of McCain experiencing “wounds” from the incident in any of the accounts of those onboard the Forrestal in July, 1967 -- all lower in rank than McCain’s father who had rank over all officers in the Forrestal’s theater of operations.
According to established reports, McCain was the first person to be reassigned to the USS Oriskany, probably to protect him from the friends of the 134 killed and 161 injured on the USS Forrestal.What this all means is that John McCain and his campaign are “revising history,” using McCain’s father’s position within the Navy to hide and distort matters of historical fact.
All this fact-bending in order to spare the privileged son of a distinguished Naval officer the embarrassment of having to explain how he was responsible for the worst disaster on a naval aircraft carrier since World War II, and yet was honorably discharged and continues to receive a veteran’s pension.
John McCain, the American people would like your pension paid back to the Treasury, adjusted for inflation. | 1,034 |
Horus Heresy Single Model Any single miniature, either on foot or bike. Models may be mounted either on a standard base no bigger than 50mm wide or (in the case of the Character Series), the display base provided with the model.* Horus Heresy Squad Any collection of 3-10 miniatures on foot or 3-5 miniatures on bikes. Squad may be mounted on singular display base of appropriate size.** Horus Heresy Vehicle Any single vehicle. This category includes dreadnoughts of all kinds, and Titans. Duel This category comprises two single models mounted on a base no more than 50mm in width. The judges will be looking for a dynamic pairing of two well-matched opponents in some kind of combat or other dramatic situation. Unbound For dioramas, battle scenes, larger scale miniatures and all other models not covered by the categories above.
fourdadsoftheapocalypse.blogspot.com – A blog about Warhammer 40k and the Horus Heresy by four Dads
So, you've probably seen the hobby challenges we've been setting ourselves this year? Well, Christmas is not too far away (trust us, as a parent you need to start planning early! Or at least being a supportive husband when your wife starts planning in July...), and we're entering the busy period, so it's unlikely we're going to get another hobby challenge in.However, I do like a painting challenge, and I do love the Horus Heresy, so I'm going to target the Horus Heresy Golden Demon at the weekender in February as my next challenge.There's five categories and it's one entry per person, so I'm going to have a crack at them all:I may not get entries for the Duel or Vehicle categories ready in time, but if I aim for them all and get three out of five, I'll be chuffed. I have started a 'duel' but there's more than 2 characters on the base, so will have to go in to the 'unbound' category instead I think.For the Squad, I'm aiming for a three-man squad. I've got three awesome kit bashes in my legion tactical support squad which I've been dying to paint.I am currently working on my Legion Fellblade, but I don't use an airbrush and my style of painting vehicles isn't in fashion at the moment so I don't think it stands a chance.They are my thoughts for now. Let me know if you plan on entering, or if you have any tips?Dave | 1,035 |
staying at home - we are increasing our stocks of equipment, we are accelerating our search for treatments, we are pioneering work on a vaccine, and we are buying millions of testing kits that will enable us to turn the tide on this invisible killer."
And he concluded: "I want to thank everyone who is working flat out to beat the virus. Everyone from the supermarket staff to the transport workers to the carers to the nurses and doctors on the frontline.
"But in this fight we can be in no doubt that each and every one of us is directly enlisted. Each and every one of us is now obliged to join together to halt the spread of this disease and to protect our NHS and to save many many thousands of lives."
The PM's dramatic announcement came as the number of coronavirus cases in the UK rose to 6,650 in the latest 24 hours, with the number of deaths from the disease up by 55 to 336.
'I never imagined I could have been so sick'
It also follows a sunshine-bathed weekend in which thousands of people ignored official warnings to stay at home and Mr Johnson vowed to consider tougher action within 24 hours.
He carried out his threat after chairing a top level COBRA meeting of senior ministers, medical advisers and scientists - conducted via video conference to avoid risk - as he addressed TV viewers directly from inside 10 Downing Street.
Meanwhile, MPs rushed emergency legislation through the Commons in a single day, giving the government sweeping powers which could be on the statute book for two years.
The emergency legislation includes powers to shut airports and allow police to force people with virus symptoms to isolate, with the threat of £1,000 fines for those who refuse to take a coronavirus test.
Kids in quarantine get their exercise
Having completed its passage through the Commons, the Bill will be debated in the House of Lords on Tuesday and Wednesday and the Government hopes there will be no Lords amendments so it can receive royal assent and become law by Thursday.
Earlier Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab advised all British travellers to return to the UK now, before airline routes, land borders and other restrictions make it impossible.
He said: "Around the world, more airlines are suspending flights and more airports are closing, some without any notice.
"Where commercial routes don't exist, our staff are working round the clock to give advice and support to UK nationals. If you are on holiday abroad the time to come home is now while you still can." | 1,036 |
Toyota said Monday it plans to launch a fuel-cell car in the United States next year, declaring the hydrogen vehicle with zero emissions "the car of the future."
Toyota Motor Sales vice president Bob Carter said the initial market will be California, together with an initiative to establish hydrogen refueling stations in key regions of the state.
"In 2015, we will bring this car to market," Carter said in the announcement at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
The vehicle, yet to be named, would be a "zero-emission, electric-drive, mid-size, four-door sedan."
"Functionally, this is a regular car," he added.
The streamlined design is to maximize oxygen intake for the fuel-cell process. It will be able to travel 300 miles (480 kilometers) on a single fueling, which would take three to five minutes.
While car makers have long touted the advantages of fuel cells, high production costs and a lack of fuel stations have held back the technology.
Carter said however that Toyota had been getting results from its major investments and added that "we believe we can bring it in at a very reasonable price for a lot of people."
Government initiatives in California were making progress in getting hydrogen fueling stations in needed areas, he added.
"The issue of infrastructure is not so much about how many, but rather location, location, location," he said.
"Fuel cells will be in our future sooner than many people believe... and in much greater numbers than anyone expected."
Toyota unveiled a prototype last year at the Tokyo auto show, but on Monday offered more details for its plans for the US market.
Honda is also expected to roll out a fuel-cell car in the US market in 2015, and other automakers are working on the technology, which emits only water vapor as exhaust.
Honda already has a fuel-cell car, the FCX Clarity, available on a small scale in a limited number of markets.
Carter said that Toyota and California officials plan to add 20 new fuel stations by 2015 to the 10 existing ones. The goal is to have about 100 in the state, and to have a station within a six-minute drive of an owner's home or business.
"This infrastructure thing is going to happen," he said.
"I believe this vehicle will be the car of the future."
It is expected to launch in Japan at about the same time. | 1,037 |
While the commencement ceremonies at the United States Coast Guard Academy are always filled with a dazzling amount of pomp and circumstance, the Academy’s 78th commencement, which took place on June 3, 1964, was especially memorable. For the first time in history, the President of the United States would be delivering the commencement speech.
Plans had been made the year before to have President John F. Kennedy, a World War II veteran with an affinity for the Navy and Coast Guard service branches, speak to the graduating USCGA class of 1964. After Kennedy’s assassination in November 1963, newly sworn-in President Lyndon B. Johnson decided to honor his predecessor’s intentions and announced his commitment to delivering a commencement speech at the Academy.
On a sunny, beautiful spring day, Marine One (the helicopter carrying the President) touched down in New London and President Johnson arrived on the Coast Guard Academy campus to a twenty-one-gun salute. Standing on a podium in the center of the school’s football field in front of 5,000 spectators, Johnson delivered a speech that was somber and serious in tone, praising the resolve of United States servicemen while reminding them of the “dark realities” of the lingering threat of nuclear war with the Soviets. He concluded by declaring his hope that “this Nation can someday, not too distant, lay aside its awesome power, and direct all its genius to the betterment of man.”
After his speech, Johnson administered the Officer’s Oath and handed out diplomas to all 109 members of the graduating class of 1964. In return, having obtained special permission from the Secret Service, Class President Robert Armacost presented the President with a customized class ring and officially declared him an honorary member of the Class of 1964.
Today, the President of the United States delivers commencement speeches to all four U.S. military service academies on a rotating basis. In 1964, Lyndon B. Johnson became the very first one to visit the Coast Guard Academy in New London, today in Connecticut history.
Further Reading
Robert Armacost, “Lyndon B. Johnson, Presidential Classmate, CGA ’64,” USCGA Alumni Association
Lyndon B. Johnson, “Commencement Address in New London at the United States Coast Guard Academy, June 3, 1964,” The American Presidency Project
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| 1,038 |
is more socially conservative and has a "more traditional, authoritative style of parenting" than either the UK or the US, where her book has been a bestseller.
She sees both countries showing renewed interest in the French approach to parenting.
"I think there's a sense in the UK and elsewhere that the permissive, child-centred model of parenting has gone too far," she tells me.
But Even in France "you'd be hard-pressed to find an expert who was in favour of smacking".
Image copyright PA Image caption 2000: A child takes part in an anti-smacking demo at Downing Street
Over the last 50 years France has banned corporal punishment in schools, and a growing number of parents seem keen to avoid it. But this doesn't mean there would necessarily be support for a new law.
"French parents see a new law as insulting their ability to distinguish between a slap and child abuse," says Druckerman.
The Minister for the Family, Laurence Rossignol, meanwhile, told AFP that France didn't need a law, but a collective debate, adding: "I don't want to divide the country into two camps."
The Green Party tried last year to change the law to ban corporal punishment, but the initiative failed to get off the ground.
But Green MP Francois-Michel Lambert told the BBC that smacking was a "divisive question" and one that the government would most likely steer clear of while voters are "expecting results on the economy".
One reason why some people oppose a change to the law, commentators suggest, stems from their dislike of moralising or state interference.
Or maybe the government's moralising in the past worked too well.
"A bit of slapping never killed anyone," said one father waiting outside Roquepine primary school. "I was spanked as a child - it helped circulate the blood."
Perhaps his parents were listening to the radio in 1951?
Europe's smacking bans:
Albania, Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, FYR Macedonia, Malta, Moldova, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, San Marino, Spain, Sweden, Ukraine
Council of Europe: Progress towards prohibiting all corporal punishment
Subscribe to the BBC News Magazine's email newsletter to get articles sent to your inbox. | 1,039 |
Carole Radziwill came back with more than just terrible memories following the “Real Housewives of New York” cast’s infamous cruise from hell.
During an appearance on “Page Six TV,” the Bravo personality revealed she and some of her co-stars fell ill over a parasite.
“We all ate something that did not agree with us,” Radziwill, 54, explained. “I think it was a fish because Bethenny [Frankel] and Tinsley [Mortimer] are actually allergic to fish and they didn’t eat the fish, and the rest of us did and we all did come home with a parasite.”
While Radizwill has since received a clean bill of health, the miracles of modern medicine, however, have yet to remedy broken relationships. As the author also explained, her friendship with one-time BFF Frankel, 47, is on the rocks this season.
“Our friendship isn’t over, it’s just not what it was. I’m sort of an idealistic person and I sometimes view people idealistically, when I meet them, and now I just see her a little bit more realistically,” Radziwill said. “I think there were some things that were said that I heard that she had said, that I didn’t think were consistent with someone who was a good friend, and the person I knew her to be. I talked to her about it, and she doesn’t like to be confronted so I don’t know how well it went.”
Though Radziwill teased that viewers will see how the ominous conversation plays out, both she and Frankel returned from the hectic high seas, for the most part, unscathed.
Page Six exclusively reported in February a pleasure cruise the cast boarded in South America caught fire and started sinking.
“They all thought they were going to die and they were hysterical,” an insider shared. “Bethenny, Ramona [Singer] and Dorinda [Medley] were soaked and screaming hysterically, Carole and Tinsley were literally throwing up from seasickness. They were far out to sea and they thought they were going down like the Titanic.”
The 10th season of the “Real Housewives of New York” premieres Wednesday at 9 p.m. on Bravo. | 1,040 |
other school activities. But it warns on its website that it won't always win a dress code debate: "If you think your school's dress codes and hair codes are unfair and you want to challenge them, be aware that a court probably won't overturn the codes unless the judge finds that they're really unreasonable, or that they're discriminatory."
Many school districts say dress codes are a matter of order and safety -- and nobody is exempt.
In 2011 in Fremont, Nebraska, sixth-grader Elizabeth Carey was told she couldn't wear her rosary to school because it violated the school's dress code. She said it was an expression of her faith. Steve Sexton, Fremont's superintendent of schools, said local gangs were using rosaries as a symbol of gang affiliation.
"There are those who want to make this an issue about religion when it's about a singular goal -- to create a safe environment for our students," Sexton told CNN affiliate KETV.
Her parents said they were floored. Elizabeth said she wouldn't stop wearing the cross in necklaces or on her clothes.
Wouldn't any parent be upset about their child being punished for wearing a rosary, or dying his hair pink in support of breast cancer research
Buie said there are plenty of times when a call home to parents results in the recitation of the First Amendment. It's a relatively new challenge for educators, he said.
"Now we have parents that are more likely to support and defend their children as being the ones that are correct," he said. "If we've done something wrong, (parents) are going to come to us and let us know that we need to change or look at doing something differently --15, 20 years ago, that wasn't the case."
Explaining the dress code and why a child was told to change, leave school or even face suspension doesn't stop parents from being offended when their kids are punished, Buie said, or from glaring when he sees them at the grocery store.
While students have the right to free speech, it's the school's job to teach children that they can't infringe on someone else's rights, he said.
"Those are things that are taught in schools," he said, "accepting differences."
What styles would lead to discipline from your school? Do you know the dress code? Share your thoughts in the comments or on Twitter @CNNschools or on Facebook at CNN Living. | 1,041 |
The Obama Administration has been publicly pushing the idea that questions about the administration's actions and truthfulness in regards to last year's attack on the Benghazi consulate was a "phony scandal."
In private, though, it appears the Administration is working very hard not to have any information contradicting their claims to truthfulness from coming out. CNN is now reporting that "dozens" of CIA employees were on the ground in Benghazi at the time of the attack. Here's what the Administration is doing to try to keep that fact under wraps:
Since January, some CIA operatives involved in the agency's missions in Libya, have been subjected to frequent, even monthly polygraph examinations, according to a source with deep inside knowledge of the agency's workings. The goal of the questioning, according to sources, is to find out if anyone is talking to the media or Congress. It is being described as pure intimidation, with the threat that any unauthorized CIA employee who leaks information could face the end of his or her career. In exclusive communications obtained by CNN, one insider writes, "You don't jeopardize yourself, you jeopardize your family as well."
Let that last statement sink in. It ought to be a familiar tactic.
CNN's exclusive, of course, is not the first mention of CIA involvement in Benghazi. The second part of the Benghazi attack was on the CIA annex in the Libyan city. The CIA apparently was not sure how the attackers knew about the facility in the first place.
Paula Broadwell, the intelligence officer-cum-palace journalist whose affair with David Petraeus ended the general's career as CIA director, believed the CIA annex in Benghazi was a secret prison and that the attack was a jihadi jailbreak (something we've seen from Iraq to Pakistan in recent months).
President Obama and administration officials, of course, chose to blame a video, something that was known to be patently false very early on in the aftermath, both to US officials on the ground and anyone who was paying attention and had half a clue. The latest revelations about the extent of the CIA presence in Benghazi on September 11, and the extent to which the administration is trying to prevent it, at least provide some minor insight as to why the Obama Administration was so committed to the lie of the video.
I argued a few months ago that the answer to Hillary Clinton's question of "what difference does it make?" what the facts on Benghazi are is that it betrays a complete disregard for truthfulness from this administration to the public. That continues. | 1,042 |
A male Great Blue Heron spotted earlier this month with a plastic net stuck on its bill has been found dead in a pond at the Stonebridge Golf and Country Club.
The male Great Blue Heron was first spotted in a man-made pond along the Jock River in Barrhaven earlier this month. (CBC)
The distressed heron was first seen earlier this month by residents along Half Moon Bay on the Jock River.
Its bill was forced shut by a red plastic net, and it was unable to hunt for food.
People tried to rescue it but when anyone got close, the heron flew away.
Residents thought heron would make it
Photographer Dan Rogall, who lives near Half Moon Bay and had been tracking the bird, said he saw it for the last time about a week ago.
Photographer Dan Rogall said he was shocked when he learned that the heron had been found dead. (CBC)
The net was still stuck on its bill, though the heron could open it more.
He said he thought the heron was going to get the net off, eventually.
People showed up at Half Moon Bay on Wednesday to attempt another rescue, Rogall said, but the heron with the net on its bill couldn't be found. Instead, people spotted about four other herons, all of them with nothing on their bills.
"We kind of suspected that maybe he shook the net and he was fine, however that doesn't seem to be the case," Rogall said Friday. "I got an email last night from a gentleman who was on the golf course and he had spotted the blue heron in the pond on the 12th hole. And then he confirmed that one of his buddies last night saw the same blue heron in the pond, floating."
'I can't imagine starving to death'
Rogall said he was shocked.
"I can't imagine starving to death, and I think that's what happened," he said. "He just became so weak.
"I kind of hope that there's a lesson to be learned from all this. I mean, it is garbage. It's garbage from people. The animals were definitely here way before any of these developments were."
The Canadian Co-operative Wildlife Health Centre will now determine how the heron died.
Once that's done, Rogall said he hopes the Great Blue Heron will be buried at Half Moon Bay. | 1,043 |
It’s like a big game of musical chairs. In any given year, 7.1 million U.S. citizens move from state to state, as if they’re trading one life for another.
A new infographic by data journalist Chris Walker traces these migrations by pulling data from the 2012 U.S. Census and placing it into a chord diagram. When using the interactive version, you can highlight any state around the wheel and track to which states its population most often relocated.
You’ll notice that Californians seem to move everywhere–blooming like a palm across the map–while Nebraskans appear to only relocate next door to Iowa. You might conclude that Midwesterners like to stay landlocked, and while that may be the case, it overlooks one last thing to keep in mind about this visualization: Lines only represent migrations of 10,000 people or more. So more populous states will always appear more diverse in their exit strategy.
“I made the 10,000 cut-off because otherwise the graph looks like a hairball,” Walker tells Co.Design. “People from Nebraska and Maine certainly move all around the country, but showing these relatively tiny movements makes the chart unreadable.”
Even still, there is a lot you can see. Walker points out that people who live in cold states–Maine and Alaska–have a “clear preference” for the warmer states of Florida and California. Hawaiians end up on the West Coast (Washington or California), as if they settle for the shortest plane ride possible. Meanwhile, if you hover your cursor over the states, you’ll see that Californians and New Yorkers are both moving away more than they’re moving in.
“California had a net outflow of over 73,000 people in 2012,” Walker explains. “That’s a non-trivial population that could fill a medium-sized suburb. The reality is that states that once seemed to have relentless population growth are no longer attractive to many people.” (Californians most often end up in Texas, Nevada, Washington, and Arizona, while New Yorkers most often move to Florida–presumably to retire).
Walker speculates that these anti-California and New York trends could be based upon high costs of living coupling with tough economic conditions for the middle class. Such certainly seems plausible, but feel free to browse the entire interactive graphic and decide for yourself: | 1,044 |
As the Hillary Clinton campaign desperately seeks a way to slow Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’ political momentum, the head of a pro-Clinton super PAC is expected to begin airing attack ads calling for the 74-year-old Sanders to release his medical records.
According to Politico, David Brock, a former conservative journalist who is now one of Clinton’s most loyal surrogates, will air the ads this weekend through his pro-Clinton super PAC, Correct the Record. The ads will demand Sanders release a clean bill of health before the Iowa caucuses, which will be held next month.
There is no indication that Sanders has health problems. But releasing medical records is a standard practice for serious presidential candidates. Clinton, now 68, released hers in July. Clinton’s doctor determined she was “fit to serve” as president, while noting that she does suffer from “hypothyroidism and seasonal allergies.” She is also on a long-term anticoagulation regimen.
There is no indication that Brock plans to call on former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley to release his medical records. The 52-year-old is polling well behind Clinton and Sanders.
It is unclear whether the Clinton campaign was involved in Correct the Record’s plans to call for Sanders’ records. But Brock’s group is allowed to coordinate directly with the Clinton campaign and has mobilized against Sanders before, often doing the messy work that the Clinton team avoids doing itself.
In September, Brock’s group began circulating emails comparing Sanders to Hugo Chavez, the late Venezuelan dictator, and to Jeremy Corbyn, the radical leftist leader of U.K.’s Labour Party.
As campaign finance records show, Clinton’s campaign gave Brock’s group $275,000 last June.
[dcquiz] Clinton’s campaign team and her allies have grown increasingly concerned with the surprising grassroots challenge posed by Sanders. Clinton insiders have said in numerous reports this month that the campaign failed to take Sanders seriously enough. Many are having deja vu of 2008, when then-Illinois Sen. Barack Obama came from behind to defeat Clinton, who was heavily favored to win at the outset of the race.
A senior adviser for Sanders dismissed Correct the Record’s plan.
“These kinds of attacks are going to be employed by a super PAC that directly coordinates with her campaign,” Tad Devine told Politico.
Follow Chuck on Twitter | 1,045 |
, to talk more in-depth about their disagreements. And I will be honest with you, I think this is a chapter well spent. Even though he disagrees with them on some points, his willingness to open up and talk shows enormous bravery and maturity.
“Has it ever occurred to anyone in this debate that you can be both pro-GMO (the tool), but anti-Monsanto (the wielder of that tool)?”
Finally, it is worth pointing out that Lynas provides a very balanced account with this book. He is not blindly pro-GMO, openly admitting they are not a silver bullet to solving the world’s food problems, but a small piece of a puzzle. He is not a “Monsanto shill”, and sees many reasons why you would want to oppose their business practices. Has it ever occurred to anyone in this debate that you can be both pro-GMO (the tool), but anti-Monsanto (the wielder of that tool)? And despite harshly criticizing Greenpeace, he supports them on many other issues. Furthermore, Lynas agrees that there are many reasons to have a discussion around GMOs (ethical, political, moral etc.), but he insists that the misinformation campaign stops. The health debate is a closed case. Instead, he wants people – whether farmers or consumers – to be allowed a choice, but wants this choice to be based on sound reasoning, rational thinking, and factual information.
Seeds of Science is thus an incredibly powerful statement that is all the more convincing coming from a former anti-GMO activist. I wish more people would have Lynas’s courage and moral compass to admit their own failings and change their mind. The book also brilliantly exposes how this is not a scientific but an ideological debate. Whether you are pro- or anti-GMO, I urge you to read this book. With billions of people to feed and food production (conventional or organic) having an enormous environmental impact, there is simply too much at stake.
If you would like to read more, I also interviewed Mark Lynas for The Hoopoe, the blog of my employer NHBS.
Disclosure: The publisher provided an advance reading copy of this book. The opinion expressed here is my own, however.
You can support this blog using below affiliate links, as an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases:
Seeds of Science paperback, hardback or ebook
Other recommended products mentioned in this review: | 1,046 |
’s decision of April 11, 2019 that the road was paved for the humiliating entry of a foreign power into our embassy, to kidnap a political refugee. The road for this crime was paved months in advance, in coordination with the British and directly with the Americans, who are the ones who moved the strings.
As reported by ABC, at least 6 months before the termination of asylum, the Ecuadorian ambassador to Berlin was the one who offered Assange’s head to the Americans; and according to the magazine Proceso, from inside the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, in London, for months before the expulsion "British and Ecuadorian officials held secret teleconferences with the headquarters of the State Department in Washington to discuss the future of Assange."
" Assange hasn’t been accused of any crimes related to his actions in 2016."
After a fierce investigation by the Department of Justice that lasted about two years, cost about 25 million dollars, interviewed about 500 people and in front of which Assange was always willing to appear if required, he has not been charged of any crime because, simply, publishing is not a crime.
This has just been ratified by a Federal Judge in New York, dismissing the lawsuit filed by the National Democratic Committee against Wikileaks. The judge has basically ruled that the First Amendment of the US Constitution protects the media that publish materials of public interest despite defects in the way the materials were obtained, as long as the diffuser did not participate in any crime in obtaining the materials first.
" Meanwhile, he still has allies in Russia. Within hours of Assange’s arrest, senior officials from President Vladimir Putin’s government rushed to Assange’s defense and slammed the US for infringing his rights, declaring that, "The hand of ‘democracy’ squeezes the throat of freedom."
Does the fact that someone condemns the arrest and possible extradition of Assange, mean that they are his allies? Within a few hours of that arrest, virtually all human rights and press freedom organizations had condemned it, warning that his extradition to the US would be a violation of Assange’s human rights, including Amnesty International Ireland, Human Rights Watch (HRW), The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Reporters Without Borders, Freedom of the Press Foundation, Center for Constitutional Rights, and countless civil organizations and personalities around the world. Would CNN also refer to any of them as "allies"?
| 1,047 |
of ocean. New recovery technologies are sending them back to fields that were closed a decade ago, too. I guess they decided they’d better spend it before Shrillary got her mitts on it.
To: Red Badger
We're all gonna drive!!!!
by 12 posted onby Lazamataz (Why isnt this in Breaking News????)
To: Red Badger
Hasta la vista, Chavez! Ain’t nuthin’ stopping the oil industry when they want something.
To: tanuki
Chavez is dancing in glee right now, it makes his thick crap even more usable.
by 14 posted onby Abathar (Proudly posting without reading the article carefully since 2004)
To: Red Badger
so, that is what they are doing with all those evil profits! Someone should tell Hillary.
by 15 posted onby FreeAtlanta (Search for Folding Project - Join FR Team 36120)
To: Red Badger
Bookmark and thanks
by 16 posted onby Leofl (I'm from Texas, we don't dial 9-11)
To: sauropod
read
by 17 posted onby sauropod (Will Hillary bring the silver back to the Whitehouse, or is this all about finishing up the set?)
To: Red Badger
"and tar-sands to high-quality distillates"...apparently this is good news not only for our enemy to the south but also our friends to the north.
To: ProtectOurFreedom
Very expensive oil makes for all sorts of viable sources. Hopefully coal conversion and/or shale extraction will see a similar breakthough.
To: MSF BU; thackney
I was wondering if all that old road asphalt that’s ripped up every time they repave a stretch of highway could be re-cycled into fuel?..............
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson | 1,048 |
Put a naughty twist on pop culture with our cosplay porn category! This is where the real magic happens as nerd girls and XXX performers go a little whacky with costumes and more to create a new kind of sex experience. Thanks to Comic Con and the rise of fan culture we can see that cosplay is more popular than ever. Amateurs dress up as their favorite characters from TV, movies, animation and gaming to bring a fantasy to life and to assume a role. If you don’t think this would influence sex, think again.
Costume Play Porn
Cosplay is defined as costume play and first became popular in Japan in the 1980’s. Costumed sex is nothing new as swingers during the 70’s would often dress up for sex parties and more. As the concept grew in reach thanks to online communities and conventions, we see people from all over the world in some of the most outrageous outfits. Photo shoots for eager cosplayers has become big business along with the production of great cosplay pornography.
Some of the most popular XXX titles of today are also porn parody films. These blend the nostalgia we feel for a recognizable story and character with high quality sucking and fucking to make something special. Inject a little fun into your porn viewing and discover the magic of mind-blowing cosplay sex. Do you want to fuck your favorite superhero or maybe a hot Anime chick or video game character? Things get a little crazy in this section as nearly anything can happen. Don’t miss a beat and be part of it all…
Build your perfect porno viewing time with user-friendly functions. You can easily sort or filter the videos you love to display the newest content, most watched clips or select a specific duration to really take control. Multiple sources populate the costumed shenanigans but you can also target a single source site too. Be the first on your block to savor the newest costume-clad cuties be sure to review related categories like, Anime porn, cartoon porn, costume porn, parody porn and others. This is your chance to become the expert you were born to be. Stay current with the newest and hottest cosplay porn titles and cosplay cam cuties. Sexy Jedi, hard-fucking Marvel characters, cock-hungry Overwatch characters and more await. Big tits, bright colors and amazing props are often part of these creative productions. Bring your scifi and video game sex fantasy to life like never before and explore XXX cosplay right here at PORN.COM.
Read More | 1,049 |
Best Ayurvedic Doctor in Delhi for the treatment of cancer
Skin Cancer Ayurvedic Doctor in Delhi - Although, The Word Cancer carries only six Characters, but in real life, it stirs thousands of questions in human mind. For instance, what is Cancer? How much is it dangerous? Is it Curable? And a lot of other questions. So, let us first understand, what is Cancer?
To Understand Cancer, let us know first about Neoplasia, the term Neoplasia means New Growth. This New Growth is known as Neoplasm or tumor. In Ayurvedic Words, this has been described with words Arbuda. But all growth is not Cancer. The growth of new cells may occur for repair of tissues. A mass or tissue is formed as a result of abnormal, excessive autonomous and useless proliferation of cells which is known as a tumor or Neoplasm.
Ayurvedic cancer specialist doctor in delhi - Cancer finds manifestation in the human body in many ways and thereby creates hosts of types of cancers, including Prostate Cancer, Kidney Cancer, Skin Cancer and Lung Cancer etc. Ayurvedic System of Treatment provides the complete remedy for all types of Cancers. A proper Ayurvedic cancer treatment demands qualified and experienced guidance of the Best Ayurvedic cancer treatment in Delhi like Dr. Shailesh Jain, the person who has been serving the people for a long time through Ayurveda therefore known as the best ayurvedic doctor in Delhi, India for the treatment of cancer.
Dr. Jain is offering the most satisfying Ayurvedic Cancer treatment for various types of cancers i.e. throat cancer, mouth cancer, lung cancer and blood cancer in Delhi and nearby areas. Anyone in need can contact him for the Ayurvedic treatment and guidance for any kind of cancers. Along with that, he is also serving humanity with his specialized services in Ayurvedic treatment for Uterine Cyst, Ovarian Cyst, Uterinefibroids, Lymphoid Leukemia, Myeloid Leukemia, Leukemia, Non Hodgkings Lymphoma and Hodgking Lymphoma. He is one of those few Ayurvedic Cancer Specialist doctors in Delhi providing the treatment of cancer without surgery. Furthermore, he also offers Ayurvedic treatments of Carcinoma, Sarcoma, Melanoma, Lymphoma, Myeloma and Fiberoadenoma in the best possible manner. | 1,050 |
Rollins Responds
Toronto FC played to a 2-2 draw in a short friendly against Rollins College at Winter Park, Florida on Sunday, roughly 24-hours after playing in the Walt Disney World Pro Soccer Classic in Orlando.
The idea of the match was twofold, the coaches wanted to get some more minutes for signed first team players Danny Califf, Kyle Bekker, Reggie Lambe, Andrew Wiedeman and Justin Braun, all played less than a half on Saturday. It was also a chance to watch and evaluate trialists as Toronto heads into the last week of preseason in Central Florida.
Bekker certainly benefited from his rest on Saturday, scoring both of Toronto's goals in the first half. His opener on a free kick from 25-yards at the 14th minute before a volley with the outside right foot four minutes later put Toronto comfortably ahead.
As intermission approached, Rollins proved itself resilient, scoring a surprise goal from outside the box, then leveling the match during the late stages of a curtailed second half (15 minutes) as Toronto felt a 60-minute run was sufficient for its training purpose on another cool afternoon in Florida.
The full TFC lineup featured Quillan Roberts in goal; Daniel Fabrizi, Derrick Bassi and Justin Davis alongside Califf at the back; Lambe and Wiedeman joined by Jonathan Beaulieu-Bourgault and Carlos Martinez at midfield; and Bekker with Braun up top. Braun left the match with a small knock to the head and was replaced by Henrik Robstad, who came in to play wide left allowing Wiedeman to go forward.
Davis and Martinez joined Toronto on trial Sunday, one day after Beaulieu-Bourgault and Robstad arrived at camp.
Toronto will play Kansas City in a training scrimmage on Wednesday before finishing at the Disney Classic on Saturday in the fifth place match against D.C. United at 1 p.m. ET.
"Pretty as I'll ever get"
Goalkeeper Stefan Frei suffered a broken nose and had surgery following the first match of the Disney Classic on February 9. Good news for Frei and TFC fans who missed his services over the last season (he missed 2012 with a broken ankle) is that bandages are off and he is eager to start training when he receives medical clearance. When asked how he was feeling, Frei quipped "pretty as I'll ever get."
| 1,051 |
Supercars brings its second esports series with the 2019 Gfinity Supercars Eseries
After a successful first year, Supercars partnered with Gfinity Esports Australia in order to take their event – previously called Virgin Australia Supercars Championship to a whole other level this year. This time around, they are also teaming up with the world’s leading online racing simulation service: iRacing.
This subscription-based racing sim is incredibly popular and one of the most highly regarded for its accuracy and realism. Naturally this makes for the perfect partner for Supercars – along with several others, of course. These include the twelve teams that are going to be entering the 2019 competition.
These teams will partially be supplied by Supercars themselves, and partially by other high-profile brands. The first external team has already confirmed their participation – specifically, Boost Mobile Racing announced that they wanted to participate. In the next few weeks, more teams are going to announce their participation in the event.
If you want to watch the esports series featuring Supercars, you can do so fir free on Supercars.com as well as on the Supercars and Gfinity AU social media channels, and also on Twitch. Gamers can make it onto the Eseries team grid by doing well in the Gfinity Supercars Eseries open qualifiers.
From these qualifiers, the participating teams choose their drivers – with thousands of iRacing competitors in Australia, this competition is expected to attract some of the best sim racers in the entire country.
This is further amplified by the association with Gfinity – the company has been a driving force behind Australian esports for a very long time, and has previously allied with even bigger names, including Formula 1. As for this tournament though – as mentioned, twelve teams will pick one talented driver each, and they will compete on their behalf throughout eight rounds in order to win the 2019 Gfinity Supercars Eseries title on behalf of their team.
In order to participate in the games, you will need to sign up to the competition – the registration period for the open qualifiers start in July this year. While there isn’t yet a lot of information on the process, you will most likely need to be an Australia-based iRacing user.
For the time being, you can sign up for more news and information on the 2019 Supercars Eseries on eseries.supercars.com – by doing so, you can get notifications about new information if and when it becomes available! | 1,052 |
How can you help the ACLJ stand up for Sergeant First Class (SFC) Charles Martland?
The U.S. Army is threatening to kick out this Green Beret war hero for defending a child from rape. SFC Martland took decisive action to protect a child. Now we must take action to defend him. (You can read more of his story and our involvement here.)
Here’s how you can get involved:
1) Sign our Petition and make your voice heard. Time is of the essence. The result of SFC Martland’s final appeal is imminent. The situation is urgent, and we must hear from you today. We are amplifying your voice with legal letters to the military, President Obama, and Congress.
2) Call your Senators and Representative and make your voice heard. You can use this helpful link to find the telephone numbers for your Members of Congress. As you contact your Members of Congress, consider these talking points which will help you effectively communicate the reason for your call:
Sergeant First Class (SFC) Charles Martland, a United States Army Green Beret, took action to protect a young boy from extreme sexual abuse at the hands of an Afghan commander.
As a result of his heroic action, SFC Martland is set to be expelled from the Army. His final appeal is pending, and will be decided this month.
SFC Martland, a Bronze Star recipient, has an exemplary military record and served with distinction for more than a decade. Those who served with SFC Martland support him and say he should be allowed to continue serving valiantly
International law, Afghan law, and the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) condemn the sexual abuse of children, and SFC Martland’s actions were in furtherance of those laws and regulations.
SFC Martland should be commended for his action, not punished. He represents the kind of soldier we need in uniform. Kicking him out of the Army for protecting a child is reprehensible.
Respectfully express your support for SFC Martland, and request that your Senators and Congressman speak out and take action on SFC Martland’s behalf.
3) Share it on social media. Share the petition. Share that you contacted your Members of Congress. Share these talking points. Spread the word. It is critical that we raise awareness of the gross injustice SFC Martland faces. The time to act is now. | 1,053 |
New Barrow AFC owner is hopeful of Football League status in five years
Lifelong Barrow AFC fan Paul Casson has bought the club and promised to invest £1m to acquire the assets. Lifelong Barrow AFC fan Paul Casson has bought the club and promised to invest £1m to acquire the assets.
Paul Casson has completed the purchase of Conference North side Barrow AFC and believes his investment can help propel the club back to the Football League.
The Cumbria club were relegated from the old Division Four in the 1970s and finished 11th in the Conference North this season, 22 points behind Guiseley in the final play-off place.
But Casson believes his investment represents a good deal for himself and the club. "It's not a risk at all, I think it's a great opportunity," he told Sky Sports News.
"I was born here and my mother and father were born in Barrow, so I have a large family legacy in the town. My father died in September, so the primary reason is to leave a legacy in his memory.
"He would have been proud to see his son be a custodian of the football club in the town he loved. I've followed the club from afar since I left.
"It was very painful when they got relegated from the Football League, which is one of the reasons I started this. I want to try and get them back to where I remember them."
Casson, who is based in Dallas, inherits a club managed by former York defender Darren Edmondson. The Holker Street side enjoyed five years in the Conference Premier until their relegation last season.
But with his investment Casson believes promotion from the second tier of the non-league, and eventually into League Two, is a realistic ambition.
"My first meeting with the manager is this evening. His task is to assemble a squad capable of challenging promotion to the Conference Premier in the next two seasons," he said.
"The longer term goal is to get back to the Football League within five years.
"I'm assembling a team of people I've known for a long time who are very positive about the opportunity. I think we will succeed. Hopefully the community will benefit in the long run as a result."
Barrow won their last trophy in one of the club's most successful seasons in 2010 when they clinched the FA Trophy, as well as reaching the third round of the FA Cup. | 1,054 |
A twist in Rays' wild pitching experiment: Reliever Sergio Romo to get first career start
Tom Schad | USA TODAY
Show Caption Hide Caption MLB: Robinson Cano may cost himself a spot in Cooperstown SportsPulse: USA TODAY Sports' Steve Gardner on the repercussions of Robinson Cano's 80-game suspension.
In a bold and unusual move, the Tampa Bay Rays plan to start relief pitcher Sergio Romo against the Los Angeles Angels on Saturday night, according to The Tampa Bay Times.
Manager Kevin Cash told the newspaper that Romo, who has 588 career relief appearances in the major leagues, will pitch the first inning or two in what will be his first big league start. He'll then make way for rookie left-hander Ryan Yarbrough, who will pitch the bulk of the innings.
"The way that their lineup stacks generally speaking is very heavy right-handed at the top," Cash told The Tampa Bay Times. "It allows us in theory to let Sergio to come in there and play the matchup game in the first, which is somewhat unheard of – up until Saturday anyway.... Then Yarbs can, in theory, have the availability to get deeper in the game."
MORE MLB
Cash said part of his reasoning for the move is based in a desire to prevent Yarbrough from facing the top of the Angels' order - which of late has included sluggers Mike Trout, Shohei Ohtani and Justin Upton - a dreaded third time. In recent years, managers across baseball, including Cash, have come to rely upon metrics which show that a typical starting pitcher becomes less effective each time he faces the same hitter in a game. The third trip through the order, many managers believe, can be the most risky.
Saturday's unusual pitching strategy is an extension of the "bullpen days" the Rays have employed this season, where they designate an "opening" pitcher who, by design, only pitches a few innings, followed by a parade of relievers. In their first such game this season, in March against the Boston Red Sox, reliever Andrew Kittredge started the game and through 54 pitches before being replaced in the fourth inning by Yarbrough, who threw 73.
This time, however, it goes a step further: A man with 84 career saves, who hasn't faced more than seven batters in a single game this season, will get the start.
Contact Tom Schad at [email protected] or on Twitter @Tom_Schad. | 1,055 |
Girls love the sugar daddy lifestyle Millionaire dating sites are the latest trend in the huge online dating industry. It's where the rich and beautiful mingle.
SugarDaddyFinder.com has today officially released their brand new dating portal, after months of testing, providing sugar daddies and sugar babies with an online resource through which to meet. SugarDaddyFinder is the largest sugar daddy dating resource website in the world, and the new dating portal offers powerful features and tools for members.
Already, SugarDaddyFinder has had hundreds of thousands of new members in their innovative dating portal, each of which has created a free profile to help them connect with others on the site. This unprecedented growth from the initial debut of the dating portal is a testament to just how popular SugarDaddyFinder is with sugar daddies and sugar babies.
Of course, no amount of new members does those searching for connections any good if members are not online. SugarDaddyFinder has experienced significant member usage, with thousands of members online each and every day.
For sugar babies seeking potential sugar daddies, the new dating portal offers significant benefits. First, creating a profile is free, which is a refreshing change in a world dominated by premium pay sites. Second, SugarDaddyFinder provides sugar babies with valuable resources, tools and capabilities to enhance their search and help forge connections. Users are able to upload custom profile pictures of themselves. Members are also provided with an in-depth personal profile where they can share their likes and dislikes, their goals and dreams, and more. The profile settings offer enormous customization so that members can maximize their chance of meeting the perfect someone through the dating service.
SugarDaddyFinder has traditional sugar daddies searching for romance and fun, but the site’s membership also consists of sugar mommas, as well. Members come from all walks of life – lawyers, doctors, actors, politicians, athletes, business moguls and more. However, despite their disparate backgrounds, they have one thing in common – they are all seeking someone special. To find out more about SugarDaddyFinder or to sign up for a free membership, visit http://www.sugardaddyfinder.com.
About SugarDaddyFinder: SugarDaddyFinder is the world’s oldest and largest online resource for connecting sugar babies to sugar daddies. With the debut of the brand new online dating portal, SugarDaddyFinder makes is easier than ever to find that special someone.
### | 1,056 |
fulness Centres, along with Bangor, Exeter and Aberdeen.)
If there is not the time for a longer daily meditation (and even if there is) the students are encouraged to see if they can carry out some everyday activities mindfully: while you are brushing your teeth, being fully immersed in the sensations; walking to the tube you are feeling the sensations of your feet on the pavement, the air on your exposed skin, and so on. You're fully living the experience. They also take three-minute mindfulness breaks when things are in danger of getting hectic.
The tenor of these sessions has been one of gentle inquiry: nothing is assumed or prescribed. A sense of group identity has been forged and there has been a very small drop-out rate from the 30 or so originally participating. One student commented: "I am really enjoying the idea that we can come together in a small group and share – this is what we are lacking so much in London, simply listening to each other without 'HURRY!'"
The feedback has been relentlessly positive. Some students have used the term "life-changing". "I have become less prone to stress and anxiety, my self-image has become more stable (I feel like I know myself better) and my concentration has improved hugely," says one. Another writes: "I think the course is a must for musicians wanting to fulfil their potentials."
A partner in this research has been Spitalfields Music, which will be hosting an event where Chris and I talk about the course and its findings next week. This talk precedes an evening concert in which Chroma and the clarinettist Stuart King play a programme that includes a new piece of mine, Sit, Stand, Walk, my own personal response to the practice of meditation.
It's a piece with calm episodes, but also moments of high anxiety, excitement and violent joy. This seems to surprise people, who, when you've come off a retreat, generally say: "Oh, I'm so jealous. Did you have a lovely relaxing time?" Well yes … to an extent … although you would be surprised what an ecstatic cacophony emerges from your mind when there's nothing around to distract it.
Chris Cullen and Rolf Hind discuss mindfuless at 5.30pm on 20 June at Shoreditch Church, London, followed by the premiere of Hind's Sit, Stand, Walk. Details: 020-7377 1362. For more on music and mindfulness visit: musicandmindfulness.org | 1,057 |
BOSTON — Bruins forward Brad Marchand wants another chance. He wants 10 more chances, and he’s confident he’d hit them all this time.
Marchand was nearly the goat Thursday night in the Bruins’ Game 4 overtime win in Detroit. The agitating winger missed two wide-open chances in the first and third periods, and had he scored just one of them, the B’s could have avoided overtime.
Marchand has taken everything in stride, though, and there’s probably no one more ready than him to get back out on the ice, as the Bruins will do Saturday afternoon against the Red Wings, with a chance to close out the first-round Stanley Cup playoff series.
“I think (laughing about it is) really all you can do,” Marchand said before puck drop at TD Garden. “Looking at it after the game, I think if I had 10 more chances, I don’t think I could miss one if I tried.
“You’ve gotta laugh it off. Those things happen in hockey. If you dwell on it too much, it’s going to affect your game. The big thing is to prepare for today and make sure we play our best game possible.”
Marchand can laugh about those missed opportunities, thanks in large part to Jarome Iginla. The likely Hall of Famer scored the overtime game-winner in Game 4 to send the series back to Boston with the Bruins able to clinch. In addition to giving Iginla a big kiss for getting him off the hook, Marchand says he spoke with Iginla — one of the game’s all-time great scorers — about dealing with ups and downs.
“The last few years, there’s been a lot of good leadership, a lot of guys you can learn from when you miss opportunities,” Marchand said. “When you see top guys missing good opportunities and you see how they react, they’re not coming off breaking their sticks. They’re focused on the next opportunities. Even talking to (Iginla) after the game just how many opportunities good goal scorers miss every year that you feel like are sure goals and then you score goals where you pick a small little pocket. Hearing that from one of the best goal scorers ever, it’s relieving. You can learn a lot from guys like that.” | 1,058 |
KUCHING: Two years ago, Faizullah Nor Affendy and his friends stole the heart of netizens when a video of them performing the lion dance in makeshift materials went viral on social media.
Today, the 13-year-old SMK Bako student and his troupe – all from Kampung Muara Tebas – are often invited to perform at functions.
The troupe has received a proper lion costume and musical instruments from the state Youth and Sports Department.
“We have no formal training. We learned the art by watching performances at the nearby temple during Chinese New Year. It has been a hobby for us since,” said Faizullah when met at the village located some 30km from here yesterday.
Response, he said, had been encouraging, adding that visitors to the famous Chin San Yan Temple at the village, who saw their video, would often ask for them.
“Sometimes, we are invited to perform in the city during Chinese New Year and the launch of new businesses. We would receive between RM200 to RM300,” he said.
Mohd Shukri Azlan, 15, who is one of the four boys in the video, also gives informal training to other youths interested in the art.
The drummer of the troupe, Mohd Shukri said new members came and went but the original boys had remained together.
“We love to see lion dance performances. We started picking up the art in 2012 and acting out the movements using makeshift materials.
“Soon, villagers would gather in front of Faizullah’s house to watch us,” he said.
Faizullah’s grandmother, Ramlah Malim, said he and his friends had always been interested in the lion dance.
“His uncle created a costume for the boys with a cardboard box as the ‘head’.
“They would take pot lids from the kitchen and big pails for their musical instruments,” she said.
Since the video went viral, Ramlah said the boys’ performance had been a hit among visitors.
Kampung Muara Tebas, made up of mostly Malay residents, is known for the 200-year-old temple that attracts thousands of devotees each year, particularly during Chinese New Year.
The Buddhist temple has been declared a historical building under the Sarawak Cultural Heritage Ordinance 1993. | 1,059 |
Update (Verizon): If this page on Samsung’s support website is to be believed, 5.0.2 should soon begin rolling out to users of Verizon’s Galaxy Tab S 10.5 as well. The page includes no additional info on the update, like download size or enhancements beyond those included in Lollipop itself, save for the date released (5/20/2015) and the software version number (T807VVRU1BOD2).
Update 2 (Sprint): Now the changelog for Sprint’s variant of the Galaxy Tab S 10.5 has been updated to reflect an upgrade to 5.0.2 as well, so it should be rolling out soon. Separate from the enhancements and bug fixes included in 5.0 Lollipop and those added by Sprint, this update also removes the Lumen Toolbar which most Sprint users consider to be crapware.
Update 3 (US Cellular): And now we have the changelog for U.S. Cellular’s variant of the Galaxy Tab S 10.5, so 5.0.2 should be going out over air for those devices soon. The description includes nothing more than the list of enhancements and bug fixes that are included in standard 5.0.2 Lollipop. The release date is listed as today and the software version number is T807R4TYUBOE5.
Owners of the Galaxy Tab S 10.5 on T-Mobile’s network may fret no more. If you haven’t already, you should soon see an over-the-air update come to your device updating it to Android 5.0.2 Lollipop.
The device has up until now run Android 4.4 KitKat, with the AT&T model receiving an OTA update to Lollipop last week and the WiFi variant having received it back in March. It would be nice if this update would have been to a newer, more stable version of Lollipop like 5.1.1, as earlier versions including 5.0.2 have been known to cause a bevy of problems for many devices.
But alas, as the picture above shows, the update bumps the software version of the T-Mobile Galaxy Tab S to T807TUVU1BOE1. The full download comes in at a whopping 1.1 GB.
FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.
Check out 9to5Google on YouTube for more news: | 1,060 |
code once, and then start taking requests from the class. How can we make this game better? Going requirement by requirement, the game usually morphs into a game that generates its own random number, gives hints, and runs either a certain number of times, or until the user guesses the answer.
Inventing with Python
Another thing you can dive into is changing the games included on the Raspberry Pi. Chances are, the students have had a chance to play with the games by this point, so ask them which one they’d like to change.
You’ll need to make sure that the games are already on your laptop. You can find them here: http://inventwithpython.com/pygame/source/
Start small, when it comes to changing something. For example, change a color, or the title text. Then move onto larger things. Have the students guess what they should be looking for, and encourage them to open the code and play with it themselves. Don’t be afraid to break the code, and have the students try to figure out what’s wrong from the error message.
Other games
There are other games in the Young Coder’s repository as well, such as a state guessing game, and a link to a very simple roguelike. Don’t be afraid to take suggestions from the class, either. Sometimes, they’ll come up with something simple enough to hack through in a few minutes.
End of class
Fifteen minutes before the end of class, it’s important to show the students how to unplug their Pis, and how to set them up again. Make sure to have everyone disassemble their Pis, reassemble them, and log back in. Pass out the cheat sheets.
If you have extra time, don’t be afraid to let the kids just hack for few minutes while parents show up, or kids check themselves out.
Once everyone is gone, make sure you have help breaking down the room. Recruit all the strong backs you can, because moving 25 monitors is no joke.
And that’s it!
Once the room is broken down, you’re done! If you made changes to the slides or added materials, please, send a pull request to the Young Coders repo so we can all benefit. And if you can, blog about your experience. We can always use a signal boost! | 1,061 |
Qualcomm chief operating officer Steve Mollenkopf won't be Microsoft's next CEO.
That's because Qualcomm announced Friday that it was promoting Mollenkopf to the CEO job at the wireless chipset maker. The news comes less than 24 hours after Bloomberg reported that Mollenkopf had emerged as a contender to replace outgoing Microsoft (MSFT)CEO Steve Ballmer, who has announced plans to retire.
Qualcomm's rapid response to retain Mollenkopf comes as rumors continue to swirl about who will succeed Ballmer.
Mollenkopf, a 20-year veteran of Qualcomm (QCOM), will take over for current CEO Paul Jacobs in March. Jacobs will stay with the company as executive chairman.
Related: Qualcomm faces antitrust probe in China
It's possible that Qualcomm acted so quickly to promote Mollenkopf because Bloomberg reported Thursday that he was under serious consideration for the Microsoft top spot, and that Microsoft's decision was going to be made by the end of the year.
With Mollenkopf staying at Qualcomm, the high profile rumored list of candidates to be Microsoft's new CEO include former Nokia (NOK) CEO Stephen Elop -- a Microsoft veteran that has returned to the company following Microsoft's acquisition of Nokia's mobile device business -- and Ford (F) CEO Alan Mulally.
A Ford board member recently said that Mulally is going to remain with the automaker through the end of 2014. That would appear to put Mulally out of the running to replace Ballmer since it is widely expected that Microsoft wants to move quickly to name his successor. But there is still chatter that Mulally could ultimately wind up taking the Microsoft job.
Related: Steve Ballmer's lasting touch on Microsoft
Microsoft observers have speculated on some other internal successors beyond Elop as well, including Tony Bates, a current Microsoft executive who was the CEO of Skype (Microsoft acquired it in 2011, and Bates stayed on), and Satya Nadella, Microsoft's current EVP of cloud and enterprise.
Ballmer -- who joined Microsoft in 1980 as the company's first business manager and rose quickly through the ranks -- will be leaving the company after 13 difficult years as CEO. The company was once the most valuable in the world, but Microsoft has lost more than half of its market value over the past decade due to concerns that the company was not quick enough to adapt to the mobile tech revolution.
-- CNNMoney's Julianne Pepitone contributed to this report | 1,062 |
aduktu na węźle Łódź Północ. Jesteśmy w stałym kontakcie z GDDKiA. Służymy pomocą w ustaleniu przyczyn zaistniałej sytuacji
- zapewnia cytowany przez portal Michał Wrzosek, rzecznik Budimexu.
Wady odkryto w 70 proc. skontrolowanych miejsc
Money.pl próbując wyjaśnić możliwe przyczyny usterki odwołuje się do raportu NIK z 2015 roku. Z dokumentu wynika, że inwestycje związane z Euro 2012 - a do nich zalicza się właśnie wiadukt na A1 - prowadzone były bez odpowiedniego nadzoru. Wady odkryto w 70 proc. skontrolowanych miejsc.
"Pomiędzy rokiem 2008 a 2013 nie monitorowano 40 proc. inwestycji" - stwierdzają urzędnicy Najwyższej Izby Kontroli. Wcześniej NIK ostrzegał z kolei, że inwestycje związane z Euro 2012 są zagrożone z powodu sporych opóźnień. Na 127 zadań 57 nie było realizowanych zgodnie z harmonogramem.
Dziś trudno jeszcze przesądzić co spowodowało problemy z wiaduktem na A1. Czy problemem jest projekt, wykonanie, zła konserwacja - tego dowiemy się zapewne w wyniku analiz przeprowadzanych właśnie przez GDDKiA. | 1,063 |
If you really take a moment to look in the mirror, talk to your body and say, "You are worthy," then your whole attitude changes.
Q: Did confidence help in dating?
A: I was dating guys back in the day because I needed affirmation. Now I have a husband (cinematographer Justin Ervin). We waited until we were married to have sex. I can truly say our communication is better than I've had with any man.
Q: Do you ever have body issues now?
A: I talk in the book a lot about my FOMO (fear of missing out) issues. It's an ongoing conversation I have with myself. Food is satisfying for me and is also something that makes me feel good, but I know I have to do it in moderation. I also know working out is something I love doing, and it makes me feel great. I'm a girl on the go, so I'm always asking myself if I'm taking care of myself. It never goes away.
Q: What have you learned about fashion and clothing in your career?
A: There is still this lack of amazing, cool clothes for curvy girls, and I need to come in and make them.
Q: So when will your curvy-clothing line it stores?
A: Hopefully soon. I'm in the process now. I already have a great swimsuit and lingerie line and a line of dresses at Dress Barn.
Q: Most confident photo shoot?
A: You are talking to a very confident girl. I've had a lot of photo shoots where I've felt really confident. My first Sports Illustrated where I got on the cover stands out because I knew that it was such a big deal. I knew it was going to be groundbreaking to even be in the magazine.
Q: Best thing about being a curvy woman?
A: That your body is so sexy.
Q: Favorite part of your own body?
A: My hourglass shape.
Q: Favorite type of dress?
A: I love body-con dresses with or without a sleeve, high neck or deep V that hits at the knee.
Q: What brings you joy?
A: My husband and family and being able to tell my real-deal story and not hold back. When you don't give your true authentic self, it means you're hiding, and that's not joy. | 1,064 |
Thirty-one retired US military officers urged President Barack Obama on Tuesday to make good on his promise to close the Guantanamo prison by speeding up efforts to transfer detainees.
“We appreciate your leadership this past year in recommitting to closing Guantanamo,” the former generals and admirals wrote in a letter released by Human Rights First.
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“Guantanamo does not serve America’s interests. As long as it remains open, Guantanamo will undermine America’s security and status as a nation where human rights and the rule of law matter.”
The signatories included a former commandant of the US Marine Corps, general Charles Krulak, the former chief of staff of the Air Force, general Merrill McPeak, and the former head of the military’s Central Command which oversees forces in the Middle East, retired general Joseph Hoar.
Five years ago the same generals and admirals were on hand at the Oval Office to witness Obama sign orders to shut Guantanamo and prohibit torture in interrogations.
But the prison is still operating at the US naval base in southeast Cuba, partly because of strong opposition by some members of Congress.
Of the 779 detainees sent to the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay, 155 inmates remain behind bars. Among the remaining detainees, 78 are Yemenis and 55 have been cleared for release.
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Congress in December lifted some of the more cumbersome rules for transferring inmates out of Guantanamo, giving Obama more latitude.
The former officers appealed to Obama to transfer as soon as possible those inmates no longer deemed a threat and to rapidly review the status of the remaining detainees.
In the letter, the retired senior officers also voiced concern about a persistent “false” debate about the past use of torture by the Central Intelligence Agency.
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The officers called on the administration to fully cooperate with the Senate Intelligence Committee to publicly release the panels’ lengthy study of the CIA’s detention, rendition and interrogation program after the September 11, 2001 attacks.
“Former CIA officials who authorized torture continue to defend it in books and film, and public opinion is with them, based on mythology, not fact,” the letter said.
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“We believe that upon reviewing the facts the American people will agree that torture was not worth it, and that we as a nation should never return to the dark side.”
[Image via Agence France-Presse] | 1,065 |
GUN CONTROL was a central tenet of Hillary Clinton’s unsuccessful campaign for president, but it would be wrong to interpret the results of the Nov. 8 elections as a slam dunk for those opposed to sensible gun laws. Three states approved ballot initiatives for strengthened gun-control measures despite stiff opposition from the national gun lobby. In statehouse races across the country, gun-control advocates had some success in helping to oust longtime gun-safety opponents. There should be no illusions about the difficulty that lies ahead in sustaining and furthering reform, but it is encouraging to see these signs of an increasingly robust grass-roots movement.
In a year that saw a record number of ballot initiatives, voters in Nevada, California and Washington state gave their approval to strengthened gun-safety measures while an effort in Maine to expand universal background checks failed narrowly. Nevada’s move to expand background checks to private gun sales and transfers was seen as particularly significant since the National Rifle Association invested heavily there with an aggressive campaign that included opposition from the governor and attorney general. According to Everytown for Gun Safety and Moms Demand Action, the win in Nevada means that nearly half of Americans will now live in states that have closed the background-check loophole. Eight states did so in the years that followed the slaughter of schoolchildren at Sandy Hook.
Other bright spots: Sen. Patrick J. Toomey (Pa.) showed that Republicans who support gun control can still win reelection while Sen. Kelly Ayotte (N.H.) proved that Republicans who oppose gun safety can lose. And in Oregon every elected leader up for election who voted “yes” on the state’s 2015 background-check bill won reelection. Of course, factors other than gun issues played a role in these elections, and the NRA, which spent a record $30 million, had its victories. But even its early and aggressive backing of Donald Trump was offset by the fact that the most aggressively pro-gun-control presidential candidate in history won the popular vote.
That, of course, is not likely to stop the gun lobby from wanting to cash in on its investment by pushing extreme measures such as repealing the federal gun-free school zone law, establishing national reciprocity for concealed-carry permits, gutting efforts to crack down on illegal gun trafficking and more. Gun laws in the District unfortunately will be particularly vulnerable. So let’s hope that the mettle that gun- control advocates have shown in recent years in stopping NRA-backed bills in statehouses will prove successful in meeting the coming challenges. | 1,066 |
Your aim to gain lean muscles and achieve a ripped body need wings so that the goals soar high and meet the horizon of your unlimited desires. This will require you to inculcate a fitness regime and some nutrient rush to catalyze the process. Therefore, when wholesome food is not in the access then people tend to drift away towards supplement. What if there is something out there as pure and magnificent as its name? Presenting, MusclePharm Combat Isolate, 5 lb Chocolate for all your mass building needs. The supplement contains pure Isolates that energize your body from within, resulting in a chiselled body with the passage of time. Quality has always been a priority for MusclePharm’s every product and Combat Isolate is no exception. The Cross-Flow Micro-Filtration system assures zero adulteration and all the ingredients in their purest form.
Benefits
Each scoopful of chocolate flavoured MusclePharm Combat Isolate delivers 24 grams of 100% whey isolate protein per 27 gram serving, all in its purest form. The fast acting proteins increase the level of amino acid in the systemic circulation. It is from where that the acids become available for muscle protein anabolism or growth.
Apart from this, the supplement is sugar-free and contains absolutely no carbohydrates or fats. This makes Combat Isolate a perfect nutrition for someone who suffers from leaky gut or an issue with gluten content. Moreover, this one property also makes the supplement a fast digesting one as compared to its counterparts in the market.
Moving onto other important ingredients, an adequate amount of calcium and iron assures stronger bones and a constant production of blood within the body. At times during a workout, when a body goes through a lot of physical strain, such nutrients come as saviours.
Ingredients
Whey Protein Isolate, Cocoa Powder, Natural and Artificial Flavors, Guar Gum, Xanthan Gum, Flour Salt, Acesulfame Potassium, Sucralose.
Contains Milk and Soy (Lecithin)
Disclaimer
Manufactured in a facility that may also process egg, tree nuts, sesame, peanuts, fish, crustaceans, shellfish, and wheat products.
Usage
Mix 1 scoop of COMBAT 100% Isolates with about 350 ml of cold water. Increase/decrease the amount of water to achieve the desired consistency and taste. For a surge in protein intake, use milk instead of water. | 1,067 |
Hey everyone,
We promised two Army of the Pharaohs albums this year. We’ll be honest, that seemed ambitious even to us, but the crew pulled through to deliver on time. The new album “Heavy Lies The Crown” drops on 10/21. Pre-orders through our online store at www.merchdirect.com/jedimindtricks and iTunes start next Tuesday, Sept. 9th.
Here’s the first look at the tracklist for “Heavy Lies The Crown:”
1. War Machine featuring Vinnie Paz, Reef the Lost Cauze, Crypt the Warchild, Celph Titled, Esoteric & Apathy
2. Blood Storm featuring Crypt the Warchild, Planetary, Celph Titled & Des Devious
3. The Tempter and the Bible Black featuring Vinnie Paz, Planetary, Esoteric, Apathy & Celph Titled
4. Serpent King featuring Blacastan, Celph Titled, Crypt the Warchild, Planetary & Zilla
5. The King’s Curse featuring Vinnie Paz, Celph Titled, Planetary, Apathy & Esoteric
6. Terrorstorm featuring Vinnie Paz, Celph Titled, Block McCloud, Reef the Lost Cauze, Esoteric, Crypt the Warchild & Apathy
7. Conjure the Legions featuring Esoteric, Planetary, Apathy, Vinnie Paz, Crypt the Warchild, Celph Titled, Reef the Lost Cauze, King Syze & Lawrence Arnell
8. Fed to the Lions featuring Vinnie Paz, Reef the Lost Cauze, Planetary, Apathy, Esoteric & Celph Titled
9. Sword and Bullet featuring Doap Nixon, Crypt the Warchild, Demoz & Vinnie Paz
10. Wrath Prophecy featuring Zilla, Planetary, Doap Nixon & Celph Titled
11. Conversation with a Bullet featuring Zilla, Celph Titled, Planetary & Vinnie Paz
12. The Hate and the Blame featuring Apathy, Esoteric, Lawrence Arnell, Vinnie Paz & Crypt the Warchild
13. Becoming the Absolute featuring Crypt the Warchild, Apathy, Zilla & Vinnie Paz
14. The Quickening featuring Planetary, Esoteric, King Syze & Blacastan | 1,068 |
The president of a women’s university on Monday lashed out at a song written by Yasushi Akimoto, mastermind of the all-girl idol group AKB48, that says it is OK for girls to be “empty-headed” and that being intelligent is “meaningless” if one is “not loved.”
“I felt as if the clock had been turned back to 50 or 100 years ago,” Masami Ohinata, a psychologist who is president of Keisen University in Tokyo, blogged after a student showed her the lyrics.
“Einstein yori Dianna Agron,” was released on April 13 by HKT48 in Fukuoka, one of the idol group’s many regional sister units.
Akimoto is one of Japan’s most successful songwriters. Sales of CD albums penned by him set a record by surpassing 100 million in December 2015, according to music information provider Oricon Inc. He is also on the executive board of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics and Paralympics organizing committee.
Ohinata said the lyrics reminded her of a textbook used in Norway more than 100 years ago that marked certain questions as unfit for girls to solve because they were too difficult.
RELATED STORIES Idols put Band-Aids on fragile male egos
The song is about a schoolgirl who knows almost nothing about Albert Einstein but admires American actress Dianna Agron. The lyrics portray her as preoccupied with how to be pretty while spurning academic learning with such phrases as “I don’t think about anything difficult,” “I am not interested in news,” and “what is important is keeping my skin smooth.”
Ohinata said she later asked her students in a psychology class what they thought of the song, and they criticized each phrase.
In response to the phrase “girls must be cute, they can be stupid while in school,” the university students agreed “while it is important to be cute, studying is also fun and if you are stupid in school, you will remain so for the rest of your life,” Ohinata wrote.
And to “no matter how good you are with studies, it is meaningless if you are not loved,” the students countered that “no matter how much you are loved, it is meaningless if you can’t get a job.” | 1,069 |
The popular KickassTorrents'mirror' KAT.am is back online. After a brief suspension, the registry re-released the domain name for registration, allowing scammers to pick it up. While the site still appears to be a mirror, it asks people to sign up for an account with a credit card if they want to download something.
After losing two of the largest torrent sites, KickassTorrents and Torrentz.eu, there’s a lot of uncertainty and doubt in the torrent community.
Many people are looking for alternatives to their favorite sites and a natural response is to look for mirrors.
KAT.am was one of the first sites to present itself as a replacement. While it misleadingly claimed to have a copy of KAT’s database, a flurry of news reports helped the site to gain traction.
This ended abruptly last week. The mirror’s domain name was suspended after a complaint from the Motion Picture Association, forcing the operators to move elsewhere.
However, for the past few days KAT.am has been back in action. At first glance it appears to be a fully working mirror, but people who try to download something will be prompted to register a ‘free’ account.
“Free Account Required. You must create a Free Account to access KickassTorrents,” the popup notification reads.
The signup page redirects to a scammy portal, and requires people to enter their credit card details if they want a free trial.
Needless to say, this has nothing to do with the original KickassTorrents site, and has all the signs of a classic pay to download scam, which usually ends in disappointment for those who sign up.
So how can it be that scammers managed to get hold of the popular domain?
Well, as it turns out the.AM domain registry simply made the domain available for registration again after it was suspended. This allowed the scammers to pick it up, and link it to their KickassTorrents ripoff.
The “register to download” mirror scam isn’t anything new. Several other “mirrors” employ the same tactics and have been doing so for years. However, with the current confusion created by KickassTorrents’ demise, they can do a lot more damage now.
For this reason, we can probably expect many more scammy sites to appear during the days and weeks to come. | 1,070 |
Brooke Wylde and Maseratixxx-Interracial Lesbian Lovers Fucked Each Other
Brooke Wylde and Maseratixxx-Interracial Lesbian Lovers Fucked Each Other
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Brooke Wylde and Maserati – 27:13
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There’s a belief that lesbians are strictly sexual, and don’t need important relationships. The place is played into feeling throughout the movie by the silenced sexualization of the different lesbians. Although there are some pictures with groups of lesbians, never once does the people find the instance of a lesbian who really cares for another woman. Alyssa and her friend are looked tonguing at open and fondling each other. And at one point, Alyssa turns to her and gives the statement about needing ” to love you.”
Most importantly, the lesbian gender positions men consider are more fantasy than world. Apparently, there’s no one means that females make love with each other, but like there’s no one means hetero couples or homosexual males make love with each other. As a matter of fact, there exist equally many ways for lesbians to make love as there are lesbians at this world. But some things even put out. Scissoring gets the appearance at mainstream gay porn often more than it tends to. “I’ve had girls who want to grind — that’s the true gender act — but it’s extraordinary, ” she says.
All of which makes lesbian porn rather unusual, particularly in the contemporary porn era filled with intense feats of face-fucking, anal sex and double intercourse. “ pornography is inching its way into being socially recognized, ” says Bree Mills, the award-winning director and producer in Girlsway cinema, which specializes in homosexual knowledge. “Not necessarily good, but lesser and lesser people are saying ‘I never see pornography. ‘ Is one of the most familiar access spots for people who are wondering. | 1,071 |
Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Scotland and England players wore black armbands with poppy symbols during their World Cup qualifier at Wembley last November
England and Germany players will wear black armbands bearing poppies for Friday's friendly at Wembley.
The tribute is in remembrance of members of the armed forces, said the Football Association (FA) and German Football Association (DFB).
FA chief executive Martin Glenn called it "a show of solidarity and unity".
It comes after rules were changed last month, allowing the home nations to wear a poppy if opposing teams and the competition organiser agree to it.
Wales will also wear black armbands bearing poppies for Friday's friendly football international against France in Paris.
England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland were all fined for displaying poppies during games in November 2016 as Fifa deemed it to be a political symbol.
But all four teams said they would request permission to wear poppies during November's international matches after the rules were revised.
DFB president Reinhard Grindel said poppy armbands were not "political propaganda".
"They're about remembering the kind of values that were kicked to the ground in two World Wars but are cherished by football: respect, tolerance, and humanity," he said.
A replica of 'The Truce' statue, which depicts the historic World War I ceasefire where peace and games of football broke out between British and German troops on Christmas Day in 1914, will be on temporary display beside the Bobby Moore statue at Wembley Stadium.
The FA and DFB also plan to commemorate Armistice Day on 11 November in a number of other ways:
RAF, Army and Navy representatives will lay wreaths before kick-off.
A period of silence will be held before kick-off and after the national anthems.
During the silence, the Wembley Stadium arch will be lit in red and 'Football Remembers' will be displayed on the stadium screen.
A banner parade, involving representatives from the military, will take place inside the stadium before kick-off.
There will be poppy and St George's flag T-shirt layouts for fans in the east and west stands.
Poppy sellers will be at Wembley Stadium in the fanzone, concourses and on Olympic Way.
Northern Ireland host Switzerland in the first leg of their play-off for the 2018 World Cup while Scotland face the Netherlands at Pittodrie in a friendly on Thursday. | 1,072 |
Ever the rebel, UK artist M.I.A. got some radical help in opening her performance at New York City’s Terminal 5, employing wanted WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange as a guest speaker. Assange appeared on screen via Skype, much to the surprise and awe of the crowd.
Assange and M.I.A. are no strangers to each other, Assange helped the artist promote her Vicki Leekx mixtape, inspired by the 2010 WikiLeaks controversy, a year ago, with M.I.A. returning the favour by contributing music to Assange’s TV program, The World Tomorrow.
While Assange is under lockdown in London, M.I.A. is gearing up to release her long-awaited fourth studio album, Matangi, slated for Australian release this Monday. The artist is currently embroiled in a controversy over a stunt pulled at the NFL SuperBowl, in which she flipped off a camera.
UPDATE: Footage of Assange’s opening talk has inevitably found it’s way online, and readers can now check it out for themselves, below.
In the talk Assange describes M.I.A. as “the most courageous woman working in Western music” and laments the fact that he can only appear via Skype from London’s Ecuadorian Embassy, because, as he tells the assembled crowd, “Your government sucks.”
Watch: Julian Assange Opens M.I.A.’s Terminal 5, NYC Show
That is tight as fuck. RT @venusxGG @MIAuniverse Skyped in @wikileaks JULIAN ASSANGE to be the opening act WTFFFF #AMAZING — Big Slim (@SixDimes) November 2, 2013
Julian Assange is skyping us live from London at the start of the M.I.A. concert. pic.twitter.com/h0W0BDvk2Z — Rob Todaro (@rob_tod) November 2, 2013
Julian Assange is actually speaking live (well from London's Ecaudorian embassy) at MIA right now. Lyke whoa #world pic.twitter.com/5onq8plI4x — John Shy (@Jshyman186) November 2, 2013
The opening act for #MIA is Julian Assange. pic.twitter.com/71IzS2XdMH — Jayne Glick (@TripsJ) November 2, 2013 | 1,073 |
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Tesla shareholder T. Rowe Price Group Inc raised its stake in the electric car maker by nearly half in the July-September quarter, according to a regulatory filing on Wednesday, an apparent vote of confidence for embattled CEO Elon Musk.
Slideshow ( 3 images )
A subsidiary of T. Rowe that manages the company’s mutual funds increased its investment in Tesla to 10.2 percent during a tumultuous quarter for the Palo Alto, California-based car maker, highlighted by controversial tweets by Musk about taking the company private.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission sued Musk for fraud over his tweets, and the incident clouded the company’s better-than-expected quarterly results in early August, which lifted shares 16 percent in a single session.
T. Rowe Price Associates held 17.4 million shares of Tesla at the end of September, according to a filing with the SEC. It had reported it owned 11.93 million shares, equivalent to 6.99 percent, at the end of the April-June quarter, according to data from Refinitiv.
Wall Street concerns that Musk’s statements on Twitter were distracting him from Tesla’s main business also rose during the quarter as the Tesla chief repeatedly tweeted abuse at a British cave diver involved in the rescue of 12 Thai children.
T. Rowe Price is among Tesla’s largest institutional shareholders, along with Edinburgh-based Baillie Gifford & Co and U.S. fund manager Fidelity.
A T. Rowe Price spokesman declined to comment about the company’s investment in Tesla.
Tesla and Musk have agreed to pay $20 million each to financial regulators to settle charges by the SEC that Musk misled investors. As part of the agreement, Musk will step down as the company’s chairman but remain as chief executive officer.
After Musk took to Twitter last Thursday to mock the SEC, Tesla’s stock fell 7 percent. It has lost a quarter of its value since the end of June and is at a six-month low.
Tesla shares were down 1.79 percent at $258.10 on Wednesday.
Tesla has been struggling to ramp up production of its Model 3 sedan as older automakers including General Motors and BMW prepare their own offerings of electric vehicles.
Musk has promised that Tesla would be profitable and cash flow positive in its third and fourth quarters, while short sellers believe ongoing losses will force Tesla to raise more capital. | 1,074 |
how it performs, rather than just hitting the same URL again and again. Here’s how you would use Siege to replay your Apache logs against another server to load test it:
$ cut -d'' -f7 /var/log/apache2/access.log > urls.txt $ siege -c<concurrency rate> -b -f urls.txt
Mitmproxy
Mitmproxy is an SSL-capable, man-in-the-middle HTTP proxy that allows you to inspect both HTTP and HTTPS traffic, and rewrite requests on the fly. The application has been behind quite a few iOS application privacy scandals, including Path’s address book upload scandal. Its ability to rewrite requests on the fly has also been used to target iOS, including setting a fake high score in GameCenter.
Far from only being useful to see what mobile applications are sending over the wire or for faking high scores, mitmproxy can help out with a whole range of Web development tasks. For example, instead of constantly hitting F5 or clearing your cache to make sure you’re seeing the latest content, you can run
$ mitmproxy --anticache
which will automatically strip all cache-control headers and make sure you always get fresh content. Unfortunately it doesn’t automatically set up forwarding for you like sshuttle does, so after starting mitmproxy you still need to change your system-wide or browser-specific proxy settings.
Another extremely handy feature of mitmproxy is the ability to record and replay HTTP interactions. The official documentation gives an example of a wireless network login. The same technique can be used as a basic Web testing framework. For example, to confirm that your user signup flow works, you can start recording the session:
$ mitmdump -w user-signup
Then go through the user signup process, which at this point should work as expected. Stop recording the session with Ctrl + C. At any point we can then replay what was recorded and check for the 200 status code:
$ mitmdump -c user-signup | tail -n1 | grep 200 && echo "OK" || echo "FAIL"
If the signup flow gets broken at any point, we’ll see a FAIL message, rather than an OK. You could create a whole suite of these tests and run them regularly to make sure you get notified if you ever accidentally break anything on your site. | 1,075 |
A large cat prowls near a deer feeding station in Loudon County recently in an image taken from a trail camera. Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency officials are discounting speculation that a mountain lion or cougar was on the loose, as the creature in the image is too small to be a cougar. (SPECIAL TO THE NEWS SENTINEL)
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By Hugh G. Willett
For now, it seems, the only panthers stalking Loudon County are those playing for Lenoir City High School sports teams.
A trail camera's image of what appeared to be a large cat prowling near a deer feeding station in Loudon last week is not a panther, cougar or mountain lion, experts said.
After photos were published on social media, speculation suggested a mountain lion or cougar might on the loose.
Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency Officer Matt Cameron and others disagreed, saying the creature in the photo is too small to be a cougar.
While confirmed western cougars might show up in East Tennessee someday as they move eastward, this is clearly not one of them, Cameron said.
"After observation by several biologists, we concur that given that the spacing of the bumps on the flat side of a (nearby) T-post is 2 inches, that this is without question a house cat," he said.
Tim Brewster set up the automatic camera about four months ago on his property. Since that time the camera has captured photos of deer, coyotes and other wildlife.
The animal captured on the camera last week looked like a cougar, especially the long tail and powerful hindquarters, Brewster said.
The presence of a cougar — also commonly known as the mountain lion, puma, panther or catamount — in Tennessee is not impossible. In October a trail camera in West Tennessee captured a photo that confirmed the presence of a cougar.
Biologists believe such sightings are of young male cougars leaving their home ranges in search of new territory. These males have been known to travel hundreds of miles.
States with breeding populations of western mountain lions are Nebraska, Wyoming, Colorado, North Dakota, South Dakota and Texas. There have been documented sightings of cougars in Missouri, Arkansas, Illinois, Kentucky, Connecticut and Kansas.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service declared in 2011 that eastern cougars had been extinct since the 1930s. Until that report, eastern cougars were still listed as an endangered species. | 1,076 |
MSI AM4 B350 Tomahawk and X370 XPOWER Gaming Titanium shown at CES
MSI AM4 B350 Tomahawk and X370 XPOWER Gaming Titanium shown at CES
| Source: OC3D Leaks Author: Mark Campbell
MSI AM4 B350 Tomahawk and X370 XPOWER Gaming Titanium shown at CES
Our eyes and ears over at CES 2017 have managed to give us a sneak peak as some of MSI's upcoming AM4 series motherboards, which come ready for AMD's Ryzen CPUs and Bristol Ridge APUs with support for DDR4 memory, PCIe 3.0 and many modern features like M.2/U.2 support and USB 3.1.
Right now AMD has not announced when Ryzen will hit the market, though they are expected to launch within the next few weeks or months, bringing a new eight-core AMD CPU to the market with 16-threads and performance per clock that is similar to current Intel offering.
We can see above MSI's X370 Gaming Titanium, with a beefy overclocking ready power design with large heatsinks and 8+4pin CPU power. This motherboard comes with MSI's reinforced DDR4 DIMM slots and PCIe slots, with dual M.2 slots and USB 3.1 front header at the base of the motherboard.
This will be the first MSI Gaming Titanium series AMD motherboard, bringing a modern enthusiast-grade overclocking motherboard to AMD's lineup, offering monumental upgrades when compared to AMD's aging AM3+ lineup.
Both above and below we see MSI's lower end B350 series motherboard, which comes with one of AMD's lower-end AM4 chipsets but still boasts a boatload of features like M.2 support and VR-ready USB ports.
Judging by this motherboard's large heatsink it seems that this motherboard will be overclocking ready, though at this time we do not know it AMD plans on locking overclocking to just their flagship X370 chipset.
We expect to hear and see more from AMD and other motherboard manufacturers as CES continues, especially at AMD's live event at 2pm GMT tomorrow, where AMD are expected to officially announce their Vega lineup of GPUs.
You can join the discussion on MSI's AM4 motherboard lineup on the OC3D Forums.
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Australian Grand Prix Qualifying
Qualifying Notes
George Russell qualified 19 th and Robert Kubica 20 th for the Australian Grand Prix
George set a time of 1:24.360 on his third and final flying lap of Q1 to finish P19
Robert improved on his second flying lap to a 1:26.067 but a puncture on his last effort meant that he was unable to progress, finishing the session in P20
Dave Robson, Senior Race Engineer: We got through some good work last night building on the experiments we did yesterday. FP3 was good, with both drivers were reasonably happy with the car towards the end of that session. Going into qualifying the pace of the car was where we expected it to be, but nonetheless we did a good job getting everything out of it. George was pretty happy with the car throughout qualifying and made the most of what we had, steadily building up throughout Q1. It was an extremely good qualifying for his Formula One debut. Robert’s run plan was also to complete three runs in Q1, but was a real shame that he had a puncture on his final lap which meant we couldn’t get to see his ultimate time. He was a good step up when he got the problem, I have every reason to think that he would have been very close to George come the end. Overall a good day operationally for us considering the pace of the car, as we got everything that we could out of it. We are ready to build on that tomorrow and see whether some luck comes our way.
George Russell: It felt like a really good lap, driving round a mega track at full beans. I got in three tidy laps and I am happy with my own performance but obviously we are a team and we want to push for more. The guys around me, the engineers, and myself, we did a really great job to get everything out of the package we’ve got. All I can do is drive as fast as I can, and I felt like I did that.
Robert Kubica: It wasn’t the best start of the season especially because I am last on the grid. I made a mistake on the last run when I had a good feeling and could drive the car better. I apologise for that, but that is how it is. It has been a difficult situation, but I am back on the Formula One grid and I would like to thank everyone that has made it possible, as well as the team. | 1,078 |
Our instinctive love of pies
Our ability to interpret proportions is hard-baked into our brains. Surviving on the savanna frequently required us to look at objects and assess proportionality. How much of the apple have we eaten? How much water do we have left in the gourd? How much of the cake is left? Evolution has given us the skill to assess proportions instinctively.
We continue to train this skill teaching fractions using pie charts. This is why in the example above you get to exactly 25%, as your brain reaches back to junior high fractions and geometry. Watches and clocks require the same skill, which is why some people use watches without numbers and ticks. Most importantly, we regularly practice these skills when dividing up a pizza.
So, the first great strength of the pie is that we are really good at reading them. Of course, it is lot easier to make a bad pie chart than a bad pizza. Consequently pie charts often get a bad rap. The biggest problem with normal pie charts is the labels. You will see in the example below, that with a bit of love (from my colleague Michael Wang), this is a solvable problem. Nevertheless, the pie chart is still far from perfect, but this one makes it easy to see that there are many browsers out there, with Chrome 48.0 dominating the market.
If you want to play around with these examples, or plot your own data so that it looks like the examples in this blog, click here.
Sorting helps
If we sort, we end with something a whole lot better. Our brain can easily work out from this chart that two browser versions, Chrome 48 and IE11, make up more than half of the market in our data. Again, we can do this instinctively, as we can see that their combined shares are bigger than a semi-circle. The only way to get that from the comparable bar chart would be to add up all the numbers. The point of a visualization is to let the viewer see the patterns, not to provide numbers that they can then add up. Thus, the pie chart wins hands down for data like this.
Even the brands that are too small to plot are taken care of. We end up with a beautiful visual effect as they fade into obscurity on the left-side. However, you can hover over them with your mouse to see the tooltips, thus losing no information. In a bar chart, these would likely have been merged into an unhelpful "others" category. | 1,079 |
vue-draggable-number A Photoshop-inspired, VueJS number input component in which the user can modify the value by dragging with the mouse.
Vue Draggable Number
A simple number input component that users can edit by dragging the label around, inspired by Photoshop UX.
Written in Typescript.
Basic usage
<template> <div> <draggable-number-input v-model= "someNumber" label= "My number" /> </div> </template> <script> export default { data () { return { someNumber : 1, }; }, }; </script>
This will create an unstyled HTML5 <input type="number"> tied to someNumber, the value of which the user can easily increase or decrease by dragging (respectively) up and down on the label.
The only two required properties are label and value (in the example case, handled through the v-model syntactic sugar).
Allowed props
Property Description Type Default Options dragDirection The axis in which the user has to drag to increase/decrease the number. String “Y” “X” | “Y” hideLabel Whether or not to hide the label. Boolean false true false label The label to show next to the input. It is also used to generate the name of the input and the class of the wrapper. String - - max Maximum allowed value. Number Infinity - min Minimum allowed value. Number -Infinity - step The amount by which the value is increased on mouse movement. Number 1 - value The value of the input. Number - -
The generated HTML looks like this:
<div class= "vue-draggable-number-container ${generatedInputName}" > <label for= "${generatedInputName}" > </label> <input type= "number" name= "${generatedInputName}" /> </div>
Where ${generatedInputName} is draggable-number- plus the kebab-cased label.
These are useful to target the component for styling.
Advanced demo: keeping the aspect ratio
As mentioned, the inspiration from this component came from Adobe Photoshop’s UX. Hence, a usecase for it could be sizing inputs. We can imagine we have an element we want to resize, while keeping the aspect-ratio of the element constant.
We would have something like this: | 1,080 |
Pebble today announced a significant update to its smart watch that allows any Notification Center alert to be pushed directly to the watch, a big improvement from the prior version which only allowed some notifications like calls and text messages to be sent.
Now, any iOS 7 notification -- whether from Facebook, Google Maps, Calendar or any other app -- will appear directly on the Pebble Smart Watch. The company also announced the next major version of the Pebble SDK for developers, including new APIs for Javascript, the accelerometer, data logging and persistent storage.
A new Pebble app for iOS will enable this functionality and is currently under review by Apple. Expect an update on the iTunes Store soon. Pebble is streaming the announcement live at 10AM Pacific so developers can see the latest updates.
First, we're introducing a delightful user experience for Pebble customers using iOS. Pebble is now fully integrated with iOS 7 and works seamlessly with Notification Center. This means that any notifications that you've enabled in Notification Center on your iOS 7 device will appear on your Pebble -- just like that. It's easier than ever to pick and choose which updates you want to see on your watch. This includes notifications beyond calls, texts and emails, such as Calendar, Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Instagram, LinkedIn, Flickr, Dropbox, WhatsApp, Flipboard and more. Second, we're launching Pebble SDK 2.0, which makes it even easier for developers to build awesome Pebble apps. SDK 2.0 opens up an entire universe of rich new watch apps thanks to four new APIs: Javascript, Accelerometer, Data Logging and Persistent Storage. These API allow developers to make Pebble apps that interface directly with the web (real-time weather, transit info, location check-in), access the accelerometer (health/fitness monitoring and gesture-based remote control), log data when disconnected from the phone (health/fitness tracking), and store info on the watch (high scores for games, settings).
The Pebble raised more than $10 million on Kickstarter, potentially proving the viability of the smart watch as a product. Apple is widely rumored to be working on its own iWatch and recently invested hundreds of millions of dollars in a new Arizona factory to make sapphire glass, perhaps for such a product.
Pebble says it has native apps from Foursquare, GoPro and Yelp on the way, with more to come. The Pebble smart watch is available for $150 in five colors from getpebble.com and at Best Buy and AT&T retail stores. | 1,081 |
Source:
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been blocked from gaining access to his lawyers to discuss his potential extradition to the United States.
Assange who is being held in a high security prison in London, fears his extradition to the US may lead to the death penalty for alleged crimes including conspiring to commit computer treason.
His defense team say that their client is unaware of some evidence in his case because of a lack of access to him in jail.
Assange appeared via videolink at Westminster Magistrates Court on Friday for a brief administrative hearing. The proceedings confirm that the basic legal rights of the investigative journalist are being trampled in what amounts to an extraordinary rendition.
Press TV reports: Assange has continued to be victimized in his legal proceedings since his forced refuge in the Ecuadorian Embassy where he spent almost 7 years in a confined room. His alleged collusion in leaking 1000’s of documents provided by US Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning, documents which showed US troops murdering citizens, as well as leaked war memos from Afghanistan and Iraq.
Under UK law, prisoners have the right to legal consultation with their lawyers, and this should be confidential and respected. However, the apparent deliberate blocking of access to lawyers is hindering Assanage’s appeal case, and may consequently lead him to an unfair trail in his extradition case.
The district judge overseeing the case of Assange was quoted as saying ‘Can I make it clear that I have no desire to stand in the way of any lawyer having proper access to their client and it’s in the interest of justice that they do’, however, it seems that the powers that be are keen on making Assange a scape-goat in the whistle-blowers affair, and in spite of a lack of access to legal advice, and the fact that numerous medics have written to the UK Home Secretary Priti Patel suggesting that Assange is medically unwell, and could die in prison, it seems that Assange’s plight is falling on deaf ears.
The UK and US appear to have a track record of treating criminals in a non-uniform manner, in particular when it comes to national security issue. One only has to examine the history surrounding Guantanamo Bay to know that the US may have horrific plans for Assange, therefore, under British conventional law, extraditing a national to a state where the death penalty may be applied is normally over-ruled, unless of course, the exception to the rule is Assange, and his crime of telling the truth. | 1,082 |
5 percent. The long-run return in the US stock market has been higher than that.
Marc Andreessen:If you actually get regular compounding growth of stocks of that form, then basically what you have is an economic boom — a sustained boom in productivity. If the gains from the market exceed the gains from economic growth, the delta is productivity growth. That's the math. This is why I say he has so much more faith in the progress of capitalism that even the capitalists do. What all the capitalists are worried about is where's the productivity growth. This is where Piketty's analysis is actually a very optimistic analysis. It suggests you're going to have a gigantic productivity boom. Isn't that the world we want to live in? Think about what happens in that world, though. Unbelievable progress, unbelievable productivity growth, unbelievable increase in standard of living all across the planet. Somehow as a consequence of that, everything is going to stabilize and we're going to go back to feudal France. At that point it becomes Marxist logic. There's a missing step in there where everyone but the hereditary elite gets screwed. And he never explains that part. Because if you're having all this economic growth, and everything is getting better, but somehow you're in this dystopian world where there's a few rich people and a lot of poor people, that doesn't add up. It's a really, really Marxist way of looking at the world. It's not an accident that Piketty named his book after Das Capital. It's a very "capitalists are evil, it's all going to roll up to a few rich people" kind of thing. Marx was wrong. That's literally not what happened. For it to happen now, with the economy being the way it is now, which is so much even more dynamic than it was in Marx's time, [seems unlikely]. If you talk to anyone in the French socialist party, their worldview on how capitalism works is completely backwards from anything you see in the real world. Piketty has taken that and created abstract models and marshaled some data and presented it in book form. Update: Andreessen originally told me that stock market returns had been "flat" for 15 years. While inflation-adjusted returns have been below average during this period, they have been positive (for example, S&P 500 returns averaged 2.2 percent from January 1999 to December 2013). With Andreessen's approval, I've changed it to say that stock market returns have been "weak" instead of "flat." | 1,083 |
a narcissist who is stuck in a childlike adolescent ego state. He is insecure in his masculinity. This causes Trump to both seek the approval of women he desires and to also lash out at any woman he perceives as being “disrespectful” or as having “spurned” him. This has the potential to make it very easy for Hillary Clinton to agitate him. Once Trump overreacts, Hillary Clinton will have an opening she can exploit.
Clinton needs to remember, though, that Trump is a brawler — and if she tries to engage him on that level, she'll lose. But if there is an opportune moment for Clinton to interject against Trump, she should ask him questions such as, “Are you mature? Why are you acting this way? Aren’t you prepared?” Trump will of course answer in the affirmative, which will then allow Hillary Clinton to undermine him by showing how the opposite is in fact true. This will further enrage Trump by undermining his fragile ego.
Professional wrestling holds one final lesson for how Hillary Clinton can defeat Trump tonight. As with debates, the referees are an integral part of the storytelling inside of the ring. In wrestling, the referees know the predetermined outcome of the match and help to facilitate it.
To this point, the American corporate news media has coddled Donald Trump, giving him at least $3 billion in free media coverage without holding him to any traditional standards of competence or the facts. In trying to further a self-serving “horserace” narrative, the news media has artificially sustained and buoyed Trump’s campaign.
Advertisement:
If Lester Holt of NBC News, the moderator at tonight’s presidential debate, does his job by acting with journalistic integrity and a respect for the truth, then Hillary will be able to pummel Trump with the facts. Unfortunately, in the twisted and bizarre American politics of 2016 that may not be enough for Clinton to win tonight, or in November.
I desperately want Hillary Clinton to defeat the fascist Donald Trump in tonight’s debate. However, in keeping with the politics-as-professional-wrestling theme, the hero may need to pull a pair of brass knuckles out of her pocket to knock out the villain. But if she does, Trump, the news media and his public would howl that “Hillary cheated!” all the while ignoring the barbed-wire baseball bat in Trump’s hands. | 1,084 |
Google
The mindless practice of scrawling your signature at checkout will one day vanish, and a major step toward that change starts Friday.
Beginning last year, all four major US payment providers -- Mastercard, Visa, American Express and Discover -- announced plans to remove the requirement that merchants collect signatures for card transactions. Mastercard, American Express and Discover kicked off that new policy Friday, while Visa will do the same Saturday.
"It is the right time to eliminate an antiquated practice," a Mastercard spokesperson said Friday.
But don't despair if you actually like writing your signature at retail stores, because their ultimate demise will likely take a while. The change is only optional, with merchants, not customers, given the new power to decide whether to get rid of signatures. So, if asked to sign, please don't insist to your next cashier that you no longer need to -- it won't work.
Also, plenty of retailers will likely want to keep signatures, particularly if their workers are paid based on a lot of tips, or they sell pricey items.
Still, the change marks a clear awareness from payment providers that the signature doesn't really work as a strong protector against fraud. I've signed my own signature on a family member's credit card several times in the past and have yet to get fined or arrested for the violation. Plus, with card processing technology improving, thanks to chips embedded in cards and new payment systems like Apple Pay and Samsung Pay, the need for a signature isn't nearly as great.
The change is being handled a little differently by each payment provider. For instance, Mastercard, Discover and American Express said they'll let retailers make every kind of card payment optional for a signature, regardless of whether you've got a new chip card or you still swipe. Visa, meanwhile, isn't changing its requirements for payments using a swipe card, but it did relax its policy for chip card and contactless payments like Apple Pay.
Visa noted that over 75 percent of face-to-face transactions using its cards in North America already don't require a signature, thanks to lower-value transactions.
Though you may not notice this change immediately, over time -- as you pay more often using your chip card or thumb or face -- you might realize you haven't been using your signature nearly as often.
Cambridge Analytica: Everything you need to know about Facebook's data mining scandal.
Tech Enabled: CNET chronicles tech's role in providing new kinds of accessibility. | 1,085 |
Document Friday: Afghanistan, “Heading Towards a Catastrophe” before 9/11?
On April 27, 2001, Secretary of State Colin Powell read a memo entitled “Preventing an Afghan Humanitarian Situation Crisis.” It warned that Afghanistan was “verge of a widespread and precipitous famine,” and estimated that 3.8 million Afghans—more than 6 percent of the population—would be affected by the food shortage. Powell initialed the memo and wrote, “Keep me informed.”
According to today’s “hot doc,” provided by Archive analyst Barbara Elias, the situation in Afghanistan was “heading towards a catastrophe” due to several factors, including:
“Afghanistan’s worst drought in history.”
Twenty years of civil war in Afghanistan—which was at that time intensifying.
The “administrative incompetence of the Taliban.”
The memo concluded by noting that the United States had already provided $75 million in humanitarian aid to Afghanistan—and that it planned to contribute more. It also bemoaned that “the response from other countries is disappointing.” In May 2001, the US government contributed an additional $43 million dollars of emergency aid. Some alleged the aid was a reward for the Taliban’s ban on opium production; others decried that money was given to a repressive regime which was harboring Osama Bin Laden, and had recently blown up two UNESCO-designated, sixth-century Buddha statues.
After eight years of war in Afghanistan, and as President Obama begins increasing the US troop presence, this pre-9/11 document remains significant. It reminds us that the government of Afghanistan was unable to independently provide for its citizens even before the NATO invasion. As this memo warned, “unless immediate action is taken, the situation may deteriorate into one that is irreversible.” US policymakers were not ignorant or blind to potential problems from Afghanistan.
It also shows that assertions that the US is mired in “what is, truly, a 35-year old [Afghan] civil war” are not new. As early as April 2001, Bush administration officials believed there was an intensifying civil war in Afghanistan.
Finally, the US famine relief actions show that Colin Powell’s Department of State felt that a stable Afghanistan was in the United States’ strategic interest before the attacks of 9/11 were ordered from within its territory. | 1,086 |
A question that came up recently around Query Store is what happens when there are log backups in use on the database. Let’s talk about it.
Query Store and Log Backups
The core of the answer is very simple. Query Store, like any other data written to a database, whether a system table or a user table, is a logged operation. So, when you backup the database, you’re backing up Query Store data. When you backup the logs, you’re also backing up Query Store data. A point in time will include all the data written to the Query Store at that point.
However, that’s the kicker. At what point was the Query Store information written to disk? By default, there’s a fifteen minute cycle before the Query Store moves the data from memory to disk. After it gets written, it will be available through your log backups. Before it gets written though, if you take a log backup, then whatever is in memory is not going to be included. So it does come to down to getting the right point in time.
You can control things though. If you wanted to, let’s say as part of of taking the tail log backup, ensure that anything in memory for Query Store was written to disk first, you can. Run the following command and everything in memory for Query Store gets flushed to disk:
EXEC sys.sp_query_store_flush_db; 1 EXEC sys. sp_query_store_flush_db ;
For a very tiny amount of additional detail, read here.
Conclusion
There’s really only a very minor gotcha around the Query Store when it comes to log backups. If it’s on the disk for the point in time you’re recovering to, it’s available. If it was in memory at that point in time, it’s not. If you are concerned about the Query Store and log backups, just make sure you flush the data to disk more frequently or using the command.
I have lots more information on the Query Store to share. You can even hear me talk about it in person.
Last chance to sign up for the full-day seminar I’m putting on before SQLSaturday Boston, on September 21st. You can go here to register.
Another event in Europe will be at SQLSaturday Munich on October 26, 2018. Go here now to join the class. | 1,087 |
The Sun, a giant nuclear fusion reactor that our planet orbits, is the most powerful entity in the solar system and essential to life on Earth. Despite this, our star is one of the least understood objects in our cosmic neighborhood.
Enter the Big Red Ball (BRB), a “mini-Sun” at the University of Wisconsin-Madison built to simulate solar dynamics in a laboratory setting.
In a study published on Monday in Nature Physics, scientists demonstrated that the newly-operational BRB can mimic some of the Sun’s most complex properties.
For example, the researchers used the BRB to recreate a structure called the Parker spiral, formed from magnetic field lines shaped by the Sun’s rotation. The researchers were also able to detect fast-moving plasma within magnetically weak regions of the BRB; analogous conditions on the Sun can cause plasmoid “burps” that erupt and fuel the solar wind, which is a flow of charged particles emitted by our star.
“Our experiments were the first time creating a rotating stellar wind,” lead author and UW-Madison graduate student Ethan Peterson said in an email.
“I think the most exciting thing was just realizing that laboratory experiments are getting really good at being able to understand the fundamental processes happening in the solar wind,” he added.
Building a miniature Sun sounds like a plot arc for a Bond movie, and the BRB somewhat looks the part.
The machine is a three-meter-wide hollow sphere with a powerful magnet at its core that can be filled with helium gas, which is one of the major components of the Sun. The gas is ionized to form a plasma, which is a superhot state of matter created in stars. Finally, an electric current is introduced which causes the plasma to rotate, simulating the spinning of the Sun.
While the BRB is not a replacement for space missions to our star, such as NASA’s Parker Solar Probe, it does provide an Earth-based platform for interrogating solar phenomena in more detail. While missions like Parker collect data from the actual environment of the Sun, machines like BRB can try to recreate those conditions in the laboratory.
This combination of approaches may finally resolve some of the biggest mysteries about the Sun, including the unexplained speed boost that propels the solar wind into the rest of the solar system. This is an important process to understand because the solar wind can disrupt satellites, electronics, and power grids here on Earth. | 1,088 |
A professor who won a prestigious Israeli prize has promised to donate the award money to a group of peace activists striving to achieve full civic equality between Israelis and Palestinians.
David Shulman, an American-born Israeli who teaches at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, won the Israel Prize for his academic work on the languages and cultures of India.
He said he will donate the $20,000 (£14,000) award to Ta’ayush - an Israeli group, co-founded by Mr Shulman, working to help Palestinians.
The award is given out by the State of Israel to people or organisations who have demonstrated excellence in their field and is generally regarded as the state's highest honour. It is presented annually on Israeli Independence Day as part of the celebrations to mark the foundation of the Israeli state.
Speaking about the award in a video on Thursday, Mr Shulman said: “I hesitated to accept this prize giving the deteriorating situation, which now includes persecution of Ta’ayush activists and other peace and human rights activists by the establishment and the far right, who seek to perpetuate the Occupation.”
Ta’ayush describes itself as a “grassroots movement working to break down the walls of racism, segregation, and apartheid by constructing a true Arab-Jewish partnership".
The group have been working for over a decade in areas of occupied Palestinian territories, focusing their efforts in the South Hebron Hills.
“In the South Hebron Hills we find a civilian population of several thousand Palestinians living in tents, in caves and in small khirbehs scattered over the hills,” says Mr Shulman.
“In the early 1980’s Israeli settlements were established in their midst and since then, the people of this region have been subject to frequent attacks by settlers and the security forces, who regularly destroy their homes. A continually worsening threat of expulsion hovers over them.”
Video footage shows Mr Shulman and his fellow Ta’ayush members helping Palestinian farmers with their harvests, cleaning wells, renovating roads and accompanying local school children along the settlement of Chavat Maon.
“We in Ta'ayush feel an ethical duty to defend the innocent civilian population and to stand by them in the face of on-going violence,” says Mr Shulman. “I have decided to donate the prize money to supporting the on-going activists of Ta’ayush.” | 1,089 |
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Irfan will only reveal which clubs he is trying out for after the results of the trials are released next year.
SINGAPORE: A move to the English Premier League (EPL) could be on the cards for Singapore footballer Irfan Fandi, who will attend a round of trials in England in March next year.
In an interview with Channel NewsAsia, the son of local football legend Fandi Ahmad said that the trials will involve multiple EPL clubs.
However, the 20-year-old said he would only reveal their names after the results of his trials have been released. His younger brother Ikhsan will also go through the tryouts.
“It all started when my brother Ilhan went to London. And from there, my dad had contact with one of the English scouts,” said Irfan.
“This scout has trials with other clubs lined up as well, but there are two that are big which I know can bring me further in football.”
Irfan said he has sent his curriculum vitae and footage of games he has played in to clubs that may be interested in him.
“All they want us to do now is come down, maybe for a few training sessions, and from there we will see how it goes,” he added.
Irfan spent two years with Chilean side Club Deportivo Universidad Catolica from 2014 to 2015 along with Ikhsan, before they returned to Singapore in January 2016, when they signed with S-League outfit Home United.
The pair then enlisted for National Service in April of that year.
Irfan now has his sights set on England and shared that there is one club in particular that he is looking forward to trying out for in March.
“I can say it’s a famous club. It’s a pretty big club in Europe, in England. If I break out there then it will be really be big,” said the defender.
“I still have dreams of playing in Europe. And I feel that 20, 21, is the right age to go overseas and play.”
Irfan could begin his EPL career next season if he's successful in the trials and gets a work permit. | 1,090 |
on milestones. The government has more experience of getting rid of environmental watchdogs than of setting them up.”
New legislation has already been promised to cover areas like air, waste, water and chemicals that cannot simply be transferred into UK law following Brexit.
However, to ensure these pledges are carried out the committee said there was a need to introduce five-yearly plans to ensure ministers are on track to meet their environmental targets.
A similar system is already in place to monitor greenhouse gas emissions in the form of the “carbon budgets” set by the Climate Change Act – a system widely regarded as effective and world-leading.
“We want an Environmental Governance and Principles Act that sets legally-binding targets and creates a new Environmental Enforcement and Audit Office to measure progress and enforce this new law,” said Ms Creagh.
“The government needs to set out detailed delivery and funding proposals for the Plan and departments across Whitehall need to commit to its ambitions, rather than trying to water them down behind the scenes.”
Environmental campaigners, who have welcomed the government’s recent announcement that a new environment act is imminent, agreed that current proposals are not strong enough.
“No one would argue that we shouldn’t be striving for cleaner air or water along with a vibrant countryside rich in wildlife,” said RSPB conservation director Martin Harper.
“But to achieve this we need a more transformative piece of legislation – one that delivers ambitious targets for nature, soil, water and air and holds the government to account when standards aren’t met.”
Over 100,000 people have signed a Greenpeace petition calling on Michael Gove and Philip Hammond to keep their promise of a "world-leading watchdog".
"MPs are right to call on the government to create an environmental watchdog with powers to require ministers and public bodies to comply with environmental laws,” said Greenpeace’s senior political adviser Rebecca Newsom.
“People only need to look at the government's utter failure to deal with our roadside air pollution crisis to see why this matters. If Michael Gove wants to deliver the "world-leading watchdog" he has promised, he should take the committee's recommendations to heart."
A Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs spokesperson said: “Our 25 Year Environment Plan sets out in detail how we will improve our environment for the next generation, and we have already taken significant steps to deliver this pledge. | 1,091 |
In yet another incident of fathers’ rights activist harassment, a Canadian Screening of The Red Pill was cancelled by a Calgary Theatre following feminist’s complaints – on the basis that the film promoted misogyny. Although the screening was reinstated following objections from female men’s rights activists, the initial complaints are emblematic of the routine and often unreported harassment of activists who dare to question the status quo and demand that fathers should have substantially the same rights as mothers when it comes to seeing their children.
The Red Pill is a 2016 documentary chronicling filmmaker Cassie Jaye’s personal evolution from ardent feminist to feminist-questioner, while covering what is commonly known as the Men’s Rights Movement. Calls to ban the documentary have erupted in nearly every location where the film was screened including in Australia and the United Kingdom. And, harassment ranges from run of the mill calls, social media postings and e-mail campaigns to threats and demands to silence the film and its makers. In the words of one protester, Andrea Llewellyn who admitted that she hadn’t even deigned to see the film, was quoted as saying that the film is “such a toxic film that it’s just really inappropriate to be providing a platform for it at all.”
The constantly recurring leftist anthem of “you are so offensive that I do not even need to hear you to know how offensive you are” has created a swath of misery – and not only on college campuses. Silencing disagreeing voices, creating safe spaces and requiring all who occupy one’s space to refrain from micro-aggression leads to only one result – misery. This is the same voice of force that propelled the 2015 Yale Halloween Costume Controversy and numerous other attempts to silence dissenting or questioning voices in both the public and private sphere. It is also the same tactic used by religious extremists and cults – and by the societies that support them.
A properly democratic civil society cannot make itself victim to such silencing. In a civilized society, unpopular views must be heard, reasoned and dealt with. And, with respect to the specific question of father’s rights, one simply needs to ask oneself: how comfortable would we be with the opposite extreme – current Islamist or 19th century Christian world in which women have virtually no rights with respect to their children and where only the father holds the power and the cards, and we need to question why are feminists aligning themselves, yet again with radical Islam and ossified concepts of human rights? | 1,092 |
's orbit—and they routinely interact with others in the upper echelons of U.S. political power.
Indeed, the night before the birthday party at Mar-a-Lago, Gor and two other attendees, New York publicist Susan Shin and Alabama socialite Danielle Yancey, had gone out to an Italian restaurant in Palm Beach. They were pictured there with, among others, Don Jr. adviser Arthur Schwartz and Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), who a couple days later would self-quarantine after coming into contact with another coronavirus carrier at the Conservative Political Action Conference.
“Isn’t that Wuhan @repmattgaetz in the middle there?” Schwartz joked in an Instagram comment. Gaetz eventually tested negative for the virus.
CPAC itself marked the first time that the coronavirus threatened to infect the president’s inner circle—or even Trump himself. An attendee who interacted with a number of high-profile guests, including Gaetz and Matt Schlapp, the chairman of the nonprofit that hosts the annual conference, later tested positive for the virus.
For CPAC and Schlapp in particular, it turned into a public relations dilemma. Publicly, Schlapp was toeing the administration line on the virus: fears were largely overblown, thanks mostly to a political press determined to damage the president. The possibility that high-profile attendees had been exposed to the virus would do a number to that narrative. So Schlapp was reduced to insisting that health officials in Maryland, where the conference took place, had “screened” about two thousand attendees, a claim that the hotel that hosted the conference disputed.
Schlapp continues to insist that the hype over coronavirus at CPAC—and the possibility of widespread infection more generally—is overblown. But he also decided, as a precaution, not to attend mass this Sunday, he said on Twitter.
Though he said he was taking precautions, Deason also maintains that the Trump administration is well equipped to keep the coronavirus under control, in spite of its detractors.
“Obviously, the POTUS didn't have enough resources to deal w/ this virus but ramped up quickly,” he wrote. “He has done his best and all of us deplorables can see that. What the left coasts think is generally irrelevant since they have already been infected w/ Trump derangement syndrome, for which there is no known cure.” | 1,093 |
Sen. Bernie Sanders Bernie SandersThe Hill's Campaign Report: Trump faces backlash after not committing to peaceful transition of power Bernie Sanders: 'This is an election between Donald Trump and democracy' The Hill's 12:30 Report: Trump stokes fears over November election outcome MORE (I-Vt.) on Tuesday said he believes that President Trump Donald John TrumpSteele Dossier sub-source was subject of FBI counterintelligence probe Pelosi slams Trump executive order on pre-existing conditions: It 'isn't worth the paper it's signed on' Trump 'no longer angry' at Romney because of Supreme Court stance MORE "has no political belief" and is "a total phony," claiming that the president's views appear to have changed on abortion, health care and taxes.
"Look, he has no political beliefs, he is a total phony and a political opportunist," Sanders said on CNN's "New Day."
"This guy actually supported a tax on wealth, he was pro-choice but he moves with the wind and right now, he is an extreme right-winger because he thinks that’s how you get votes," he continued.
Trump "has no political belief," says @BernieSanders.
"He is doing what no president in modern history has done and really trying to divide the American people up based on the color of our skin or country we came from or religion or sexual orientation. That is outrageous." pic.twitter.com/3ZqQpCiQVx — New Day (@NewDay) November 27, 2018
In an October 1999 interview with NBC News, Trump said he was "very pro-choice." In an interview with CNN the following month, Trump proposed a one-time "net worth tax" on the rich.
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Sanders, who is considered a possible 2020 presidential contender, said Trump is doing "what no president in modern history has done," claiming that the president is "trying to divide the American people up based on the color of our skin or the country we came from or our religion or our sexual orientation."
Sanders has publicly condemned the president on numerous occasions, calling Trump the "most racist, sexist, homophobic, bigoted president in history."
Pressed by CNN's John Berman over a possible presidential bid, Sanders said he has not yet made up his mind, adding that he believes the American people are tired of campaigns following this year's contentious midterm elections. Sanders said he wants to give people a moment to "catch their breath." | 1,094 |
Filming for new Marvel superhero movie Ant-Man began in Atlanta last month.
And Michael Douglas was spotted giving his two children Dylan, 13, and Carys, 11, a guided tour of the set on Monday, dressed in character as scientist Dr. Hank Pym.
The 70-year-old actor put a protective arm around his daughter as he gave the youngsters an access all areas visit of the future blockbuster's filming location.
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Doting dad: Michael Douglas treated his children to a behind-the-scenes visit of the Ant-Man set in Atlanta on Monday, just a few weeks into filming for Peyton Reed's future blockbuster
The Behind The Candelabra star was wearing tweed trousers and a matching brown waistcoat over a pink shirt and red tie.
Meanwhile, his children looked excited to be on filmmaker Peyton Reed's set and were sporting VIP passes around their necks.
The Hollywood A-lister's grey goatee gave him an air of wisdom to play the original Ant-Man, who mentors Paul Rudd's central character, Scott Lang.
Cool rider: The 70-year-old actor plays the original Ant-Man, Dr. Hank Pym, who acts as a mentor to Paul Rudd's thieving character Scott Lang
VIP: Dylan and Carys will no doubt be the envy of all their friends after meeting the cast and crew
The plot will see Michael's character hire a reformed thief and electronics expert (Rudd) to look after his size-altering technology.
But when things go wrong, Lang is transformed into Ant-Man, who makes it his mission to defend humanity from evil.
The cast also includes LOST alumni Evangeline Lilly as Pym's daughter, Hope Van Dynem, while Corey Stoll takes on a star turn as villainous Darren Cross.
Michael - who is giving his marriage to Catherine Zeta-Jones a second shot after a trial separation - is excited about joining the Marvel team.
He recently told Vulture: 'Marvel has got it down to a science, pretty much, and they've got kind of a phenomenal track record.
'I love this picture they did this summer, Guardians of the Galaxy. It's really good!
'I think that's given Marvel the confidence to step out in this whole new area, so I'm looking forward to adding to it.'
Ant-Man is scheduled for release on July 17, 2015. | 1,095 |
There is yet another victory for the national security state under President Obama. The Obama Administration has succeeded, with the help of Senate Intelligence Committee chair Dianne Feinstein, in quietly removing a provision that would seem unobjectionable to a President who pledged “the most transparent Administration in history.” The provision simply required disclosure of the number of people killed each year by U.S. drone attacks. Not the details mind you. Just the figure. That sent the intelligence community into outrage over having to tell the public how many people have been killed in just this one area. The result was that it was simply stripped out of the Senate bill without a vote or debate.
The person demanding the change was James R. Clapper, the director of national intelligence. You recall Clapper’s last notable appearance before Congress was to lie about surveillance programs — an act viewed widely as perjury but Clapper has not been even investigated let alone prosecuted by the Obama Administration. Instead, he is now working to strip out provisions requiring the most basic form of disclosure. That must certainly be a comfort to an official who admitted to previously giving false information to Congress. If no disclosure is required, there could be no new charges of perjury.
The provision, passed by the Senate Intelligence Committee last year as part of its authorization bill, required Obama to annually disclose “the total number of combatants killed or injured during the preceding year by the use of targeted lethal force outside the United States by remotely piloted aircraft.” Note that it did not require details on countries, identifications, or operations. Just a number.
Intelligence officials demanded that the provision be removed. Once again, they got their way in a back door agreement. No debate on the floor of course. The decision was made by the intelligence community and demanded by the White House. That is all.
Of course, President Obama just got finished promising the public last May that this time he really means it: he will demand transparency from intelligence operations. The change this week reflects that little has been done on this promise which (like the one made earlier) has been honored primarily in the breach. But don’t worry, the White House sent out Clapper to assure the public that he is exploring ways to “provide the American people more information about the United States’ use of force outside areas of active hostilities.” Now if that is not reassuring, I cannot imagine what would be.
Source: New York Times
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Hungary’s anti-mass immigration Prime Minister has said that terrorists have “exploited mass migration” and the European Union (EU) is “weak, uncertain and paralyzed” in its response to the migrant crisis.
Speaking to the Hungarian parliament on Monday, Viktor Orban said that the EU plan to force member countries to take a compulsory quota of migrants is unlawful and will “spread terrorism around Europe.”
“As long as this government breathes, there will be no quotas and we will not take in any refugees,” Mr Orban said.
Mr Orban added that no one could be certain how many terrorists entered through the migrant crisis, but “one terrorist is too many.”
The Hungarian Prime Minister also said the EU needs to “forget political correctness … and return to common sense” by adopting tighter border controls, as well as protecting its culture and its economic interests.
Ordinary people must have the right to influence EU decisions, he added, saying: “The right of Europeans to defend themselves” is the “most powerful, compared to other rights.”
Hungary has built razor-wire fences on its borders with Serbia and Croatia to divert the flow of migrants. These fences have proved so secure that the number of migrants in Hungary has dropped dramatically to pre-crisis levels.
In September, when the border was closed, up 10,000 migrants a day crossed illegally into Hungary, but now that figure has fallen to just dozens.
The policy has proved so successful that other European nations are considering building their own fences, including Austria which was initially highly critical of Mr Orban’s policy.
Former Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott has also strongly criticised European leaders for failing to protect their borders.
Speaking at the Second Annual Margaret Thatcher Gala dinner in the City of London, Mr Abbott said:
“All countries that say ‘anyone who gets here can stay here’ are now in peril, given the scale of the population movements that are starting to be seen. There are tens, perhaps hundreds, of millions of people living in poverty and danger who might readily seek to enter a Western country if the opportunity is there.
“Who could blame them? Yet no country or continent can open its borders to all comers without fundamentally weakening itself. This is the risk countries of Europe now run through misguided altruism.”
Additional reporting by AP | 1,097 |
. So we continued with the operation. Under extremely harsh circumstances, in a desert region, thousands of kilometers of land was cleared of ISIS. We want to herald the good news our people and the whole world expects from us as soon as possible.
The US has decided to withdraw in the face of the Turkish state invasion, what do you have to say?
The whole world objected to the occupation during the attacks against Kobane. The international coalition forces were foremd. Of course this was an important process. The decision to withdraw before ISIS is done with is problematic and significant. But the people of the region continue the fight for freedom alongside the defense forces. This people has the right to live on their own lands in peace and quiet. We have been stressing for years that the problem in Syria will be resolved through dialogue. We want autonomy for all of Syria. We didn’t start the fight with the coalition forces and without them our fight will not end. For this, we will be waging a much greater struggle than before in any war. But nobody should deceive themselves, the force attacking Rojava and the force defending the region against these attacks are very clear. All should see this and defend it.”
How are you coming into 2019?
Our people’s situation is known. We as the fighters of this people continue our preparation non-stop. Our forces are prepared for any and all situations. If there is a war again on these lands, all should know that we won’t be fighting like before. We are prepared for dialogue to achieve results through political solutions. Our only care is how to defend our people and our land. We are calling on all world powers, like they protected and rescued so many peoples from genocide, they should protect the peoples of Rojava and Syria. Because the peoples of this land also deserve a peaceful life on their own lands. For the world to protect the people of Syria and Rojava, they must be involved in the solution. Those who paid a price and made sacrifices need to be part of the solution process as well.
We as the YPJ are ready for a heavy war but our hope is that this will be a year of peace. Once again, we say we will be there wherever our people are attacked and we will defend our people. On this foundation, we remember all our martyrs with gratitude in the persons of Avesta, Rosyar, Ilam, Polat and Barin. We celebrate 2019 for all our people and all the freedom fighters. | 1,098 |
Anna Palmer and Jake Sherman look like they’re vying to be the leaders of the Nancy Pelosi Fan Club.
The Politico reporters laughed and giggled throughout their interview with the House Democratic Leader on Friday morning.
Look at these highlights:
Talking about Donald Trump’s border wall and an import tax to pay for it, Pelosi said, “We have practically zero, maybe there’s somebody who supports it in our caucus,” as Sherman laughed.
“But they have not come forward yet,” Pelosi added, prompting Sherman to burst into laughter.
He laughed, too, when Pelosi said she supported lowering the corporate tax “to get them to pay some tax.”
He let out a hearty laugh as Pelosi controlled the conversation, sarcastically saying, “Now who do you want to talk about?” referring to Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
After Pelosi told the audience she tells her fellow Democrats, “Let’s take a deep breath,” Sherman responded by laughing.
He laughed again when the House Minority Leader criticized FBI Director James Comey’s letter to Congress about the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private email server.
Sherman burst out laughing when Pelosi mocked Donald Trump’s criticisms and her sour reaction during the president’s Address to Congress this week.
“I have a hard time just watching what’s going on,” Pelosi said.
The reporters laughed when Pelosi mocked Trump’s capacity to think.
“And then when somebody asked me about what I think is his agenda and what does he — I use the word loosely — think about these things,” Pelosi said, prompting laughs from Sherman and Palmer.
When Sherman asked her if his criticisms get under her skin, Pelosi responded, “No,” causing Sherman to laugh again.
He laughed several more times at Pelosi’s slams and attempts at ridicule.
Referring to Obamacare, Pelosi said, “Repeal and replace — the only thing they have going for it is alliteration,” prompting more laughs from the reporters.
He even laughed when Pelosi told the audience she would not reveal what the Democrats’ “game plan” will be to counter Trump’s agenda — something most reporters would probably like to obtain.
Can anyone imagine the DC media treating Donald Trump, Jeff Sessions or Paul Ryan this way? | 1,099 |
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