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According to an investigative report from Al Jazeera America, rape victims searching for help at Bob Jones University in Greenville, S.C., were told to repent and seek out their own “root sin” that caused them to be raped.
Within the past year BJU has opened its own investigation into sexual abuse and rape, and now former students who were victimized are coming forward to tell their stories about life on a campus where they were shamed and told to keep their stories to themselves.
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Coming from a conservative Mennonite family, Katie Landry, who at age 19 had never even held hands with a boy, was raped multiple times by her supervisor at her summer job. Two years later, haunted by the attacks, and attending Bob Jones University, she sought help from then dean of students, Jim Berg.
According to Landry, Berg asked whether she’d been drinking or smoking pot and if she had been “impure.” He then brought up her “root sin.”
“He goes, ‘Well, there’s always a sin under other sin. There’s a root sin,’” Landry explained. “And he said, ‘We have to find the sin in your life that caused your rape.’ And I just ran.”
“He just confirmed my worst nightmare,” she added. “It was something I had done. It was something about me. It was my fault.”
Landry eventually withdrew from the school and didn’t tell anyone else for five more years.
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In interviews with Al Jazeera, other victims of abuse related how Biblical scripture was used to lay blame for the rapes on their own sins, and that their trauma was a sign that they were fighting God and would never be at peace until they forgave their rapists.
Called the “Fortress of Fundamentalism, ” Bob Jones University’s philosophical approach to almost all mental problems, beyond medical issues, is that they are the result of sin.
In a 1996 book, ‘Becoming an Effective Christian Counselor,’ written by former BJU Dean of Education Walter Fremont and his wife, counselors are instructed to emphasize that the blame lies with the abuser. However, the authors also state that being sexually assaulted is not an excuse for “sinful feelings” of discontentment, hate, fear, and especially, bitterness; calling unresolved anger “rebellion and bitterness against God.”
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Previously Al Jazeera reported on a BJU student named identified only as Lydia, who had been raped off campus and, seeking help, reported it to the school authorities only to eventually be expelled for dwelling upon it and questioning the schools handling of the incident.
[Girl cry on Shutterstock] | 1,266,400 |
Bernier never mentioned race, so the media just made things up instead.
The establishment media seems to be on a mission to destroy their own credibility.
The latest example is a despicable segment on CTV Power Play featuring pollster Nik Nanos.
On the segment, Power Play host Don Martin said this about Bernier leaving the Conservative Party:
“This all started when he said Canada is too racially diverse basically.”
Except, Bernier never said that.
He never once brought up race.
Making the despicable media segment even worse, CTV pollster Nik Nanos then did a poll on the following question:
“Opinions on Racial Diversity”
So, not only did they falsely say that Bernier talked about racial diversity, they used that lie to craft a poll question.
And is if that wasn’t bad enough, they then mentioned that 26% of respondents said there was “too much racial diversity,” and claimed that group is who Bernier would want to “build his party on.”
They literally created a fake narrative, built a poll on that narrative, and then used that poll to further push the narrative that they made up in the first place.
Disgusting.
On Twitter, Maxime Bernier pushed back:
“What’s all this nonsense about me being against too much “racial diversity”? I never once talked about race. I don’t care one bit about people’s race. I care about shared culture and shared values. You’re losing all credibility by inventing this stuff @ niknanos @ DonMartinCTV.”
What’s all this nonsense about me being against too much “racial diversity”? I never once talked about race. I don’t care one bit about people’s race. I care about shared culture and shared values. You’re losing all credibility by inventing this stuff @niknanos @DonMartinCTV. https://t.co/X4WgST2UrR — Maxime Bernier (@MaximeBernier) September 5, 2018
This is absolutely disgusting, and it’s why so many people are turning against the increasingly corrupt mainstream media.
A retraction for the despicable story must be issued, along with an apology to everyone they tried to deceive with that garbage.
Spencer Fernando
Photo – Screengrab
***
If you’re tired of the increasingly corrupt media and want to support SpencerFernando.com, you can help contribute through PayPal at the button below:
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- via Getty Images The SIT wants to question Kumar as his name was mentioned in the Justice Ranjit Singh Commission report on sacrilege incidents.
CHANDIGARH—Bollywood actor Akshay Kumar on Wednesday appeared before the Special Investigation Team (SIT) of the Punjab Police, which is probing the 2015 police firing incidents at Behbal Kalan and Kotkapura in the state following cases of sacrilege in Faridkot.
Soon after his arrival at the Chandigarh airport, the actor headed straight to the Punjab Police headquarters at sector-9 here, where security has been stepped up.
Kumar refused to talk to reporters at the airport.
The SIT wants to question Kumar as his name was mentioned in the Justice Ranjit Singh Commission report on sacrilege incidents. The SIT had earlier asked him to appear before it on 21 November at the Amritsar circuit house. However, police later allowed the actor to appear before the SIT at Chandigarh.
The Justice Ranjit Singh commission report, which was tabled in the Punjab Assembly in August, had referred to a letter written (9 October 2017) to it by former MLA Harbans Jalal claiming that a meeting took place between Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh and former deputy CM Sukhbir Singh Badal at the actor's flat in Mumbai in 2015 in connection with the release of the Dera head's movie MSG.
The meeting was allegedly held before the Dera chief was pardoned in a blasphemy case. MSG was not released in Punjab in September 2015 because of an edict issued against it by the Akal Takht, the supreme temporal seat of the Sikhs.
Kumar has denied arranging any meeting between former deputy chief minister Sukhbir Singh Badal and the Dera Sacha Sauda sect head.
The actor has also denied having ever met the Sirsa-headquartered Dera head, who is currently serving a 20-year jail term in a rape case.
Kumar had issued the denial on 12 November after the SIT summoned him along with former Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal and SAD chief Sukhbir Singh Badal.
"It has come to my knowledge that some rumours and false statements are being loosely made on social media about my involvement with a person named Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh in the context of a fictitious meeting involving Sukhbir Singh Badal," Kumar had said in a tweet.
"With all humility, I would like to state the following facts. I have never ever met Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh in my life, anywhere. I learnt from social media at some point that Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh resided for a while at some place in my locality Juhu in Mumbai but we never crossed each other's paths, Kumar added. | 1,266,402 |
and may be purchased online or at the door. Visit the official web site,www.carolinagamessummit.com, for a full listing of all the speakers, exhibitors, and additional details. Contact the event organizers at [email protected] for more information on attending, exhibiting or speaking at the Carolina Games Summit. About Wave 1 Games Wave 1 Games was founded in 2016 by Jeffrey Johnson and his girlfriend Lorena Munoz of Charlotte, NC. Jeffrey serves as both Lead Programmer and Creative Director for every title produced. Inspired by classic Jaguar games like Tempest 2000 and Defender 2000, Jeffrey makes every new project with the intent of WOWing the player. Each Jaguar project has been something previously unseen on the platform. As Lead Graphic Designer, Lorena Munoz, creates the game manuals, box art, and any assets necessary to bring a complete product to market. Lorena studied graphic design and arts at Central Piedmont Community college and her skillset enhances the brand and brings more people to the platform. In just two short years the team has produced 6 Atari Jaguar releases and 2 PC game releases. Additional information can be found on the official web site: www.wave1games.net
Tobe Sexton, Lead Business Development Associate at GameScribes, will present a talk on localization at the upcoming Carolina Games Summit 2019 on Saturday, Feb 2nd. Many projects don’t think about localization until the game is done. The localization is done as a hack, and it’s obvious it was added later on. Have fun while learning or reviewing what it takes to get yourself and your game ready for international markets. Localization is more than just “Translating” words on a page. Here you will learn the nuts-and-bolts of what’s really involved and how to make the right decisions for you, your fans and your pocketbook. Tobe will review the History of localization and why it’s important to gaming culture. Then go over the services and all that is involved to achieve AAA localization no matter your platform or budget. This is for those that want to learn more about translation, localization and how to improve workflow communication to save time and make money. This talk and all others are available with a general admission ticket to Carolina Games Summit. Visit our ticket page, to purchase your ticket now. Contact the event organizers at [email protected] for more information on attending, exhibiting or speaking at the Carolina Games Summit. About GameScribes GameScribes is a video game localization company headquartered in Los Angeles, California. Previously known as GTL Media, we provide game and audio translation, as well as quality assurance services through a global network of linguistic experts and dubbing professionals — supporting approximately 50 languages and over 100 dialects. Additional information can be found on the official web site: www.gamescribes.com
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FSP – A Customized Brand for NUC Power Supplies
【Taipei, Apr. 21st, 2020】 － As people’s taste for life improves, their requirements for hardware equipment is no longer just the aesthetics alone, but also its compactness; in many homes or personal working environments, heavy traditional computers are gradually being replaced by small NUCs (Next Unit of Computing). Intel recently launched a new generation of NUC’s in which its hardware equipment such as the processors and graphics cards, etc. were upgraded significantly. However, despite being light and compact overall, there was still a need for high-density power with high wattage to be built in while still being small in size. In order to meet the restrictions of the usage environment, the system must also have great heat dissipation as well as low noise. Under the brand mission of pursuing top technology to connect with the future product of customers, the R&D team at FSP created the Flex ATX 500W 80PLUS platinum power supply for Intel. Not only does it have high wattage and high efficiency, its noise is also less than 40dB(Note 1) while outputting at full load. Thus, we have successfully developed power specifications exclusively for the needs of partners.
The greatest feature of this 500 watt fully digital power supply (FSP500-30AS) is that users can monitor or adjust the output/input voltage, output/input current, total output power, and fan speed of the power supply itself through the PMBus firmware program; users can even fine-tune the protection configurations of the power, such as the triggering point for overvoltage protection (OVP) and overcurrent protection (OCP). There are also three sets of outputs 12V/+3.3V/+5Vsb built-in, able to meet the flexible needs of high-end gaming equipment or workstation users.
FSP has always been the most trusted power supplier of ICT manufacturers because it has rich R&D resources, provides professional customized services, and has the ability to integrate hardware and firmware. This is why it has been strategic partners with Intel since 1997 and developed power products with the latest specifications together. FSP released the world’s first 65W external power supply designed specifically for NUC in 2016; and in 2020, it tailor-made a fully digital power supply used in high-end NUC’s for Intel. FSP is a design expert for NUC-specific power supplies; its current products include 65-230 watt external power supplies, 500 watt Flex ATX power supplies, and 650 watt SFX power supplies, etc. NUC manufacturers can purchase suitable power supplies based on system needs, and you are also welcome to contact the business managers at FSP to provide customized services tailored for you.
Note 1: 40dB is about the same frequency as whispers inside a library | 1,266,404 |
.
17. Schattenparker (Shadow parker)
This word is part of a series of insults for men which accuse them of unmanly behavior. In this case, of parking their car in the shadow to avoid heating up the interior. These kinds of derogatory terms were something of a meme some years back and whole lists of them exist on the internet. Alternatives include Warmduscher (someone who showers with warm water), Sitzpinkler (a man who urinates while sitting down), or Turnbeutelvergesser (someone who used to forget their gym bag in cardio class).
18. Kuddelmuddel (???)
I know, great final word right? Don’t even start guessing its English meaning. Kuddelmuddel describes an unstructured mess, chaos, or hodgepodge. Alternatives which are equally awesome include Tohuwabohu, Wirrwarr, Mischmasch, and Kladderadatsch.
I know, some of these just sound too far-fetched to be true. Well, they are far-fetched – gathered in the distant land of Germany. If you’re still convinced I’m making up words, go ahead and look them up in the dictionary!
Download: This blog post is available as a convenient and portable PDF that you can take anywhere. Click here to get a copy. (Download)
And One More Thing
If you liked these words, then you’ll love FluentU. FluentU takes real-world videos like music videos, commercials, news, and inspiring talks and turns them into language learning experiences. It uses a natural approach that helps you ease into a foreign language and culture over time. You’ll learn a language as it’s spoken in real life. FluentU has a variety of videos – like movies, TV shows – as shown here:
FluentU is available for learning German, English, and several other languages. Native language content is manageable with interactive transcripts. You can tap on any word and look it up instantly. Every definition has carefully-written examples that help you understand how the word is used. If you see a word you’d like to review later, you can also add this to a vocab list.
And there is a personalized review mode that lets you swipe left or right to see more examples for the word you’re learning. The best part? FluentU keeps track of the vocabulary you’re learning, and it recommends videos and examples based on the words you’ve already learned. You’ll have a truly personalized experience.
Start using FluentU on the website with your computer or tablet or, better yet, download the FluentU app from the iTunes or Google Play stores. | 1,266,405 |
celebrates scoring Bournemouth's winner against Crystal Palace
Scott Dann scored his fourth goal of the season, double the number he managed in the whole of the 2014/15 campaign (2).
Seven of Palace's 25 goals this season have come from defenders, a league high.
Marc Pugh netted his fourth goal of the season (all comps) and Bournemouth's first in the fifteen minute period before half-time in the Premier League
Wilfried Zaha assisted his first Premier League goal of the season and only his fourth in his 68th appearance in the competition.
Benik Afobe scored his third goal in four games since joining Bournemouth and scored in three consecutive games for the first time since April 2015.
After losing five of their first six away Premier League games, Bournemouth have lost just one of their last seven (W3 D3 L1).
Manchester United 3-0 Stoke City
Jesse Lingard scored Manchester United's first goal
Jesse Lingard scored Manchester United's first 1st half goal at Old Trafford since they netted one against Wolfsburg in the Champions League last September.
United doubled their first half goal tally at Old Trafford in the Premier League this season in the opening 45 minutes, scoring twice to take their tally to four.
It was the first time since April 2015 against Man City that the Red Devils had scored twice in the opening 45 minutes of a Premier League game at home.
Wayne Rooney netted his 99th Premier League goal at Old Trafford.
Rooney has now scored 12 Premier League goals on a Tuesday - only Alan Shearer (15) has more.
Rooney scored and assisted at Old Trafford in a Premier League game for the first time since Boxing Day 2014 against Newcastle.
Mark Hughes has lost his last nine league trips to Old Trafford as a manager after a draw and a win in his first two visits.
West Bromwich Albion 1-1 Swansea City
Swansea's Lukasz Fabianski pulls off a save
Gylfi Sigurdsson netted his fourth goal in five games and his seventh Premier League goal of the season for Swansea.
Sigurdsson has scored in three consecutive away league games for Swansea (three goals), as many goals as he had scored in his previous 13 away trips.
This is the first time in 10 Premier League meetings that there has been a draw between the sides.
Salomon Rondon scored his first Premier League goal since October 2015, ending a run of nine games without a goal.
Swansea conceded only their fourth goal in the final fifteen minutes of a PL game this season, a joint Premier League low (alongside West Ham and Man City).
The Baggies are unbeaten in four Premier League games at the Hawthorns for the first time since February 2014 (six games). | 1,266,406 |
VPD asks for the public's help to find a suspect after a man approached a girl in East Vancouver
VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – Police in Vancouver are appealing for help while warning parents and their children after a man tried to lure an 11-year-old girl into a car on Thursday afternoon.
The incident happened at 4 p.m. in the area of Charles and Windermere Streets.
Investigators say the man pulled up next to the girl and offered her a ride then some money. She turned both down and walked away, while the man gave up and stopped trying.
She wasn’t physically hurt but was a shaken and Constable Jason Doucette explains she did the right thing by going straight home and telling an adult.
“Every situation is different. We’re asking parents to speak to their children about what they would like them to do if they do encounter a stranger that’s making them uncomfortable. We encourage these kids to find a trusted adult, whether they go into a store, a populated area or in their neighbourhood.”
Police have some surveillance footage of the man driving by, but they need more. Doucette says they’re now appealing for any witnesses to come forward.
“The car is identifiable. If you recognize the person in the car or the vehicle itself, give us a call. We’re just looking to see what his intentions were.”
The VPD know, but aren’t saying due to privacy reasons, where the girl was walking to or from although she was walking alone.
“We have officers in the area still doing a canvass looking for witnesses, trying to locate the vehicle itself. We’re speaking to our partner agencies nearby to see if there any similar circumstances. We’re not aware of any other circumstances with a similar description,” adds Doucette.
The force isn’t calling this an attempted abduction right now because they don’t know the man’s motive.
Doucette says analysts with the VPD are looking into whether there have been any other incidents like this in the area in previous years but so far, they haven’t found any.
The man is described as a white man in his 40s, with a thin build, and a thick brown moustache. He was wearing glasses and a dark blue jacket with stripes down the sleeves. When asked if he may have been wearing a disguise, Doucette says they’re not sure.
The car is described as a silver, two-door vehicle, possibly a Chevy Cavalier or Pontiac Sunfire.
Anyone with any information about this case is asked to call detectives at 604.717.0602 or CrimeStoppers at 1.800.222.8477. | 1,266,407 |
late 2008 and early 2009 killed women and children, to mounting popular outrage, McChrystal’s successor as commander of JSOC, Vice Adm. William H. McRaven, ordered a temporary reduction in the rate of such commando raids in mid-February for two weeks.
However, the JSOC raids resumed at their original intensity in March. Later that month Gen. David Petraeus issued a directive putting all JSOC operations under McKiernan’s tactical command, but there has been no evidence that the change has curbed the raids by Special Operations Forces.
President Barack Obama’s National Security Adviser Gen. James Jones responded to Karzai’s demand for an end to U.S. airstrikes by saying, “We’re going to take a look at trying to make sure that we correct those things we can correct, but certainly to tie the hands of our commanders and say we’re not going to conduct air strikes, it would be imprudent,”
The airstrike in western Farah province that killed nearly 150 civilians last week, provoking protests by hundreds of university students in Kabul, was also ordered by Special Operations Forces.
McChrystal’s nomination to become director of the Joint Staff at the Pentagon in May 2008 was held up for months while the Senate Armed Services Committee investigated a pattern of abuse of detainees by military personnel under his command. Sixty-four service personnel assigned or attached to Special Operations units were disciplined for detainee abuse between early 2004 and the end of 2007.
Capt. Carolyn Wood, an operations officer with the 519th Military Intelligence Battalion, gave military investigators a sworn statement in 2004 in which she said she had drawn guidance for interrogation from a directive called “TF-121 IROE,” which had been given to the members of Task Force 121, a unit directly under JSOC.
However, the military refused to make that document public, despite requests from the American Civil Liberties Union and other human rights groups, protecting McChrystal from legal proceedings regarding his responsibility for detainee abuses.
He was never held accountable for those abuses, supposedly because of the secrecy of the operation of JSOC.
Although he has been linked with detainee abuses and raids that kill numbers of civilians, McChrystal has not had any direct experience with the non-military elements of such a strategy.
W. Patrick Lang, formerly the defense intelligence officer for the Middle East, suggested in his blog Monday that the McChrystal nomination “sounds like a paradigm shift in which Obama’s policy of destroying the leadership of al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan takes priority over everything else.”
The choice of McChrystal certainly appears to signal the administration’s readiness to continue Special Operations forces raids and airstrikes that are generating growing opposition by Afghans to the U.S. military presence. | 1,266,408 |
wetlands to alpine tarns. All species maintain some landlocked populations, but some species more than others. The variation in the migratory behaviour of different species makes management and understanding of whitebait populations complex.
To understand the conservation, ecology and management of our migratory galaixiids and whitebait fishery, it is important to shift our perception of what we regard as "normal" in our environment and life time.
In 1906, the Marlborough Express spoke to George McDonald, resident at Wairau Pa for more than 50 years. McDonald's observations therefore extended back to the mid 1850s as a child and he also was able to recount the observations of his forefathers before him.
In McDonald's lifetime, he observed the degradation of resources in the Wairau. Speaking back then, he pointed to factors such as trawlers operating outside the Wairau Bar and "drains being cut everywhere as the result of the pakeha's occupation of the land, and the snug places for the rangiriri [whitebait] to turn into were yearly being decreased".
He also pointed to the almost total loss of the matapura [or small fat eel], a prized resource of local Maori, blaming this on the draining of swamps.
Early 20th century baseline observations will differ from our own. But they are useful pointers to how things once were and how things could be, for future generations.
Shifting our perspective from the short term to the long term requires a jump in assumptions about what is normal in our environment. Challenging perspectives isn't always easy. A wider and longer-term appreciation of knowledge around whitebait, along with addressing threats such as habitat loss, are key to the future wellbeing of whitebait in New Zealand.
New Zealand's whitebait season runs from August 15-November 30 everywhere except the West Coast of the South Island, where the season starts on September 1 and ends on November 14. Fishing is permitted between 5am and 8pm only, or between 6am and 9pm when daylight saving comes into effect.
DOC administers regulations regarding fishing methods, timing, location and net size to ensure that enough young fish get upstream to mature and subsequently create new whitebait for the future.
For all fishers, it's important to check requirements such as; using one net at a time; staying within 10m of your net and ensuring your net doesn't exceed more than one third of the water channel width.
There are substantial penalties for offending against whitebait regulations. Fishing gear can be seized and fines imposed up to $5000 for offenders.
Pamphlets outlining regulations are available at sport shops or your local DOC office or online at The Whitebaiter's Guide to Whitebaiting.
More information: Conservation ecology and management of migratory galaxiids. | 1,266,409 |
shootout with police in San Francisco, Brent hijacked a jet to Havana, where he went on to teach English in elementary and secondary schools. When I met him, back in the nineteen-nineties, he expressed a bittersweet nostalgia for life in the United States. Not long afterward, he wrote a memoir, “Long Time Gone,” about his life on the run. Brent died, of pneumonia, in 2006.
I also ran into Robert Vesco, a flamboyantly wealthy American financier who became an outlaw, in 1973, after the S.E.C. accused him of robbing a mutual fund of over two hundred million dollars. Vesco moved between the Bahamas, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica before fleeing to Cuba, in 1983. Before long, he was rumored to be assisting the Castro government with its international financial dealings. When I saw him, one day in 1994, we were the only two people waiting at a baggage carousel in a tiny room in the Havana airport terminal for Caribbean flights. I’d been advised by Cuban officials not to show any interest in him, and so I tried my best not to make eye contact. He seemed to have similar concerns, and discreetly moved behind a nearby pillar.
Another day, I met Vesco’s wife and two sons after giving a talk at an international school in Havana. She and her boys came up to thank me for my talk, and we chatted for a while. They went by the last name Quinn, and had Costa Rican passports, but the faculty at the school knew who they really were. Shortly after that, Robert Vesco fell afoul of the Cuban authorities. In 1995, he was arrested, on suspicion of being a spy; he was eventually convicted of “fraud and illicit economic activity” and sentenced to thirteen years in prison. (In a curious twist, Richard Nixon’s nephew, Donald Nixon, Jr., who was visiting Vesco at the time of his arrest and apparently doing business with him, was also arrested and questioned by Cuban authorities, but was later released and allowed to leave Cuba.) Vesco never made it out of prison; he died, of an illness, in 2007, two years short of his release date.
A pair of rogue former C.I.A. agents also saw out their days in Havana. After eleven years of covert service, from 1957 to 1968, Philip Agee was apparently conscience-stricken by what he had seen and done, and became a whistle-blower, publishing a tell-all book, “Inside the Company: CIA Diary,” in 1975. Agee was expelled, under U.S. pressure, from a handful of Western European countries and finally ended up in Cuba. In the years before his death, in 2008, Agee ran a Web site called cubalinda.com, which helped Americans who wished to circumvent the travel ban. | 1,266,410 |
A Senate hearing opened this morning with Code Pink protesters trying to arrest former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger for “war crimes.”
The protesters, bearing signs reading “Kissinger War Criminal” and “Cambodia,” rushed up behind the 91-year-old diplomat at the witness table of the Senate Armed Services Committee, which was holding a hearing on global challenges and the U.S. national security strategy.
Also testifying were 94-year-old former Secretary of State George P. Shultz and 77-year-old former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.
Chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.) said he would call recess until Capitol Police removed Code Pink from the room.
“I’ve been a member of this committee for many years, and I have never seen anything as disgraceful and outrageous and despicable as the last demonstration that just took place,” McCain said, which led to shout-backs from the protesters.
“You know, you’re going to have to shut up, or I’m going to have you arrested. If we can’t get the Capital Hill Police in here immediately… Get out of here, you low-life scum,” McCain added.
“So Henry, I hope you will — Dr. Kissinger, I hope on behalf of all of the members of this committee on both sides of the aisle — in fact, from all of my colleagues, I’d like to apologize for allowing such disgraceful behavior towards a man who served his country with the greatest distinction. I apologize profusely.”
Later, when Kissinger began his opening statement, more protesters popped up in the room, screaming about Vietnam and rattling off his “war crimes.”
“Vietnam! From 1969 to 1973, Kissinger, working for Richard Nixon, oversaw the slaughter in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, that led to the deaths of millions — millions of people. Many thousands more died from the effects of massive doses of agent orange and from unexploded bombs that covered the countryside!” a protester shouted. “Chile! Henry Kissinger was one of the principle architects of the coup in Chile on September 11th, 1973…”
Shultz then stood up to verbally battle the protesters, saying, “I salute Henry Kissinger for his many contributions to peace and security.” That led to a standing ovation from the committee members and audience that drowned out Code Pink.
We are at the Senate Armed Services committee meeting to arrest Henry Kissinger on his countless war crimes! pic.twitter.com/sJv40riQ7r — CODEPINK (@codepink) January 29, 2015
MORE: Shultz “very uneasy about the way our negotiations with Iran are going on” | 1,266,411 |
7-Year-Old Stole Four Cars In A Week, Claremore Mother Says
Thursday, December 28th 2017, 6:55 pm
By: News On 6
The mother of a 7-year-old who wrecked a stolen car this week says this is not the first time her son has gotten behind the wheel.
12/26/2017 Related Story: OHP: 7-Year-Old Boy Hurt Crashing Stolen Car At High Speed Near Inola
Cyndi Nichols said she has been fighting for custody of her son for three years now.
She said Chance has stolen four cars in the last week, trying to get back to her.
Seven-year-old Chance is bruised and sore.
Police said he's lucky to be alive after he drove a stolen car more than 100 miles per hour, ran off the road and flipped the vehicle three times all while not wearing a seatbelt.
"Where was his dad, where was his... why was he alone?" said mother Cyndi Nichols, "Where was the parental guidance?"
Inola Police said Chance's dad dropped him off at a friend's house. They said while he was there, Chance took off in the homeowner's Chevy Cruze.
"That is not the Chance that I raised," said Cyndi.
She said this is the fourth time her son has gotten behind the wheel and stolen a car in just the past week, a fact she said she didn't learn until he was injured on Tuesday.
"I know that he did this, he chose to pick those keys up. However, if he would've had the right parental guidance, he should not have been able to get to those keys," said Cyndi.
"Chance needs parental guidance and he doesn't have it right now. He is like a 7-year-old on his own," she said.
Cyndi said she lost custody of her son several years ago and has been fighting ever since to get him back. She said since 2014, she’s only been allowed to see her little boy for one hour a week.
"He is such a good, sweet little boy and he is so loveable he just needs that back. He needs to be loved back," said Cyndi.
She said Chance told her at the hospital he was trying to get back to her.
"In our visits, he always asks, 'When am I gonna get to come live with you?'" she said.
"I will never give up. I will never give up until wrong is made right. Until that baby is home with his momma and with his family," Cyndi said.
We spoke with Chance's father and he said he's just as shocked this has happened, but Chance's mother is not a part of his life. | 1,266,412 |
"I am humbled to have enjoyed such strong support for my involvement in federal politics for over 42 years," Mr Ruddock said. Retiring: Liberal MP Philip Ruddock - and father of House - during question time on Monday. Credit:Andrew Meares He is currently the father of the House of Representatives, meaning he is the longest-serving member in the lower house and, indeed, the Parliament. He is the only current sitting MP who began his career in the Whitlam era. A short time after news of Mr Ruddock's retirement broke, Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop announced his new job. "As a distinguished member of the Australian Parliament for over four decades, the current chair of the parliamentary joint committee on human rights and a longstanding member of Amnesty International, Mr Ruddock is well-qualified to advocate and represent Australia's human rights views and record," Ms Bishop said.
"As special envoy, Mr Ruddock will focus on advancing Australia's human rights priorities of good governance, freedom of expression, gender equality, the rights of indigenous peoples, and national human rights institutions." Mr Ruddock, as immigration minister, and with then prime minister John Howard. Mr Ruddock will actively promote Australia's candidacy for membership of the United Nations Human Rights Council for the 2018-20 term and represent Australia at international human rights events, Ms Bishop said. The role will be consistent with the practice of past governments in approving special envoys to support international campaigns, she said. Mr Ruddock wearing his Amnesty pin on Monday. Credit:Andrew Meares
Mr Ruddock called it an "important opportunity" to serve Australia's interests and advance the quest to rid the world of the death penalty. He has long been a staunch opponent of the death penalty but his human rights record has been questioned in other areas. Mr Ruddock with Liberal leader John Hewson in 1992. Credit:Sandy Scheltema As immigration minister he was one of the chief architects of the Howard government's Pacific Solution and was tainted by the children overboard affair. In 2000, Amnesty controversially asked Mr Ruddock to stop wearing his Amnesty lapel badge while performing his duties. Mr Ruddock's daughter was so distressed by her father's hardline approach, she left the country to volunteer for an aid agency.
Mr Ruddock on Monday said he had "no regrets". He is tipped to be replaced by Mr Leeser, an outspoken commentator who currently works as a director at the Australian Catholic University. Mr Ruddock said Mr Leeser's reported threats to challenge him for pre-selection had nothing to do with his decision to retire. But he also refused to back Mr Leeser for the job. "My view is that they should choose the best candidate who offers for preselection and that's always been my view," he said. Other long-serving Liberal MPs, such as former speaker Bronwyn Bishop are also under pressure to move on. Mrs Bishop has indicated she intends to stay on. | 1,266,413 |
BJP Leader Dr. Subramanian Swamy. Express Photo by Gajendra Yadav BJP Leader Dr. Subramanian Swamy. Express Photo by Gajendra Yadav
The Congress has said it will move a privilege motion against Subramanian Swamy on Friday, claiming that the 13-page document authenticated and tabled by the Rajya Sabha member — from which he quoted during his speech in the House on the AgustaWestland chopper deal — was “bogus”. The Congress also said it would move a privilege motion against Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar for a similar reason.
“During the debate on May 4 (in Rajya Sabha), Swamy had levelled many allegations and said many baseless things. He had said that he was reading from the judgment of the Italian court. We had at that time demanded that he authenticate the documents…. He took two days… I went through the documents today. He had lied using wrong documents,” Congress leader Jairam Ramesh said.
Ramesh said that among the 13 pages Swamy had tabled and authenticated, there was a two-page email that Swamy had sent to himself, nine pages taken from a website http://www.pgurus.com run by a person who Ramesh identified as Sree Iyer from Silicon Valley, and two pages of a news report of a television channel.
Ramesh claimed the owner of the website was a “Modi bhakt and was present in Modi’s meeting in Silicon Valley”.
“Swamy had downloaded the Italian court’s judgment from this website. And the nine pages are full of lies. The Congress will file a defamation case against this website. This website is connected with the Sangh Parivar. The Italian court’s judgment has nothing against the Congress leadership…,” he said.
Ramesh said the Congress would file a notice for moving a privilege motion against the defence minister, too.
He said that during the debate on AgustaWestland, Parrikar had claimed that he was reading from the Italian court’s judgment but the documents authenticated and tabled by him subsequently relate to minutes of meetings held by the former National Security Adviser to decide the specifications of the VVIP chopper.
“There is a complete disconnect between the documents and what Swamy and Parrikar said in the Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha. Both lied blatantly and brazenly… Both misled the MPs and the nation… they should be held accountable,” he said.
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For all the latest India News, download Indian Express App. | 1,266,414 |
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif., said on Monday that Bruce Ohr, a former top official in the Justice Department, will become "more and more important" as GOP lawmakers look for evidence of power abuse and corruption at the highest levels of the Obama administration.
"I think people should pay close attention to it," the California Republican said to Fox News' Sean Hannity.
Nunes was referring to findings that suggest Christopher Steele, the former British spy who compiled the Trump dossier on behalf of the Clinton campaign, kept supplying allegations to the FBI after the 2016 election, even though by that point he was terminated as a source by the bureau for giving confidential information to the media.
Congressional investigators have found that Ohr, who was the fourth-highest ranking official in the Justice Department, acted as an intermediary between Steele after he was terminated as a source and the FBI's investigation into ties between the Russians and President Trump's 2016 campaign. When Ohr gave the bureau information from Steele, agents made a record of it, and those records are in the form of so-called 302 reports, in which the FBI agents write up notes of interviews during an investigation.
Futhermore, Nellie Ohr, the wife of Bruce Ohr, was employed by Fusion GPS, the opposition research firm that commissioned the dossier in an effort that was funded in part by Democrats, to assist in the cultivation of research on then-candidate Trump.
There are a dozen 302 reports on post-election interviews about Ohr. In a a July letter, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, told the FBI and Justice Department there is "no continuing justification for the FBI to keep the documents secret."
The 302s and Ohr were listed as one of three subjects in which Nunes said he and other congressional investigators still need information from the Justice Department. Rounding out that list was again pressing President Trump to declassify the warrant used to gain the authority to spy on onetime Trump campaign aide Carter Page and "exculpatory evidence that we have seen of classified documents that need to be declassified."
Nunes and fellow GOP chairmen Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., and Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., have pressed the DOJ for months for documents related to the Russia and Hillary Clinton emails investigations, with some success.
Though he complained that DOJ was dragging its feat, Nunes said, "as of tonight we are getting closer and closer to having the information that we need."
"They are provided — they have allowed — all the issues that were in our subpoena they have now — either we've been able to review, our investigators have been able to review what they have been delivered to the committee in one form or fashion or another. Let's put that aside, there is still more that has to be done and we are a month late," he added. | 1,266,415 |
Season 1 for Apex Legends is finally live with players being able to dive into some of the game’s brand new content. Alongside the release of the long awaited Battle Pass, this latest patch has introduced the game’s first new character since its February launch: Octane.
Trampolining to Victory
Octavio ‘Octane’ Silva introduces a new launch pad ability to the game, offering a new way to get airborne and vertically traverse the map or even sneak in a nice trick shot. Some players may have already seen a few of Octane’s pads scattered around the Market in the game this week — I had the pleasure of being launched into a rock, head first, in my first encounter. But what else does this new Legend bring to the game? Well, other than having a daredevil and thrill seeker attitude, Octane utilities a tactical ability called ‘Stim’ that allows him to move 30% faster for six seconds but he must sacrifice 20% of his health in the process. His passive tries to compensate for this by healing him over time but only when he’s not being shot at.
Octane is ready to play now and the Season 1 Battle Pass is not necessary to unlock him. Similar to Mirage and Caustic, Octane can be purchased with 750 Apex Coins or 12,000 Legends Tokens.
Wild Frontier Battle Pass Season 1
As the first of four Battle Passes set to be released this year, the Wild Frontier Battle Pass brings new Legend and weapon skins as a part of over 100 Season 1 rewards. These also include a number of new stat trackers, quips, banners, and extra apex packs.
Unlocking the pass fro 950 Apex Coins will give players instant access to the new Wild Frontier skins set for Mirage, Wraith and Pathfinder and others rewards are earned through leveling up with the pass. Dropping 2,800 Apex Coins gives players access to the Battle Pass Bundle which includes the original Battle Pass and unlocks the next 25 levels for Season 1 immediately.
Those who reach level 100 during Season 1 will gain the new legendary Havoc skin: Silver Storm and if you reach 110 you can also unlock the Golden Idol Havoc skin. From what we have been shown so far, these guns are expected to have some great visual effects — with FIRE — as you obtain kills
Level One = 1 Kill
Level Two = 3 Kills
Level Three = 5 kills
However, for those who don’t want to drop money on a Battle Pass you can still receive one of the new Wild Frontier skins for free, along with five Apex Packs and 18 of the Wild Frontier stat trackers as you play.
For all the details about the latest Apex Legend update, head over to EA’s website. Are you keen to dive into this latest update? Is it what you expected? Let us know! | 1,266,416 |
Zoru Bhathena gets up in the morning and scans the newpapers for news of murder. Of trees. Then, he set the wheels of law in motion to stop the atrocities.
This year alone, the Khar-resident has saved 8,000 trees from being hacked in Mumbai. In April, the Supreme Court upheld Bombay High Court's decision disallowing the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) from felling trees without the consent of the Tree Authority.
It was Bhathena's PIL that powered the issue all the way to the apex court. He filed the Public Interest Litigation in February, following which Bombay HC declared BMC's Tree Authority illegal and restrained the civic chief from allowing the cutting trees (apart from cases where human life or property is at risk).
The 43-year-old had challenged a recent amendment to the Maharashtra (Urban Areas) Protection and Preservation of Trees Act, 1975, which allowed municipal commissioners to allow proposals seeking to cut, remove, and transplant up to 25 trees, without sending the proposal to the concerned Tree Authority. He alleged that using this provision, swathes of land were bring cleared, divided into batches of up to 25 tree, for developmental projects such as Metro works, without consulting the Tree Authority.
According to Bhathena, the court action put on hold the slaughter of approximately 8,000 trees, including those located within Aarey Milk Colony, in October, November and December.
His PIL also compelled the court to order the Tree Authority to nominate an expert member – the body functioned only on the basis of 13 corporators and no environmentalist or arboriculturist – before resuming functioning.
"Whenever that happens, the BMC will inform the court and then we will see," the businessman says, "The aim of the Tree Authority has to be protection and preservation, and not destruction of trees."
The 2017 tree census puts the number of trees in Mumbai as 29.75 lakh (excluding those within Aarey Milk Colony and Sanjay Gandhi park), while the 2011 census of humans put the city's human population at over 12 million.
This means the city has one tree for every four persons, when the ideal ratio is one tree per person.
This year, Bhathena stood between the electric axes and the city's green lung – the Aarey Milk Colony. He also drew attention to the dismal survival rate of the replanted trees, being done in compensation for the trees cut for the upcoming Metro network.
"On an average, 1000 trees are cut in Mumbai per month in Mumbai now," sighs Bhathena, "a drop from the usual 2,000. However this a temporary dip that will last only until the new Tree Authority is formed. The destruction of mangroves in Juhu is the most recent crisis. This a never-ending battle." | 1,266,417 |
A Tesla Semi prototype is evidently on tour to visit potential customers at the moment since it has been spotted at J.B. Hunt last week and now UPS is taking a look at the electric truck.
The delivery giant’s employees even had the chance to test drive it and they say it’s ‘one smooth ride’.
After we reported that Tesla Semi showed up to J.B. Hunt in Arkansas almost 2,000 miles away from its home base, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said that Tesla Semi made it ‘across the country alone’ with only Supercharger network and an extension cord.
Now it is back on the road and it made it to UPS’ hub in Addison in Illinois, which is about 600 miles north from J.B. Hunt in Arkansas.
UPS is one of Tesla Semi’ largest reservation holders with 125 electric trucks on order and that’s apparently enough to make UPS employees eligible for test rides in a prototype.
A UPS employee wrote on Twitter: “Tesla drove their electric tractor to Addison so UPSers could check it out! How cool is that?” and shared some pictures:
Jerome Guillen, the head of the Tesla Semi program, was present at the event (he is the one in the gray shirt).
The UPS employee shared images of the Tesla team prepping the truck:
Shining it all up before the rides begin. pic.twitter.com/ueQeJ4x74n — IllinoisUPSers (@IllinoisUPSers) August 27, 2018
And a video of a test drive, which he noted was “smooth”:
Those Tesla Semi reservation holder visits and test drives come amid the industry having doubts about Tesla’s ability to deliver an electric truck with the capacity that it announced last year.
Tesla has been promising a range of over 500 miles with a full load and an industry-leading cost of operation of about $1.26 per mile.
While the industry has its doubts, Tesla CEO Elon Musk recently said that “most major [Tesla Semi] customers have tried it and love it.”
One thing that the trucking industry can’t deny is that the Tesla Semi prototype is able to cover a lot of distance, which is something unprecedented for an electric truck.
Considering this same prototype was spotted in California just a few weeks ago, it appears to have traveled close to 3,000 miles over the past few weeks.
Musk says that they now need to “finish the production design and build it.” Tesla previously announced that they aimed to bring the truck to production in 2019.
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Subscribe to Electrek on YouTube for exclusive videos and subscribe to the podcast. | 1,266,418 |
Wild turkeys that have moved into a south Ottawa neighbourhood have led to more than 20 complaints, according to Ottawa police, who have released advice on how to deal with the turkeys.
The complaints have flooded in over the past 40 days regarding at least four turkeys in the area of Strandherd Road and Longfields Drive in Barrhaven, police said.
Crab apple trees on a Barrhaven seniors' residence lawn are a popular destination for hungry turkeys. (CBC)
People at the seniors’ residence, The Court at Barrhaven, were some of those who complained about the birds being a nuisance. After CBC News reported the complaints, many area residents said they had actually seen "dozens" of turkeys in that area.
The protected birds are moving out of their natural habitat in search of food, according to the Wild Bird Care Centre in Ottawa. The centre has received one to two calls a day from people worried about the birds' safety over the last month.
"This is the new driving danger in Ottawa in the outskirts," said Patty Summers, a care centre worker.
The province estimates there are about 70,000 wild turkeys in southern and eastern Ontario. The birds were reintroduced in Ontario in the 1980s for hunting, with about 8,000 hunted this year.
But hunters have said going after the wild turkey is not feasible due to the cost and short seasons. As a result, more wild turkeys are wandering free.
Drive with caution, stay quiet, police say
Until the turkeys relocate, police are telling residents to take the following precautions:
Lorenzo Andrews said the birds chased him across the seniors' residence after he came upon them. (CBC)
Drive with caution in the area.
Do not feed these animals as this contribute to the problem.
Turkeys do not like loud noises, such as horns. They will run or fly at the sign of danger.
Similar to groundhogs, deer, skunks and other wildlife, turkeys will normally wander off. Call police only if the turkeys present a pressing threat to safety.
Be cautious around turkeys, especially if you are with children or walking a dog. Turkeys have a spur on their leg for protection and are fierce if provoked.
It is against the law to hunt or shoot a turkey in the Barrhaven area: the fine is $2,000.
Officials from the Ministry of Natural Resources have also said people can limit conflicts with wild turkeys by not feeding them, removing bird feeders and putting netting over berries and other plants that turkeys eat.
Because the birds are protected, the city, the province and even animal control companies can only trap and relocate them one kilometre away.
The bird care centre said they expect the turkeys to head back into the woods after Friday's storm. | 1,266,419 |
the advice of several more experienced female journalists before doing so.
‘It is my clear understanding from the Cabinet Office that direct evidence as to his behaviour in this regard has already formed the background to the Prime Minister’s decision to sack him. Your story reflects much more on him than it does on me.’
Mr Green declined to comment tonight.
The PM's enforcer has thrown me to the wolves, by Tory MP CHARLIE ELPHICKE
It's more than seven weeks since Charlie Elphicke was accused of unspecific allegations
Christmas should be a time of celebration – yet this year, for me and my family, it will be a more sombre occasion. Damian Green was informed of the allegations against him and afforded the courtesy of a full inquiry by the Cabinet Office.
In my case, it’s now more than seven weeks since I was accused of unspecified allegations.
To this day, I have not been interviewed by the police, nor have they told me what I am accused of or who my accuser is.
Just after 9pm on Friday, November 3, I was relaxing at home with my family. The phone rang; it was a journalist saying he had heard I was having the party whip removed. Did I want to make a comment?
Many minutes later, I spoke to the new Conservative Chief Whip Julian Smith who told me of ‘serious allegations’ that had been referred to the police. I asked what they were and he would not tell me. He would only say that I was having the Conservative whip suspended.
My wife and I spent that weekend wondering whether I would be arrested at any moment. The knock never came. And has not to this day. Seven weeks on.
In the meantime, the press pack descended on our home; neighbours watched horrified as our bins were checked out; the local pubs were full of press asking for the inside track on their MP for the price of a drink.
Work colleagues and friends of the family have been subject to unwanted intrusion. Throwing a public figure out to the wolves has grave consequences. Yet the support of friends, my community in Dover & Deal and parliamentary colleagues has been incredible.
Meanwhile on social media, anonymous accounts spew vitriol that Twitter refuses to take down. After all, why not when the Chief Whip – who has never been my biggest fan – has declared open season?
In the febrile atmosphere that grips our country from time to time, we must never rush to judgment. We must always remember it is a cornerstone of our constitution that a person is innocent until proven guilty. Proper procedures should always be followed.
Whatever allegations may be put to me, I deny any criminal wrongdoing.
However I cannot deny that the pressure of these events has taken a heavy toll on me and my family and cast a long shadow this Christmas. | 1,266,420 |
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At the start of Fortnite Season 4, Epic Games added a new 'Blockbuster' challenge.
The design of this mysterious new challenge was simple. In short, complete all seven of the weekly challenges and you'll unlock special loading screen.
And within each loading screen is a clue to an additional Battle Star which can be found in the game, which also helps further boost your Season 4 Battle Pass ranking.
Complete all of the Blockbuster challenges throughout the season and get yourself a special skin.
However, there's much more to these loading screens than acting as a simple tick box.
According to Epic, they also "add to the narrative of Season 4" as the game looks to introduce a story behind some of these skins which have become so popular in the past few weeks.
You can see all of the Blockbuster Challenges revealed so far in the gallery below as well as the locations of those all important hidden Battle Stars...
Players noticed that after the first seven loading screens that they already had the week 8 loading screen as well. But what was more strange was that it didn't include a hidden battle star anywhere.
According to the intelligent folk on the Fortnite sub-reddit, there's a very good reason why you shouldn't be trying to find a new Battle Star from week 8, 9 or 10.
It doesn't exist.
That's right. The hidden battle stars were only intended for weeks 1- 7. That's why last week users also noticed that the special blockbuster skin unlocked after players completed seven weeks of challenges.
For anyone that missed it, the skin was called ‘The Visitor’ and featured a customizable head display along with a special piece of ‘Offworld Rig’ back bling. You can take a closer look in the gallery above and video below.
So, to recap. There is no loading screen for week 9 and 10. There is a loading screen for week 8, but it didn't feature a special hidden battle star.
Importantly though, these loading screens reportedly "add to the narrative of Season 4" and whilst we've seen the rocket launch and the subsequent rifts in time that have lead us up to the launch of Season 5, there doesn't to appear to be any link between it all yet.
Perhaps with the start of season 5 we'll get more details or explanation.
Maybe some of those other Season 4 clues, like the mysterious bunker, will be explained. Only time will tell.
And Thankfully, with Season 5 launch Thursday morning, there's not long to wait.
As per usual, this new season 5 update will be coming at 9am BST.
So stay tuned for updates in the meantime. | 1,266,421 |
President Trump has shown essentially no real interest in providing Americans health care and has so far been unable to wrangle a Republican congress, which has for years proven similarly disinterested in Americans’ ability to go to the doctor, into jettisoning the Affordable Care Act in favor of something else they haven’t thought of yet. Because, shockingly, it proved treacherous political terrain to yank what coverage, however imperfect, that has been extended to millions of Americans by Obamacare, the Trump administration is now in the midst of its new, not-so-subtle health care legislative strategy: sabotage Obamacare.
Trump has talked approvingly about letting Obamacare “implode” (or more bizarrely “explode”) so the leader of the country can somehow try to pin the program’s failure on his political enemies, rather than the people that currently control nearly every lever of federal decision-making power and most of the state levers too. One of the more egregious subterfuge options has been potentially cutting off government subsidies to insurers, known as cost-sharing reduction payments, that help keep individuals’ costs down. Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price has floated ditching the individual mandate that requires Americans to buy coverage. Why? Because freedom.
Those are pretty big, disruptive changes to the current health care market and yanking such a structurally important Jenga piece and watching America’s health insurance system crash might look to the American people kinda like your bad if you’re the president who’s standing over the rubble delicately holding the fateful rectangular block between your thumb and index finger. So to avoid that and any other form of responsibility: something quieter.
Like what? Let’s do less to make sure Americans find their health care options and harder for those who need help to navigate the process once they have. The enrollment period has already been slashed in half from previous years and will now run for just six weeks from November 1 through December 15.
From the Associated Press:
Advertising will be cut from $100 million spent on 2017 sign-ups to $10 million, said Health and Human Services officials.
Funding for consumer helpers called “navigators” will also be cut about 40 percent, from $62.5 million for 2017, to $36.8 million for next year.
“Advertising and outreach, however, are seen as critical to maintaining and boosting Obamacare enrollment,” according to CNN. “In fact, a bipartisan coalition of governors—led by Republican Governor John Kasich of Ohio and Democratic Governor John Hickenlooper of Colorado—on Wednesday urged the administration to continue to fund outreach and enrollment efforts… Outreach is considered critical in the final days of the enrollment period to remind consumers—particularly younger ones—of the deadline. Sign ups typically surge during this time.”
Jenga?
| 1,266,422 |
WASHINGTON ― Adding to the resounding criticism of White House chief of staff John Kelly’s comments about the Civil War, the leader of the Congressional Black Caucus on Tuesday said the remarks fit a larger pattern of “repeated attempts to whitewash history” by President Donald Trump’s administration.
Rep. Cedric Richmond (D-La.) also took the administration to task for a “continued inability to apologize when it is flat out wrong.”
In a Fox News interview that aired Monday night, Kelly said that “a lack of an ability to compromise led to the Civil War.” He also defended Confederate leaders and said the war was fought by “men and women of good faith on both sides.”
“John Kelly needs a history lesson,” Richmond said in a statement. “The Civil War was not a disagreement between ‘men and women of good faith on both sides.’ It was a struggle for the soul of this country. Thankfully, the right side won the war and slavery is no longer the law of the land.”
Numerous historians on Tuesday scorned Kelly’s remarks. “This is profound ignorance,” said David Blight of Yale University.
And in a series of tweets, The Atlantic’s Ta-Nehisi Coates broke down why Kelly’s comments were incorrect, noting that lawmakers had compromised numerous times on the issue of slavery before the war finally came in 1861.
“Shocking that someone charged with defending their country, in some profound way, does not comprehend the country they claim to defend,” Coates said of Kelly, a retired Marine Corps general.
In the interview, Kelly also praised Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee as “an honorable man,” and expressed concern over the removal of numerous Confederate statues ― an effort that has accelerated following the deadly violence sparked by a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August.
“Human history, our culture is an evolving thing,” Kelly said. “There will be, 100 or 200 years from now, people that criticize us for what we do, and I guess they’ll tear down, you know, statues of people that we revere today.”
Trump has taken a similar stance on Confederate statues. The president also famously argued that “both sides” were to blame for what happened in Charlottesville and that some “very fine people” were among those participating in the white supremacist rally.
Richmond’s statement reiterated his criticism of Kelly for refusing to apologize to Rep. Frederica Wilson (D-Fla.), after earlier this month he misrepresented a speech that she made, while attacking her character.
“He is starting to sound a lot like his boss,” Richmond said of Kelly. | 1,266,423 |
Two days after the U.S. Senate voted 82 to 6 to declare war against Germany, the U.S. House of Representatives endorses the declaration by a vote of 373 to 50, and America formally enters World War I.
When World War I erupted in 1914, President Woodrow Wilson pledged neutrality for the United States, a position that the vast majority of Americans favored. Britain, however, was one of America’s closest trading partners, and tension soon arose between the United States and Germany over the latter’s attempted quarantine of the British Isles. Several U.S. ships traveling to Britain were damaged or sunk by German mines, and in February 1915 Germany announced unrestricted warfare against all ships, neutral or otherwise, that entered the war zone around Britain. One month later, Germany announced that a German cruiser had sunk the William P. Frye, a private American vessel. President Wilson was outraged, but the German government apologized and called the attack an unfortunate mistake.
READ MORE: Should the U.S. Have Entered World War I?
On May 7, the British-owned Lusitania ocean liner was torpedoed without warning just off the coast of Ireland. Of the 1,959 passengers, 1,198 were killed, including 128 Americans. The German government maintained that the Lusitania was carrying munitions, but the U.S. demanded reparations and an end to German attacks on unarmed passenger and merchant ships. In August, Germany pledged to see to the safety of passengers before sinking unarmed vessels, but in November sunk an Italian liner without warning, killing 272 people, including 27 Americans. With these attacks, public opinion in the United States began to turn irrevocably against Germany.
In 1917, Germany, determined to win its war of attrition against the Allies, announced the resumption of unrestricted warfare in war-zone waters. Three days later, the United States broke diplomatic relations with Germany, and just hours after that the American liner Housatonic was sunk by a German U-boat. On February 22, Congress passed a $250 million arms appropriations bill intended to make the United States ready for war. In late March, Germany sunk four more U.S. merchant ships, and on April 2 President Wilson appeared before Congress and called for a declaration of war against Germany. Four days later, his request was granted.
On June 26, the first 14,000 U.S. infantry troops landed in France to begin training for combat. After four years of bloody stalemate along the western front, the entrance of America’s well-supplied forces into the conflict marked a major turning point in the war and helped the Allies to victory. When the war finally ended, on November 11, 1918, more than two million American soldiers had served on the battlefields of Western Europe, and some 50,000 of them had lost their lives.
READ MORE: World War I: Causes and Timeline | 1,266,424 |
Big oil spent only 1.3% of 2018 capital expenditure on green energy
European majors are making greater efforts than the US oil giants to invest in clean energy
Low carbon infrastructure seen as essential to combatting climate change
Despite years of claims and commitments about clean investment and alleviating climate change, the world’s largest oil companies have contributed just 1% of their spending budgets to green energy in 2018.
Companies like Royal Dutch Shell, Total, and BP, have all accelerated efforts into renewables and battery technology in recent years. But many efforts have been overshadowed by the oil industry’s efforts to block or overturn environmental regulations.
CDP, an environmental research charity that works with over 650 major institutional investors with $US87 trillion in assets, claim that the world’s top 24 publicly-listed companies spent just 1.3 per cent of total budgets of $US260 billion on low carbon energy in 2018.
“This 1% figure pales in comparison with the amount of money Big Oil spends blocking climate initiatives and regulations, and invests in fossil-fuel projects that have no place in a well-below 2 degree Celsius world,” Jeanne Martin at campaign group ShareAction, told Reuters.
CDP’s research suggests that European oil majors have made greater strides than their US counterparts, and that 70% of the energy sector’s renewables capacity came from European oil majors.
“With less domestic pressure to diversify, US companies have not embraced renewables in the same way as their European peers,” CDP said in a report.
Norway’s Equinor leads the way with plans to spend up to 20% of its budget on renewables by 2030, while European major Total has spent the most on low-carbon energies, around 4.3% of its budget, since 2010, according to the study. Shell plans to invest up to $US2 billion each year in renewables and electric vehicles alongside a pledge in 2017 to halve the carbon footprint of the energy it sells by 2050.
These efforts pale in comparison to the required need for drastic climate control measures.
An explosive report last month from the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said “rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society” are required to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
The report said: “Global net human-caused emissions of carbon dioxide would need to fall by about 45 per cent from 2010 levels by 2030, reaching ‘net zero’ around 2050.”
Russian and US firms are investing the least, the study said, while China’s energy powerhouse PetroChina doesn’t even report emissions.
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Follow Business Insider Australia on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram. | 1,266,425 |
llenly announced that he had prevailed on the State of Hawaii to release his “long form” birth certificate. Three nights later, at the White House Correspondents’ dinner, he deflated Trump with stinging bonhomie. The truly astounding aspect of the dinner was not the political japery but Obama’s knowledge that, as soon as the weather in northern Pakistan cleared, his own black helicopters would ferry a crew of Navy SEALs to bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad.
This serious and necessary act has led to serious and necessary questions: Was bin Laden under the control of Pakistan, our putative ally, and its intelligence agency, the I.S.I., or was he really able to hide just down the road from an élite military academy? Will the death of bin Laden in the wake of the anti-authoritarian uprisings of the “Arab Spring” deal a decisive blow to jihadist movements throughout the Middle East and South Asia? And, perhaps most urgently, will the death of bin Laden accelerate the withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan? Afghanistan was one of the places where Al Qaeda was born, and where it was sheltered. But Al Qaeda long ago fled to all corners, changing its mailing address to franchise cells in Waziristan, Peshawar, southern Yemen, and housing projects in European cities. Bin Laden’s death underscores the question of why we go on losing young men and women daily in the defense of an indefensibly corrupt government in Kabul.
The most stirring aspect of Obama’s speech announcing bin Laden’s death was its sobriety, its refusal of “Mission Accomplished” theatrics. One of the most surprising features of his Presidency has been its stubborn repudiation of drama—surprising because of his penchant, as a campaigner, for highly charged set-piece addresses, not least in Des Moines, Philadelphia, and Denver. But, as President, Obama has revealed himself to have a certain disdain for the emotional, for the memorable phrase and the theatrical gesture. Moments like Tucson are the rarity.
To some, it has seemed that Obama’s determination to avoid the vulgar and the cheap is a form of superiority, a bearing designed to make everyone else seem vulgar and cheap. But his seriousness is a welcome antidote to a political culture infected with self-congratulation, delusion, and paranoia. The United States has, at long last, dealt with Osama bin Laden. Dealing with his legacy will pose a still greater challenge. We remember the dead, as more die every day as a result of his example. Even now, on a clear day, far distant from the battlefield, we can still detect the smell of destruction that came through our windows for weeks after the towers fell. We hear the roaring of the jets. The political future should be entrusted only to those who honor that memory and refrain from exploiting it. ♦ | 1,266,426 |
The update process is surprisingly fast
It took only a few minutes for the Switch to download and install the update. So while it's annoying you have to do it at all, at least you won't have to wait to download a multi-gigabyte file. (That's more than I can say for many big releases on the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.) There's a good chance Nintendo is simply granting access to features that are merely hidden in the Switch's stock software rather than adding tons of significant new code.
The eShop is pretty familiar
It's a Nintendo online store -- come on. As we saw in the preview video yesterday, it's a fairly basic storefront at this point. Along with a search option, there are sections for recent releases, titles coming soon and entering prepaid codes. There aren't any surprises on the individual game pages, either, though I found it helpful that Nintendo has developers make it clear which Switch modes their titles work with, as well as how many players are supported.
The purchasing process is similar to the Wii U and 3DS -- so, kinda clunky. I was surprised the eShop also doesn't store credit-card information. You'll have to plug in all of your details anytime you want to fill up your wallet. That makes it annoying if you prefer to add the exact amount you need for specific purchases, and it encourages you to add more money than you need for future purchases.
The eShop also has only nine titles available in the US:
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Super Bomberman R
1-2 Switch
Shovel Knight: Specter if Torment
Shovel Knight: Treasure Trove
Just Dance 2017
Fast RMX
Snipperclips
I Am Setsuna
Social-media posting is a cinch
The day-one update lets you link your Facebook and Twitter accounts to your Switch and quickly post screenshots from the system's gallery. Getting images online is a much faster process than it was on the Wii U (which involved logging onto a webpage) and the Switch also adds default hashtags for specific games. This is one feature I see myself using a lot for The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, because almost every frame of that game feels like a work of art.
The friend list is back
Yes, the dreaded friend code is making a return. But you can also add new friends by searching for local users, as well as people you've recently played with. I'm still hoping Nintendo eventually moves away from the whole friend-code concept, especially because it's offering a much more robust online network for the Switch. We still don't know how much Nintendo is going to charge for online play (we're hearing between $20 and $30 annually in Japan), but Switch owners will be able to use the network free until the fall. | 1,266,427 |
of replacing existing community tools. Now, deprecating community tools in favor of the new tool will, necessarily, be a choice for each tool’s author. But there’s general consensus amongst existing tool authors that deprecation in favor of an official tool is ideal. It’ll still be a delicate process, of course, but we’re doing everything we know how to avoid making the problem worse.
What this portends for you, fellow Gopher
While we don’t know exactly what the post-official-tool world will look like, we have a pretty good idea:
Existing projects should migrate from their current tool to the official one. (We hope to make this process as automated and painless as possible)
Projects should tag official releases according to SemVer. Existing projects may want to retroactively tag releases. (Actually, please start doing this right away!)
You’ll stop monkeying with GOPATH, and instead work on projects with dependency code encapsulated under vendor/.
. You can commit vendor/, or not - it’s up to you.
We’re hoping it will be minimally disruptive to existing workflows. Ideally, it’ll just make a lot of annoying headaches go away. The more elaborate and non-vanilla your current workflows are, however, the more adjusting you’ll likely have to do.
Please do keep in mind that, even though the new tooling will allow the ecosystem to better support backwards-incompatible changes when they do happen, it is still recommended that you AVOID breaking changes after releasing 1.0.0. The Go community has made it as far as it has without robust dependency management largely because of this ethos. Having tooling that better organizes the problem in no way lessens the value of this approach to building software.
Where you can help (yes, you! PLEASE DO!)
Once we open up the provisional tool to the public, we’re going to need a lot of help, on a number of fronts. Fortunately, we’ve got a great community, full of industrious gophers - everyone’s gonna show up to help. Right?
Note: We make no pretense that this list is exhaustive!
A tool that can statically analyze a project and suggest the next SemVer tag to use for the next release
People to test out the migration path from existing tools and provide feedback
People to help with the UX of the tool, particularly when it comes to dealing with failures and conflicts in dependency selection
Comments can be made right here, but may be more productive if channeled to Peter Bourgon, the #vendor channel on the Gopher slack, or the go-pm mailing list.
Update: In January 2017 dep was made public. | 1,266,428 |
During the summer, Microsoft released the beta test for its next-generation Chromium Edge browser. Now, to match the new product, the software giant has launched a brand new logo.
Edgy design
In a bold move, Microsoft has opted to go for a multicolor approach with the new design. The spectrum starts with a shade of blue while the color transitions to green. This is unusual for a logo in the current generation. Apart from Google, most international brands are preferring a one or two-tone approach.
Ultimately, this shows that Microsoft is making a statement and highlighting a change with a new decade approaching. The new version of Edge is likely to graduate from its beta phase by the time 2020 is in full swing. Therefore Microsoft wants to mark the full launch with a bang. Furthermore, the design is a huge move away from the previous, Internet Explorer-like logo.
Perhaps Microsoft designed the previous logo to resemble Internet Explorer so that Windows users can easily identify that Edge is a new browser. However, now that it has been four years since it was introduced, the company is ready to give it its own identity.
Revised platform
The new edition of Edge hopes to give a greater performance for its users.
“Our goal with Microsoft Edge is to create better web compatibility with better performance for our customers while ensuring less fragmentation of the web for all web developers,” Joe Belfiore from Microsoft said on its blog.
Internet Explorer had gained a negative reputation for its slow speed and lack of power. It held dominance within the browser market for a decade but the growth of Firefox, Chrome, and Safari saw it fall from grace. Even Microsoft’s introduction of Edge hasn’t seen numbers change in their favor that much.
According to Stat Counter, Chrome holds a strong 64.92 percent of the market share. Meanwhile, Safari holds 15.9 perfect and Firefox holds 4.33 percent. In comparison, Internet Explorer only holds 2.2 percent of the market, while Edge has percent.
Tough competition
It is not just web browsers that Microsoft has lost its grip over, but also search engines. Despite the number of campaigns that it has launched to promote Bing, it can’t compete with Google on a large-scale. Subsequently, the combination of Chrome and Search makes Google the go-to option for swift internet browsing.
So, with the overhaul of Edge, Microsoft will be hoping for a shift in the industry that it once had control of. The positive growth of the Surface range could be a key factor in helping Microsoft’s browsing services grow. Tech Radar reports that the hardware range has seen a 21 percent growth, with the company focusing on catering to the professional market.
Have you had the chance to beta test the new Edge? Let us know your thoughts on the future of the browser in the comment section. | 1,266,429 |
nature of the ship. It's very reminiscent of ads for Ford F150 trucks. "We got Lance Henriksen to do that voice over," says Roberts. "That's a total Easter Egg; we didn't ever publicize his involvement."
https://www.youtube.com/embed/BR07oZC0QHU
SHIP: Mustang
MANUFACTURER: Consolidated Outland
WHAT IT IS: A line of starter ships focused on speed and maneuverability
COST: $45 to $70
THE COMMERCIAL: Portentous voiceover of a crazy dreamer who's besotted with the brilliance of his creation. The ships magically assemble themselves around him as he raves about their special qualities. "We wanted a Howard Hughes-y charcter, and I had one of my actor friends come in and do a version of that," says Roberts.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/qE7TFnSl9y4
SHIP: Cutlass
MANUFACTURER: Drake Interplanetary
WHAT IT IS: A patrol ship that's ostensibly for militias, but is made with the needs of space pirates in mind. (Complete with an extra-large hull for storing loot.)
COST: $115 to $135
THE COMMERCIAL: Space combat is reimagined as a graceful dance, perfectly synchronized to tango music. The ad features a turning-the-invisible-hand-crank-to-flip-the-bird move a la Chris Pratt, and a Metroid-style surprise at the end.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/zG-82TakEqk
SHIP: Constellation Aquila
MANUFACTURER: Roberts Space Industries
WHAT IT IS: A ship designed for exploration, with a large science bay and a rover that can be deployed when planetside.
COST: $275
THE COMMERCIAL: Everything from the score to the alien creature throwing a bone in the air to the obelisk-like corporate logo invokes 2001: A Space Odyssey. "It's about the promise of what you can do with the ship, discovering new worlds and finding new things," says Roberts.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/_SpsjUHj_II
SHIP: M50 Interceptor
MANUFACTURER: Orign Jumpworks GmbH
WHAT IT IS: Racing ship
COST: $100 (limited stock–no longer on offer)
THE COMMERCIAL: A mock review by the opinionated host of a spaceship enthusiast show called Galactic Gear. "It's a Top Gear parody, and we got someone who sounds kind of close to Jeremy Clarkson to do the voice over," says Roberts. | 1,266,430 |
The UK will spend more than €118 million to charter extra ferries in the event of a no-deal Brexit to ensure vital goods continue to enter the country.
The contracts, awarded to France's Brittany Ferries, Denmark's DFDS and Britain's Seaborne Freight, plan for an extra 3,700 lorries a week to travel between the UK and the continent in the event the UK leaves the European Union on March 29, 2019, without a deal in place.
This extra capacity — equivalent to 10% of the existing Dover Strait traffic — will be provided on a variety of routes to ease pressure on the port of Dover. These additional ferries will also travel in and out of the southern port cities of Poole, Portsmouth, Plymouth and Felixstowe as well as Immingham, in the north-east of England.
"This extra capacity is a small but important element of the Department for Transport's no-deal Brexit planning," a spokesperson told Euronews.
"While remaining committed to working to ensure a deal is reached successfully, the Department is helping ensure the rest of Government are fully prepared for a range of scenarios, including a particular focus on a potential no deal and to mitigate the impact of any Brexit outcome on all transport modes," the spokesperson added.
'Extreme urgency'
The contracts are worth 47.2 million pounds (€52.3 million) for DFDS, 46.6 million pounds (€51.7 million) for Brittany Ferries and 13.8 million pounds (€15.3 million) for Seaborne Freight.
Under EU regulation, governments must put out a tender process for transport services if their value exceeds €443,000 but Britain bypassed the system to award these contracts.
"A situation of extreme urgency exists in the context of UK-EU roll-on-roll-off ferry capacity by virtue of the UK leaving the EU on March 29, 2019, and the prospect that this exit may be on a no-deal basis," the government wrote in the contracts.
It listed "the possibility of severe congestion at and around UK ports" due to "increased border checks by European Union Member States" as one of the reasons for not putting out a tender.
'Complete madness'
For Gus Tugendhat, founder of Tussell, a data provider on public procurement, "this provides further evidence of the last-minute rush to implement Brexit no-deal contingency planning."
"With time so short, it appears that normal tendering procedures couldn't be followed,” he added.
The opposition Liberal Democrats Party, which backs a second referendum on the country's EU membership, has described the government's announcement as "complete madness."
"The government (has) the power to stop No Deal at any time but instead is spending millions on last minute contracts," it added in a tweet. | 1,266,431 |
of this conundrum?
Three Steps to Get Back to Marquess of Queensberry Rules
This problem may very well be too far gone to resolve with easy solutions, but taking the following three steps may go a long way toward rehabilitating our crumbling discourse.
First, stop playing the progressive “find the racist” shell game. Because of the way our cultural landscape is currently configured—in terms of media, entertainment, and academia—there is no way conservatives will win this game. So stop playing it. Calling Keith Ellison a litany of names will do nothing to protect Jeff Sessions. It is foolish to think it will.
At the same time, conservatives should feel less obligated to renounce and disavow every person upon command. Of course, any reasonable and good person should condemn hateful statements and sentiments, but that is different from being at the moral mercy of your opponents, especially when playing that game serves to entrench and institutionalize rules that hurt only conservatives.
Second, conservatives should consider accepting federalism limitations for sanctuary cities, so long as doing so corresponds with empowering states like Arizona and Texas to impose stricter immigration requirements than federal law mandates. Federalism must go both ways. Progressives often advocate federalism only when it favors strengthening civil liberties for particular minority groups. But federalism does not work when it is so narrowly tailored to particular ideological causes.
Rather, federalism works to diffuse intense political polarization only when it permits a broad range of regional disagreement, in both conservative and progressive directions. This means that the Trump Administration should make it a priority to overrule cases like Arizona v. United States (2012), which denied the states the authority to impose stricter immigration requirements than federal law requires. If sanctuary cities can exist, so can Sheriff Joe.
Finally, stop framing federalism and liberty arguments in narrow egalitarian terms. Over the past 25 years, the Republican Party has become preoccupied with framing its agenda to appeal to Democratic voters—for example, in making school vouchers for urban low-income residents the core of its education policy.
But what about school choice for middle-class residents, who overwhelmingly vote Republican, and who are chased out of cities into suburban school districts because they are not eligible for voucher programs and cannot afford the fancy private schools that cater to progressive urban elites? Part of making American cities great again involves diversifying them, ideologically and economically, so that they do not simply represent the Democrats’ barbell electorate, consisting of extreme wealth and poverty. This means framing federalism and liberty arguments in terms of many different causes. Conservatives should fight for tax incentives for homeschooling and private education with the same intensity as they have been fighting for voucher programs over the last 25 years.
I cannot say for sure whether these approaches will resuscitate political civility and ideological fairness. But at least it will mean not lying on the canvas, bruised and bludgeoned, clutching your precious rules in defeat. | 1,266,432 |
Stuart Steinberg remembers his son Max, who joined IDF shortly after Birthright trip to Israel. 'Our lives will never be the same.'
On Wednesday, Israelis from across the country visited cemeteries and participated in memorial services remembering friends and loved ones who died defending Israel, or who were victims of terrorist attacks.
Among those remembering the dead, however, were some visitors from abroad.
Stuart Steinberg, an attorney from the southern California town of Woodland Hills, joined those gathering at Mount Herzl Wednesday, to remember his own son, Max, who died at the age of 24 nearly five years ago.
Max, who left California to enlist in the IDF as a lone soldier a few months after a Birthright trip to Israel in 2013, served as a sniper in the Golani Brigade for less than a year, before he was killed when his armored personnel carrier was destroyed by Hamas bombs in July 2014.
Speaking with Arutz Sheva, Max’s father, Stuart, discussed the ways he and his family have kept their son’s memory alive – and how they’ve worked to help other lone soldiers who, like their son, moved on their own to Israel to enlist in the IDF.
“This is my second time here at this time of year,” said Steinberg of his visit to Israel during the week of Yom HaZikaron (Israeli memorial day) and Israeli Independence Day.
“This year is exceptionally special because we came from Poland and Auschwitz, we brought his Sefer Torah [Torah Scroll], brought it back to Israel. And we’re going to be marching with the March of the Living one more time, from City Hall to the Kotel [Western Wall].”
Courtesy of the family Max Steinberg
“As a bereaved parent and seeing this and experiencing this and having an opportunity to just be embraced and loved by so many people is the best.”
Stuart recalled the outpouring of support when some 30,000 people showed up to his son’s funeral in July 2014.
“At his funeral there were, I’m told, 30,000 people. To me it was a blur, but to have that kind of appreciation and respect for a lone soldier is a beautiful thing.”
“Once Max was killed, our lives were turned upside down. It will never be the same. We are very involved in Jewish causes. We’re on the board of directors of an organization called the Families of Lone Soldiers, which supports families like ours, both bereaved as well as…families of soldiers that are here and their parents are in the United States and in other countries.”
“We get strength by doing good. Max did good, and we felt that we needed to do something more.” | 1,266,433 |
. For this one, I only looked at hand-minced and microplaned garlic, since they had proven themselves to be the extremes that define the spectrum.
I had a bunch of beef shanks in my fridge, so I decided to do a braise with plenty of onion, carrot, garlic, and red wine, making two batches simultaneously, the only difference being the method of garlic prep. I started by searing the shanks, then put them to the side while I sautéed the aromatics. Side-by-side, I could smell the difference: the microplaned garlic was once again producing an acrid, stronger smell, even after 20 minutes of cooking, by which time the carrots were very tender and the onions golden.
I added red wine to the two pots and continued to taste while it simmered. The batch with minced garlic had a sweeter flavor, with a more subtle, rounded presence of garlic, while the other pot had an edge of bitterness to it. By the time the beef was back in the pots and I was ready to move them to the oven, I could still smell and taste the difference.
But three hours later, when I took the tender shanks out and blended the braising liquid and aromatics into a sauce, I found that they tasted exactly the same; if there was a difference, I wasn't detecting it.
With a long enough cooking time, that broad range of garlic flavors had finally been reduced to a single mellow garlic base note, regardless of preparation method.
Lessons Learned
Reading this, it may sound like I think microplaning garlic is a terrible thing. But that's not the case. I can imagine plenty of scenarios where we might want a garlic flavor that's strong enough to kick us in the cloves. Mayonnaise, for example, with all its rich egg-and-oil creaminess, could benefit from that assertiveness. Other times, we may want to take a more gentle approach.
The key, I think, is to proceed deliberately, with the realization that the various options for mincing or pureeing garlic are not as interchangeable as they might seem. If a recipe calls for minced garlic, it's not just a matter of deciding which method is most convenient, or which method we happen to personally find easiest. There's an important decision to be made, since each approach will produce a different set of textures and flavors that, when raw or quick-cooked, will have a significant impact on the final dish.
The next time you cook something, don't stop considering your options after choosing whether to leave the garlic whole, crushed, sliced, or minced: think about the exact mincing method, if that's the direction you end up taking.
All products linked here have been independently selected by our editors. We may earn a commission on purchases, as described in our affiliate policy. | 1,266,434 |
New research has found that routine screening using a non-invasive test that analyzes fetal DNA in a pregnant woman’s blood can accurately detect Down’s syndrome and other genetic fetal abnormalities in the first trimester. Published early online in Ultrasound in Obstetrics & Gynecology, the results suggest that the test is superior to currently available screening strategies and could reshape standards in prenatal testing.
Current screening for Down’s syndrome, or trisomy 21, and other trisomy conditions includes a combined test done between the 11th and 13th weeks of pregnancy, which involves an ultrasound screen and a hormonal analysis of the pregnant woman’s blood. Only chorionic villus sampling and amniocentesis can definitely detect or rule out fetal genetic abnormalities, but these are invasive to the pregnancy and carry a risk of miscarriage.
Several studies have shown that non-invasive prenatal diagnosis for trisomy syndromes using fetal cell free (cf) DNA from a pregnant woman’s blood is highly sensitive and specific, making it a potentially reliable alternative that can be done earlier in pregnancy.
An Ultrasound in Obstetrics & Gynecology study by Kypros Nicolaides, MD, of the Harris Birthright Research Centre for Fetal Medicine at King’s College London in England, and his colleagues is the first to prospectively demonstrate the feasibility of routine screening for trisomies 21, 18, and 13 by cfDNA testing. Testing done in 1005 pregnancies at 10 weeks had a lower false positive rate and higher sensitivity for fetal trisomy than the combined test done at 12 weeks. Both cfDNA and combined testing detected all trisomies, but the estimated false-positive rates were 0.1% and 3.4%, respectively.
“This study has shown that the main advantage of cfDNA testing, compared with the combined test, is the substantial reduction in false positive rate. Another major advantage of cfDNA testing is the reporting of results as very high or very low risk, which makes it easier for parents to decide in favor of or against invasive testing,” the authors wrote.
A second Ultrasound in Obstetrics & Gynecology study by the group, which included pregnancies undergoing screening at three UK hospitals between March 2006 and May 2012, found that effective first-trimester screening for Down’s syndrome could be achieved by cfDNA testing contingent on the results of the combined test done at 11 to 13 weeks. The strategy detected 98% of cases, and invasive testing was needed for confirmation in less than 0.5% of cases.
“Screening for trisomy 21 by cfDNA testing contingent on the results of an expanded combined test would retain the advantages of the current method of screening, but with a simultaneous major increase in detection rate and decrease in the rate of invasive testing,” the authors concluded. | 1,266,435 |
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Rising sea levels and climate change could put 1.7 million homes at risk and turn inland towns like Cambridge into coastal areas, the Met Office is warning.
Its UK Climate Projections report, released tomorrow, will also forecast that beaches may be washed away and farmland turned into marshes by the end of this century.
The latest forecasts warn that the seas around Britain are likely to increase by 3-4ft by 2100, causing water to flood coastal areas.
Some seaside towns may have to be abandoned because the cost of sea defences will make them "unviable", while farmland between King's Lynn in Norfolk and Cambridge would lie below the new sea levels and be at risk of becoming marshland.
Many stretches of low-lying farmland would be threatened by the rising sea levels, with some - such as Romney Marsh in Kent, the Somerest Levels and parts of Essex - facing an almost constant state of flooding.
(Image: Rex Features)
According to The Sunday Times, the report will warn that a dramatic rise in sea levels could even breach the Thames barrier and threaten London.
A recent report from the Committee on Climate Change has warned that up to 1.7 million homes would face flooding. Around 100,000 coastal properties would be at risk of wave erosion, with 100,000 again at risk from landslides on seaside cliffs.
The Met Office report is the result of a three-year project commissioned by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to help prepared policymakers, transport and other infrastructure for the impact of climate change.
(Image: Getty Images) (Image: Geoff Robinson Photography/REX/Shutterstock)
"Sea-level rises, increased river flows and more frequent, more intense storm surges are all possible effects of climate change," the report is expected to say.
"This poses flooding risks to several areas of the UK, particularly along the Thames estuary."
By 2300 sea levels could have risen by 10ft, or more if icecaps in Greenland and Antarctica start melting.
(Image: Rex Features)
Climate change is driven by greenhouse gas emissions, which are currently equivalent to 50 billion tons of carbon dioxide a year. When including imports and aviation, approximately one billion tons come form the UK.
The Met Office will say that if emissions continue at current levels, the Earth will warm by about four degrees by 2100. That heat will warm the sea, melting glaciers and icecaps.
Other potential effects of global warming will include an increase in winter downpours and summer droughts and an influx of parasites that normally live in warmer climates. Western Scotland and northwest England could see winter rainfall increase by up to 35 per cent. | 1,266,436 |
Amazon has thrown down the gauntlet to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, inviting the congresswoman to visit one of its facilities after she claimed the tech giant had created “dehumanising conditions” for its workers.
The 29-year-old congresswoman was among those who celebrated after Amazon announced this week it was pulling out of plans to open what it termed a second headquarters in New York City.
Ms Ocasio-Cortez, who represents the city’s 14th district, which is close to the Long Island City neighborhood of Queens where the facility was to be based, had opposed the $3bn in tax incentives the state and city had offered the e-commerce giant, headed by Jeff Bezos.
“Anything is possible: today was the day a group of dedicated, everyday New Yorkers & their neighbours defeated Amazon’s corporate greed, its worker exploitation, and the power of the richest man in the world,” Ms Ocasio-Cortez, a newly-elected Democrat, wrote on Twitter after the company’s announcement.
Amazon said it was not proceeding because it had not had “positive, collaborative” relationships with state and local officials.
Responding to one commenter on Twitter who claimed Amazon was a “strict performance-heavy organisational structure”, she said: “Is that culture of “strict performance” why Amazon workers have to urinate in bottles & work while on food stamps to meet “targets?”
.@aoc these claims simply aren’t true. We are proud of our jobs with excellent pay ($15 min), benefits from day 1, & lots of other benefits like our Career Choice pre-paid educational programs. Why don’t you come take a tour & see for yourself...we’d love to have you! https://t.co/BoUccuUKfs — Dave Clark (@davehclark) February 15, 2019
She added: “‘Performance’ shouldn’t come at the cost of dehumanising conditions. That’s why we got rid of sweatshops.”
Story continues
Amazon disputed the claims and invited the congresswoman to visit for herself.
Dave Clark, Amazon’s senior vice president of worldwide operations, said on Twitter: “@aoc these claims simply aren’t true. We are proud of our jobs with excellent pay ($15 min), benefits from day 1, & lots of other benefits like our Career Choice pre-paid educational programmes. Why don’t you come take a tour & see for yourself...we’d love to have you!”
Ms Ocasio-Cortez did not immediately respond to a question as to whether or not she will take up the invitation to visit. | 1,266,437 |
silocybin for Therapy
Joe brings up a story about his teacher Lenny Gibson who had multiple bouts of cancer and is a psychedelic scholar. Lenny was incredibly mad at Tim Leary because he was in cancer support groups and imagines how many more options cancer patients would have for pain if drugs were not made illegal
Looking at decreasing suffering, it would be special for the Denver population to find relief in anxiety and depression before going into a life-threatening surgery, etc.
If this turns into a regulatory medical paradigm, licensure is important How do we create the paradigm to open the work in a professional therapeutic manner?
Grand Rounds
Doctors will get together around a case study and share it within the medical community It’s a way to share and practice case studies organically and internally
With social media alone 30,000 people can be reached a month Typing in to Google “benefits of mushrooms” brings up a ton of research
When people hear about John Hopkins, NYU, Harvard, UCLA Medical Center, and all of these companies that have already been doing the research they become more interested Medicalization does not equal rescheduling Carl Hart
It takes the breaking up of a family after prison time of a drug offense, 7 generations to recover Joe knows of a case where someone in Colorado who got busted for having mushrooms only ended up serving 2 weeks and didn’t get a felony for it
In 2005 New Mexico Court of Appeal said that cultivation of psilocybin mushrooms does not qualify as the manufacture of a controlled substance, as long as they aren’t dried
Mushrooms are Beneficial, Not Harmful
How do we ruin fewer lives by legalizing mushrooms and keeping people out from behind bars?
Mushrooms can put you in touch with yourself and help connect yourself to others
Feedback
Most of the responses are, “Hell yeah I’m going to sign this!” or “This saved my life” Kevin says when someone says no, it’s all about educating them
They had 45% support it and 20% maybes
Working with the City
The bill would include a Psilocybin Mushroom Policy Review Panel, a city level committee made up of health professionals, Police, Denver Sheriff’s office, city attorneys, etc
Final Thoughts
Kevin wants as many people as possible willing to participate to volunteer
They will be starting public Q&A twice a month (and live streaming them)
Links
Website
Facebook
Instagram
Check out our online course, “Introduction to Psychedelics”
About Kevin
Kevin Matthews is leading the decriminalization of Psilocybin mushrooms in Denver, Colorado. He and his group of dedicated volunteers are currently collecting signatures to make the May 2019 Ballot. | 1,266,438 |
LEADING Scottish judoka, including Olympic bronze medallist Sally Conway, will be told they will lose their Lottery funding if they reject British Judo’s demands that they relocate from Ratho to the sport’s centre of excellence in Walsall by March next year.
The no-compromise stance comes as performance chiefs prepare to sit down with their senior fighters over the next three weeks to draw up a route map towards Tokyo 2020 with Conway, the sole medallist in Rio, among those about to embark on another Games cycle.
With Scotland declining the opportunity to put Ratho forward as an option for the upgraded central hub, she and others currently based at Judo Scotland’s highly-regarded facility near Edinburgh will be handed a three-month window to make the move south or be axed from the world-class programme and all the financial and logistical backing it offers.
“We are going to create one system but two pathways,” British Judo’s performance director Nigel Donohue told Herald Sport. “One will be the world-class programme which will be fully funded and fully supported. And if athletes choose not to be part of that, they have the option to self-fund.
"There will be an open policy where they can still qualify for European and world championships and we will cover the cost of going to that. And they can still qualify for the Olympic Games. But it’s about making the choice over what programme they want to be part of.
“This is not about any individual athlete. It is about building a system for British Judo. If we don’t build a system for the sport, we won’t have consistent success at Olympic and Paralympic Games. This is long-term – 2020, 2024 and beyond. If we try to develop individual programmes for individual athletes, we’ll get nowhere.”
With upcoming coaches such as former Olympian Evan Burton set to stay at Ratho, a home nation pyramid will be established to nurture grassroots talent at existing hubs with its staff offered opportunities to remain involved at major events. However, there is dismay in Scottish sporting circles that the downgrading of Ratho, whose first-rate facilities attracted leading judoka from across the UK, will further diminish a system that allows only one British high performance centre – in the shape of curling – operate north of the border.
“It means we can put all our resources together in terms of coaching and sports medicine,” Donohue said. “We also want the athletes going around the world to various training bases and giving them a top-class competition programme.
"And with everyone together, we can make sure the training is of the highest level. We are going to do that and we’re in the process of talking that through with all the athletes." | 1,266,439 |
WASHINGTON -- Retired Marine Gen. James Cartwright pleaded guilty to 1 count of making false statements to federal investigators in a case that raises issues about reporter-source confidentiality.
Cartwright falsely told investigators that he was not the source of classified information contained in a book by New York Times journalist David Sanger, according to charging documents unsealed by prosecutors.
He pleaded guilty to a felony offense that carries a max sentence of 5 years and a $250,000 fine. Government and defense recommend an appropriate sentence would be from 0-6 months. Sentencing was set for Jan. 17, 2017.
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Cartwright falsely told investigators that he was not the source of classified information contained in a book by New York Times journalist David Sanger, according to charging documents unsealed by prosecutors.
Neither the book nor the classified subject is identified in court papers. But Sanger has written about a covert cyberattack on Iran’s nuclear facilities and the use of a computer virus called Stuxnet to temporarily disable centrifuges that the Iranians were using to enrich uranium.
After appearing in court Monday, Cartwright issued this statement:
“It was wrong for me to mislead the FBI on November 2, 2012, and I accept full responsibility for this. I knew I was not the source of the story and I didn’t want to be blamed for the leak. My only goal in talking to the reporters was to protect American interests and lives; I love my country and continue to this day to do everything I can to defend it.”
The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Maryland announced the case on Monday.
Prosecutors say Cartwright was charged via criminal information, a document that is filed with a defendant’s consent and that signals that a plea agreement has been reached.
Gregory Craig, an attorney for Cartwright, had no immediate comment, but his office said he would issue a statement later Monday.
Cartwright, 67, was vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 2007 until 2011, and was considered a key close adviser to Obama.
As the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the second-highest ranking military officer in the U.S., Cartwright was privy to issues at the center of national security.
A former fighter pilot, the Marine general was known for his expertise in the more highly technical areas of cyberwarfare and America’s nuclear enterprise.
The New York Times issued this statement on the matter:
“We are disappointed that the Justice Department has gone forward with the leak investigation that led to today’s guilty plea by Gen. Cartwright. These investigations send a chilling message to all government employees that they should not speak to reporters. The inevitable result is that the American public is deprived of information that it needs to know.” | 1,266,440 |
surgery will be required. Kathy Rumer, a plastic surgeon outside of Philadelphia who has a large transgender practice, also declines to perform reassignment surgery on minors. “I have had parents plead with me,” she says. “And I can feel for them. But I don’t want someone coming back to me when they are twenty-five saying, ‘I didn’t really want this. It was my parents.’ Adolescents are really in flux. I wouldn’t want to make a permanent change based on that stage of life, which can be difficult, no matter what you’re going through.” Some advocates, meanwhile, want to broaden the range of sex-reassignment surgeries available to young patients. A psychologist who sees many trans clients in Northern California told me that he wants the World Professional Association to consider loosening its guidelines for youth even further. “Here’s an example,” the psychologist, who asked to remain anonymous, said. “I see a child, a trans girl, who came out at three and is now seven. She’s clearly a female. There’s no ambiguity or inconsistency. She goes to school and presents as a girl. Absolutely the only reason to hinder it would be that you need to wait for her body to get bigger, so there is enough flesh to make a new vagina.” The psychologist used to focus on adult patients, but now he sees little kids and teen-agers as well. A strong advocate of puberty blockers, he said that cross-gender hormones should be administered to kids before they’re sixteen, adding, “I’m assuming that, down the road, we’ll be looking at ways to get surgery earlier, too.”
So, it turns out the woman who told me this is onto something.
This is where we are: a culture driven by the politics of transgender activists. Look at the “model transgender policy” for schools suggested by GLSEN, the gay advocacy group that focuses on schools. This is exactly what you see local school districts adopting. Activists are writing the policies. Activists are driving the media and academic culture. Look at this thoughtful, balanced short piece
Ten, twenty years from now, there are going to be a lot of maimed, broken people staggering around. This episode in history will be looked back on with horror. We will wonder how we gave in to such madness, and harmed so many people, or allowed them to harm themselves. Doctors, activists, celebrities, the media, and politicians will bear so much guilt, but probably little blame. It will all go down the memory hole. Progressives in the future will say of the transgender madness, “How were we to know?”
If they say anything at all.
UPDATE: A reader comments: | 1,266,441 |
Once Christmas day arrives, moviegoing explodes until New Year’s Day, and without a big 10-quad pic like Star Wars in the marketplace, projections will be tempered this season.
As such, Sony’s Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is the first big movie to hit the marquee following Thanksgiving, and should the film –which we hear is great– comes up short in its opening weekend, it will likely find an audience in the post-season holiday.
We’re hearing a $30M+ start is reasonable for this movie, but it could jump up as high as $40M. The pic’s official trailer from five months ago has clocked 29M views. At this point the pic is strong with males younger and older (25) and young females under 25. As a comp, as animated superhero movies based off comic books typically are released directly into the home entertainment market (i.e. DC pics), Spider-Verse‘s opening would be higher than Warner Bros./Miramax’s toon revival of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, TMNT which bowed to $24.2M.
Sony announced last night that Spider-Verse is getting a China release date of Dec. 21 which will bode well for its overseas haul. Spider-Man sister property Venom has been taking off in the Middle Kingdom minting $205.3M, which is 36% of its $569.4M foreign gross.
As Hollywood embraces diversity on the big screen, so does this Spider-Man: The hero that he becomes in this movie is informed by the Puerto Rican-African American culture and adolescent point of view of protagonist Miles Morales (played by Shameik Moore). Spider-Verse isn’t just straight CGI, nor hand-drawn but a unique form onto itself. After being rendered on the computer, every single frame of the film was finalized by hand.
Phil Lord scripted with Rodney Rothman, and produced alongside Christopher Miller. Spider-Verse is directed by Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey and Rothman.
Warner Bros Pictures
Given adults’ to-do list before Christmas, Warner Bros.’ The Mule may be one of those pics that gets pushed until after the holiday. That said, a $15M-$17M is possible. If the Clint Eastwood-directed movie, which also stars him, truly dynamites adults out, it could see $20M, but a $15M beginning is reasonable. Film is tracking best with older males and females over 25.
Universal’s sci-fi/fantasy Mortal Engines based on the Philip Reeve book and produced by Peter Jackson, and adapted/produced by his wife Fran Walsh is looking low in the $12M-$15M range. It is currently bes with younger males under 25.
MORE… | 1,266,442 |
GENEVA (Reuters) - Authorities must protect nurses and other health workers from harassment and attacks compounding the already heavy toll they are paying in the pandemic, the World Health Organization (WHO) and top nursing officials said on Tuesday.
FILE PHOTO: A registered nurse walks out of a hospital during the outbreak of Coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in the Manhattan borough of New York City, New York, U.S., April 1, 2020. REUTERS/Carlo Allegri
Some 100 medical workers are reported to have died from the disease so far, including many nurses, Howard Catton, ceo of the International Council of Nurses, told a news briefing.
The world’s 28 million nurses, 59% of all health workers, were overstretched before the crisis began, the WHO, the Nursing Now campaign, and Geneva-based council said in the first “State of the World’s Nursing Report”.
Some have become targets out of people’s fear of contagion.
“We have picked up reports around the world of abuse, harassment of health workers, we had one case of somebody being spat on as well. It is completely unacceptable, reprehensible,” Catton said.
He called for governments to have a “zero tolerance approach” to such abuse and to ensure that public health messages are clear and fact-based.
Giorgio Cometto of WHO’s health workforce department said it was a relatively new phenomenon “whereby health workers are seen as a potential risk, as a potential threat as opposed to being a solution to the current crisis”.
“This really reinforces the need to have adequate communication for the public as well as specific measures to be put in place to protect health workers particularly in the context of the response to the current pandemic,” he said.
Baroness Mary Watkins, chair of Nursing Now, said nurses have been attacked previously during outbreaks of Ebola and the AID-HIV epidemic.
Referring to COVID-19, she said: “We have not had active violence that I know of in the UK, but we have had people trying to take nurses’ badges because they have been allowed to go into supermarkets early to buy food before going on their shift... That seems to have had a stop put to it.
“But there has been a very very clear directive from the police in many countries that attacking a health care worker is unacceptable. We need to keep pressure up,” Watkins added.
There is still a global shortage of nearly 6 million nurses, mainly in low- and lower-middle income countries, where the number of new recruits barely keeps pace with population growth, the report said.
Nurses are particularly lacking across Africa, in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, and Venezuela, it added. | 1,266,443 |
$10 all-weekend fares will be valid on all Commuter Rail lines and all zones starting January 5, 2019
The MBTA and its operating partner for Commuter Rail, Keolis Commuter Services, announced the special $10 Commuter Rail weekend fare pilot will resume on Saturday, January 5. This special weekend fare is available from the first train on Saturday to the last train on Sunday and may be used across all zones and all lines.
"Resuming this pilot allows our customers to continue taking advantage of Commuter Rail as a travel option on weekends, while we study the potential for making this program permanent," said MBTA General Manager Steve Poftak. "I want to thank our partners at the FTA for working with us to resume this pilot and also acknowledge the enthusiastic response we received from our customers to this initiative."
The special $10 all-weekend fare will be available on the mTicket app, onboard trains (cash or credit card from conductors), and at ticket windows at North, South, and Back Bay stations. The special fare applies to customers age 12 and above; the weekend fare allows adults to travel with 2 children under 12 at no additional cost.
"The MBTA’s reduced weekend fare initiative gives passengers a convenient and affordable option to visit a number of great destinations across the greater Boston area," said Keolis General Manager and CEO David Scorey. "We’re pleased to partner with the MBTA to continue this initiative that encourages new passengers to try Commuter Rail, helps to grow ridership, and promotes an environmentally friendly transit option."
Customers can visit MBTA.com/MassByTrain to explore destinations around the greater Boston area accessible by Commuter Rail and for listings of fun weekend excursions.
First piloted during the summer of 2018, the promotional fares were launched with the goal of increasing Commuter Rail ridership and revenue on the weekends when trains have additional capacity. During the 6-month period these fares were available, 180,000 tickets were sold. This represents 23% of weekend sales and a 4.6% increase in weekend revenues compared to the same time period in 2017. While weekend construction impacted direct year-over-year analysis, passenger feedback throughout the summer pilot was very positive.
During their first 6 months being offered to passengers, the special fares were marketed digitally, on radio, and in direct mailers to new homeowners as part of a broad, comprehensive marketing program. This marketing program is the result of a ridership and revenue growth partnership between the MBTA and Keolis, a first-of-its-kind contract in the United States, and marketing $10 fares will continue.
With the exception of the CapeFlyer, operated through a partnership with the Cape Cod Regional Transit Authority, and special event trains for destinations such as Gillette Stadium, this pilot applies to all MBTA Commuter Rail services on Saturdays and Sundays. | 1,266,444 |
Increasingly she would bunk off school to watch them. “I’d been a really good student until we moved to France,” says Peyroux, who went from passing the hat for the Riverboat Shufflers, a group of Paris-based American musicians, to becoming their lead singer. “The teachers in Paris were going to fail me so my mom sent me to a boarding school in England [in Littlehampton, West Sussex] so that I’d knuckle down and do this A-level thing, which looked insane to me.”
The self-confessed “hormonal teen” picked up her guitar and ran away. “I hopped on a train to Dover, paid for the ferry — you can’t jump a ferry — landed in Calais in the rain and hitch-hiked to Paris. The British police were looking for me for three days,” she says with a good-natured grimace. “I wasn’t in school much after that. I just kept hanging out.”
Peyroux went on to tour the world with another itinerant American collective, the Lost Wandering Blues & Jazz Band, singing songs by blues greats including Ma Rainey and Fats Waller. She continues to be amazed that, having survived many a close call, she never got into serious trouble. “I had my guitar and some talent; I hung out with smart people. I could talk my way out of tricky situations.”
While life on the streets lent authenticity to her blues covers, its cold harshness quickly got to her. By the age of 20 she was done. Back in New York she was discovered and signed by Atlantic Records and thrust, blinking and unprepared, into an international spotlight. “I was just a kid who was given a chance to record some songs,” she has said of Careless Love. “Nothing prepares you for what happens after that.”
For all her ups and downs, and despite her ambivalent attitude to her success, Peyroux’s belief in the power of song has never wavered. “Hearing the human voice can be so soothing and healing,” she says. “You know, when we did this concert in Oxfordshire the vicar came up to me and said, ‘Thank you, Madeleine. You filled the room with secular humanism’. It was the best compliment I have ever had. I really think of the songs I sing as hymns.” She pauses, smiles. “Music. Song. The voice. This is my spiritual life.”
Madeleine Peyroux plays the Royal Festival Hall on November 20 as part of the EFG London Jazz Festival.
Follow Going Out on Facebook and on Twitter @ESgoingout | 1,266,445 |
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The machine is the result of a Dutch company’s attempt to simplify, streamline, and speed up at-home beer making. The process is semi-automated, according to the company. It takes about three-and-a-half hours, but the combination of an ingredient package and the iOS (with Android to come later) app should give step-by-step instructions.
You need to select the recipe, add the ingredients, start the “mashing” process, and then let the machine do its thing. The machine boils, cools, does yeast pitching, and handles primary and secondary fermentation. It’s pretty thoroughly automated, although after the brewing process, you may have to add yeast and extra hops before fermentation. All of that will take some time, with the machine’s sensors and software guiding the majority of these actions. But thanks to a recent update to the MiniBrew, it’ll take a bit less time than before — as per an update posted to the machine’s Indiegogo page (which it relaunched last month after an initial debut in 2015), you can now enjoy homemade beer in anywhere between five and 15 days.
In addition to this improvement, the new MiniBrew also comes with active cooling directly on the keg. That means that even after you’ve poured your beer, this cooling feature will keep you beer in “perfect condition” for up to six months. That said, the MiniBrew team notes, you probably won’t be able to keep your homemade malted beverages around for that long (due to demand, of course).
Comparatively speaking, the aluminum brewing machine is decently sized, and not much bigger than some espresso makers we’ve tested out. You’ll get about 1.3 gallons worth of beer with each brewing. That’s a little less than three growlers.
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While the company’s goal is to let anyone (with superfluous cash) brew beer, there is some ability to customize what you’re making. There are already 50 beers in the company’s repertoire, and you’ll get ones suited to your liking when you dial your taste preferences into the app. Like a bitter beer with high alcohol content? You’ll likely get a different set of results than someone who wants a light, sweet beer.
It’s going to take a lot of batches of beer before the MiniBrew pays for itself, though. It’s available on Indiegogo right now, with the new early bird price point of $599.
Article originally published in October 2015. Updated 12/13/2016 by Lulu Chang: Added news of revamped Indiegogo campaign, with new price point and features.
Editors' Recommendations | 1,266,446 |
term answer such as DeAndre Jordan. That's because Jordan can become a free agent at the end of the season.
2. The Cavs would trade the pick for a younger player who is under team control for a few years. But they are willing to deal their own first-round pick in 2018 for the right short-term fix.
3. The Cavs should wait on Jordan and build a package with Iman Shumpert and their own first-round pick. Channing Frye combined with Shumpert would make the deal work on the salary cap, but I'd hate to see Frye leave. The Cavs should not bid against themselves by making a rash offer.
4. I have heard J.R. Smith is being offered to various teams. Smith is paid $13.7 million this season, with $14.7 million in 2018-19. He has a $15.7 million salary ($3.9 million guaranteed) for 2019-20.
5. One of Boston's weaknesses is rebounding. The Celtics just improved in that area when they signed 6-foot-11 free agent Greg Monroe. I've always liked Monroe. He is an old-fashioned low-post player. The 27-year-old has averaged 14 points, 8.7 rebounds in 29 minutes per game for his career.
6. Irving's presence on the Celtics helped attract Monroe, bought out by Phoenix. I was told the Cavs didn't have a lot of interest. Boston also could offer him more money than the Cavs or New Orleans. He signed for $5 million and a chance to play on the team leading the Eastern Conference.
7. Meanwhile, the Cavs are without leading rebounder Kevin Love (broken hand) for an estimated two months. Tyson Chandler is 35. The 7-foot center is stuck in Phoenix on a team going nowhere. He's averaging 6.5 points and 9.6 rebounds in 25 minutes a game. I've always like Chandler's game.
8. Chandler is making $13 million this season and $13.5 million next year. I keep thinking there are the makings of a deal between the Cavs and Suns involving Chandler.
CAVS FOR SALE?
Last week, ESPN's Stephen A. Smith mentioned in passing that Dan Gilbert wants to sell the Cavs. There was no follow up. That's because there appears to be absolutely nothing going on right now.
I did some checking and what has been happening the last few years is Gilbert has quietly been buying out some of his minor partners. Most of them have been very small purchases, less than 1 percent.
So there may be some action on the ownership front, but it's more in that direction.
Former Cavs majority owner Gordon Gund still retains about 14 percent of the team. I'm told Gilbert has more than 75 percent. So they control about 90 percent of the franchise. | 1,266,447 |
My Uncle Merlin is a project created by Pocket Mana, a three-person indie game dev team from Serbia. Here we will have some words about the artistic inspiration and Slavic motifs used in the making of the game.
Why We Did It
After we decided to build firm around the odd notion of “wizards in space”, we discussed at length about which direction we should take regarding the game’s artwork. We allowed ourselves enough creative room with such a strange idea, but we also wanted the overall style to be something fresh and exciting.
We turned to our heritage, our culture and the interior design of our grandparent’s homes to find inspiration and the results came out quite special.
How We Did It
The Slavic influences are subtle, but they affect many different aspects of the game. So the best way to present them is to split them into categories and go through them one at a time.
The Wizards
When we tried to imagine our wizards, we immediately thought of our elderly. The wise old folks we would see on the streets of our town, going out to buy bread and milk, greeting family, neighbors, and even unsuspecting strangers as they went along their merry way. Not all of them were merry though… Some were real grumpy. They would never leave their home, spending their days sitting in comfy chairs and continuously murmuring insults at the TV.
Enter uncle Merlin. An old, crabby wizard, that wears a woolen vest and a sleeping cap, both of which are essential parts of any Serbian grandpa look. His eyes tell the tale of how pointless it is to build a career as a government employee. His stare goes right through you, like you were nothing but an annoying pattern on his bedroom window, as he waits for commercials to finish.
The patterns on his clothing can be seen on some classic Slavic rugs. If you’re a 90s kid who grew up in Eastern Europe, you probably had the cold, blistering experience of washing the damn thing.
The Dragon
If you’re going to be propelling a wizardly tower through space, you need a name of epic proportions.
That is why our loving monstrosity had to carry the name George, jokingly referring to the dragon-slayer. His appearance and backstory were determined by some of the tales we were told as children. According to Slavic folklore, a number of animals can in fact turn into dragons when and if they reach a certain age. Georgie was obviously — a ram.
The UI and the Universe
We mentioned Slavic rugs already and their patterns are very common part of the game’s artwork. The rhombuses on their patterns which make them so recognizable are used as bases for the whole UI, but we also used them to map out the entire universe of the game. | 1,266,448 |
On August 27th, 2018, PIVX crossed a massive milestone not only for its own project but for cryptocurrency overall. It now has over 10 million PIV converted to zPIV accounting for nearly 20% of its coin supply, making it the largest anonymous set of any coin that uses the Zerocoin protocol. For a while now, people in the privacy cryptocurrency space have frowned upon non-mandatory privacy. Their claim is that not enough people will use the privacy transaction features or keep their balance private when not spending. The 10+ million zPIV supply of PIVX proves otherwise.
The PIVX developers are constantly working on making sure goals are met, delivering features that have never been accomplished before. The ability to keep your balance completely private by simply converting PIV into zPIV is one of those features. Another crypto first developed was “zPoS” (Zerocoin Proof of Stake) which is a fully private staking mechanism allowing people to stake their zPIV and privately earn 3 zPIV as a reward when they win a block, instead of a public 2 PIV block reward when staking PIV using PoS. The zPoS protocol is the first to incentivize privacy.
The effects of zPoS are now showing and the outcome is even better than expected. PIVX is now nearing a whopping 20% in zPIV supply whereas Zcash typically only has around 6% of their coins shielded.
The Zerocoin protocol works where a higher the supply of zPIV (divided in accumulators of 1 zPIV, 5 zPIV, 10 zPIV, etc.), the better the privacy. If you would spend 1 zPIV, the anonymity set that the protocol uses to secure and ensure privacy is currently above 66,000! Just looking at the 1 zPIV denomination set, PIVX has a larger set size in total than all the accumulators combined in Zcoin. This is largely achieved by the innovation of zPoS and the consistent improvement of the original Zerocoin protocol.
The total number of zPIV is only expected to grow, as many improvements to zPIV and zPoS are in the pipeline. The most requested improvement, by many users, is precomputed proofs, which will greatly improve zPIV spend times and improve zPoS efficiency. Soon to follow will be Bulletproofs to significantly decrease its proof sizes and create a trustless setup.
Thanks to the mobile/light wallet core developer known as Furszy, spending and minting zPIV through mobile will also become a reality very soon. This will further increase the usability and therefore usage for the public and real-use cases.
The constant innovations by its development team and the community has turned PIVX into one of the most unique cryptocurrencies in the market today and will continue into the future. | 1,266,449 |
ETH price started a fresh decrease after it failed to climb above the $202 resistance against the US Dollar.
The price is down more than 8% from the high and it is now trading well below $190.
There is a connecting bearish trend line forming with resistance near $190 on the hourly chart of ETH/USD (data feed via Kraken).
The pair could correct higher, but upsides are likely to remain capped near the $190 resistance.
Ethereum price is trading in a bearish zone below $190 versus the US Dollar, and bitcoin declined 8%. ETH might correct a few points, but the bulls could struggle to gain traction.
Ethereum Price Analysis
After a strong rejection near the $200 and $202 resistance levels, ETH price declined heavily against the US Dollar. There were also bearish moves in bitcoin and ripple below $10,000 and $0.2800 respectively. It opened the doors for more losses and ETH declined below the key $190 support level. Moreover, there was a break below the $188 level plus a close below the 100 hourly simple moving average.
Ethereum price tested the $180 support level and recently corrected higher. There was a break above the $185 level plus the 23.6% Fib retracement level of the recent decline from the $203 high to $180 swing low. However, the upward move was capped by the $190 resistance. Moreover, the price failed to test the 50% Fib retracement level of the recent decline from the $203 high to $180 swing low.
There is also a connecting bearish trend line forming with resistance near $190 on the hourly chart of ETH/USD. The pair is now trading well below the $190 resistance and the 100 hourly SMA. On the downside, an immediate support is near the $180 level. If there is a bearish break below $180, Ethereum price is likely to accelerate its decline towards $175 and $172.
On the upside, the bulls are facing a strong resistance near the $190 zone. Therefore, a successful close above the $190 resistance and the 100 hourly SMA is needed for a fresh increase. The next immediate resistance is near the $195 level, followed by the main $202 resistance.
Looking at the chart, Ethereum price is clearly facing a lot of hurdles on the upside near the $190 and $192 levels. Therefore, there is a risk of more downsides below the $180 support level. Besides, if bitcoin slides further below $9,500, it could drag the crypto market lower.
ETH Technical Indicators
Hourly MACD – The MACD for ETH/USD is about to move back into the bearish zone.
Hourly RSI – The RSI for ETH/USD is currently near the 50 level.
Major Support Level – $180
Major Resistance Level – $190 | 1,266,450 |
A Hampshire College student is facing charges after allegedly assaulting a female basketball player from another school for “culturally appropriating” hair braids.
On January 27, according to court documents, Carmen Figueroa ordered members of the Central Maine Community College basketball team to remove braids from their hair, citing cultural appropriation. Figueroa did not clarify what specifically was being appropriated, or from whom it was being appropriated.
“It is completely wrong to victimize and brutally attack another individual for their hair.”
According to The Hampshire Gazette, Figueroa was charged with disorderly conduct, assault and battery, and assault and battery with a dangerous weapon.
[RELATED: College ditches Old Glory after flag-burning incident]
When the team members refused, Figueroa, along with another student, began a fight with the visiting team, pulling their hair and bringing them to the ground.
Figueroa allegedly stepped on and kicked one of the girls on the ground, according to court documents. Other team members who tried to help their friend were similarly assaulted.
[RELATED: Veterans protest removal of American flag at Hampshire College]
Coaches quickly intervened to break up the fight, pulling Figueroa away as she yelled racial slurs at the visiting team.
“Overall, the topic of dispute on whether or not a white woman can wear braids is a very tricky blurred line–since cultural appropriation (CA) changes as our cultures blend and mesh it's difficult to make a contention on whether or not braids are CA,” Madison Campbell, the Young Americans for Liberty President at Hampshire College, told Campus Reform. “However, regardless of whether or not the hairstyle worn by the plaintiff is CA, it is completely wrong to victimize and brutally attack another individual for their hair.”
[RELATED: Black SFSU student assaults white peer because he has dreadlocks]
“I do not condone the violence brought on from this Hampshire student, and believe if the defendant had problems with the hairstyle that they should have expressed their opinion verbally rather than abusively,” she added.
[RELATED: UMass Amherst students throw temper tantrum at free speech event]
“Hampshire College can't comment on the specifics of the court case because of laws protecting student privacy,” Media Relations and Editorial Director John Courtmanche told Campus Reform, though he did condemn the behavior in general terms.
“At Hampshire all students are expected to abide by the Code of Conduct and Norms for Community Living detailed in our Student Handbook,” he asserted, adding, that “a Hampshire education includes teaching accountability for behavior, and our Handbook explicitly states that physical violence and harassment are never acceptable.”
Follow the author of this article on Twitter: @kassydillon | 1,266,451 |
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Grupo Modelo, which produces and exports several popular beer brands including Corona, Pacifica and Modelo, will be temporarily suspending production after its breweries were deemed non-essential by the Mexican government.
BUSCH OFFERS FREE BEER FOR PEOPLE WILLING TO ADOPT A DOG DURING HEALTH CRISIS
The company confirmed the news via a press release shared to Twitter early on Friday, and pledged its “total commitment” to slowing the spread of coronavirus.
“Grupo Modelo announces that this Sunday it will complete the process of suspending its production and marketing operations for beer,” wrote Grupo Modelo, per a translation of its press release. The company added that the suspension was part of an agreement with Mexico’s federal government, as one of many “extraordinary actions to attend to the health emergency generated by SARS-VoC2 virus.”
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Grupo Modelo had said it was already in the process of slowing production to a “minimum,” but not stopping it altogether, to make it easier to resume once the health crisis was under control, citing some 15,000 families and 800,000 grocers that rely on beer production and beer sales for at least some of their income.
“In the event that the federal government considers it opportune to issue a guarantee confirming beer as an [essential] agro-industrial product, at Grupo Modelo we are ready to execute a plan with more than 75 percent of our staff working from home and at the same time guaranteeing the supply of beer,” the statement continued.
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Grupo Modelo added that it has already donated 300,000 bottles of hand sanitizer for distribution to hospitals and medical centers, and said further efforts toward “fighting this fight” will be announced shortly.
“Grupo Modelo will abide by the measures adopted by the Federal Government and reaffirms its total commitment to be part of the fight against the SARS CoV2 virus,” the statement read.
A representative for Grupo Modelo, whose parent company is Anheuser Busch InBev, was not immediately available to confirm whether the suspension of production would affect the supply chain for its beer.
CLICK HERE FOR FOX NEWS' CONTINUING CORONAVIRUS COVERAGE
Earlier this week, Mexico declared a health emergency after surpassing 1,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the country, Reuters reported. By Thursday, the country had reported of at least 1,500 cases and 50 deaths. | 1,266,452 |
JYP Entertainment has enjoyed great financial success these past few months!
On August 14, the Financial Supervisory Service reported that JYP Entertainment had recorded the highest profits in the second quarter (April-June) among entertainment companies, beating out agencies such as SM and YG.
The FSS recorded a profit of about 6.9 billion won (approximately $6 million) from JYP in the second quarter of 2017, 81.5 percent higher than what they recorded around the same time last year. Their sales and net profit for the term also rose 59 percent and 135.9 percent compared to last year.
This result far surpassed expectations from the financial district, with Hana Financial Investment Co. having predicted that JYP Entertainment would likely record about 5.6 billion won in the second quarter.
A source from JYP stated, “In the first half [of the year] TWICE’s two albums sold 600,000 copies and GOT7’s album sold over 350,000 copies. In the first half of 2017 alone, our sales are approaching our entire sales volume for 2016 (about 1,100,000 copies), so this has increased our profits.”
JYP far outstripped its Big 3 competitors as well, with SM having recorded a profit of almost 1.4 billion won (about $1.2 million) and YG 4.3 billion won ($3.8 million) in the second quarter.
The second half of the year is expected to bring more intense competition among the Big 3. TWICE recently made their Japanese debut and GOT7 is slated to go on tour in Japan in November, with 2PM’s Junho already in the middle of his solo tour there. SM recently launched the comeback of Girls’ Generation and are preparing for Super Junior’s comeback, while EXO’s recent album’s sales and SHINee’s Japanese dome tour are expected to raise their third-quarter profits. SM is also expected to launch a TVXQ comeback once both members complete their mandatory military service, and TVXQ and Super Junior are slated to undertake Japanese tours this year as well.
YG’s third-quarter profits are expected to be boosted by the profits from Daesung’s Japanese dome tours, BIGBANG’s fan meetings, iKON’s dome tour, WINNER’s fan meetings, G-Dragon’s world tour, and Taeyang’s world tour. In addition, they will be airing more of their original content such as dramas and variety shows in the second half of the year.
A source from Shinhan Investment Corp. stated that YG’s increasing focus on content is likely to help them in 2018 when more members of BIGBANG enlist in the military and go on hiatus.
Source (1) | 1,266,453 |
Jack Dorsey, co-founder and chief executive officer of Twitter Inc., speaks during an interview in New York, U.S., on Monday, May 1, 2017.
Twitter shares rose Thursday after Goldman Sachs raised its price target for the social media stock and told clients that despite recent worries about the crackdown on fake accounts, the purge will be a net positive for user engagement.
Goldman Sachs analyst Heath Terry increased his price target on Twitter to $55 from $40, arguing that the company's efforts to drive and monetize user engagement will help contribute to 25 percent upside over the next year.
“Twitter continues to build on ‘Information Quality’ efforts they first spoke about on the fourth-quarter earnings call by moderating unwanted behavior, spam accounts, and low quality tweets through product innovation, acquisition, or more active removal of violating accounts and developer applications,” the analyst wrote. "Our ad partner checks suggest that these efforts have generally been well received by advertisers and... are contributing to incremental ad dollars flowing onto the platform."
Terry, who reiterated his buy rating on the San Francisco-based company, also highlighted the company's goals of creating better products and services on the site, particularly in hosting other forms of content.
"Twitter continues to focus on the relevance of its product for its core user base, particularly on Video where the company highlighted in the first quarter improved click through rates," he added. "Feature introduction over the last six months including Bookmarks, video timestamps, embedding live events into notifications and the newsfeed, and redesigning the explore tab showcase the company's focus on personalizing the core Twitter product."
Twitter shares fell more than 5 percent earlier in the week after The Washington Post reported that the company has purged more than 70 million accounts in May and June as a part of its effort to rid the site of disinformation.
The company confirmed to The Post that the rate of account suspensions has more than doubled since October following revelations that Russia used fake accounts to interfere in the U.S. presidential election.
While the initial reaction on the Street may have been a reflexive reaction by traders, Goldman Sachs wasn't the only brokerage to applaud Twitter's campaign against fake accounts.
MKM Partners analyst Rob Sanderson reiterated his buy rating on the stock and commended its efforts to eradicate "bad actors" on the site. He also emphasized his thesis that the company's future depends on artificial intelligence, which thus far appears to be working.
The stock rose 1.8 percent the Goldman and MKM notes, adding to an 85 percent climb since January.
"Deep learning expertise has become a primary engineering focus for Twitter especially over the past two years," Sanderson wrote. "This is helping to police the network, but could also have game-changing potential in solving user experience challenges."
—CNBC’s Michael Bloom contributed to this report. | 1,266,454 |
lok-sabha-elections
Updated: Mar 19, 2019 09:15 IST
Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Monday said she had seen her family make several sacrifices for the country, including the assassination of her father former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi and that neither she nor brother and Congress president Rahul Gandhi were interested in power.
“Neither my brother Rahul Gandhi nor I have any interest in ‘satta’ (political power),” she said while speaking at Sitamarhi in Bhadohi district during a halt in her 140 km long three-day Prayagraj-Varanasi Ganga Yatra on a steamer.
She said the upcoming polls were not just a plain ‘chunav’ (election) but ‘chunauti’ (challenge) for the electorate to get rid of a government which was not interested in addressing public woes.
Also read: Lok Sabha Elections 2019: On boat yatra, Priyanka Gandhi jabs PM Modi’s ‘Main bhi Chowkidaar’ campaign
“The purpose of my three-day journey is not to attain power nor form a Congress government, but to save the country and the constitution, as both are in danger.”
Priyanka said Prime Minister Narendra Modi had failed to address problems of farmers, the unemployed and women’s safety among a host of other issues.
“Although the present prime minister claimed he was very powerful and had a 56-inch chest, he could not address woes of farmers, the unemployed, women’s safety, development of the country and other issues successfully,” the Congress general secretary said.
Bhadohi was the carpet manufacturing belt of India but the imposition of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) had caused 60% weavers to close their businesses, she claimed.
Priiyanka also said that under the BJP government there is a danger to freedom of expression.
“The Allahabad University students who I met on a steamer (during the yatra) said that they were deprived of freedom of expression under this government as their voice was suppressed whenever they raised their problems,” she said.
Also read: Priyanka Gandhi starts Ganga Yatra with prayers and boat ride
The Congress general secretary said the PM coined the slogan ‘Sabka Saath Sabka Vikas’, but the it was the welfare of only a handful that was ensured.
Earlier, Bahraich MP Savitri Bai Phule, who joined the Congress, said she had left the BJP because the PM only knew how to tell lies.
During the function, carpet traders presented a carpet to the Congress leader. Local office bearers of the party gifted a copy of Valmiki Ramayan to her. | 1,266,455 |
Turkey have ordered Turkish Air Forces to be ready to shoot down any Russian aircraft on sight, following claims that a Russian Su-34 warplane violated Turkish airspace on Friday.
Turkey have raised the alert level for the Air Force to the “orange warning”, which authorises pilots to shoot down any aircraft they feel is causing an airspace violation. Another downing of a Russian airplane in the region could the military tension between the two nations escalate to dangerous levels.
Xinhuanet.com reports:
Many F-16 jets are dispatched to an air base in Diyarbakir province in southeastern Turkey, according to the report.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Saturday warned Russia of “consequences” if it continues to violate Turkish airspace.
“If Russia continues to violate Turkey’s sovereignty, it will have to face the consequences,” Erdogan told reporters in Istanbul before leaving for a visit to Chile.
He blamed Russia for acting “irresponsibly” and escalating the tension in the region, while emphasizing that the issue was closely followed by NATO.
“These kinds of irresponsible acts not only damage NATO-Russian relations but also the regional and global peace,” the president stressed, as his country is a NATO member.
Erdogan said that he hoped to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin but to no avail.
Earlier, Turkish foreign ministry said it summoned Russian ambassador to Ankara late Friday after it claimed that Russia’s SU-34 violated Turkey’s airspace.
In a written statement, the ministry said Turkish air force warned the Russian aircraft several times on Friday in Russian and English, adding that the violation is also a new and concrete indicator of Moscow’s actions which aims at “accelerating problems despite open warnings by our country and by NATO.”
The ministry has urged Russia “not to violate Turkish airspace, which is NATO airspace. We underline that such actions could lead to serious consequence,” said the statement.
“We once more underline that unwanted serious developments as outcome of this kind of irresponsible acts will be on Russian Federation’s liability,” added the statement.
The ministry said all these arguments were conveyed to the Russian ambassador.
In Moscow on Saturday, Russian defence ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov dismissed Turkey’s accusations as “baseless propaganda,” saying that there has not been a single violation of Turkish airspace by Russia air force planes in Syria.
Turkish air force shot down the Russian jet on Nov. 24 claiming it has violated Turkish airspace, whereas Moscow insisted the Su-24 stayed over Syria during its flight.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has demanded an apology from the Turkish leadership and a compensation for the damage. Russia’s Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has ordered economic sanctions against Turkey. | 1,266,456 |
, and all the game in the world can’t change certain aspects of one’s humanity.
And as for the folks who swear by stuff like Cognitive Behavorial Therapy and the like—CBT hasn’t proven itself effective in assisting men with meeting their mating goals. If they were, there would be no need for game in the first place, because therapy-based models would be getting the job done.
Most of the game and pickup critics—especially women themselves—don’t understand a fundamental aspect of the male mind: that we do what works, not what “ought” to work, or what “should” work, because it comports to what we think the world should be.
The simple truth of the matter is that CBT and the like simply doesn’t work, as McDermid himself has made clear:
For those of you who don’t know, I did end up in The Priory Hospital in Roehampton where I met some awesome people (yes, some were famous). However I found that they were low on facts and relied heavily on emotional ‘one-liners’, not logic. It also seems to address the ‘symptoms’ of the issue, not the problem itself. I was repeatedly told to “trust the process”, but no-one was willing to outline this mystical process. To me it was one step removed from a cult with pseudo science used to ‘persuade’ rather than educate. For one session at The Priory I was told to stare at an orange for an hour… Make your own conclusions on how effective that technique was…
Obviously, mainstream psychological counseling services are ill-equipped to contend with the male mating mind, how and why it works, and how to put a guy on the right track toward meeting his mating goals. As many of us know all too well, (straight) male sexual desire is at the very least looked on with a side eye, if not outright vilified and excoriated.
In Summation
Somehow people – in our time today, straight men – are supposed to treat their attraction triggers like a light switch that they can turn on or off, or perhaps more like a dimmer light dial, where it can be adjusted at whatever setting is desired.
They are also forced to endure a “trust the process” party line from mainstream therapists who have no idea how to help them achieve their goals, as well as a manosphere counterculture that cannot give them the cure-all they are looking for to “solve” their race, height, or whatever other characteristic they view as their problem.
Regretfully, McDermid won’t be the last victim of today’s harsh sexual marketplace.
Read More: 5 Signs A Girl Has Daddy Issues | 1,266,457 |
When Julien Roussin-Côté founder and captain of Go-Van fame told me he frequently parked his “condo” in front of Ma Brasserie in order to surf their free wifi, I thought there was a terrific storyline right there. I therefore organized a little private tour of the new Microbrewery established in Rosemont, Montréal.
Inspiring across America
The guy literally lives in a van, thanks to a collaboration between his magazine Go-Van and Safari Condo. The digital nomad and his collaborators keep inspiring us with tales of adventures across america supported by epic videos and mini-series.
For my generation: freedom, traveling and time are after all the new luxury.
The New Adventure Packages
Julien also explained that anyone can now live the Go-Van experience with their new expedition packages that will take you on a 7 days roadtrip of more than 1500km, gaining exclusive access to magical camping locations in partnership with the SEPAC the office of tourism. Check out their next Eastern Canada Foliage Tour (Oct 1-8).
The Visit: Inside Ma Brasserie
We were then met by Martine Lafontaine of Ma Brasserie, who gladly accepted to give us a tour of the cooperative microbrewery. Located inside a former and the oldest leather factory of Montreal, the beer tasting salon that is open to the public is simply brilliant and filled with constant natural light.
You will notice the huge industrial skylights that span throughout the whole structure and bathe the installations in divine rays.
Most of the furniture and interior design elements were crafted on the spot, with recycled materials. For example, these big lights below were made of old beer alambics while the countertops and the bars are crafted with former bowling alleys. Fascinating stuff.
In the back, more natural light and the ongoing production of many house blends for local pubs such as Isle de Garde, La Succursale and Brouhaha.
The brewmasters also experiment with techniques and crafts to create new blends, like leveraging the flavors and essences of these former wooden whiskey barrels.
Fun fact, downstairs we also found this industrial-era coal boiler they simply couldn’t move anymore.
Tastings and events
Behind the curtain, you can also see how all these beers can be served and tasted on location. They also brew a delicious kombucha and a sparkling ginger ale, both also available for tastinga. Kids are welcome inside the building since like it is the case for a winery, the cooperative holds a degustation license.
Ma Brasserie could be in fact your very next spot to host your office party or birthday! To learn more about groups reservations, tastings schedules and other activities, visit their official website
Oh, and thanks Julien. Now go home. | 1,266,458 |
Moderate Left Bias
This article has moderate left bias with a bias score of -40.49 from our political bias detecting A.I.
Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren says that, although she believes in capitalism, it should work for all–not just the rich and powerful.
“Look, I believe in markets. I think we ought to be having markets work. I think that people who want to start small businesses should get a chance to grow them. But markets without rules are theft,” the senator from Massachusetts told an interviewer last week on the sidelines of the She the People presidential candidates’ forum in Houston, Texas. “And these great fortunes we have in America, it’s one tenth of one percent hold this wealth. Right now, this year, you want to talk about fairness, this year, the people in that category are going to pay roughly about 3.4 percent of their total wealth in taxes. Okay. The 99.9 percent of America is going to pay about 7.4 percent of their total wealth in taxes. that’s more than double. Two cents, that’s all I’m asking for, on every dollar of those fortunes above $50 million. And that still means they’re paying less than everybody else.”
Warren, one of 20 Democrats seeking the presidential nomination, also described how she arrived at calling for impeachment of Republican incumbent Donald Trump following the release of the redacted Mueller Report.
“So, look, I never thought that this was going to be where we were going to be in the middle of a presidential race,” Warren said. “I was on an airplane when the Mueller report dropped and I started reading it. And I turned the page, and I read, and I read, and I read, and I read into night, I read into early next morning, and when I got to the end, I knew three things for sure. A hostile foreign government attacked our 2016 electoral system to help Donald Trump, see the footnotes, it’s all in there. Part 2, Donald Trump welcomed that help. It’s appalling, but it’s all in there. And part three, when the federal government tried to investigate part 1 and part 2, he took actions, he tried everything that he could to derail, stop, move, distract, in other words, to shut down that investigation.
“We’re not a dictatorship where the government all rallies around the dictator. We’re a constitutional democracy,” Warren added. “And that means no one is above the law. And that includes the president of the United States.”
Despite Warren’s position, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her team has not shown any interest in moving quickly toward impeachment.
Content from The Bipartisan Press. All Rights Reserved. | 1,266,459 |
Gervonta Davis lost his belt by missing weight even before fighting Saturday and his inattention in the ring also led to a more difficult bout than he believed.
Referee Russell Mora controversially awarded Davis an eighth-round knockout victory on a left-handed punch that struck opponent Francisco Fonseca in the back of the head.
Davis (19-0, 18 knockouts) said he hurt Fonseca with a body blow before the punch, and explained that the disputed shot “capped” the damage, although fans who watched replays in the arena booed that thought.
“Everyone saw I was going down from a blow that was not legal,” Fonseca said. “I want a rematch. … Even though he came in at 160 pounds, he didn’t hit as hard as he says he does.”
Davis lost the belt by weighing 132 pounds, two over the junior-lightweight limit Friday, losing his belt and putting the International Boxing Federation title on the line only for the 40/1 underdog Fonseca.
Fonseca (19-1-1) rocked Davis so hard with a punch in the seventh, the former champion was forced to grab the ropes to remain standing.
Davis immediately swinging aggressive uppercuts to open the bout, trying to end the fight impressively, but he was locked in a tougher test than he thought.
Costa Rica’s Fonseca landed a head-jarring punch that forced some flush blows in the third.
Davis responded with a power punch in the fourth and began some showmanship before Fonseca smacked him with a few clean shots.
In the fifth, Davis began showing more seriousness, backing Fonseca with a left, and he landed a hurtful left to the gut in the sixth.
The bout served as the co-main event to the Floyd Mayweather Jr.-Conor McGregor boxing event matching the 49-0, five-division boxing champion against the charismatic UFC champion McGregor, which was not complete at press time.
Davis, after working out under Mayweather’s guidance and training feverishly in a rubber suit Thursday night, revealed again the difficulty some boxers have in making weight.
He apologized on Twitter afterward, posting: “I’m young. I’m growing. I had a chance to make the weight. I knew I couldn’t make it and that’s that. I will have a belt again.
“I lost the belt, not a fight. … I will make it up.”
That left Davis’ stablemate at Mayweather Boxing Club, former super-middleweight champion Badou Jack, to fight for a belt. He succeeded, stopping Nathan Cleverly by fifth-round technical knockout. | 1,266,460 |
It’s a day of legends scaling back at ESPN.
On the same afternoon Brent Musburger was demoted from his role as lead college football analyst, Rick Reilly announced he’ll be giving up his ESPN.com column to exclusively focus on television. He’ll write his final column on June 30.
Life’s 2 short 2 work full-time. Letting my column go + will just do features 4 MNC + SC. Thx 2 John Skipper 4 this! http://t.co/H8v0GJrmcx — Rick Reilly (@ReillyRick) March 12, 2014
Reilly came to national prominence during his 22 years at Sports Illustrated, the final 10 of which were spent writing the back-page column. During his time at SI, Reilly won the NSSA National Sportswriter of the Year award 11 times. He left for ESPN in 2008.
In recent years, Reilly has earned criticism for various offenses such as misquoting his father-in-law, recycling old ideas and relying on the same jokes While the critiques were fair, the assumptions drawn from them were not. First, they ignored that Reilly was the closest thing sportswriting ever had to a rock star. If you’re of a certain age, you grew up reading Rick Reilly in Sports Illustrated and thought, “he must have the greatest job in the world.”
But because our culture likes to build up, then tear down, it’s popular now to accuse Reilly of mailing it in. You could view his retirement from column writing as confirmation of that. Or you could look at the clear alternative: Writing about the same topics for 30 years isn’t easy. Tony Kornheiser shifted his focus to television and radio for that very reason. Reilly himself hints at that in a tweet sent after his announcement.
I’ve written sports for 36 years + over 2 million words. Time 2 write something new. Had SO much fun. Tried to make a difference. THANK YOU — Rick Reilly (@ReillyRick) March 12, 2014
Seriously, read this article Reilly wrote in 1992. It’s fantastic. If you think you can write something better than that, feel free to critique him all you want. If you can’t, dial it back a bunch. Not that Reilly minded the criticism, or so he says.
Thanks to everybody who liked the column and even those who hated it. You fired me up. It was a privilege. — Rick Reilly (@ReillyRick) March 12, 2014
Reilly’s new deal with ESPN will have him continuing his human interest features on Monday Night Countdown, as well as doing other work for SportsCenter and Sunday NFL Countdown.
He’ll be inducted into the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association Hall of Fame on June 9. | 1,266,461 |
Daisy Fried Abigail Lang, Maître de conférences (Associate Professor), Université Paris-Diderot, Paris, Michelle Levy Schulz Dominique Pasqualini, Directeur de l'école EMA Fructidor (School of media and fine arts, Director), Chalon-sur-Saône, Sean Bonney, Marianne Morris, poet, UC Falmouth, Keston Sutherland, Reader in English, University of Sussex, Orlando Reade, University of Cambridge Binh Nguyen, San Diego, CA, Janet Holmes, Boise State University B, arry Schwabsky, art critic, The Nation, Robert Kiely, Birkbeck College Kent Johnson John Wilkinson, poet, Professor of Practice in the Arts, University of Chicago Alvin D. Greenberg, Boise State University Dr. Alberto Toscano, Department of Sociology, Goldsmiths Stacy Blint, Disappearing Books Katy Balma, Fulbright Fellow and Teaching Assistant, University of Connecticut Wendy Battin, poet and essayist David Lau, Lana Turner Magazine Nick-e Melville, poet and lecturer at Motherwell College, Scotland Peter Phillpott, Great Works, modernpoetry.org.uk Patrick Pritchett, Lecturer, History and Literature, Harvard University Robert Archembeau, Professor of English, Lake Forest College (Illinois) Rob Holloway, Joseph Kaplan, Dr. Jeffrey Pethybridge, Susquehanna University Dr. Don Stinson, Northern Oklahoma College George Cunningham, Hansa Arts Joseph Walton Hugh McDonnell, University of Amsterdam Megan Kaminski, Creative Writing Lecturer, University of Kansas Jose A. Alcantara K.E Allen, Lecturer in English, Comprehensive Studies Program, University of Michigan Allan Peterson, Gulf Breeze, FL Siobain Walker Dr. Nina Power, Senior Lecturer in Philosophy, University of Roehampton Francesca Lisette Caitlin Doherty, University of Cambridge Frances Richard, Barnard College Ryan Dobran, University of Cambridge Dr. Cathy Wagner, Miami University, OH John Bloomberg-Rissman, University of California, Riverside Carla Harryman, Associate Professor of Literature, Eastern Michigan University Robert Ellen Joel Duncan, University of Notre Dame Jared Schickling, Adjunct Professor, Humanities Division, Niagara Count Community College Dr. Ian Patterson, Fellow, Tutor, Director of Studies in English, Queens' College, University of Cambridge Dr. Lisa Samuels, Associate Professor, University of Auckland, New Zealand Ian Heames, University od Cambridge Prof. Alex Davis, University College Cork John Temple Jonathan B. Highfield Dr. Jennifer Cooke, Lecturer in English, Loughborough University Dr. Zoe Skoulding, Bangor University Kashka Georgeson David Grundy, University of Cambridge Luke McMullan Josh Robison, University of Cambridge Josh Stanley, Phd Student, Yale University Luke Roberts, Phd candidate, University of Cambridge Gareth Durasow.
| 1,266,462 |
A few weeks ago, photographer Daniel Zvereff told me a story about how his Canon 50mm f0.95 lens got stolen while on a trip in Mexico–and today the lens has appeared on eBay for sale. Daniel, who has been featured here on the site many times, has done some fantastic Kodak Aerochrome work, and is currently in our zine, spotted the lens just today and reached out to tell us about it. It was stolen unfortunately when thieves snuck into where he was staying and snatched the lens up.
“I have been working on a long term project for the past few years and the Chiapas region of Mexico was on my list.” Daniel tells us about how the lens theft happened. “I decided on a few day stopover in Guadalajara to shoot some daily life before flying over to my final destination. Every night, I would put all my valuable equipment under my bed before as I was sleeping with the window open in a hot room with no AC.” He continued to add that on the last day he swapped the 50mm for the 35mm on his M6 and forgot to put the lens bag under the bed.
“That evening the thieves came into my bedroom while I was sleeping, by scaling the building, and grabbed the lens bag.”
So what makes us so sure that the lens listed on eBay is Daniel’s? Well, instead of an adapter being used, the lens was straight up converted to Leica M mount and 6 bit coded. The Canon 50mm f0.95 doesn’t matively come in Leica M mount. Plus, it’s being sold with his Red Filter. Even further: the serial numbers on the Canon 50mm f0.95 match from his original purchase of the lens years ago.
Daniel got one with fantastic quality control too–during the manufacturing of this lens the QC was spotty. However, he lucked out and apparently lost that luck.
Daniel tried contacting eBay about it, who told him that they believe that it is indeed his lens but that they can’t do anything about it. Instead, they urge him to file a police report so that they can flag the seller. Unfortunately though, if Daniel tries to do this with the NYPD, then he can’t work today because the process is very long.
The Canon 50mm f0.95 lens (linked here) is being sold from a US seller and shipped via the Mexican Postal Service. Odd? Yes, unless the seller has a history of pawning off lots of stolen goods. So if you happen to be the person who purchases it, know that you’re buying stolen goods–and no matter what, that’s pretty wrong and irresponsible.
If you think you can help, contact Daniel over at his email address: Zvereff[at]gmail.com | 1,266,463 |
Description
This is completed downloadable of Test Bank for Medical Surgical Nursing Critical Thinking in Patient Care 5th Edition by Priscilla LeMone, Karen M.Burke, Gerene Bauldoff
Instant download Test Bank for Medical Surgical Nursing Critical Thinking in Patient Care 5th Edition by Priscilla LeMone, Karen M.Burke, Gerene Bauldoff after payment
Product Descriptions:
Medical-Surgical Nursing: Critical Thinking in Patient Care, 5e has been revised and updated to provide the knowledge and skills needed to care for adult patients to promote health, facilitate recovery from illness and injury, and provide support when coping with disability or loss. Throughout the text, the authors make every effort to communicate that both nurses and patients may be male or female; and that patients require holistic, individualized care regardless of their age; gender; or racial, cultural, or socioeconomic background. The goal of the fifth edition is to provide the knowledge and resources that ensure a solid base for critical thinking and clinical judgment and that can be applied to provide safe, individualized, and competent clinical nursing care. Multiple learning strategies have been developed to facilitate success–audio, illustrations, teaching tips, and video and animation media. Understandable language and a consistent format are used, and students overwhelmingly report that they actually like reading the text.
Table of Content:
Part 1 Medical-Surgical Nursing Practice
Unit I Dimensions of Medical-Surgical Nursing
Unit 2 Informatics and Evidence-based Practice in Nursing
Unit 3 Health and Illness Care of Adults
Part II Nutritional-Metabolic Patterns
Unit 4 Responses to Altered Integumentary Function
Unit 5 Responses to Altered Endocrine Function
Unit 6 Responses to Altered Gastrointestinal Function
Part III Elimination Patterns
Unit 7 Responses to Altered Urinary Elimination
Part IV Activity-Exercise Patterns
Unit 8 Responses to Altered Cardiovascular Function
Unit 9 Responses to Altered Respiratory Function
Unit 10 Responses to Altered Musculoskeletal Function
Part V Cognitive-Perceptual Patterns
Unit 11 Responses to Altered Neurologic Function
Unit 12 Responses to Altered Eye and Ear Function
Part VI Sexuality-Reproductive Patterns
Unit 13 Responses to Altered Sexual-Reproductive Function
Product details:
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0135075947
ISBN-13: 978-0135075944
ISBN-13: 9780135075944
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After the last post on incommensurability, Mike provided a link to a more theoretical discussion of Lakatos’s and MacIntyre’s objections to Kuhn. In my opinion, the linked article is too abstract to provide any guidance. The author favors MacIntyre’s idea that a scientist moves from one paradigm to another when the old paradigm fails to meet its own objectives. But it would be nice to have good examples of this (maybe MacIntyre provides these; I haven’t looked up his discussion). Initially, I am skeptical that this ever happens; smaller theories reach clear dead ends, but paradigms don’t.
So what brings a scientist to switch from one paradigm to another? So far as I can see, it is the potential for new fields of ideas (and publications). This has been happening in the field of chaos theory. Somebody develops a new toolkit, and pretty soon people start seeing ways to apply those tools to all sorts of different phenomena, and they publish like crazy. No one wants to get left behind. It’s not that the new applications are clearly better, or that the old business is clearly worse. It’s just that the new is new and the old is old. And the “new” isn’t merely arbitrary or hollow or fake: the new applications show something, or do something, that the old applications couldn’t, so something new is being learned and uncovered.
What becomes critical is whether there is something we really need to get done that only the old application can provide. With Ptolemy/Copernicus, eventually the answer became “no” — everything we needed Ptolemy for could be done by Copernicus (at least after Kepler). But with chaos, the answer is still “yes” — we still need linear dynamics and Newtonian determinism for lots of tasks, so chaos will not be taking over anytime soon. In the meantime, it is a fertile ground for new publications.
Sometimes, I imagine, the old paradigm gets discarded not because the new one can do everything it could do, but because our needs and interests change. So we no longer need the old services, thank you very much. So maybe one “need” keeping Ptolemy around was our interest in astrology. As that need faded, so too did Ptolemy. (I’m making up that example; I don’t know the history of astrology well enough to know if this is indeed the case.)
So can we say that new paradigms are always “true-er”? Not exactly. We can say that they are a better fit for our needs (and they couldn’t do that without being linked up to truth in some way), and the old paradigms no longer provide that fit. | 1,266,465 |
KOSCIUSKO, Miss. — An ailing, 84-year-old World War II veteran is making a desperate plea to Oprah Winfrey: Please admit I’m your father!
Norh Robinson, a dirt-poor Mississippi farmer now living in a rural VA hospital, wants Oprah to submit to a paternity test that he says would once and for all prove that he sired her in 1954.
Robinson said he dreams of just once speaking with Oprah as father and daughter before he dies — and revealed that, years ago, he tried to reach the talk-show queen to beg her to agree to a DNA test.
“I told her [in a letter], if she wanted, I’d give her one,” Robinson told The Post in an exclusive interview this week.
In the letter, he placed mementos from his life, including his Social Security number and a picture of him from the Navy in World War II, he said.
“I never got no answer,” Robinson told The Post. “I never did get no answer. If I did, it didn’t get to me.”
The vet insisted he wasn’t looking to get his hands on Oprah’s millions.
“I’d like her to call me,” he said.
Oprah’s spokeswoman said the TV host wasn’t available to comment on Robinson’s claims.
Oprah was raised by her mother, Vernita Lee, 75, and Lee’s longtime boyfriend, Vernon Winfrey. She considers Vernon her father but has figured out he isn’t her biological dad.
PHOTOS: OPRAH THROUGH THE YEARS
This week, the National Enquirer reported Robinson’s alleged tie to Oprah.
When reached in Kosciusko — the small town Winfrey ditched a half-century ago — Robinson insisted, “I’m her real father. I haven’t seen her since she was a kid. She was a little bitty thing.”
During a half-hour chat at his hospital, Robinson said that he met Oprah’s mom when they worked in the same part of Kosciusko and that he often drove her to and from work.
“I had to get by her house to get to my daddy’s house because it was on the same road,” he said.
Robinson said he’s looking forward to the day he gets to meet his world-famous daughter.
“She’s taken after her daddy,” he said. “I was a handsome man growing up at that time.”
Additional reporting by David K. Li and Todd
Venezia in New York | 1,266,466 |
Smoking from cigarettes and cigars is old school style and the majority of people are shifting towards vaping. Not just because it sounds or looks cool but it is a safer option and you get to choose from thousands of options. Vaping in the modern world is all about ultra-modern techniques to give you a lot of unique experiences which help you in quitting other addictive and harmful smoking habits.
You can try these trending concepts of vape juices:
Taste traditional tobacco – People who are addicted to smoking tobacco know how soothing the taste of tobacco and its smell could be. So, if you are trying to quit tobacco and still crave for it then you should diffidently give it a try. It tastes and smells like traditional tobacco but it is not actual tobacco. You would be saving yourself from the ill-effects of tobacco and at the same time satisfy your taste buds. If you want to try tobacco flavored Vape Juice then click here to explore more options like a Cuban cigar, menthol blend, etc. However, you should try the top-rated brands only to use a good quality product.
Juice Pods – Vape Pods are an alternate or upgraded option of the liquid tank. They give the feature of good portability which you can directly plug and play to have an amazing vaping experience. You don’t have to worry about refilling the tank again and again because these pods are extremely versatile and easy to carry. These are available at most of the websites and which you can choose from different capacity which may differ between 30ml to 50 ml. According to the model and compatibility of your e-cig or vape device, you can choose the types and size of juice pods.
Nic salt-based e-liquids – If you want to try something super smooth then e-liquids based on nicotine salts are the best answer for you. These are super popular nowadays and they impact your throat very less despite having a high concentration of nicotine. Since there is high concentration, so you will only need a lesser quantity of e-liquid to vape. Thus a bottle of e-liquid will last for a long time. Higher concentration and smooth finish of nicotine also help in relieving stress and gives you an enjoyable experience. Also, due to higher concentration, you can vape more and make bigger clouds using less juice.
Trending flavors – This is the best part about vaping as you get to taste different flavors and nowadays several firms are also manufacturing liquids that produce colorful smoke. When searching for new flavors to vape in store, it is obvious to get confused. You can try some fruity flavors which are available in all kinds of exotic fruits. You can also try interesting and fun flavors like sugar cookies, lava flow, spearmint blast, etc. If you like the tropical taste, you should try trending creamy coconut, pineapple, etc. You can check out the online stores to know about the latest additions in e-liquids. | 1,266,467 |
Reykjavik calls for explanation of Justice Department's move to access account of politician caught up in WikiLeaks inquiry
The American ambassador to Iceland has been summoned to explain why US officials are trying to access the Twitter account of an Icelandic MP and former WikiLeaks collaborator.
Birgitta Jónsdóttir, an MP for the Movement in Iceland, revealed last week that the US justice department had asked Twitter to hand over her information. The US authorities are trying to build a criminal case against the website after its huge leaks of classified US information.
"[It is] very serious that a foreign state, the United States, demands such personal information of an Icelandic person, an elected official," the interior minister, Ogmundur Jonasson, told Icelandic broadcaster RUV. "This is even more serious when put [in] perspective and concerns freedom of speech and people's freedom in general," he added.
Iceland's foreign ministry has demanded a meeting with Luis Arreaga, the US ambassador to Reykjavík. No one at the US embassy in Reykjavík was available for comment.
Jónsdóttir is one of the site's contributors whose communications are being investigated by US authorities. A court order last week revealed that they are also seeking Twitter data from the WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, Dutch hacker Rop Gonggrijp and Bradley Manning, the US serviceman accused of stealing hundreds of thousands of sensitive government cables published by WikiLeaks.
The court issuing the subpoena said it had "reasonable grounds" to believe Twitter held information "relevant and material to an ongoing criminal investigation". A Twitter spokesman said it was company policy to inform users if there was an investigation when legally possible.
WikiLeaks has demanded that Google and Facebook reveal which of their users are under similar scrutiny.
Jónsdóttir told the Guardian: "I am very pleased that we are going to have this meeting. There are a few things here that need to be straightened out and I am very grateful that this issue is being treated as seriously as it should be."
She said she was talking to lawyers at the Electronic Frontier Foundation and would attempt to stop the justice department's move.
Most messages on Twitter are public but users can send private messages. The court order is also seeking details of source and destination internet protocol addresses used to access the accounts. These would enable investigators to identify email addresses and how the named individuals communicated with each other.
The US attorney general, Eric Holder, has said he believes Assange could be prosecuted under US espionage laws. Holder said the leaks had endangered US national security. "The American people themselves have been put at risk by these actions that I believe are arrogant, misguided and ultimately not helpful in any way," he said.
• this article was amended on 18 January 2011. The original referred to the Electronic Freedom Foundation. This has been corrected. | 1,266,468 |
Dorion confident on Ceci contract negotiations Despite the fact the Cody Ceci remains without a contract, Ian Mendes writes that Senators' general manager Pierre Diiron is confident the two sides will work something out.
The Ottawa Senators will play their regular season opener in exactly two months from today and general manager Pierre Dorion is confident that defenceman Cody Ceci will be in the lineup for that game.
The only question is whether Ceci will be armed with a short-term or a long-term contract by then.
Speaking to reporters in Ottawa on Friday, Dorion said the conversations with the restricted free agent defenceman and his agent JP Barry have been ongoing - although they have not progressed as quickly as the Senators’ general manager would have liked.
"I think JP's trying to test me as a first time GM, even though I've done quite bit of contracts before," Dorion said jokingly. "I think he'll be playing for us October 12th. I think within the next few weeks we'll get something done."
"I still have a lot of faith. It's taken a bit longer than I anticipated," added Dorion.
The two sides traded emails on Thursday and Dorion characterized it as a posiive exchange. The sticking point appears to be the term of the deal; as a myriad of options remain on the table. Ceci has previously stated that he would prefer to do a long-term deal with the Senators, but the club may want to take a more cautious approach and offer him a short-term bridge contract.
"We've talked multiple years and situations, whether it's one up to six (years)," Dorion said. "Those are all things we are still looking at. But we're keying on a certain number of years and we'll see what happens from there."
The 22-year old Ceci is coming off a season in which he scored 10 goals and 26 points in 75 games for the Senators. He was the club's first round pick in the 2012 NHL Entry Draft and has spent the past two-and-a-half seasons with Ottawa.
Ceci is expected to slot into the Senators second pairing on the back end, alongside veteran Dion Phaneuf. Regardless of how the Ceci situation plays itself out, Dorion confirmed he's still in the market to add another veteran defenseman to his roster to add some depth at the NHL level. He said he could accomplish that goal via the free agency market or by swinging a trade with another club.
"I've kept making calls to guys who are still on the market who would be very good and capable depth defensemen - guys who have played in this league," said Dorion. "I've talked to quite a few GMs over the past month if they are looking to move pieces on the back end and that's where we might look to add a piece." | 1,266,469 |
Over the weekend, the New York Times revealed an alarming conclusion by the United Nations' nuclear watchdog agency: Iran now has enough know-how to put together a workable atomic bomb. That report, the Times hastened to add, is preliminary. But the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) estimate of Iran's bomb-making information goes beyond other assessments made public by several governments.
Yet two key Obama administration aides yesterday ducked questions about whether Iran really has the data to design and build a bomb. "I’m not in a position to characterize that report or our own intelligence," U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice said on Meet the Press. "There are various assessments and they don’t all align."
Appearing on Face the Nation, National Security Advisor James Jones also downplayed Iran's nuclear knowledge. "Whether they know how to do it or not is a matter of some conjecture," he said. "What we're watching is, 'What is their intent?'"
All this speculation comes at a delicate moment. Iran has agreed to let inspectors visit a newly disclosed enrichment site at Qom on Oct. 25. On a visit yesterday to Tehran, IAEA Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei (pictured here meeting Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad), said he saw a shift "“from confrontation into transparency and cooperation.”
What we do know, however, is that the IAEA has already raised concerns about things like Iran's experimentation with high explosives. Here's a key paragraph from the latest IAEA Board of Governors report, made public in September:
Iran has told the Agency that it has experimented with the civil application of simultaneously functioning multiple detonators, and was asked by the Agency to provide it with information which would prove that such work had been for civil and nonnuclear military purposes. Iran has not yet shared that information with the Agency. The Agency would also like to discuss with Iran the possible role that a foreign national with explosives expertise, whose visit to Iran has been confirmed by the Agency, played in explosives development work.
Mastering the design of high-explosive lenses is crucial to the design of an implosion device like the Trinity gadget or the Nagasaki atomic bomb. In addition, the IAEA has also probed Iran's interest in ballistic missile design. In the latest board report, the agency reiterated "the need to hold discussions with Iran on the engineering and modelling studies associated with the re-design of the payload chamber [for a new ballistic missile]... to exclude the possibility that they were for a nuclear payload."
What we don't know is whether intelligence agencies have more specific information about some of these activities – say, if someone has tracked down this mysterious "foreign national" with explosives knowledge or obtained the latest blueprints for a re-entry vehicle.
[PHOTO: President.ir]
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Family demands action against contractor
CCTV footage has revealed that an uneven stretch of road led to the death of 34-year-old Kharghar resident Shilpa Puri on Saturday evening.
The footage shows that the Activa Puri was riding on, slipped on the uneven stretch of road near Utsav Chowk. Puri fell on road and was run over by hydraulic crane that was behind her.
Puri’s family has vowed to approach the police to demand immediate action against the contractor of the road. Amit Puri, the husband of the deceased, said: “It has been just two days since the accident and I am yet to recover from the shock of her loss. I don’t know how, but I will ensure that my wife gets justice.”
Puri, who was a trainer with a VLCC branch in Nerul, was on her way home to Advance Galaxy CHS at Sector 20 in Kharghar when the accident took place. Her husband ran a catering business and their 11-year-old daughter and six-year-old son stayed her parents at Sector 10 in Kharghar till they returned from work.
Rajesh Soni, a Chembur-based businessman and relative of the Puri family, said: “On Sunday, she planned to clean the house for Diwali. So before leaving work she informed her mother that she won’t be coming to pick up the children. The children still don’t know what happened to their mother. We will urge the police to take action against the contractor. No one else should lose their life. No family should be left shattered like this. If needed, we will knock the doors of the courts as well.”
On Monday, all 12 corporators in Kharghar met Senior Police Inspector Dilip Kale and demanded that action be taken against CIDCO. Leena Garad, a corporator, said, “CIDCO is responsible for maintaining all roads in Kharghar. It should have ensured that the roads were properly levelled.”
Netra Patil, another corporator, said: “There is a height difference of at least six inches between the asphalt road and concrete road. That is why Puri’s bike skid. Mr. Kale has said that they have written to CIDCO officials and are awaiting their reply.”
The Swachh Kharghar Manch has organised a candlelight march at 8 p.m. on Tuesday from the accident spot near Utsav Chowk to the CIDCO office to show their support to the family and demand justice for Puri.
Mr. Kale said, “A case could be registered against the contractor. The crane driver has already been arrested in the case.” | 1,266,471 |
Facebook's attempt to provide free access to a selection of websites in developing countries was dealt a blow today when India's telecom regulator banned arrangements that charge different amounts for access to different parts of the Internet. The move effectively prevents "zero-rating" schemes in which certain Web services count against data caps while others do not.
Facebook is partnering with mobile operators in various countries to offer "Free Basics," saying that the app provides "access to basic websites for free—like news, job postings, health and education information, and communication tools like Facebook." Any developer can try to get a website included, but Facebook imposes restrictions, including one that prevents high-bandwidth services like VoIP, video, and file transfers. In addition to Facebook, Free Basics includes AccuWeather, BBC News, Dictionary.com, ESPN, and other sites.
Critics say Free Basics violates net neutrality principles by prioritizing certain content, making it less likely that people will use websites not included in the app. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) had temporarily banned Free Basics and today followed up with a new rule that prevents service providers from charging "discriminatory tariffs for data services on the basis of content." A discriminatory tariff under this rule includes free data applied only to certain websites.
The rule applies to telecom operators rather than Facebook, but it would prevent Facebook from partnering with mobile operators to offer apps that don't count against mobile data caps. Operators who violate the rule can be fined. One exception to the rule allows free access to emergency services.
Because most residents of India are not yet connected to the Internet, mobile operators should not be allowed to "shape the users' Internet experience," TRAI wrote. As more people gain Internet access, their usage should be "shaped only by the information made available through those select offerings," the agency said.
The rule doesn't prevent mobile operators from offering free data, as long as it can be used to access any content. "For instance, providing limited free data that enables a user to access the entire Internet is not prohibited," TRAI wrote.
Facebook is disappointed in the decision. "Our goal with Free Basics is to bring more people online with an open, nonexclusive and free platform," the company said, according to The New York Times. "While disappointed with the outcome, we will continue our efforts to eliminate barriers and give the unconnected an easier path to the Internet and the opportunities it brings."
Free Basics is available in a few dozen countries in Africa, the Asia-Pacific region, and Latin America, but the controversy extends beyond India. A recent report by the World Bank referred specifically to Free Basics and said that imposing data charges on some content but not others "would appear to be the antithesis of net neutrality and a distortion of markets."
Zero-rating is also controversial in the US, but so far the Federal Communications Commission hasn't taken any action to stop it. | 1,266,472 |
and the lexical items necessary to use language. Surely you would admit that some sort of brain mechanism is required to give us these abilities, just as it is required for other abilities (creative, artistic, musical, problem solving, etc.).
How do you define semantics if you don't think that a machine would have to have semantics to pass the Turing test? Semantics, to me, is simply a collection of structures which constitute a symbolic interpretation of something else. How do you define syntax?
A collection of structures which do not interpret something else? The raw, uninterpreted form of something? A machine would have to have my definititon of semantics to pass the Turing test. It has to have a model of its world, and an internal model of itself. This modeling of one's environment is what semantics is.
I agree, at least, with your criteria for AI, and as I interpret the Turing test, something which satisfies the Turing test would also satisfy your criteria.
R: Touche! When a computer reaches a point of intelligence at which it objects to being switched off or objects to having a copy made of its mind--call it a birthdisk --being erased, and gives me good reasons why I should not do so, I will respect its wishes and withdraw all of my prejudices against it. In fact, I will envy it enormously.
Look at its virtues: Being in electronic form, it is ageless, and it has a "body' that can be periodically renewed by transferral from clumsy old hardware into a smaller, more beautiful, and super-miniature body. It can erase current mistakes and go back to any point in its past life (provided a copy of its mind was saved at that point). It can be transmitted over wires--beamed to Mars if it desires. It can reproduce itself endlessly and effortlessly, and bask in the confidence of infinite personal friends of its identical ilk--twins who will understand it intimately, know all of its desires and fears. It can, in fact, link up perfectly with its brethren and form a utopian society.
Indeed, I think such an intelligent computer would be so self-satisfied, so maniacally secure in its perfection, that it would render humans superfluous and eliminate us. It would eradicate us not by an accidental triggering of an atomic bomb as we fear but because we are trivial! (I originally wrote that an intelligent computer would probably eliminate us in utter disgust, but Mom said that it would probably think of humans as we think of ants--perhaps ecologically necessary, useful slaves for keeping it alive and maintaining its mechanisms.)
So the answer to the question "Would an intelligent computer have the right to life?' is probably that it would, but only if it could discover reasons and conditions under which it would give up its life if called upon to do so--which would make computer intelligence as precious a thing as human intelligence. | 1,266,473 |
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A Pennsylvania school district is facing backlash after informing parents to pay their children’s outstanding lunch debts or lose them to the foster care system. The Wyoming Valley West School District sent out hundreds of letters last week warning parents they could be taken to court over the overdue tabs according to CNN affiliate WNEP. A district official said the letter was sent to “put parents on notice that the district intends to collect the lunch money it is owed.”
Many parents have called the threat “cruel,” however, and said the district has went too far.
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“Very extreme,” resident Ruth Bates told the station. “Maybe unnecessary, maybe cruel and brutal on the government’s part.”
The letter was sent to 1,000 families who owed money, informed parents that there have been “multiple” notices sent home with their child.
“Your child has been sent to school every day without money and without a breakfast and/or lunch,” the letter said. “[And] if you are taken to Dependency court, the result could be your child being removed from your home and placed in foster care.”
The letter sparked outrage across the local community, and put the county’s Department of Children and Youth Services into the center of the controversy. Joanne Van Saun, who leads the agency, claims the district of “weaponizing” her agency to strong-arm families.
“The way they handled it was totally inappropriate, unnecessary and could have easily been resolved through so many different avenues,” Saun told CNN. “We’re really there to help, and not destroy families.”
The news outlet reported the school district’s Cafeteria Purchase Charging and Insufficient Funds policy makes no mention of parents potentially going to court or having their kids taken away over lunch debts. However, parents whose student account reaches negative $10 or more will receive “an automated call every Friday until the account” is paid in full.
Director of federal programs Joseph Muth, described the decision to send the letter as a “last resort” to collect what was owed. Muth said Wyoming Valley West, is one of the poorest school districts in the state,and is owed more than $22,000 in breakfast and lunch debt by approx. 1,000 students.
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BJP to fight Odisha assembly polls alone: Amit Shah
BHUBANESWAR: BJP chief Amit Shah on Thursday announced that his party would fight the next Odisha assembly polls alone. He also slammed the Naveen Patnaik government for its "incompetence", saying benefits of over Rs 4 lakh crore given by the Centre to the state had not reached the masses.The BJP president, who is on a three-day tour of Odisha, pitched for a younger leadership to run the state and came down heavily on Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, saying backwardness and poverty continued due to his government's "misrule, inefficiency and corruption".Shah, however, parried a query on who would be the BJP's face in the state, saying the party had not decided on it."BJP will fight the next elections in Odisha alone. There will be no alliance with any other political party," Shah said at a press conference here.He also claimed that his party would win over 120 seats in the 147-member assembly.Asked how his party planned to go to 120 from the 10 it bagged in 2014, Shah said his party won over three-fourths of the seats in Uttar Pradesh after getting only 15 per cent votes in the previous poll. He added that the BJP had won 18 per cent votes in the eastern state.The BJP had received huge support from people in the last panchayat elections held earlier this year, he noted.The BJD government was in its fourth consecutive term in the state, which lagged behind other states in development, he pointed out.Shah evaded a question on whether Prime Minister Narendra Modi would contest the next Lok Sabha poll from Puri after having fought from Varanasi last time and said the parliamentary election was "far away".Sharpening his attack on the state government, he alleged that people associated closely with the government were involved in scandals, including the multi-crore chit-fund scam and the mining scam.A BJP government in the state will ensure that no one involved in scams walks free, he said.Taking a dig at Patnaik, the BJP chief said celebrations on winning the best administrator award given by a news magazine alone was not going to remove backwardness. Odisha would be no exception to the BJP's rise across the country as both the BJD and the Congress are on a decline, Shah said."Funds to the tune Rs 3,94,994 lakh crore, almost Rs 4 lakh crore, have been announced by the Centre for Odisha for various works. But required support from the state to implement developmental projects is lacking and people have not received due benefits," he said.The state received Rs 68,196 crore as its share of central taxes under the 13th Finance Commission when the UPA was in power and it had gone to Rs 1,84,070 crore under the 14th Finance Commission report implemented by the Modi government. | 1,266,475 |
Last updated on.From the section Football
Jose Mourinho says Paul Pogba is ready to play
Manchester United's Paul Pogba is among the best midfielders in the world but will struggle to win top individual awards, says manager Jose Mourinho.
The France international rejoined United for a world record fee of £89m and is set to make his debut against Southampton on Friday.
"He is one of the best midfielders, maybe I could say the best midfield player in the world," said Mourinho.
But he suggested a lack of goals will count against Pogba winning awards.
The Ballon d'Or, which recognises the world's best player, has been won by either Cristiano Ronaldo or Lionel Messi every year since 2008.
Messi has scored 374 career goals and Ronaldo 364. Pogba scored 34 goals in four seasons for Juventus, after leaving United in 2012.
"First of all, when you speak about the best players in the world you go immediately to the ones that score a lot of goals," said Mourinho.
"You don't give a gold ball to a goalkeeper. They gave a gold ball to defender Fabio Cannavaro once in 2006 but because in that season he was captain of Italy, they were world champions, and there were not too many top players.
"Paolo Maldini never got a gold ball, Javier Zanetti never got a gold ball, top goalkeepers over history don't get a gold ball.
"Can Paul score Ronaldo and Messi goals? Not even 25%. I believe in a season he cannot score 20 goals. If to be the best player in the world means to score a lot of goals, that's not the point."
Pogba, 23, missed the 3-1 victory at Bournemouth on Sunday because of suspension, but Mourinho confirmed the midfielder could make his first Old Trafford appearance since 2012 against Saints on Friday.
'Noisy Old Trafford is vital'
Mourinho says "the relationship between the team and the fans" is key to reviving a fear factor at Old Trafford.
Since Sir Alex Ferguson retired in 2013, United have averaged 2.02 points per Premier League home game, compared to 2.63 in the previous three seasons.
"If at Old Trafford, a couple of thousand away fans can be more noisy than 70,000, we are in trouble," said Mourinho.
"It means there is no connection."
Mourinho also revealed 34-year-old Swedish striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic has an option for a second year on the one-year deal he signed as a free agent in July.
"His motivation is really high," said the Portuguese. "No doubts he will be here for the next two years."
Take part in our new Premier League Predictor game, which allows you to create leagues with friends. | 1,266,476 |
Dr. Roger K. Leir, a pioneering researcher of alleged alien implants, passed away on Friday, March 14.
His interest in extraterrestrial-related phenomena emerged in his early childhood. His desire to find answers related to this enigmatic subject spawned a quest lasting nearly twenty years. Dr. Leir, a Podiatric Surgeon, maintained a private practice in Ventura County, California for more than forty years. He became fascinated with alleged alien implants after removing a foreign object from a patient’s foot in 1995. He formed a non-profit organization called A & S Research Inc. to investigate these anomalous objects. He and his surgical team performed fifteen surgeries on alleged alien abductees, resulting in the removal of sixteen objects they believe are alien implants.
The A & S Research website explains:
These objects have been scientifically investigated by some of the most prestigious laboratories in the world including Los Alamos National Labs, New Mexico Tech, Seal Laboratories, Southwest Labs, the University of Toronto, York University, and the University of California at San Diego. Their findings have been baffling and some comparisons have been made to Meteorite Samples. In addition some of the tests show metallurgical anomalies such as highly Magnetic Iron that is without crystalline form, combinations of crystalline materials mixed common metals, growth of biological tissue into or out of metallic substances, as well as isotopic ratios not of this world.
Dr. Leir also researched UFO cases, including the 1996 Varginha, Brazil case in which an extraterrestrial was reportedly seen by multiple witnesses and captured by the military, and the 2007-2009 UFO sightings in Kumburgaz, Turkey. He also authored several UFO/ET-related books.
Several witnesses presented testimony to a panel of former congress members at the National Press Club in Washington, DC at a 2013 event titled the Citizen Hearing on Disclosure. Dr. Leir was among the witnesses.
Dr. Leir had struggled with various health issues in recent years. He reportedly had been suffering from a debilitating case of shingles, leading to serious infections in his leg and foot. These issues were aggravated by diabetes. A fundraiser for Dr. Leir was held in 2012 at a Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) Los Angeles meeting to help pay his substantial medical bills.
The official cause of death is still unclear. According to paranormal researcher Christopher O’Brien, Dr. Leir was in the hospital on March 14 awaiting surgery on his own foot that had been injured in a 2010 car accident. He reportedly left to use the restroom, but never came out.
A post from March 15 on the A & S Research website simply states, “Today is a sad day to report the passing of Dr. Roger K. Leir, we have lost a great family man, podiatrist and devoted ufologist. He will be greatly missed by all.”
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By Mick Krever, CNN
Iran is serious about resolving the dispute over its nuclear program, and is keen to resolve the issue “in a short period of time,” the speaker of Iran’s parliament, Ali Larijani, told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour in an exclusive interview on Tuesday.
“From Iran's side, I can say that we are ready,” Larijani said from Geneva.
“If the Americans and other countries say that Iran should not develop a nuclear bomb or should not move towards that,” he told Amanpour, “then we can clearly show and prove that. We have no such intention. So it can be resolved in a very short period of time.”
Nonetheless, Larijani said, the West must accept Iran’s right to enrich nuclear fuel for civilian purposes, as allowed under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), to which Iran is a signatory.
“If they want to bargain with us or if they have ulterior motives,” he said, “or maybe they want to somehow convince Iran to abandon its nuclear program, then it is going to take a long time.”
The largest roadblock to a nuclear deal may not be between Iran and the United States, but rather domestically – in both countries – as Presidents Obama and Rouhani work to convince political leaders that a deal is worthwhile.
President Rouhani, in an interview with Amanpour during the U.N. General Assembly, said that he had the blessing of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei to negotiate directly with America.
When Rouhani returned to Iran from his whirlwind diplomatic and publicity tour in New York, however, Ayatollah Khamenei said that some of the actions undertaken by the Iranian president were inappropriate.
“The important thing is that overall what he did was approved by the Supreme Leader,” Larijani said, saying that he had showed the world that Iran is “opposed to extremism.”
When Amanpour pushed him on what Ayatollah Khamanei disapproved of – whether it was Obama’s historic phone conversation with Rouhani, the first between leaders of the two countries since the Islamic Revolution – Larijani speculated that that may have been it.
“Maybe,” he said. “I have not asked him. Maybe that was the point, that he said it was not appropriate.”
But Ayatollah Khamanei has endorsed direct negotiations, and Larijani said that upcoming talks in Geneva will be a “very important step.”
“Right now, I have no reason to be pessimistic,” he told Amanpour. “Iran will be very serious about the talks, and Iran really wants to resolve the matter.” | 1,266,478 |
“This page best viewed in…”
If that phrase doesn’t provoke a shudder of horror and loathing, it should. It’s the battle cry of the Browser Wars, those terrible and ultimately futile years at the end of the last milennium. It’s the rallying cry of those who would take the open ubiquity of the web and fragment it into a collection of gated communities, where entrance to each is predicated on running a specific browser.
“Your browser is not compatible and must be upgraded…”
All too often, because developers are too fearful or prideful or just plain lazy, they put up unnecessary barriers to entrance. They prevent people from using their sites based on choice of browser. Of course there are situations where the experience will be different—nobody expects Netscape 4 users to be able to see all 2007’s pretty CSS effects, just like table-based sites look beyond bizarre in Mosaic. That’s no excuse for sites that intentionally lock users out just because their choice of browser doesn’t line up with the developer’s expectations. It’s regressive, short-sighted, and just plain unprofessional.
“This site is for iPhone users only.”
STOP IT. Stop it right now.
The fact that optimizing pages for an iPhone makes the development of such specialized pages attractive in no way excuses lockout of other users. I might be willing to entertain the argument if the iPhone’s browser were some specialized non-web contraption. It’s not. It’s a full-fledged XHTML+CSS+DOM browser that happens to lag a bit in some implementation areas and won’t run some plugins.
Besides, if you’ve developed a version of your site (or application or whatever) that works well on the iPhone, then why in the name of Tim Berners-Lee would you deny other people that optimized experience? You might find that they prefer to interact with the site that way no matter what platform they’re using. You might find that you don’t need a separate iPhone version after all. The iPhoned version might be the only version you need.
Designers will argue that pages optimized for the iPhone screen will look bad on a desktop browser. Maybe, and maybe not, but stop preventing your users from making that decision for themselves. Nobody says you have to convert your whole site to be iPhoney. But your lockout of non-iPhone users is worse than rude. It’s stupid.
We finally learned, after much sweat and a fair number of tears, that “best viewed in” is a fool’s errand. Are we so eager to rush back into that morass and fight the war all over again?
Please. Just stop. | 1,266,479 |
Candyman star Tony Todd has been cast as the voice of the villain Zoom in Season 2 of The Flash.
Zoom will first appear to challenge The Flash (Grant Gustin) in the second episode of the season, “The Flash of Two Worlds.”
“Last year, with the Reverse-Flash, we just modulated Tom Cavanagh’s voice, and this year we wanted to do something a little bit different,” executive producer Andrew Kreisberg tells Variety. “Part of the mystery of the season is who or what is underneath the Zoom outfit, and so we wanted to do something like James Earl Jones as Darth Vader — this iconic voice coming out of this mask. Last year, we thought of the Reverse-Flash as a speed warrior; this year, Zoom is like a speed demon, and no one does demon-voice better than Tony Todd.
“The Zoom outfit is much more organic than the Reverse-Flash suit. In a way, it’s hard to tell if it is a suit or alive… There’s no skin showing, for all you know there’s a robot underneath, or dark energy.”
Describing Zoom’s goals and motivation, Kreisberg says, “For us, the best villains are the ones who don’t have megalomaniacal ‘I want to rule the world’ motivations. Last year, the Reverse-Flash had a very simple goal which was, ‘I just want to go home, and if people need to die or cities need to get wasted for me to get that, so be it.’ And Zoom has a very similar, personal goal this season… simple and easy to understand, and very primal. And just as with Wells last year, Zoom doesn’t care who gets hurt or what gets destroyed in the service of him getting his goal.
“We have to service the entire audience, both the fans and the non-fans, and I think we’ve shown up until this point a great deal of respect and reverence for the source material, so that we always feel like we’re fulfilling the comic book fans’ expectations while also not spoon-feeding them stuff directly from the comics. So the story of Zoom and who and what he is… hopefully comic book fans will be happy because we’ve come up with a clever way to spin the tale, but that also makes it exciting for the people who aren’t as familiar with the comics and are just enjoying the show on its own terms.”
The title of Zoom’s first episode takes its name from the first ever comic book crossover between Barry Allen and the Golden Age Flash, Jay Garrick.
The Flash Season 2 premieres Tuesday, Oct. 6 at 8 p.m. on The CW. | 1,266,480 |
Firstly, the stereotypical, monolithic take on black people as fried chicken loving, spice obsessed, fast food nuts is highly offensive. Fried foods, particularly chicken, became part of black culture due to food scarcity in slavery/Jim Crow times. To celebrate a multi-billion dollar corporation’s exploitation of poor and black people is absurd.
“Secondly, fried foods are unhealthy. Fried foods will damage your health. It’s a well known fact! Promoting this cultural ownership of fried chicken (especially factory farmed chicken) ignores a massive public health crisis that disproportionately affects black people.”
Heart disease is the leading cause of death for both men and women in the United States, accounting for about one in every four deaths per year. Research shows that black people have a 30 percent greater chance of dying from heart disease than white people. Many researchers believe this disparity is caused by poor diets high in cholesterol.
Ethan continues, “It’s obscene that an author would produce such an uncritical analysis in favor of promoting a chicken sandwich from a corporate chain, let alone the underlying implication that black people all eat the same food, or that white people are clueless when it comes to food spiciness.”
A sensitive comment by Sierra Morgan rejects racial attitudes towards food and culture: “Food is not tied to skin color. Popeye’s is Louisiana style food. You could [not] find a more mixed… population. I am Creole and lived all over the world. I cook food from all of the places I lived. The recipes and customs are my culture.
“There is no such thing as cultural appropriation. This idea that it is real is hateful and racist. We are all human beings and we are all on the same planet. We all sink or swim together. Food unites us because we all have to eat and we all love tasty food.”
As of the time of this writing, over 600 people have commented on the commentary, the majority being hostile to the promotion of race. The Times’ race obsession finds little footing among the majority of Americans, who are opposed to the racial division of society.
The chauvinistic promotion of “black excellence” and “black magic,” whether intentionally or not, echoes fascistic conceptions. According to the authors of the Times’ historical falsification, the "1619 Project," nearly everything “great” about America is because of black people. One of the many articles that composed the project brazenly declared “American Wasn’t a Democracy, Until Black Americans Made It One.”
The reactionary conceptions advanced in Eligon’s article are linked to the insistence by the Times and other elements surrounding the Democratic Party that forms of identity are the primary divisions in American society.
Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus. | 1,266,481 |
PARIS (Reuters) - Canadian intelligence officers have listened to Turkish recordings of what happened to Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Monday, adding that he was discussing with allies what next steps should be taken.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau delivers a speech at the Paris Peace Forum after the commemoration ceremony for Armistice Day, 100 years after the end of the First World War, in Paris, France November 11, 2018. Yoan Valat/Pool via REUTERS
Khashoggi, a critic of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, was killed at the kingdom’s Istanbul consulate by a team sent from Riyadh. Saudi authorities have acknowledged that the killing was premeditated, but his body has not been found.
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said over the weekend that audio recordings of the killing had been given to the U.S., French, German and British governments.
When asked on a visit to Paris whether Canadian intelligence had heard the Turkish recordings, Trudeau said: “Yes”, although he added that had not heard them personally.
“Canada’s intelligence agencies have been working very closely on this issue with Turkish intelligence and Canada has been fully briefed on what Turkey had to share,” Trudeau told a news conference.
He added that he had also spoken to Erdogan about the issue in Paris over the weekend.
Canada is part of the so-called five eyes intelligence network which shares information along with the United States, Britain, Australia and New Zealand.
Trudeau faces a dilemma as an election approaches over how to clamp down credibly on Riyadh over its human rights record while sparing a $13 billion arms deal with the kingdom.
He is under pressure to freeze the contract for armored vehicles built in Canada by U.S.-based General Dynamics GD.N, although the deal underpins 3,000 jobs in the small city of London, Ontario.
Sidestepping a question on whether the recordings could change Ottawa’s relationship with Riyadh and have consequences, Trudeau said he was continuing to talk with allies about the investigation and accountability for those behind the murder.
“We are in discussions with our like-minded allies as to the next steps with regard to Saudi Arabia,” Trudeau said.
Earlier on Monday, French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said Paris was not in possession of recordings related to Khashoggi’s killings, apparently contradicting Erdogan’s remarks.
“The truth isn’t out yet. We want to know the truth, the circumstances of his death and the identity of the culprits. Then we will take the necessary actions,” Le Drian told France 2 television. “If the Turkish president has information to give us, he must give it to us. For now, I don’t know about it.” | 1,266,482 |
Aligning strategies to enable Open Access
A strong signal to the publishers from the 14th Berlin Open Access Conference
The 14th Berlin Open Access Conference, hosted by the Max Planck Society and organized by the Max Planck Digital Library on behalf of the Open Access 2020 Initiative (oa2020.org), has just come to an end after two intense days with 170 participants from 37 countries around the world discussing where the research organizations and their library consortia stand in their negotiations with scholarly publishers in transitioning scholarly publishing to open access. The participants represented research performing and research funding organizations, libraries and government, associations of researchers and other umbrella organizations, many of them holding high-level positions at their organizations. In his welcoming address, Max Planck Society President Martin Stratmann captured the spirit of the meeting when he stated: 'Open Access is the responsibility of all of us'.
Max Planck President Martin Stratmann at the 14th Berlin Open Access Conference. © MPG Max Planck President Martin Stratmann at the 14th Berlin Open Access Conference. © MPG
The conference brought to light strong consensus and alignment among the diverse international communities represented around the necessity of stepping up efforts to move away from the subscription-based system of scholarly publishing to open access-based business models. A major focus was placed on transformative agreements (eg “read and publish”), which were identified as perhaps the most viable instrument at the moment to accelerate the transition to open access. As it became clear from statements made by representatives from Japan, the United States, South Africa and others, that readiness to adopt this approach is now extending beyond Europe, where it originated, and is currently being adopted in several countries; in particular, this was emphasized in a bold statement from China, the nation with the largest share of research publications.
After aligning on the goals and strategies during the first day of the conference, the CEOs of the three largest publishers of scholarly journals, Elsevier, John Wiley & Sons, and Springer Nature, were invited by the President of the Max Planck Society, Martin Stratmann, to discuss the global demand for transformative agreements on the second day. The message conveyed to the publishers was that the global research communities are committed to complete and immediate open access, to retaining author copyrights and to negotiating transformative agreements that are temporary, transitional, and cost-neutral as a means to shift to full open access within just a few years with the expectation that cost savings in scholarly communication will follow as market forces take hold. The publishers were called upon to move towards complete and immediate open access according to these principles.
It also came out that there is a strong alignment between the approaches taken by OA2020, Plan S, the Jussieu Call and other approaches dedicated to drive more open access into the system of scholarly communication.
Further reports will soon appear on the homepage of the 14th Berlin Open Access Conference:
https://oa2020.org/b14-conference/ | 1,266,483 |
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Good afternoon and welcome to our rolling coverage of all things cryptocurrency, including price, regulation, innovation, and financial crime. Cryptocurrency prices are steadily rising to start the new week, with bitcoin improving on the weekend's strong gains. BTC has jumped up another 0.79 percent to trade for $7,288.42, as of 3pm this afternoon.
Ethereum (ETH) lost 0.65 percent to fall to $290.34. Ripple (XRP) slipped 0.28 percent to $0.339636. While Litecoin increased slightly by 0.84 percent to trade for $65.29. The market appears to be in a bullish upswing entering the new week, with most digital tokens making significant gains towards the latter stages of August.
5pm UPDATE: Change.org petition wants to see Dogecoin accepted on Amazon
The petition was launched on Change.org by a person called Mark 11 months ago. At the time of writing, it has collected 9,192 signatures. However, it’s aiming to reach a target of 10,000.
At present, Amazon doesn’t accept cryptocurrencies as a form of payment. In Mark’s opinion, this alienates many people, particularly those without access to a traditional finance account.
He writes:Amazon.com being a leader in innovation should accept Dogecoin, as a form of payment.
He adds that Dogecoin is the future of currency. This is due to its “speed, low transaction fees, large supply of coins, and stable value.”
Not only that, but he argues that it doesn’t have large price swings like Bitcoin or Litecoin. At the time of writing, the 21st-placed altcoin is trading at $0.005312, according to CoinMarketCap. Notably, it has seen a 120 percent price rise in seven days.
3.30pm UPDATE: Taiwanese Hospital Launches Blockchain-based Healthcare Portal
The Taipei Medical University Hospital has launched a healthcare platform aimed at improving patient referral services with the help of blockchain technology.
The system will also help in integrating healthcare networks which will allow easily accessible medical records for patients.
The development of the Healthcare Blockchain Platform is considered a great improvement in the public healthcare system of Taiwan as it provides referral services to people, along with several other long-term healthcare services.
The collaboration of over 100 community-based clinics has been made possible as a means of addressing common issues in healthcare using blockchain technology.
According to the hospital, the main issues addressed include the physician referral process, data transfers between medical institutions and individual patient portals. | 1,266,484 |
The following is a guest post by Matthew Henry Faraday.
Whenever a theologian talks about how beautiful it is that Christ came to earth and died, not to appease God’s wrath, but instead, as the image of God who suffers with us, even to the point of death on the cross, I imagine that, if it were real, it would be the worst episode of Undercover Boss ever.
So, this is my parable…
A fork lift driver, let’s call him “Joe”, has the worst job at Megacorp. He works hard hours and tons of overtime. Even with all the work he does, he can’t make ends meet. His son has a muscular disorder and, between the equipment he needs and the medical bills, half of his paycheck goes to his son’s care. His wife has to stay at home and care for their son, but still waits tables some days, after Joe gets home. Joe is a type 1 diabetic, and hasn’t been to the doctor in years, because he is worried that they will tell him that he will need vascular surgeries, that will take away the family’s source of income.
Enter the CEO of Megacorp, Joshua. Joshua makes hundreds of millions of dollars a year. The television show Undercover Boss approached him one day about working a weekend in the warehouse with Joe. Joshua thinks this sounds great, and pretends to be a new hire. Joe shows Joshua how to manage the warehouse, and during this time, Joe opens up about all the hardships he faces. Joshua is moved by it. He even cries on camera because he feels so badly for Joe.
Sunday night comes around and Joshua is ready to make his big reveal to Joe. He asks Joe to come into the break room, where Joe is surprised by cameras and the crew.
“Joe, I have something to tell you. I’m not a new hire at Megacorp. I’m actually the CEO. My name is Joshua, and I run the company you work for.”
Joe is shocked!
“Joe, I was so moved by your story,” he continues. “You love your family so much that you sacrifice everything, even your own health for them. I was brought to tears.”
Joe starts crying himself.
“Joe, I want to tell you something. No matter how bad life is, no matter how much you struggle, no matter how much you feel that you just can’t get ahead, remember that I worked with you for a weekend.”
The end.
[Image: “A ‘Jesus Saves’ neon cross sign on a church in Alphabet City in New York“ by David Shankbone is licensed under CC by 3.0] | 1,266,485 |
The most extensive land-based study of the Amazon to date reveals it is losing its capacity to absorb carbon from the atmosphere. From a peak of two billion tonnes of carbon dioxide each year in the 1990s, the net uptake by the forest has halved and is now for the first time being overtaken by fossil fuel emissions in Latin America.
The results of this monumental 30-year survey of the South American rainforest, which involved an international team of almost 100 researchers and was led by the University of Leeds, are published in the journal Nature.
Over recent decades the remaining Amazon forest has acted as a vast 'carbon sink' -- absorbing more carbon from the atmosphere than it releases -- helping to put a brake on the rate of climate change. But this new analysis of forest dynamics shows a huge surge in the rate of trees dying across the Amazon.
Lead author Dr Roel Brienen, from the School of Geography at the University of Leeds, said: "Tree mortality rates have increased by more than a third since the mid-1980s, and this is affecting the Amazon's capacity to store carbon."
Initially, an increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere -- a key ingredient for photosynthesis -- led to a growth spurt for the Amazon's trees, the researchers say. But the extra carbon appears to have had unexpected consequences.
Study co-author Professor Oliver Phillips, also from the University's School of Geography, said: "With time, the growth stimulation feeds through the system, causing trees to live faster, and so die younger."
Recent droughts and unusually high temperatures in the Amazon may also be playing a role. Although the study finds that tree mortality increases began well before an intense drought in 2005, it also shows that drought has killed millions of additional trees.
Dr Brienen said: "Regardless of the causes behind the increase in tree mortality, this study shows that predictions of a continuing increase of carbon storage in tropical forests may be too optimistic.
"Climate change models that include vegetation responses assume that as long as carbon dioxide levels keep increasing, then the Amazon will continue to accumulate carbon. Our study shows that this may not be the case and that tree mortality processes are critical in this system."
The study involved almost 100 scientists, many working for decades across eight countries in South America. The work was coordinated by RAINFOR, a unique research network dedicated to monitoring the Amazonian forests.
To calculate changes in carbon storage they examined 321 forest plots across the Amazon's six million square kilometres, identified and measured 200,000 trees, and recorded tree deaths as well as growth and new trees since the 1980s.
"All across the world even intact forests are changing," added Professor Phillips. "Forests are doing us a huge favour, but we can't rely on them to solve the carbon problem. Instead, deeper cuts in emissions will be required to stabilise our climate." | 1,266,486 |
Americus Reed is the Whitney M. Young Jr. professor of marketing at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business. He is on Twitter (@amreed2).
Judith Samuelson is the founder and executive director of the Aspen Institute's business and society program. She is on Twitter (@JudySamuelson).
Social Media Boycotts Succeed When They Reflect a Movement
Boy, oh boycotts! Do they work?
Trick question. It all depends on what you mean by "work."
If the aim is to hurt company sales, boycotts rarely succeed. But if the aim is to undermine companies that stand in the way of a movement, there is a greater chance that a boycott may tarnish a brand.
To get a boycott off the ground, awareness and consideration of the issue must spread. Intent to boycott must be followed up by action. Finally, once a boycott is underway, the leaders of it must find ways to sustain the effort.
That can be hard, considering the number of people involved in a boycott inevitably decreases over time.
Mostly, that's because people have busy lives and plenty of their own personal problems. News of a boycott has to cut through the personal. It has to withstand the constantly changing streams of information on the internet to truly gain traction. And memory fades fast. The accelerated 24-hour news cycle has become a sort of Catch-22 for boycotts: Social media can be very useful for spreading awareness of a boycott — but the hourly nature of the news cycle can bury it within the next day or week.
Social media can be very useful for spreading awareness of a boycott — but the hourly nature of the news cycle can bury it within the next day or week.
Even if a boycott stays in the news, strong opinions are not the same as action. It’s always easier for someone to express outrage than inconvenience him or herself. In a world where everyone is a one man/one woman P.R. department on social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, “moral peacocking” — outrage on social media that is not combined with action — becomes convenient and costless.
Outrage comes and goes, and so do boycotts. Companies may suffer short sales dips, but social media boycotts seldom hurt the business bottom line of organizations in the long run.
However, there is a very strong exception. If the ultimate source of a boycott is constantly featured in the 24-hour news cycle — say, because he is president of the United States — and continues to engage in controversial and outrageous behavior, the boycott has an increased chance of living beyond its usual few days.
If the boycott reflects a movement — rather than a moment — it can change the world around it.
Join Opinion on Facebook and follow updates on twitter.com/roomfordebate.
| 1,266,487 |
Every day, Disney PhotoPass photographers and cast members capture special vacation moments in ways that make them last a lifetime. And on Friday, August 19, our teams at both the Walt Disney World Resort and Disneyland Resort will celebrate the art and fun of photography at Disney Parks through the first-ever #DisneyPhotoPassDay, a one-day celebration that will feature exciting offerings and experiences for guests.
Read on to learn how you can join in the fun at Walt Disney World Resort and Disneyland Resort. (Note: All theme park offerings are included in park admission and any character experiences are subject to change).
Special Character Experiences At Magic Kingdom Park & Epcot
Enjoy special character experiences at Magic Kingdom Park and Epcot, where Disney PhotoPass photographers will capture your encounter with Pinocchio, Gideon and Foulfellow in Storybook Circus from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
At Epcot, a friend or foe will join some of your favorite Disney characters around World Showcase, including Mushu and Mulan in the China Pavilion; Snow White and Dopey in the Germany Pavilion; and the Queen of Hearts, who will join Alice in the United Kingdom Pavilion. Check the My Disney Experience app or the Epcot Times Guide on August 19 for these Disney characters’ schedule.
Complimentary Photo Locations at All Disney Parks & Disney Springs
There will be one location at each of the four theme parks (and Disney Springs) at the Walt Disney World Resort and at both parks at Disneyland Resort where a Disney PhotoPass photographer will capture your special moment. That photo will be available in the My Disney Experience app at Walt Disney World Resort and Disneyland app at Disneyland Resort to download and share at no charge as part of the #DisneyPhotoPassDay celebration. (Normal My Disney Experience registration is required to access the image). Check out Disney’s PhotoPass Service Facebook page on Tuesday for a list of participating photo locations.
Participate in a Disney PhotoPass Challenge
Complete a Disney PhotoPass Challenge at any of our parks at the Walt Disney World Resort and Disneyland Resort to get a Disney PhotoPass photo on us. All you need to do is get your photo taken by a Disney PhotoPass Photographer at each of the designated challenge locations on August 19. Once you’ve stopped by all of the locations, visit a Disney PhotoPass Sales Center to claim your Disney PhotoPass photo. At the Walt Disney World Resort, participants will receive a voucher for one Disney PhotoPass download. Participants at Disneyland Resort will receive one 5×7 print of a Disney PhotoPass photo. Challenge locations and details will be posted on the Disney’s PhotoPass Service Facebook page on Wednesday.
Follow Disney PhotoPass Service on Facebook and Twitter for more information about this event and share your all-time favorite Disney photos with us using the hashtag #DisneyPhotoPassDay. We look forward to celebrating with you in the parks and online. | 1,266,488 |
South Bend rallies for inclusivity in wake of'shocking' election results
Protests about the election results have swept the nation since Tuesday. Now, they’ve reached Michiana.
With some anti-trump protests turning violent, South Bend is peacefully joining the fight.
“I think for a lot of us where the election didn’t turn out the way we wanted, we’ve been in a little bit of a gloom, and this was a way to participate in something very positive in the community,” said South Bend resident Cecilia Lucero.
“This is a time where we need to stand up in solidarity and unity and create community and focus on that and move beyond our differences and find ways to work together,” said Saint Mary’s College professor Terri Russ.
They’re working together by bringing together people from all walks of life:
“I’m a transgender American. I’m a Hoosier. I’m a veteran,” said South Bend resident Rhiannon Carlson.
Mohammad Siraj-Uddin of the Islamic Society of Michiana and Karen Nemes of Pro-Choice South Bend also came out to show their support.
“The issue for particularly people like me goes far beyond the president. This goes to the courts. The decisions that they’re going to be making on my population in the next few years,” said Carlson.
“It helps that you know to send a message that we are not alone. There are many other people who feel the same way,” said Siraj-Uddin.
“So my sign says love trumps hate, and I really believe that to be the case, and I think that as corny as that sounds, love is really the only thing that we really have that multiplies the more that you give it away and that can really lift people up and bring people together,” said Karen Nemes of Pro-Choice South Bend.
That was the message plastered across hundreds of people’s signs Saturday. Some of the signs said, “Choose Love” and “Peace Trumps Hate.”
“It’s about hate. It’s not making America great again,” said South Bend resident Jan Smith while holding up her sign.
But many are hoping this rally is an impetus for action.
“I hope in the long run that it means that there will be people who will be willing to organize in the future besides just have rallies. Rallies are great. They unify folks. They kind of allow people an emotional release, but there has to be follow-up. There has to be action and organization that goes beyond that and strategy,” said Carlson. | 1,266,489 |
A player cut from the Cincinnati Bengals at the weekend has been re-signed by the team so that he can pay for his four-year-old daughter's cancer treatment.
Defensive tackle Devon Still, 25, said he understood why he was dropped from the 53-man roster because, since learning in June that his daughter Leah has stage 4 pediatric cancer, he has struggled to concentrate on his game.
'My whole world turned upside down,' he told ABC News.
But after failing to make the team on Saturday, the Bengals brought him on to the practice squad instead, which means he will still get paid and receive health insurance.
Scroll down for video
'Blessing in disguise': Bengals defensive tackle Devon Still, left during a 2012 game, failed to make the team last weekend but was signed to the practice team so he still gets health insurance for his daughter, right
'They could have washed their hands with me and said they didn't care about what I was going through off the field,' Still said. 'It's like a blessing in disguise for me.'
The move means that he will receive a weekly salary of $6,300, will have to travel less and get to spend more time with Leah, who is being treated in Philadelphia.
The support from the Bengals - which includes allowing Still to miss Sunday's game in Baltimore - comes after he was out of six games last season for injuries to his elbow and back.
Speaking with Bengals.com, he explained: 'They said if I keep working on my physical... and mentally prepared myself to focus on football then they can move me back up to the roster so I am not all the way out of the loop...
'Just them sticking by me through this whole time, they understand exactly what I am going through. It is a blessing I am on this organization.'
Fighter: Four-year-old Leah was diagnosed with stage 4 pediatric cancer in June. Last week, Still shared this image of her, right, as she prepared for her fourth round of chemotherapy in Philadelphia
Close: Still said he was thankful the team did not just wash their hands of him after a poor performance
Support: Still, who is pictured with his fiancee, was a second-round pick for the Bengals in 2012
On ABC, Michael Strahan called it a 'classy, classy' move by the team.
Ever since Leah's diagnosis, Still has shared images on Instagram showing her dancing in the hospital and grinning as she headed back for her fourth round of chemotherapy last week.
The proud father, who is engaged, has also shaved his head in support of his daughter, who has lost her hair to her treatment.
Still, who was born in New Jersey and attended Penn State, was considered one of the best defensive tackle prospects in 2012 and was picked in the second round of the draft. | 1,266,490 |
Sayōnara, Vogue Hommes Japan... and apparently, every other Conde Nast Men's Vogue publication. In a message tweeted this afternoon, VHJ fashion director Nicola Formichetti wrote that the publishing giant would be ceasing production of the international editions of Vogue Hommes in favor of GQ Style--and that Vogue Hommes Japan's Autumn/Winter issue would be its last.
Sayōnara, Vogue Hommes Japan... and apparently, every other Conde Nast Men's Vogue publication.
In a message tweeted this afternoon, VHJ fashion director Nicola Formichetti wrote that the publishing giant would be ceasing production of the international editions of Vogue Hommes in favor of GQ Style--and that Vogue Hommes Japan's Autumn/Winter issue would be its last.
"I loved the issues we made together," said Formichetti. "Each issue was a chance to collaborate with the best creatives in the world. Our goal was to push the boundaries of fashion and oh boy did we take it there!!"
But this doesn't seem to be the end of Formichetti in the publishing world. While we aren't expecting him to join up with Team GQ any time soon, the Mugler creative director hinted at a future "venture in publishing" with stylist/editor Shun Watanabe and (now former) Vogue Hommes Japan editor Junsuke Yamasaki--adding, "In this digital world, I still love making magazines."
We've reached out to Conde Nast for comment and will update when we hear back.
Will you miss Vogue Homme, ie the closest Kim Kardashian may ever get to being in regular Vogue?
Update: Conde Nast has released a statement regarding its decision to switch Vogue Hommes Japan to GQ Style--a decision apparently only affecting Japanese publications:
"We believe “GQ Style” to be a magazine based solidly on the leading opinions in the realm of stylish authentic fashion paired with the latest trends that stir its readers’ sensibilities. At the same time, it incorporates current market values as well as being readily adaptable to the tastes of Japanese men who are in search of diverse fashion and accommodating the movements in the Japanese fashion market. In recent years, Condé Nast Japan has enjoyed considerable success through the publication of “VOGUE HOMMES JAPAN” as an international high-fashion magazine for men. We intend to make maximum use of the experience gained in producing this title by pouring this experience into “GQ Style” to ensure the ongoing development of a stylish fashion magazine that fits perfectly into the Japanese men’s market."
So it sounds like, for the time being, the rest of the Vogue Hommes international editions are safe! | 1,266,491 |
A verified, or “blue tick” Twitter account originating from Saudi Arabia has deleted a tweet in which the user behind the account posted a picture appearing to show an airliner about to crash into Toronto’s CN Tower as tensions between Canada and the kingdom escalate.
The post, which was up for around five hours before being deleted (an archive of the post can be seen here), showed an Air Canada jet flying towards the major Toronto landmark with two captions.
The first reading, “Sticking one’s nose where it doesn’t belong!” and the second adding, “As the Arab saying goes: ‘He who interferes with what doesn’t concern him finds what doesn’t please him.'”
The tweet was later reposted, with the aeroplane removed from the image.
The account which posted the tweet, Infographic KSA, also posted the same picture on their Instagram page. The Instagram post was also deleted around the same time as the tweets on Monday.
While some have claimed that the account is linked to the Saudi government or the royal family, the group’s website describes them as, “a voluntary non-profit project. It is managed by a group of Saudi youth who are interested in technology and social media Facts backed by numbers & evidence.”
The group has been praised in the past by advisor to the Saudi royal court Saud Al-Qahtani who tweeted last July that the group were doing good work saying it was, “a great national and educational effort by the country’s youth,” and recommended his 1.2 million followers on the platform follow the account.
The tweets come as Canada-Saudi tensions have dramatically increased following the arrest of Samar Badawi, sister of imprisoned blogger Raif Badawi who was sentenced in 2012 to 1,000 lashes and ten years in prison for “insulting Islam through electronic channels” according to Human Rights Watch.
Following the arrest of Ms Badawi, Global Affairs Canada, an official part of the Canadian government, tweeted “Canada is gravely concerned about additional arrests of civil society and women’s rights activists in Saudi Arabia, including Samar Badawi. We urge the Saudi authorities to immediately release them and all other peaceful human rights activists.”
Canada is gravely concerned about additional arrests of civil society and women’s rights activists in #SaudiArabia, including Samar Badawi. We urge the Saudi authorities to immediately release them and all other peaceful #humanrights activists. — Foreign Policy CAN (@CanadaFP) August 3, 2018
The tweet sparked outrage from the Saudi government which has since declared the Canadian ambassador persona non grata, has halted all new trade relations, recalled the Saudi envoy to Canada, and has made moves to bring Saudi students studying in Canada back to the kingdom. | 1,266,492 |
Cypriot police raided on Friday the premises of FBME Bank in Nicosia and in Limassol, looking for evidence of money laundering, two sources told OCCRP.
FBME bank statement (Photo obtained by OCCRP) “Evidence was taken and will be evaluated,” an official who requested anonymity said.
A second source familiar with the matter said that the police had made no arrests. “We questioned the employees who were inside,” the source said and added that officers had made “copies of the servers” and searched for documents.
The investigation concerns “many cases” of legalization of illegal proceeds from various activities, including drug smuggling, as well as terrorism financing, he explained, adding that the bank’s owners had not been questioned yet.
The raided bank’s headquarters is in Tanzania and has two service points in Cyprus.
In July 2014, the US Treasury’s Financial Crime Enforcement Network (FinCEN) described FBME Bank as a “financial institution of primary money laundering concern” and banned US banks from dealing with it.
FinCEN had identified that FBME Bank was facilitating "money laundering, terrorist financing, transnational organized crime, fraud schemes, sanctions evasion, weapons proliferation, corruption by politically exposed persons, and other financial crime”.
Immediately after the US ban, the Central Bank of Cyprus (CBC), which supervises the island’s banking system, installed a new management and reduced the bank’s operations.
In December 2015, the CBC fined FMBE Bank €1.2 million (US$1.3 million) for gaps in the implementation of the anti-money laundering legislationand revoked the license of its branch which performed 90 per cent of its business. In May 2017, the Bank of Tanzania also revoked the bank’s license.
The owners of the bank denied any wrongdoing and resorted to arbitration but the judges of the Paris-based arbitration court of the International Chamber of Commerce dismissed their requests.
Since July 2014, the bank’s operations have been restricted and in 2016, it considerably reduced its staff.
Attorney-general Costas Clerides and a spokesperson of the Central Bank of Cyprus declined to comment Friday’s raid. The owners of the bank, contacted via their London-based PR company, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Chrystalla Georghadji, the former governor of the CBC said two years ago that the supervisory authority’s action had preserved the island’s ailing banking system’s ability to transact in US dollars.
In 2013, Cyprus agreed as part of a bailout agreement to do more against money laundering. According to press reports, pressure from the US led to the introduction of stricter anti-money laundering rules last year. | 1,266,493 |
Here are some of the big video games releases for the month of March 2016. Be sure to check out the list we put together of our most anticipated games of 2016.
What are you looking forward to playing? Did we miss anything? Let us know in the comments.
Note: Only games with specific dates are listed below. Some games are announced for March but have no date yet.
March 1:
Heavy Rain, (PlayStation 4) — Since November's re-release of Beyond: Two Souls on the PlayStation 4, we have been eagerly awaiting the re-release of its predecessor Heavy Rain for the opportunity to "Press X to Jason" in a higher resolution.
March 3:
Black Desert Online, (Windows PC) — If the video above doesn't sell you on the massively multiplayer online role-playing game, we don't know what will.
March 4:
The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD, (Wii U) — Everybody's favorite elf, Zelda, is back with a high-definition remaster of his 2006 adventure which will include a host of new features. Be sure to read our review of the remaster.
March 8:
Tom Clancy's The Division (PlayStation 4, Windows PC and Xbox One) — Over 6 million players played the open beta for Ubisoft's open-world third-person shooter. You can read what we thought of it in our review.
March 11:
Hitman, (PlayStation 4, Windows PC and Xbox One) — After canceling pre-orders and telling fans not to panic, the latest game in the Hitman series has adopted an episodic structure. Be sure to check out our review of episode one.
March 15:
EA Sports UFC 2, (PlayStation 4 and Xbox One) — The latest entry in the UFC series makes it easier than ever to kick faces with its new Knockout Mode. You can read all about kicking faces in our review.
March 18:
Pokkén Tournament, (Wii U) — Speaking of kicking faces, watch Shadow Mewtwo kick Lucario in the face in our hands-on gameplay.
March 25:
Hyrule Warriors Legends, (Nintendo 3DS) — This port of the Wii U's Hyrule Warriors comes to the 3DS with extra chapters and even a brand new character. Check out Linkle in action in our gameplay video.
March 29:
MLB 16: The Show, (PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4) — Improvements in the Road to the Show career mode include a new perk system and bullet-time to give the player more control during a key situation. It will also feature a revamped menu system to streamline your experience.
Polygon Video: The most anticipated games of 2016
Be sure to subscribe to Polygon's YouTube channel for more gaming videos | 1,266,494 |
Just a few days have passed since police across the UK were charged with enforcing emergency laws designed to prevent people from leaving their homes unnecessarily and from mixing. Already, the way that some forces have chosen to interpret the new powers, which include the use of “reasonable force” as a last resort, has become controversial.
Last week Derbyshire police shared drone footage of dog walkers in the Peak District, captioned to make their disapproval clear. On Sunday, South Wales police replied to a tweet by the MP Stephen Kinnock by chastising him for paying a non-essential birthday visit to his father. As yet there are no national figures for the number of arrests or fines. But prominent lawyers and the former justice secretary, David Gauke, are among voices raised against what they regard as overzealous policing.
The police, it should be recognised, have been handed a task that could reasonably be described as impossible, if interpreted too literally. The new rules include a ban on non-essential outings and on gatherings of more than two people who do not live together. There is no way that everyone in the UK will obey them all the time. With this in mind, the aim must be to promote cooperation as far as possible, while being prepared to take action against serious or repeat offenders.
Frustration on the part of police and other authorities at the behaviour of day trippers who turned up at beauty spots across Britain over recent weeks is justified. For second-home owners, or anyone else, to ignore instructions to stay in their primary residence, and keep outings to a minimum, is selfish. To those whose loved ones are at particular risk from the coronavirus, for health reasons or because they are key workers, this behaviour – along with infractions such as ignoring social distancing guidance – can appear unforgivably reckless.
Most of us are likely to find reason to tut or glare at someone for breaking the rules in the coming weeks. But the police are among an extremely small number with the power to do anything about it. If that power is to be exercised properly, preventive measures should stop short of public shaming of individuals – particularly on social media platforms, where finger-pointing should be left to ordinary users.
Any temptation to go beyond what the law says, for example by deciding what constitutes exercise or which goods can be sold (both of which have been tried) must be strenuously resisted. Discretion must be exercised, particularly when dealing with older teenagers and young or vulnerable adults. Fining parents for failing to keep children at home might sound appealing, but punishing families who are struggling under the restrictions, and who may lack living space or other resources, would be counterproductive.
The point of the new laws is to make us safer. The danger is that they could increase, rather than lessen, divisions. But with care, the police ought to be able to send the message that we’re all in this together. | 1,266,495 |
American travelers arriving at Heathrow Airport in London get Thanksgiving pie surprise
Morgan Hines | USA TODAY
Show Caption Hide Caption Heathrow Airport teamed up with Whole Foods to give U.S. travelers pie Heathrow Airport in London teamed up with Whole Foods to surprise U.S. travelers with pumpkin pie in the spirit of Thanksgiving.
What says Thanksgiving more than pumpkin pie?
Travelers arriving at London-based Heathrow Airport on U.S.-originating flights experienced a little taste of the holiday on Wednesday.
The airport arranged a Thanksgiving surprise for travelers in the spirit of the holiday. Heathrow teamed up with Whole Foods Market to organize to have the pies ready for travelers arriving the day before the American holiday.
Ross Baker, Heathrow’s chief commercial officer, told USA TODAY that the airport is proud to be the main gateway for Americans flying into the United Kingdom and into Europe.
"With Thanksgiving being such a key holiday for bringing Americans together to celebrate with friends and family, we wanted to surprise passengers traveling from the USA today with a special taste of home," Baker said.
That special taste was delivered in wicker baskets as travelers waited at baggage claim.
The airport called on baggage ambassadors to help out with the pie distribution and to offer a dollop of whipped cream to top off the welcome dessert.
One traveler reacted on social media to the treat.
Passenger Regan Vincenza wrote on Twitter that she arrived in London on a flight from New Orleans to a "chorus of 'Happy Thanksgiving'!" in addition to the pumpkin pie.
Arrived into Heathrow this morning from New Orleans to a chorus of 'Happy Thanksgiving'! They were handing out pumpkin pies from @WholeFoodsUK courtest of @HeathrowAirport 💜😀 — Regan Vincenza (@ReganRykerSear) November 27, 2019
Both Heathrow and Whole Foods UK responded to Vincenza's tweet.
"We hope you enjoy them Regan! Happy early Thanksgiving!" Heathrow replied. Whole Foods echoed the statement: "Enjoy your holiday and welcome to the UK!"
Jade Hoai, director of purchasing and operations for Whole Foods Market UK, said in a release that Thanksgiving is the busiest time for the seven Whole Foods Market locations in the United Kingdom. The reason being that American ex-pats are looking for a piece of home around the holiday.
“While turkey might get first billing on the day, we know that it’s just not an American Thanksgiving without pie,” said Hoai.
Here's why: Thanksgiving is always on the fourth Thursday of November
Turkey, yes. Gravy, no: Guide to Thanksgiving eats you can travel with in your carry-on
The airport also set up screens around the terminal to wish travelers a "Happy Thanksgiving." | 1,266,496 |
The ship is one of two vessels that moor in the harbor of Kiev. They are the Dnieper Plaza and the ship in the picture named St. Andrew. All the other vessels were removed following the order of President.
The ship belongs to Aleksandr Ktitorchuk who is one of the most famous photographers of Ukraine. People from showbiz and world of fashion know the person well enough.
Nobody is indifferent about the photographer. People either hate him or adore him.
The ship is unique as there is no other similar vessel in the world. Aleksandr made it with his own hands. He is an airman and has always had a dream to have a ship of his own.
First he bought a written-off tug and hired craftsmen to rebuild it totally. Only engines and bottom of the old ship remained which will be substituted as well because old engines of the Soviet times occupy a lot of space. The small library is filled with books and furniture that can be used during reading. When the library was ready, the owner asked his friends to gift him half a meter of books for the birthday. That is how the library was completed.
It took 3 years to reconstruct the ship and now a club for men is available.
The photographer chose and installed every detail. The cabin is intended for watching movies.
The stairs lead to the upper deck.
If there are too many people aboard, you can seclude yourself here.
There are three different restaurants. This one is located at the second deck.
The Blüthner piano is 105 years old and is used by stars invited to the ship.
The restaurant at the lower deck is made in quite another style (something between ‘country’ and ‘province’).
This is the biggest restaurant with karaoke, live music and DJ equipment.
The ship is often hired by people who want to celebrate meaningful events of their life.
That is an old photo. Now a good deck stage is available.
By the way, ordinary people prefer not to go inside. They keep photographing but do not go aboard. There may be two reasons for that: they can either feel scared of the internal luxury or respect private property too much. The situation may change soon as the ship has been there only for a month.
Prices here are not high as compared to the ones that can be found in the center of the city. Besides, every Friday and Saturday visitors will get free photos made by Ktitorchuk. People usually pay much for the photos.
De luxe cabin.
The place is famous for moderate prices, good quality and proximity to the center of the city. The ship was allowed to stay in the harbor because the owner is going to create an art gallery under a bridge.
Location: Kiev
via ibigdan | 1,266,497 |
' from the star event notifier on the left side of the screen, and click the player icon.
Proceed through the quest to learn about Maple Relay. Click the player icon again to be able to open the Maple Relay UI.
Stay logged in for 30, 60, 120, and 180 minutes to unlock each available reward.
Complete the objective that’s necessary to unlock the reward.
Receive the Daily Login Boxes a certain amount of times (14, 40, 80, and 120) to unlock the Maple Relay Rewards Tier Boxes.
Daily Maple Relay Rewards:
Activate Runes 2 times : Daily Maple Relay Rewards 30m Box. Open to receive: Non-Reboot worlds: 50 Reward Points and Miu Miu the Merchant (1 Day) Reboot world: 5 0 Reward Points and Mysterious Meso Pouch (x5)
Clear Pollo and Fritto once: Daily Maple Relay Rewards 60m Box. Open to receive: Non-Reboot worlds: 50 Reward Points and Safety Charm Reboot world: 50 Reward Points and Mysterious Meso Pouch (x7)
De feat Elite Boss once: Daily Maple Relay Rewards 120m Box. Open to receive:
All worlds: 200 Reward Points and a Super Megaphone
Par ticipate in fighting the Inferno Wolf: Daily Maple Relay Rewards 180m Box. Open to receive:
All worlds: 200 Reward Points, Miracle Circulator, Master Craftsman’s Cube
Maple Relay Tier Rewards:
Open 14 Daily Maple Relay Rewards Boxes: Maple Relay Rewards Tier 1 Box. Open to receive:
All worlds: Royal Hair Coupon
Open 40 Daily Maple Relay Rewards Boxes: M aple Relay Rewards Tier 2 Box. Open to receive:
Non-Reboot worlds: Lil Dark Angel Wings, Arcane Symbol Selector Coupon (x15) Reboot world: Mysterious Meso Pouch (x30), Lil Dark Angel Wings (given in a future maintenance), Arcane Symbol Selector Coupon (x15) (given in a future maintenance)
Open 80 Daily Maple Relay Rewards Boxes : Maple Relay Rewards Tier 3 Box. Open to receive:
All worlds: 10,000 Reward Point Token, Red Cube (6 Pack), Gold Potential Stamp Coupon
Open 120 Daily Maple Relay Rewards Boxes : Maple Relay Rewards Tier 4 Box. Open to receive:
All worlds: Eternal Rebirth Flame x5 Coupon, 12 Star Unique Absolab Weapon OR 12 Star Dominator Pendant
Spell Trace Fever Time
UTC: July 14 – July 16 during the event times
UTC: July 21 - July 23 during the event times
Requirement: Available for all levels, in non-Reboot worlds only. | 1,266,498 |
Kudar Uday was relieved three years ago that the fire that started in the basement of his Staten Island home was not more serious.
A paint can had been placed too close to his basement furnace. Thankfully it didn’t ignite, and though there was smoke and some charring, the damage was minimal. Firefighters were called, but they were in and out of the house within 45 minutes, according to their report, and no repairs were needed.
“Just smoke conditions. There were no flames,” Uday said.
That’s why Uday was shocked three years later when a letter arrived in the mail telling him that one of the firefighters who had reported to his home that day was suing him.
The firefighter who filed the suit, Andrew Cannon, declined to comment for this story. His lawyer also declined to be interviewed, saying only that Cannon injured his shoulder in the fire.
But lawsuits like his aren't all that rare, the I-Team has learned. Lawyer Peter Gleason said he has represented about 40 firefighters in the tri-state area, all of whom blame property owners for an injury they got on the job.
“It only takes one injury to destroy a firefighter’s career,” said Gleason, of Manhattan. “Firefighters have to reasonably be able to protect themselves."
Years ago, homeowners were protected from such suits by something called the “Firefighters Rule,” which said firefighters assume a risk when they report to a fire, and cannot sue afterward. But that rule was abolished in the 1960s, when several Bronx landlords were charged with burning down their buildings to collect the insurance money.
"Firefighters were getting severely injured and in many cases dying,” Gleason said. “It was decided that there needed to be more avenues for retribution.”
But while the law was initially changed to discourage property owners from committing arson, in 1996 it changed again, making homeowners even more vulnerable to lawsuits. Now firefighters can sue homeowners saying that the fire started due to negligence, making many kinds of fires -- such as overloaded power supplies, candles next to curtains, and paint cans next to boilers -- possible fodder for claims.
Firefighter lawsuits against homeowners have settled for as much as $450,000, the I-Team learned, usually in cases where injuries were well-documented and damage was severe.
The FDNY and firefighters union would not discuss Cannon's record, nor disclose how many similar lawsuits have been filed.
Uday said his experience may make him more hesitant to reach for the phone the next time emergency strikes.
“You want some kind of help," Uday said. "But three years later, to be sued by the men you called to help... that’s not help."
| 1,266,499 |
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