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Volvo's announcement that it will sell only electrified vehicles after 2019 turned all eyes to the Swedish automaker. But no one threw shade quite like Lexus.
Ewan Shepherd, Lexus' U.K. boss, recently fired back at Volvo, noting that the Toyota luxury brand already has a full range of hybrids. He went on to say that Lexus is already able to meet much stricter future emissions laws, reports Motor1.
"When you look at the legislation that's being proposed for 2040, only us and Tesla could meet those requirements right now," Shepherd said. He could be referring to a U.K. proposal that would ban sales of new gasoline and diesel cars in 2040, but still allow sales of hybrids.
Lexus currently offers hybrid versions of nearly every model it makes, so it wouldn't be drastically affected by such a sales ban. But there are some crucial differences between the Lexus and Volvo electrification plans.
Volvo's 2019 electrification push includes mild hybrids, plug-in hybrids, and all-electric cars. However, Volvo hasn't said what the exact mix of these different powertrains will be. It's possible that the majority of new Volvos will be mild hybrids, since those powertrains are cheaper and provide a familiar driving experience for customers.
If that turns out to be the case, the Volvo lineup will actually look a lot like the Lexus lineup. But Lexus has been selling large numbers of hybrids for years, and its hybrid powertrains use electric power more aggressively than mild-hybrid setups.
However, Volvo plans to take things a step further. It already offers plug-in hybrids, which allow for more all-electric driving than hybrids without plugs. Volvo has also committed to selling some all-electric cars, something Lexus has tried to avoid.
Both Lexus and parent company Toyota have been vocal critics of battery-electric cars, claiming battery technology will never be able to overcome current range restrictions. Toyota developed hydrogen fuel-cell technology as an alternative, and it was rumored that Lexus would get a fuel-cell car at some point in the future.
But difficulty setting up hydrogen fueling infrastructure has caused Toyota to reconsider. The company is now reportedly developing a battery-electric car, although it's unclear if the new model will spawn a Lexus variant. Lexus may have led the way with luxury hybrids, but the automaker will find itself playing catchup to the likes of Volvo, not to mention Tesla and other luxury brands, if it decides to launch an electric car. | 2,600 |
Cardiff Airport 'central' to Flybe's five-year plan By Brian Meechan
BBC Wales business correspondent Published duration 5 April 2017
image caption Flybe was responsible for over 430,000 passengers using Cardiff Airport last year
Cardiff Airport will be at the centre of Flybe's five-year business plan, its new chief executive has revealed.
Christine Ourmieres-Widener had previously said she planned to "stop unprofitable flying" to reduce the airline's losses.
This led to concerns that services would be reduced at Cardiff.
But Ms Ourmieres-Widener told BBC Wales they were looking at "new charter opportunities" for the airport.
image caption Ms Ourmieres-Widener took over the chief executive role in January
Flybe's increase in routes played a major part in a 16% rise in passenger numbers last year at Cardiff Airport.
The airline currently operates 18 routes out of the airport, including major hubs like Dublin, Paris and Berlin, which allows passengers to fly on to other locations.
When Ms Ourmieres-Widener took over as chief executive, she said the airline would have to change how it operates in order to reduce losses.
She will unveil a five-year business plan in the summer and said Cardiff Airport would be at the centre of it.
"We are looking at new opportunities with the airport," she said, including "charter opportunities, maybe for next winter or next summer".
She added: "We are always studying new opportunities with the airport and the marketing team is working very well with us."
image caption Debra Barber said airport's relationship with Flybe will continue to go from "strength to strength"
Cardiff Airport chief executive Debra Barber said it was always a concern when there is a change in a senior team of an airline.
"You do wonder what's going to happen, but I think we've got a really strong partnership with Flybe," she said.
She added Ms Ourmieres-Widener has "some fantastic plans for the airline and is looking at different ways of doing business".
Challenges remain for Flybe though.
Its website and booking system has faced criticism and Ms Ourmieres-Widener accepts it needs to improve. She plans to invest significant sums of money to overhaul what it offers online and through apps.
Flybe's also facing stiff competition from rail companies including from First Great Western, which runs the London to Cardiff service. | 2,601 |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A former official of a subsidiary of Venezuela’s state oil company PDVSA [PDVSA.UL] pleaded guilty on Thursday to a U.S. charge of conspiracy to commit money laundering, the U.S. Justice Department said.
Slideshow ( 2 images )
Cesar Rincon, a Venezuelan citizen who was extradited to the United States from Spain after his arrest there last year, pleaded guilty in federal court in Houston to one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering, the department said.
He was one of five former Venezuelan officials accused in February of soliciting bribes in exchange for helping vendors win favorable treatment from Petroleos de Venezuela SA.
Rincon, 50, a former general manager at PDVSA’s procurement unit Bariven, agreed to forfeit $7.03 million, and faces sentencing on July 9 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas.
Others charged included Nervis Villalobos, a former Venezuelan vice minister of energy; Rafael Reiter, who worked as PDVSA’s head of security and loss prevention; and Luis Carlos de Leon, a former official at a state-run electric company.
Those three like Rincon were arrested in Spain in October at the request of U.S. authorities amid a foreign bribery investigation into the financially struggling PDVSA.
Also charged in the case is Alejandro Isturiz Chiesa, an assistant to Bariven’s president, who remains at large.
As part of his plea agreement, Rincon also admitted to soliciting and receiving bribes from other owners of U.S.-based energy companies in exchange for helping them win business with PDVSA.
De Leon was extradited from Spain on March 9, and was ordered to remain in custody, while Villalobos and Reiter remain in Spanish custody, the statement said.
All five were charged with money laundering, while De Leon and Villalobos were also charged with conspiring to violate the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.
The case flowed out of a U.S. investigation into what prosecutors have previously called a $1 billion bribery plot involving payments to PDVSA officials that became public with the arrest of two businessmen in 2015.
In an indictment announced in February said that from 2011 to 2013, the five Venezuelans sought bribes and kickbacks from vendors in exchange for helping them secure PDVSA contracts and gain priority over other vendors for outstanding invoices during its liquidity crisis. | 2,602 |
Available data reveals that Ripple has seen an all-time high in trading volume on three important corridors.
As relayed by Liquidity Index Bot, Ripple broke records in terms of transaction volume in three corridors Mexico (XRP/MXN) in Philippine (XRP/PHP) and Australia (XRP/AUD).
The all-time high trend is a result of the continuous use of Ripple’s On-Demand Liquidity product, which leverages XRP token for cross-border remittance service.
Of the three, the Australian corridor is the most recent, where XRP is being used to execute transactions.
The transaction volume of XRP/MXN pair surged to 17,228,102 XRP on February 7, 2020, denoting that financial institutions like FlashFX are increasingly making use of Ripple’s remittance solution at this moment.
Ripple’s payment services in Mexico, where Bitso is a major pivotal, is one of the most widespread and fastest-growing remittance corridors.
The growth is attributed to the high level of participation that Mexico plays in the remittance market to Latin America.
The partnership with Bitso has heightened the use of XRP in the remittance corridor coupled with the fact that Mexico is an important country in Latin America’s remittance industry. Bitso alone is targeting around 20% of the total remittance fund entering Mexico.
As well, in the Philippines, Ripple’s ODL is gaining increased usage. Data from the Liquidity Index Bot, shows that Ripple’s ODL saw an increased transaction volume of 4,608,158 XRP. In the Philippines, Ripple employs the service of Coins.ph as a settlement exchange for XRP.
For Australia, the corridor launched in the last quarter of 2019, and it has recorded an all-time high of 4,521,331 XRP, growing from less than a million when it was launched.
As the world expects Ripple to launch more ODL, FlashFX’s co-founder foresaw the launch of at least 20 more payment corridors.
While Ripple has not spoken about the next big corridors to be launched, Africa and other untapped corridors pose a big growth for Ripple as it compete to dominate the remittance world.
Meanwhile, one of Ripple’s strong partner, MoneyGram, is launching online services across the world to ease the mode of money transfer. The firm has launched an online remittance service in Singapore, a key remittance point in Asia. | 2,603 |
Mr Trump appreciates the crowd in the press conference following his meeting with Mr Kim Getty Singapore Summit: historic first meeting between Trump and Kim Jong-un Mr Trump travels to the Istana ahead of the summit with Kim Jong Un on June 12 Reuters Singapore Summit: historic first meeting between Trump and Kim Jong-un Kim Jong Un travels to the Istana ahead of the summit with President Trump on June 12 Reuters Singapore Summit: historic first meeting between Trump and Kim Jong-un Mr Kim poses for a photo with Singapore's Finance Minister Vivian Balkrishnan and Education Minister Ong Ye Kung ahead of the summit with Mr Trump Twitter/Reuters Singapore Summit: historic first meeting between Trump and Kim Jong-un Mr Trump shakes hands with Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, meeting on Monday June 11 in the Istana, Singapore's presidential palace AP Singapore Summit: historic first meeting between Trump and Kim Jong-un At a working lunch on Monday, Singapore's Prime Minister surprised Mr Trump with a birthday cake, in early celebration of his 72nd birthday later in the week EPA Singapore Summit: historic first meeting between Trump and Kim Jong-un US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo answers questions about the summit at a press briefing in Singapore on Monday, June 11 Getty Singapore Summit: historic first meeting between Trump and Kim Jong-un US President Donald Trump arrives at the Paya Lebar Air Base in Singapore on June 10, two days prior to his summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un Reuters Singapore Summit: historic first meeting between Trump and Kim Jong-un Mr Trump and Mr Kim met on Tuesday June 12 in the Capella hotel on the island resort of Sentosa, just off the south coast of Singapore AFP/Getty Singapore Summit: historic first meeting between Trump and Kim Jong-un Mr Trump boards Air Force One following the summit AFP/Getty
Meanwhile on Wednesday, the Chinese government moved quickly to quash any suggestion that the example of Singapore could prompt a warming of relations between Beijing and Taiwan.
Observers have noted that Singapore was also the site of landmark talks between China’s president Xi Jinping and Taiwan’s then-president Ma Ying-jeou in 2015.
Relations have worsened since, however, after the island territory elected a new president in 2016 who leads the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party and, according to Beijing, does not recognise its “one China” principle.
“The Taiwan issue is purely an internal Chinese affair. Its nature is entirely different to North Korea-US relations,” said Ma Xiaoguang, spokesman for China’s Taiwan affairs office. | 2,604 |
A Montana man who was out target shooting became a target himself when another shooter unloaded a barrage of gunfire on him after mistaking him for Bigfoot, authorities said.
The 27-year-old shooter told authorities that he was putting up targets outside Helena on Sunday when bullets started flying toward him, Lewis and Clark County Sheriff Leo Dutton said, according to the Idaho Statesman.
One round came within three feet of the victim and another whizzed by even closer, he told police. The man said he ran behind nearby trees for cover and eventually confronted the shooter, who was driving a Ford F-150 pickup truck.
BIGFOOT PODCAST 'WILD THING' EXPLORES SASQUATCH HUNTERS, UNCOVERS SURPRISING EVIDENCE
“I thought you were Bigfoot,” the victim says the shooter told him, according to Dutton. “I don’t target practice — but if I see something that looks like Bigfoot, I just shoot at it.”
Once the man assured the gunman that he wasn’t Bigfoot – an ape-like creature said to inhabit wooded areas in the Northwest – the shooter advised him to wear an orange vest in the future.
But Dutton noted that “there was some question about the veracity of the report” because the victim who spoke to police a day after the alleged incident couldn’t provide a physical description of the shooter.
Police checked the area but didn’t find the pickup truck, ABC Fox Montana reported.
NEW YORK TOWN 'ADOPTS' BIGFOOT AS ITS OFFICIAL ANIMAL
After local media reports of the man's story, a woman came said she had a similar experience where she had been shot at by a man in an F-150 as well.
“We’re working to find this person,” Dutton said. “It is of great concern that this individual might think it’s OK to shoot at anything he thinks is Bigfoot.”
If the reports are true, the shooter could face charges, Dutton said.
But the chief said he didn’t think the public at large was in danger, noting that “it seems to be a localized event to one geographic area."
According to the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization, there have been 46 sightings in Montana since 1978. In 1993, three backpackers spotted a large, massive upright animal running on two legs through the Gallatin National Forest. | 2,605 |
The Mark of the Beast is coming… to Walt Disney World. According to The New York Times, Disney plans to roll out a new system — “MyMagic+” — that will enable the company to more effectively gather data on customer activities. All in pursuit of the the goal, of course, of improving the amusement park experience for Disney customers.
A crucial part of the system: “MagicBands” — bracelets equipped with Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) chips that “will function as room key, park ticket, FastPass and credit card.”
Did you buy a balloon? What attractions did you ride and when? Did you shake Goofy’s hand, but snub Snow White? If you fully use MyMagic+, databases will be watching, allowing Disney to refine its offerings and customize its marketing messages.
Best of all, comprehensive use of the bracelets could help cut down on time spent in lines waiting to get into popular attractions. What’s not to like? If one definition of Hell is waiting in line with your children for an hour to get into It’s A Small World, then sign me up!
Then again, there are other definitions of Hell. In Texas, a high school student is suing her school district over a requirement that students wear RFID-chip equipped ID cards, in part because of her religious beliefs. Specifically: the warning in the Book of Revelations that “acceptance of a certain code, identified with his or her person, as a pass conferring certain privileges from a secular ruling authority, is a form of idolatry or submission to a false god.”
Whether the Disney Corporation constitutes a “secular ruling authority” might be an arguable point. And according to the Times report, wearing the bracelets will not be mandatory, so we’re not quite at the point of forced submission to the Number of the Goofy Beast. But at the same time, it’s hard to think of a metaphor that more deftly captures the pros and cons of our surveillance-made-easy future than Disney’s MagicBands. In return for shorter lines, “more personalized interaction with Disney employees,” and less overall hassle, we will give Disney unprecedented insight into our every physical move through the company’s amusement marks. Heck, our children will probably be clamoring for Disney’s “collectible sets of MagicBand accessories and charms.” We’ll be begging to wear our Magic Kingdom shackles. | 2,606 |
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These days many Americans live in an alternative political reality, in which the simplest factual assertions are met with anger and derision. When I, like many others, noted that job growth since Obamacare went into full effect has been the fastest since the 1990s — which is simply what the BLS data say — I got a barrage of mail from people claiming that I’m crazy, a liar, etc.. Similarly, but on of course a much bigger scale, a lot of what I’m seeing in reactions to the State of the Union amounts to the assertion that only an imbecile or a hack could believe Obama’s talk about the strength of the U.S. economy relative to other advanced countries — when that’s a simple fact.
But that involves grading on a curve, one where the average is dragged down by the awful performance of Europe. What does the economic record look like compared with our own past?
Not great, but not too bad.
Unemployment is, of course, more or less back to pre-crisis levels, but that’s in part due to falling labor force participation. So what’s happening to family incomes? Unfortunately, the Census data on those incomes come with a long lag, but Sentier Research now produces much more timely estimates (using the CPS data), which are shown above. What they say is that after a severe drop, median real household income is also roughly back to pre-crisis levels.
That’s not a great result; once upon a time we expected median income to be markedly higher at each business cycle peak than it was at the preceding peak. But that wasn’t true under Bush, who also only more or less presided over a return to the previous peak on the eve of the Great Recession — and the Bush-era economy only got there thanks to a disastrous housing bubble. (As an aside: median income didn’t rise much under Reagan either.)
So the Obama macroeconomic record isn’t just one of stabilizing the economy after a terrifying crisis; he has also presided over overall income growth that, assuming we don’t have another recession this year, will have been better than his predecessor.
And meanwhile we’ve seen a dramatic reduction in the number of uninsured Americans, so while income has been flat, income security is up substantially.
Of course, none of this will make any dent on the conviction of the usual suspects that everything has been a disaster. But really, Obama has cause for satisfaction though not triumph. | 2,607 |
Chromebook Shipments Increase by 67% QoQ as Acer Dominates 37% of Market in 2Q 2014
Oyster Bay, New York - 21 Oct 2014
In another strong quarter, Chromebook shipments increased by 67% QoQ and are projected to double in size YoY. Acer continues to maintain its lead over other vendors in the market, including Samsung, HP, and Dell. The top three leading vendors – Acer, Samsung, and HP – accounted for 74% shipment share during 1H 2014 and are forecasted to maintain market control through 2H 2014, according to quarterly data from technology market intelligence firm ABI Research.
“Consumers are hungry for a product that is cost effective but also provides the versatility and functionality of a laptop,” says Research Analyst Stephanie Van Vactor. “The growth of the Chromebook market demonstrates a niche that is gaining traction among consumers.”
The questionable need of Chromebooks by consumers contributed to the slow start of these devices; however, vertical markets such as elementary education still remain a driving force. In emerging markets, especially in Asia-Pacific and Eastern Europe, business-purchasing entities account for 75% of Chromebook sales. ABI Research also forecasts that North America will account for 78% of the Chromebook market in 2014, while other regions, especially Asia-Pacific and Western Europe, are expected to grow in market share by 2019.
In late 2013, Chromebooks entered the market when notebook sales were declining and tablet sales were on the rise. In contrast, 1H 2014 has demonstrated slowing tablet growth and the revival of the notebook market. “Chromebooks may be a temporary fad similar to the netbook, but the form-factor design and low-cost price tag draws considerable interest that may be a longer term trend,” adds Van Vactor. “Chromebooks may have more of a place in the market than originally anticipated, especially as more vendors jump on board and sales continue to grow."
These Ultrabooks and Netbooks Market Data findings are part of ABI Research’s Media Tablets, Ultrabooks & eReaders Market Research.
ABI Research provides in-depth analysis and quantitative forecasting of trends in global connectivity and other emerging technologies. From offices in North America, Europe and Asia, ABI Research’s worldwide team of experts advises thousands of decision makers through 70+ research and advisory services. Est. 1990. For more information visit www.abiresearch.com, or call +1.516.624.2500. | 2,608 |
We are working with Magnolia Home Entertainment to offer a number of our lucky readers the opportunity to win copies of some recently released Magnolia and Magnet titles. We have Blu-ray copies of ‘Experimenter’, ‘Last Shift’ and ‘Skin Trade’ as well as DVD copies of ‘Entertainment’ to giveaway to our readers. Hit the jump for the instructions on how you can enter for your chance to win.
Courtesy of Magnolia Home Entertainment, we have two (2) copies each of the following four titles to give away to our readers: ‘Experimenter’ (Blu-ray), ‘Last Shift’ (Blu-ray), ‘Skin Trade’ (Blu-ray) and ‘Entertainment’ (DVD). Winners will be will be contacted via email after the entry deadline at which point the Blu-ray’s (or DVD’s) will be shipped from us personally. Just follow the two simple steps listed below in order to enter the giveaway for your chance to win and good luck!:
PLEASE NOTE: The Deadline for entering is Monday, April 25, 2016! No entries submitted after April 25 will be accepted and only US residents are eligible to win.
First:
Simply send an email to [email protected] with the header/topic being the first word (if more than one) in the title of the release you’re interested in winning, such as ‘Experimenter’, ‘Last’, ‘Skin’ or ‘Entertainment’ and then in the body of the email simply put ‘Enter’. All individuals may enter the sweepstakes for up to all four titles if interested, yet a separate email must be sent for each entry. The second step only need be done once no matter how many titles you are entering for.
Second:
Do any one of the following three options:
A. Like our Facebook page and the giveaway post (or any post) pinned to the top of the page
B. Follow us on Twitter and favorite the giveaway post on there
C. Sound off in the comments below telling us who why you would love to own one or more of these titles!
‘Experimenter’, ‘Last Shift’, ‘Skin Trade’ & ‘Entertainment’ are each now available to own on Blu-ray and DVD from Magnet Releasing and/or Magnolia Home Entertainment! | 2,609 |
CLEVELAND, Ohio - The truth of the matter is that Kyrie Irving will not be where he wants to be when it comes to his health Thursday, the day Game 1 of the NBA Finals vs. the Golden State Warriors tips off.
"Unless something miraculous happens," Irving answered when asked if he can be 100 percent by Thursday. "Just like I said before, and I'm going to keep saying it, it's a day-by-day thing. Continue to get treatment and do what it takes."
The tendinitis in his left knee hasn't healed in a timely fashion, limiting his participation in practice. Cavs coach David Blatt says he has been forced to hold him out of portions of practice in an effort not to overwork his knee.
"I wouldn't say he's had a setback, but progress has been slow," Blatt revealed.
That's not good news considering from the onset he'll be matched up with electric Warriors guard Stephen Curry. But the three-time All-Star is ready to embrace the challenge.
Irving said nothing will keep him from playing and he's receiving around-the-clock treatment to make sure that holds true. The frustration and disappointment he felt in the Eastern Conference Finals has subsided. Now, he's coping and learning how to play with pain.
His Game 4 performance against the Atlanta Hawks, on virtually one leg, proved that he could still be effective. It was important that he experienced that.
"I feel like I'm in a good place," he said. "I'm just going to continue to do the things necessary in order to prepare my body for The Finals."
No one knows which Kyrie Irving will show up in Oakland, Calif. Not even his coach.
"We're just trying to see where he can get to," Blatt said.
It will be eight days in between games for the Cavaliers. The layoff was needed for guys dealing with nagging injuries, but LeBron James said the team is starting to feel "restless."
For Irving, the layoff not only is buying him time to recover, but it is also allowing him to get some extra homework done on the Warriors. He's using his time wisely.
"These days are very, very important for me, especially going into The Finals," Irving said. "I want to feel as close to my old self as I could. They're very important, but from the flip side as well, preparing for a great team like that, you need as many days as you can." | 2,610 |
White House press conferences are out of control, owing to the fact that leftist “reporters” are using them as a way of pushing their flagrant bias and anti-Trump agendas.
In the same conference that garnered headlines Wednesday for CNN’s Jim Acosta pushing a female aide around in order to continue arguing with the President, two other “journalists” essentially called Trump a racist to his face.
Both individuals posed their insults as questions, essentially saying ‘A lot of people say you are a racist, there is evidence to suggest you are a racist, are you a racist?’
Take a look below:
PBS reporter Yamiche Alcindor firstly accused President Trump of being the leader of the White Nationalist party.
Trump hit back with the response “Why do I have the highest numbers with African Americans… You’re a racist.”
Secondly another reporter with Yahoo News just outright asked Trump ‘have you ever used racist remarks?’
“No. I would never do that, and I don’t use racist remarks and, you know what? If I did, you people, you would have known about it,” Trump responded.
“I’ve been hearing there are tapes for years and years,” Trump said. “Number one, I never worried about it because I never did. I never used racist remarks. I have never used racist remarks.” the President added.
The Yahoo reporter wouldn’t let up and kept yelling into the mic about a “point of fact” that Trump’s poll numbers with black voters are not high, despite a Rasmussen poll showing a 40% approval rating among black respondents.
“When you talk about division, it’s people like this that cause division, great division,” Trump said, adding, “Point of fact is that I never used a racist remark. That’s the point of fact.”
Earlier in the conference, the same Yahoo reporter pestered the President about his tax returns. A dead horse that anti-Trumpers have been kicking for over two years, and refuse to relent on.
These people are following a blatant anti-Trump agenda, unsurprising given that almost everything on the networks they work for constitutes a constant effort to attack the President and claim he is a racist.
The Emergency Election Sale is now live! Get 30% to 60% off our most popular products today! | 2,611 |
On Sunday night, the Los Angeles Kings and Tampa Bay Lightning made a bit of a head-scratching trade. Tampa sent goaltender Ben Bishop and a 2017 5th round pick out west for goalie Peter Budaj, 19-year-old prospect defenseman Erik Cernak, a 2017 7th round pick and a conditional pick in 2017.
To say that’s a light return for Bishop — who our friends at Raw Charge called “the best goaltender in Lightning history” — is maybe an understatement. Bishop is going to be a free agent this year, but he was certainly the best rental-type goalie on the market. It might seem like an awkward fit for the Kings, who already have Jonathan Quick and probably won’t keep Bishop beyond the summer.
But nevertheless, the expectation is that Bishop would have yielded a bigger return. Not even a first round pick for a guy who had a save percentage above.920 in his five years with the Lightning? Disappointing if you’re a Bolts fan.
As it turns out, it was the best deal general manager Steve Yzerman could find.
Yzerman on trading Bishop to Kings: "That was the deal that made the most sense and it was the only option I had." — Caley Chelios (@CaleyChelios) February 27, 2017
Some here in Philadelphia have been talking about selling off one of either Steve Mason or Michal Neuvirth here at the deadline. After all, both are free agents at the end of the season and it’s possible that neither of them are in the cards for next season. Some have even speculated that the reason Neuvirth started six games in a row through the Stadium Series game on Saturday was to showcase him for a trade. (He probably hurt his case with his play more than he helped, but nevertheless.)
If you were hoping the Flyers would move a goalie here at the deadline, the Bishop trade should recalibrate any of those hopes. If Bishop returned a backup goalie, a mediocre prospect and meh draft picks, what do you think Neuvirth or Mason is going to bring back? I mean, not to be too harsh or anything, but they have both played like utter crap this season. They wouldn’t have returned much had they been playing well, but after their poor years, in this market...
Probably not even worth picking up the phone. There’s not going to be much of a market -- if there’s any market at all — for these guys at this deadline. | 2,612 |
known annoyance at feeling others are "handling" him and trying to manage his instincts.
On June 18, Trump suddenly announced he wanted to form a "Space Force" as a new, sixth branch of the military. Mattis was well aware of the proposal, but had never had made a public statement of strong support about it. After the President spoke, Mattis said it would take a while, with legislation and then congressional approval required.
James Mattis, US Secretary of Defense, speaks during the IISS Shangri-La Dialogue Asia Security Summit in Singapore, on Saturday, June 2, 2018. Mattis blasted Chinas deployment of military assets in the South China Sea, expanding the Trump administrations criticism of the country amid a continued dispute over trade. Photographer: Paul Miller/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Mattis has also had to find ways to support Trump's more out of the blue ideas, such as a military parade in Washington.
Technically, the Pentagon is still planning for it, but several defense officials say it's very much on the back burner for now. Pentagon concerns include the cost of a parade and the manpower required when the military is already stretched thin.
On other issues Mattis appears to have been at least partially sidelined from the President's decision-making process.
Perhaps the most significant example was Trump's unexpected effort to stop transgender persons from being in the military. Mattis once again stepped in and said it would have to be studied, and any final decision would await expected court rulings.
Mattis had told Congress he thought the Iran nuclear agreement was worth keeping at least for now. It's never been entirely clear how much in advance he knew Trump would opt out of the international pact.
Similarly, several official privately say Mattis did not know in well in advance of Trump's decision to suspend military exercises with South Korea as a concession to North Korea after the June 12 summit with Kim Jong Un.
"Secretary Mattis has to be very careful to read the signs, as much as he can, as to whether or not the President feels comfortable or continues to feel comfortable with his tutelage of the Pentagon," Leighton said.
Clapper said that he didn't think Mattis' patience would be infinite. "Even he, as dedicated as he is to this country and particularly to the men and women of the armed forces that he leads, even he would at some point I think would have a tipping point if he's completely cut out of things," Clapper said.
CORRECTION: This story has been updated to correct James Clapper's rank as a retired Air Force general. | 2,613 |
PwC announces 63 redundancies in Rotherham and London after retailer went into administration
This article is more than 2 years old
This article is more than 2 years old
Maplin’s administrator has made more than 60 head office staff redundant as hopes of finding a buyer for the collapsed electronics chain fade.
The retailer, which has 2,300 employees, entered administration last week after talks with a potential buyer collapsed.
On Thursday, PricewaterhouseCoopers, the administrator, said 63 people were being let go at Maplin’s headquarters in London and Rotherham.
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PwC said all affected staff had been informed and would be paid up to and including their last day of employment. Toby Underwood, one of the joint administrators, said PwC was still seeking offers for Maplin.
“We still believe there is strong value in the company and we remain focused on doing all we can to preserve the business while we continue trying to achieve a sale,” he said.
Maplin’s 200 stores have continued to trade as normal, but PwC warned that unless a buyer came forward soon, it would begin closing them down.
“It is with real regret that we have made this decision [on jobs],” Underwood said. “Maplin is continuing to trade, but due to a lack of interest, we may be required to initiate a controlled closure programme.”
Maplin, which was owned by the private equity investor Rutland Partners, had been hunting for investors since last year, when credit insurers pulled cover from suppliers. Without insurance, companies tend to demand cash payment for stock upfront, rather than one to three months after delivery, creating a financial squeeze.
The loss of credit insurance was a factor in the demise of Toys R Us, which also failed last week after a fruitless search for a new backer.
The retailer, which has 3,200 staff, is being wound down by the restructuring company Moorfields and has launched a closing-down sale ahead of the first round of closures. The 100-store chain had been put up for sale by its bankrupt American parent company.
The wave of high-street chains going into administration comes as retailers’ traditional business models are threatened by the shift to online shopping, at a time when the costs of running physical stores are rising. Inflation and the uncertainty created by Brexit have also undermined consumer confidence. | 2,614 |
by 100 freestyle Olympic trials, allowing her the fourth spot in the 4 by 100-meter freestyle relay team. Neal is currently a Stanford University student, and her classmate Simone Manuel also made it onto the Olympic swimming team. This makes it the first time two Black female swimmers will swim simultaneously on the U.S. Olympic team.
Jay Litherland
Peter H. Bick
Jay Litherland is an Olympic swimmer majoring in business at the University of Georgia. He’s also a triplet – and has triple citizenship in the U.S., Japan, and New Zealand. He can speak Japanese and started swimming at the age of 8. At this year’s U.S. Olympic Team Trials, he managed to finish second in the 400 meter individual medley. Litherland won the second of two U.S. Olympic spots in the event, eking out the defending Olympic gold medalist, Ryan Lochte, by approximately a second. This will be the first time he will be attending the Olympics. He previously competed in the U.S. Olympic Trials in 2012.
Micah Christenson, Kawika Shoji, and Erik Shoji
Courtesy of Team USA
These three athletes will be representing the U.S. Men's National Volleyball Team at the Rio Olympics. Micah Christenson comes from a tall family - his father played basketball at the University of Hawaii-Hilo and his mother won three national volleyball championships at the same university. Anderson currently plays for Italian club team Cucine Lube Civitanova but won a gold medal with the USA team in the 2015 Men’s World Cup. Christenson graduated from the University of Southern California and will be a setter for the men’s national team. His full name is Micah Makanamaikalani Christenson, and his middle name means “gift from heaven.”
Erik and Kawika Shoji are brothers — and both will be at the Rio Olympics in the U.S. Men’s volleyball team. The Honolulu-born pair both attended Stanford University and played on the volleyball team when they were there. Their father Dave has coached women’s volleyball at the University of Hawaii for more than 40 years, while their mother Mary played basketball at the same university. Kawika is currently a member of Turkish club Arkas Izmir, while Erik Shoji plays for German club Berlin Recycling Volleys.
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RELATED | 2,615 |
with self-organisation and even running anarchist businesses.
Since December 2008, a new generation of youths has supported a wave of self-organisation, squats and community activities; for instance, taking over businesses that would otherwise close down due to the recession.
Others have formed or joined armed groups such as the ‘Conspiracy of Fire Nuclei’, or the ‘Sect of Revolutionaries’. The latter especially seem to be driven by the inability to go back to normal life, to everyday rhythms, after the explosion of December 2008, but instead opting to ‘upgrade’ the level of violence from mass street protests to a small avant-garde urban guerrilla. After gunning down Sokratis Giolias, a journalist, in the street of Athens on 19 July 2010 they stated: “We recommend the total annihilation and destruction of authority relations and dominant civilisation. Only through the rubble and ruins of modern urban centres will a new way of life flourish. The rebel groups are but a small prefiguration of such a future. But as we said in a previous text, even if this future does not come, we will have tasted it, living our own unorthodox way today. And this adventure, the journey towards liberation is worth every moment...”
Most Greek anarchists probably disagree with the idea that 'tasting the future' would include killing a tabloid journalist, and groups such as ‘Sect of Revolutionaries’ earn scathing criticism and distancing statements from within the anarchist movement. A moment of profound shock followed the death of three bank employees in April 2010, after a fire was started by Molotov cocktails thrown by alleged anarchist protesters during a general strike demonstration. The harshest possible self-criticism came from anarchists revolted by the lack of a reaction to the deaths amongst their own circles.
Some anarchists have since joined local residents in occupying, building and maintaining a self-organised park in Exarcheia, Athens, by turning an unused site in the middle of the city into a park created, managed and used by local residents and activists. In a turn of events emblematic for contemporary Greece, the anarchists created a public space managed by its empowered users, thus realising principles of 21st century capitalist urban planning a la lettre. Developments such as this point to an ironic constellation of forces, wherein anarchists would indeed profit from the retreat of the (bankrupt) state and its decimation through austerity measures. Who else could take over than those long experienced in creating autonomous networks of freely cooperating individuals, i.e. the anarchists? | 2,616 |
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An aspiring Kirklees MP is out of the running before the campaign has even officially begun.
The Brexit Party's Jill Hughes is reportedly no longer their candidate for Batley and Spen.
Her departure comes after bizarre social media posts were uncovered and reported by anti-fascist group Hope Not Hate.
It found that in 2017 she claimed to be a spiritual guide from Sirius, a star 8.6 light years away from earth.
In a book she published entitled Spirit of Prophecy she promoted the idea that aliens were living among us and working with governments across the world.
Hope Not Hate also accused her of embellishing her CV, which claims she was a "No 1 bestselling author" and "one of the UK's leading wealth mentors".
It is not clear if Hughes has stood down or has been dropped by party HQ following the revelation of her eccentric views.
She has made no official statement but Brexit Party chiefs said she had stepped down, the Yorkshire Post reports.
Hughes, who hails from Bradford, also believes in "elves/fairies/mermaids/unicorns and all things elemental and otherworldly", and that her horse was reincarnated as another horse.
In her book Spirit of Prophecy, it says “the E.T’s, some of them less than Apple Pie wholesome or Positive pumpkins, are already here working with our world Governments, but that’s all hush-hush for now”.
Hughes had begun to align herself with the campaign to save Red House Museum at Gomersal and had contacted ExaminerLive asking us to report that she had played a key part in saving it from being sold.
Jonathan Scott, who said he ran Vote Leave campaigns in Dewsbury and Batley and Spen, questioned her credentials in a Facebook post.
"I have run numerous successful local and general election campaigns over the last 25 years in Dewsbury and Batley and Spen and I can't say I have ever heard of you or your name? No one I have spoken to even at Brexit Party events have ever mentioned you?"
He went on to say he had never seen her at Brexit Party events or canvassing. "I don't recall you at any one of those events in Dewsbury or Batley," he wrote.
ExaminerLive has approached Jill Hughes and the Brexit Party for comment. | 2,617 |
South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham told Sean Hannity on Wednesday that President Trump is not going to fire Special Counsel Robert Mueller.
Graham said speculation that Trump could remove Mueller -- who is investigating possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia -- is a "manufactured problem."
Retiring Arizona Republican Sen. Jeff Flake on Wednesday vowed to pull support for all federal judicial nominees -- including 21 pending in the Judiciary Committee and 32 awaiting a vote on the Senate floor -- unless the Senate's GOP leadership permits consideration of legislation to expand protections for Mueller's job.
“President Trump is not going to fire Mueller. Mueller's going to be allowed to do his job,” Graham said. “And we need conservative judges on the bench, as many as we can, as often as we can get them.... And at the end of the day, I am convinced that Mr. Mueller will be allowed to do his job.”
Graham added, “I have seen not one scintilla of evidence of collusion. The obstruction of justice thing never made any sense to me.”
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Graham also said it would be "ironic" to see President Trump undo a harsh criminal justice law passed by President Bill Clinton in 1994.
Graham appeared to reference how the Clintons and Democrats writ large are seen as the people who want to help minorities and those who have served time in prison.
Hannity noted how, with the urging of Kim Kardashian West, Trump pardoned Alice Marie Johnson -- a grandmother who had been sentenced to decades behind bars for a drug conviction.
"Wouldn't it be ironic if it were Donald Trump that would fix the problems created by the 'three strikes, you're out' rule passed by Bill Clinton," Graham said. The law prescribes for harsher penalties for repeat offenders.
"Wouldn't it be ironic if [Trump] allowed thousands of African-American and Hispanic males a second chance," Graham said.
In 2015, Clinton said he regretted passing the Three Strikes Law, saying he "made a problem worse and I want to admit it," according to the BBC.
Cavuto Panel: Did 'Chairwoman' Maxine Waters' Warning Cause Stock Sell-Off
'He Doesn't Know Anything About Politics': Kennedy, The Five Slam Donny Deutsch for Floating Trump Military Coup | 2,618 |
Watch the fallen Heroes, Healers and Hustlers battle it out over one final taste of 'Survivor.'
The first ones out from CBS' Survivor: Heroes vs. Healers vs. Hustlers have returned for a second chance — in a manner of speaking, at least.
This season, for the first time ever (certain twists notwithstanding), Survivor players eliminated in the pre-merge phase of the game were invited back for one final challenge, albeit one without a direct impact on the game. The first five players voted out of the season — Katrina Radke and Alan Ball of the Heroes tribe, Simone Nguyen and Patrick Bolton of the Hustlers tribe and Roark Luskin of the Healers tribe — united forces to test out "Air Raid," the team-based reward challenge featured in this week's all-new episode of season 35.
In the challenge, players are tasked with racing to the top of a tower, where they will fire sandbags via comically large slingshots at targets in the far distance. First team to knock down all five targets wins reward — and without revealing the actual reward, it's safe to say this: It's delicious.
Watch Katrina, Simone, Patrick, Alan and Roark compete in one final challenge in the video above, then read on for each of their final Survivor testimonials, delivered in spite of their early exits.
Katrina Radke (Heroes Tribe): "Totally apply for the show. It's an awesome experience for yourself, as well as being able to meet people."
Simone Nguyen (Hustlers Tribe): "If you're going camping for the first time, do it on Survivor. You don't have to take any pictures for yourself."
Patrick Bolton (Hustlers Tribe): "People watching this show, definitely apply. It's one of the best adrenaline rushes and best experiences I've ever had."
Alan Ball (Heroes Tribe): "It's one of the real-est things I've ever been a part of, by far. No fakes. This is real. Real people, real challenges, real emotion, real everything. This is real. This is real."
Roark Luskin (Healers Tribe): "No matter when you go out, it's everything you wanted it to be, and things you didn't think it could be. Highly recommend."
Follow THR.com/Survivor for weekly conversations with host Jeff Probst, exit interviews with the castaways as they're voted off of the show and much more. | 2,619 |
The return of Doctor Who for its eighth season (or series) is only a few days away, and outside of the 50th anniversary, it’s been years since we’ve had something so exciting drift into the Whovians’ orbit. Indeed, even the most oblivious purveyors of pop culture know that there’s a new Doctor gearing up for his first ride in the TARDIS on Saturday, and Doctor Who hasn’t felt so simultaneously new and old-fashioned since the current Doctor Who series resurrected the Time Lord with a leather jacket in 2005.
Obviously this all comes down to what a departure (or a status quo return) the casting of Peter Capaldi is. While the (patient and honest) fans have not seen a single consecutive minute of footage of Capaldi with the Sonic Screwdriver, they know that they are in for a very different kind of regeneration than either the David Tennant or Matt Smith eras. At the heart of this is the first full teaser that we got for the new Doctor Who series which featured a thousand-yard stare from Capaldi that could burn a hole through a Weeping Angel, and the goosebumps-inducing sign-off, “Clara, tell me, am I a good man?”
Obviously positing to be the mystery for Saturday’s “Deep Breath,” it may very well be the bigger question mark of the whole season. Yet, even that appears unambitious to me with a writer and executive producer like Steven Moffat steering this police box. Whether we’ll know it or not by season nine, much like the crack in Amelia Pond’s bedroom for the Eleventh Doctor, this mystery is likely to define Peter Capaldi’s entire run as the Twelfth, because Peter Capaldi’s Doctor might be the Valeyard.
On the off chance some are unaware of this Gallifreyan Anti-Christ, the Valeyard has long been the dreaded destination for the Doctor since 1986. As introduced in season 23 of “Classic Who,” the Valeyard spent the entire serial length of that year, “The Trial of a Time Lord” bedeviling the Doctor as a vengeful prosecutor for the High Council of the Time Lords. As played by Michael Jayston, the Valeyard was all pomp and self-righteous malevolence when he conspired to manipulate the Matrix—Gallifrey’s digital repository for the cumulative knowledge of the Time Lords species—in an attempt to frame the Sixth Doctor (Colin Baker). | 2,620 |
honorary chairman.
A Siemens Corp. executive is on the Jefferson Islands Club board, according to Brie Sachse, a Siemens spokeswoman.
"Siemens takes its public disclosure obligations seriously," Sachse said. "Siemens generally does not sponsor events that fall into this reporting requirement. While the contribution level alone did not trigger the reporting requirement, due to the board position of our executive, the contribution should have been reported, and the report has been amended accordingly."
In other cases, companies and trade associations said they did not disclose sponsoring events involving covered public officials because lawyers determined the circumstances fall within exceptions laid out by the House and Senate disclosure guidance.
Those decisions are sometimes complex and dependent on the amount spent compared to the total cost of the event, and it's common for companies to make diverging decisions about whether to disclose.
In November, the Independent Women's Forum, a nonprofit whose mission is to "improve the lives of Americans by increasing the number of women who value free markets and personal liberty," honored Kellyanne Conway, a senior adviser to the president, as "a woman of valor" who is "truly a tremendous role model for women and girls."
The event carried a long list of sponsors, in different tiers, including the American Chemistry Council, the Motion Picture Association of America, and the Distilled Spirits Council. The only one that included its spending in federal disclosure reports was Google.
When asked by the Center for Public Integrity, the American Beverage Association initially said it would amend its reports to disclose sponsorship of the Independent Women's Forum gala honoring Conway.
"They looked into it and determined you are absolutely right. It did need to be disclosed," said William Dermody, a spokesman for the American Beverage Association. Dermody said the association was internally reviewing such spending to ensure it had no additional amendments before filing the new report.
More than a week later, Dermody emailed to reverse his stance, saying the trade association's legal team "has been looking into that further and has informed me that no disclosure is required under the law for that kind of expense in our circumstances."
"Sorry for the confusion," he added.
More than a dozen companies did not respond to inquiries about how they disclosed participation in various events, or declined comment regarding their disclosures, including Novartis, the American Petroleum Institute and the American Chemistry Council.
Click Here to Read the Rest of This Story
The Center for Public Integrity is a nonprofit, nonpartisan investigative news organization in Washington, D.C. | 2,621 |
Open this photo in gallery 76 Edgecroft Rd., Toronto.
76 Edgecroft Rd., Toronto
Asking price: $899,000
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Selling price: $976,000
Previous selling price: $575,000 (2013)
Taxes: $3,488 (2017)
Days on the market: Zero
Listing agent: Jody Thompson, Re/Max Professionals Inc.
The action: Last spring, agent Jody Thompson sold Queensway bungalows between $1.1-million and $1.25-million, often in bidding wars. Ontario’s Fair Housing Plan and its new mortgage stress test dampened activity this spring, but this two-bedroom bungalow rustled up bids quickly thanks to a listing price way below the level at which renovated and expanded homes in the same area were selling, with some fetching more than $1.7-million.
“The first two [buyers who had] showings both came in with pre-emptive offers, so it was sold in six hours on the market,” Mr. Thompson said.
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“The first quarter was busy with people like [the buyers] that went to their brokers the last week of December and got pre-approved for the first quarter, so they didn’t have to do the stress test 120 days out.”
Open this photo in gallery The entertaining and dining quarters are open to one another.
What they got: This 828-square-foot residence with a traditional brick façade has an updated roof, mechanics and interior.
In the past five years, heated floors were added in one of the two bathrooms and ceramic flooring, granite countertops and stainless steel appliances installed in the kitchen. The entertaining and dining quarters are open to one another and the 797-square-foot basement has an open sitting area in front of the guest room.
A back stairwell exits to a private patio, backyard and double garage on the 40-by-133-foot lot.
The agent’s take: “Buyers loved that it was fully renovated with top materials and finishings. It was completely move-in ready and under $1-million,” Mr. Thompson said.
“It’s very livable for young professionals, and maybe over time [they will] top up or put an addition on.”
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| 2,622 |
Kobold Soul Monk subclass
Kobold only subclass
Myths tell of the kobold soul monks. Monks who went to train in the art of the Cobalt soul, only to find out that the title was cobalt. Not Kobold. In response they made their own way of monk fighting. A way built around channeling their kobold blood into a highly effective and dangerous monk class, which only kobolds properly know.
Take Candle
You take the candle of the Kobold soul. Becoming one with your powerful blood.
Starting at 3rd level when you take on this tradition you learn to channel your draconic heritage into your physical form. Choose a color of dragon, (See Dragonborn, or draconic heritage sorcerer for chart). You gain resistance to the damage associated with that dragon. Additionally, your unarmed melee attacks deal an additional 1 damage of the associated damage type.
The amount of extra damage done increases to 1D4 at 8th level, 1d6 at 13th, and 1d8 at 18th.
Beg no longer
Kobolds have been forced to beg and plea all their lives. You shall no longer.
At 6th level you gain immunity to being frightened. Additionally, as an action, you can spend 1 Ki to force all creatures in a 30 foot radius that can see you to make a wisdom saving throw, or become frightened of you until the end of your next turn.
breath of the dragon.
You truly channel the body and soul of your draconic heritage into your very soul.
Starting at 11th level, as an action you may spew forth a 30 foot cone of the damage type of your Take Candle ability. The damage done is 4D8. You may spend a number of ki of your choice when using this ability to increase the damage by 1D8 per ki spent. Each creature affected by this may make a dexterity saving throw equal to 8+ your proficientcy modifier + your wisdom modifier. On a success the damage is halved. You may use this ability a number of times per day equal to your wisdom modifier (miminum 1).
Pun Pun's spirit
You hold the spirit of the great kobold Pun Pun. They no take candle.
Starting at 17th level, if you would die, you may instead spend every ki point you have in order to instead gain health equal to double the ki spent. Once you use this ability you can not use it again until you finish a long rest. | 2,623 |
Decades of deceit are coming to an end today, as The National ENQUIRER unmasks the shadowy Mr. Fix It who covered up the Clintons’ ugliest scandals for years!
Only The ENQUIRER can reveal the true identity of the man: Jeff Rovin, seen below.
This top photo shows Rovin at the Clinton inaugural celebrations.
Here, he stands casually outside of the White House, then the Clintons’ home.
As The ENQUIRER reported, Rovin was the Clintons’ hidden Mr. Fix It, working 24/7 to silence any hint of a scandal surrounding the couple.
For years, Rovin set up illicit trysts for Hillary, with men AND women. Bill‘s sleazy affairs, meanwhile, were quickly and efficiently covered up with payoffs, blackmail and more.
He previously told The ENQUIRER, “During the 1980s and 1990s, I was working in Hollywood as a reporter for several national magazines and newspapers. Because of my good relationship with stars, publicists and the press I became ‘a fixer’: someone who helps stars keep embarrassing stories out of the press. I helped keep secrets safe for some of Hollywood’s leading men.
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“In 1991, my reputation was such that I was asked to work on behalf of a fast-rising figure on the national stage: Arkansas Gov. William Jefferson Clinton. I attended a meeting in Hollywood where I was told by an intermediary: ‘There will be a lot of stories coming out in the tabloid press. We want them buried.'”
“I was informed that these stories would involve rumors of Bill Clinton’s many sexual dalliances and an alleged ongoing affair of Hillary Clinton with a male member of her law firm, Vince Foster, as well as a female mover-and-shaker in Hollywood.”
“For a retainer of $4,000 a month — paid by a third party, not the campaign — I was told to keep these stories hush-hush in one of two ways: by trading access to the Clintons for ‘positive’ interviews, or by paying the reporters.”
For more on what Rovin did to keep Bill and Hillary’s dirty secrets hidden from the world, pick up the latest issue of The ENQUIRER, on stands now! | 2,624 |
if we have an initial response which may not be optimal and then we get angry at ourselves for having that response, that’s an example of a judgement and that’s the kind of thing that can be potentially attenuated with mindfulness meditation.
I’ll take another emotional style and suggest very different kinds of practices. For social intuition, something that may be very difficult for individuals on the autism spectrum, in order to become more accurate at encoding the social signals of another person we need to pay attention to those social signals, and actually in the case of facial expressions explicitly look at the face, particularly look at features on the face which may be important in conveying emotional information. And one of the most important features of the face is the eye region of the face. And so the instruction to more explicitly pay attention to the eye region of the face can actually remarkably improve a person’s accuracy in decoding certain kinds of facial expressions of emotion. And some people may not realise that they can engage in that kind of strategy and specifically focus, at least for short periods of time, on the eye region of another person’s face and through that acquire important information about their experience of emotion.
So those are just a few simple exercises that potentially might be helpful.
Our brains are constantly being shaped, most of the impact of our environment on our brain we’re not aware of and the reality of neuroplasticity invites the possibility that we can actually take more responsibility for our own brain by intentionally engaging in certain practices to cope with the healthier and more positive habits of mind, and also arranging our environment to bring out the best—instead of being pawns of our environment to actually create environments that nurture more positive places on these dimensions of emotional style.
Lynne Malcolm: Richard Davidson, he’s professor of psychology and psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin Madison and he’s also author of The Emotional Life of your Brain published by Hodder and Stoughton.
Check our website for details at abc.net.au/radionational and choose All in the Mind in the program list. From there you can listen to the programs again, find transcripts, arrange to podcast the show and of course add your comments. I’d really like to hear what you think about this idea of emotional style, or share your thoughts on the All in the Mind Facebook site. And follow @allinthemind on twitter as well.
Thanks today to sound engineer Phil McKellar—I’m Lynne Malcolm, till next week, bye for now. | 2,625 |
who typically gather on the other side of the street.
On Sunday, Vice President Mike Pence, who worshipped at a Baptist church in Maryland, listened as the pastor denounced Trump’s use of vulgarity.
Maurice Watson, pastor of Metropolitan Baptist Church in Largo, called the reported remark “dehumanizing” and “ugly” and said “whoever made such a statement... is wrong and they ought to be held accountable.” Worshippers stood and applauded as Watson spoke.
Durbin said after the Oval Office meeting that Trump’s words to the senators were “vile, hate-filled and clearly racial in their content.”
A confidant of Trump told The Associated Press that the president spent Thursday evening calling friends and outside advisers to judge their reaction to his remarks. Trump wasn’t apologetic and denied he was racist, said the confidant, who wasn’t authorized to disclose a private conversation and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Afterward Trump insisted in a tweet that he “never said anything derogatory about Haitians other than Haiti is, obviously, a very poor and troubled country. Never said ‘take them out.’ Made up by Dems.” Trump wrote, “I have a wonderful relationship with Haitians.
The contentious comments came as Durbin was presenting details of a compromise immigration plan that had money for a first installment of the president’s long-sought border wall.
Trump took particular issue with the idea that people who’d fled to the U.S. after disasters hit their homes in places such as El Salvador, Guatemala and Haiti would be allowed to stay as part of the deal, according to the people briefed on the conversation.
When it came to talk of extending protections for Haitians, Durbin said Trump replied, “We don’t need more Haitians.’”
“He said, ‘Put me down for wanting more Europeans to come to this country. Why don’t we get more people from Norway?’” Durbin said.
Word of Trump’s comments threatened to upend delicate negotiations over resolving the status of the hundreds of thousands of immigrants who were brought to the country illegally as children. Trump announced last year that he will end the Obama-era program unless lawmakers come up with a solution by March.
___
Associated Press writer Jonathan Lemire in New York contributed to this report. | 2,626 |
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ANDREA Leadsom, one of two candidates to be the next PM, revealed an ambition to slash Scottish spending in a series of whingeing blog posts.
The leading Brexiteer, who could become the UK’s second female prime minister after Margaret Thatcher, moaned about the way Scotland is funded over “us poor English”.
She also complained about “unbelievable perks” for Scots in her online diary dating to 2007, after the SNP came to power.
READ MORE:
Leadsom headed one post on public spending: “This really takes the biscuit.”
She wrote: “Scotland already receives about £1500 more each per annum from the public purse than us poor English.
“And what are they planning to do now under the SNP minority government? To abolish tuition fees for university students in Scotland, using the tax revenues that are so heavily subsidised by the English.”
In a May 2007 post, she also wondered why Scots would want to end a union that “vastly favours them over the English and Welsh”.
The Barnett Formula, which she wanted to scrap, was enshrined in The Vow made by Westminster leaders before the 2014 independence referendum.
Leadsom is going head to head with Home Secretary May in a bid to replace David Cameron.
READ MORE:
The vote will be decided by 150,000 Tory party members and the winner, who will also get the keys to No10, will be announced in September.
Leadsom, who is a favourite with grassroots activists, said in an interview last weekend that she’s happy to be compared to Thatcher. She said Britain’s first female PM “was real leadership” and had the “ideal” qualities of toughness and “personal warmth”.
SNP MSP Michael Russell, who convenes Holyrood’s finance committee, said: “Andrea Leadsom has the cheek to ask, ‘Why on earth would Scots want to break up the Union?’
READ MORE:
“The answer staring her right in the face is the approach of right-wing Tory politicians like her, who are intent on dragging Scotland out of the EU against our will.” | 2,627 |
JK Scheinberg, who masterminded major innovation during his 21 years at company, was snubbed for in-store tech support role
This article is more than 4 years old
This article is more than 4 years old
An engineer credited with changing the way in which Apple computers work was turned down for a job at one of the company’s Genius Bars.
JK Scheinberg left Apple in 2008 after 21 years, having masterminded the top secret Marklar project to run Apple’s operating system on Intel chips.
He later applied for a job in the customer support area, commonly staffed by younger people, at one of Apple’s high street stores after growing bored of retirement, according to reports in the US.
A brief guide to everything that’s annoying about Apple Read more
Despite possessing vast knowledge of Apple’s technology from working on some of its most high-level projects, Scheinberg was knocked back.
Details of the surprising rejection emerged in an article about age discrimination in the New York Times. The author, Ashton Applewhite, said Scheinberg helps her with IT problems and the same support could have been offered to Apple customers.
“I’m lucky enough to get my tech support from JK Scheinberg, the engineer at Apple who led the effort that moved the Mac to Intel processors,” said Applewhite. “A little restless after retiring in 2008, at 54 he figured he’d be a great fit for a position at an Apple store Genius Bar, despite being twice as old as anyone else at the group interview.”
Applewhite said Scheinberg told her: “On the way out, all three of the interviewers singled me out and said: ‘We’ll be in touch.’ I never heard back.”
Scheinberg has since addressed the rejection on Twitter. He also tweeted a link to Applewhite’s book This Chair Rocks: A Manifesto Against Ageism.
JK Scheinberg (@tiltdad) Wonder if Apple will finally give me callback on that genius bar interview https://t.co/9fXt5fBFTU #ageism
Scheinberg worked out how to run Apple’s operating system on his personal PCs, powered by Intel processors, according to his wife, Kim. The company developed his findings and has since switched all its computers from PowerPC processors to Intel. Apple did not return a request for comment. | 2,628 |
it will be pushed to the PS6 (2027 isn’t that far away).Ubisoft has been very transparent with the development cycle of Beyond Good & Evil 2 following its E3 2017 announcement. Thanks to live streams and various development updates, we certainly know BG&E2 is progressing, but with its enormous ambition, and a beta aimed for late 2019, a release date before late 2020 seems unlikely. Given that timeframe, our best guesses for when new consoles will be released, and the clear technical endeavors of the cult classic’s sequel, it makes sense to develop on the next generation of consoles.Announced with a brief trailer at E3 2018, the Sony exclusive Nioh franchise is set to return at...some point. And with the window closing on the PS4’s lifecycle, why not hold back exclusives that play to a smaller yet dedicated part of the install base to give them the incentive to pick up the PS5? We’ve seen nothing else of Nioh 2 outside of that announcement, and having it among the PS5’s launch library could be an appealing exclusive to lure in new buyers.Square Enix and Marvel Games have been extraordinarily quiet about this title that carries with it such massive tie-in potential. While other Marvel Games releases have debuted and been announced (Marvel’s Spider-Man and Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3, respectively), The Avengers Project is still an unknown quantity.And if Marvel and Square are willing to give it the time this massive franchise needs, it makes sense to push such a marquee title to next-gen. Not only would that give those consoles a huge, licensed name to work with early on, it gives the game enough distance from the pop culture juggernauts that are Avengers Infinity War and Endgame.We already know Bethesda’s ambitious, open-world RPGs are in development for “next-gen” hardware, but wanted to reiterate it. Bethesda's RPGs will certainly be able to take advantage of next-gen hardware, but it will be interesting to see if Bethesda pushes the size of worlds versus the density of gameplay opportunities within them.
12 Massive Games Without Release Dates 12 IMAGES
For more on upcoming major games without release dates, check out the gallery below for 12 of the biggest, announced games that we don't know for sure when they're coming.
Jonathon Dornbush is IGN's News Editor, PlayStation lead, and host of IGN's weekly PlayStation show Beyond! Talk to him about what you hope to play on PS5 and other future space systems on Twitter @jmdornbush | 2,629 |
Have you ever wanted to make your way into the record books for a music-related achievement? Well, 457 Aussie musicians have done just that today, after breaking the record for the largest electric guitar ensemble.
Back in June, we reported on how the Sydney Guitar Festival was looking for as many like-minded musicians as possible to come together and help break a pretty cool world record.
Organisers of the festival hoped to have 500 guitar players turning out to simultaneously take part in playing AC/DC’s ‘Highway To Hell’ in order to attempt to break the previous record of 368 people, set in India back in 2013.
Now, as The Newcastle Herald reports, Sunday afternoon saw an army of music fans turn out in droves to help strum their way into the record books.
Helped along by Aussie rock legends The Choirboys, 457 people descended upon The Concourse in Chatswood to break the record, performing AC/DC’s 1979 classic as part of a record-breaking ensemble.
Powered by small, Marshall MS2 battery powered amplifiers, organisers said that despite the comparatively small amount of power behind them, participants more than made up for it in terms of passion and talent.
“They were tiny amps but they got the sound happening,” festival spokeswoman Tatiana Marchant explained to the Australian Associated Press. “It was such a great atmosphere. I’ve never been around so many men and guitars in all my life.”
While the vast majority of participants were indeed male, Tatiana Marchant did note that a large proportion of females and children also took part in the world record attempt.
The next step in the record-breaking process is for officials to verify the attempt – an undertaking could take up to six weeks. However, considering that they managed to outshine the previous record attempt by close to 200 people, there’s a good chance almost 500 happy musicians will be waking up tomorrow morning with some extra bragging rights.
Incidentally, news of this world record happens to come just weeks after Australian musician Scott Burford completed his world record attempt of the world’s longest guitar marathon. After playing guitar for 125 hours (that’s just under a week, if you were wondering), Burford managed to bypass the previous record holder by ten hours.
No matter how you look at it, it’s been a pretty interesting month for Australians and their music-related world record attempts.
Check out footage of the world record attempt here: | 2,630 |
A “lonely planet” that was thought to be floating around on its own in space has a parent after all, scientists have discovered.
But the two clearly have some *issues* because they’re hardly close – the planet, known as 2MASS J2126, orbits its star at the enormous distance of around one trillion kilometres (or 6.2 billion miles). That’s 7,000 times further apart than the Earth and the sun.
Dr Niall Deacon, from the University of Hertfordshire – who led the international team of astronomers – said: “This is the widest planet system found so far and both the members of it have been known for eight years, but nobody had made the link between the objects before.
“The planet is not quite as lonely as we first thought, but it’s certainly in a very long distance relationship.”
2MASS J2126 was initially identified as a “possible low mass object” by US-based astronomers in an infra-red sky survey. Then in 2014, Canadian scientists confirmed that it was young and light enough to be classified as a free-floating planet – Jupiter-like gas giants with insufficient mass to trigger the nuclear reactions that make stars shine.
Dr Deacon’s team noticed that 2MASS J2126 was moving through the same region of space as a young star, TYC 9486-927-1, and the two seemed to be associated. Both are about 104 light years from the sun. A more detailed look showed that the two objects were not members of any known group of young stars.
The astronomers were able to estimate the mass of 2MASS J2126 at between 11.6 and 15 times that of Jupiter, placing it on the boundary between planets and failed stars known as brown dwarfs.
Its orbit is so vast that it takes roughly 900,000 years to complete one journey round its star. In the whole of the planet’s life, less than 50 of its years are thought to have passed.
There is little prospect of anything living on 2MASS J2126, but if the planet had inhabitants they would see their “sun” as little more than a bright star.
Dr Simon Murphy, another member of the team from the Australian National University, said: “How such a wide planetary system forms and survives remains an open question.”
The research is published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. | 2,631 |
it’s hard to top that. But if you’re asking whether we met Kim Jong Il, or the even more mysterious son who is supposed to succeed him, no, I’m sorry to disappoint.
Seriously, though, there was one rather amazing coincidence, during my first trip. On the bus down to the DMZ, someone mentioned that then-U.S. negotiating envoy Christopher Hill was supposed to arrive in Pyongyang any day now. But I figured he’d fly in. A few hours later, we’re walking up to the North Korean reception pavilion, right on the DMZ, when out the back door comes this white guy surrounded by several assistants, about 20 feet away from us. It was Chris Hill. I wanted to shout out, "Hey, we’re Americans!" — but that’s not something you do on the northern side of the DMZ, surrounded by heavily armed border guards. It’s pretty tense up there. So we just watched as he hopped in a van and headed off to Pyongyang. That was our brush with history.
Another tour group was taken by the North Koreans to witness them blowing up part of the Yongbyon nuclear facility. So, really, you never know what you’re going to see.
FP: What’s the most important thing you learned?
PC: One big difference is that now North Korea is a real place to me. For most of us, I think, North Korea occupies the same imaginary plane of existence as Mordor. But it is real, and one thing I came to appreciate is that most North Koreans are normal people living in abnormal conditions. It’s the only world they know, and they try to make sense of it, and cope with it, as best they can. I don’t know how things will play out, but one can only hope they find their way to join the rest of us intact.
The second important thing I learned is gratitude. It sounds corny, but it’s not. It really wasn’t all that long ago that a big chunk of mankind lived under systems like this. We look back now and it seems inevitable — the fall of the Berlin Wall, China opening up — but it wasn’t inevitable. I’m grateful to be able to go home at the end of my trip, and I’m grateful for the people whose convictions and sacrifices made it so this kind of place is an anomaly in today’s world, and not the rule. | 2,632 |
h and good is flimsier than the excuse you gave your high school English teacher for the lame assignment you blew off. (Yes, I saw you. Everyone saw you. Shame.)
Wow, that play still stings.
How does a team playing for a first-round bye in Week 14 end up missing the playoffs? How do they lose by 35 at home right after soundly defeating the eventual Super Bowl champions? Because teams don’t follow a neat little script like the ones left by a composer, a journalist or a sneaky force like evolution.
Which brings us, almost, to the present. 2018 is — brace yourself — a weird year for the Seahawks. The narrative of a single Seattle season is that it changes every couple weeks, because it’s an unwritten journey. They’re not memorizing lines and putting on a show for us; the plot is unwritten. The ball bounces one extra time and hits the ground, the flag doesn’t get thrown, the audible works instead of failing, for some minute reason, the injury bug snares one player instead of another. On such things, entire championship runs are aborted; on such things, a division is won.
It’s chaos out there, and anyone who tries to deny it is watching with one and a half eyes wide shut. The 2018 Seahawks will collapse from 8-5 and 99 percent playoff odds into an 8-8 season that leaves us all unfulfilled. Or they’ll beat the Chiefs and make a run to the NFCCG, the Super Bowl, where they’ll do angel wings in the confetti again. The young safeties now thrust into duty will be Carroll’s greatest coaching achievement, or they’ll suck ass. Even both at once is possible. Chaos.
The narrative is as easy to grasp as the air around you, while it’s happening. It can be so, too, when the year ends. If it’s chaos, why can’t it be told as such? Maybe we’re not meant to know a team, along the journey or looking back. Maybe the only thing we’re meant to do, instead of explain it away, is to hop on the stomach-churning ride that is Seahawks football, brave their bullshit, cheer and cry, and then do it all again next year, too.
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New Line’s remake of “Going in Style” launched with a moderate $600,000 on Thursday night, while Sony’s animated “Smurfs: The Lost Village” debuted with $375,000.
“Going in Style,” starring Morgan Freeman, Alan Arkin, and Michael Caine, is expected to open to a quiet $8 million Friday-Sunday during the pre-Easter weekend when it premieres at 3,601 sites. “Smurfs: The Lost Village,” which played at 2,731 sites on Thursday, is forecast to take in around $15 million at 3,061 locations, while Pure Flix’s faith-based “The Case for Christ” has been projected to reel in about $5 million at 1,175 venues.
Holdovers will probably dominate the weekend. Fox’s second weekend of the animated comedy “The Boss Baby” is likely to repeat as the winner of the domestic box office, earning around $25 million, following its surprisingly strong $50.2 million opening at 3,773 sites. “Boss Baby” grossed $1.5 million during Thursday night previews on March 30.
Disney’s fourth frame of “Beauty and the Beast” will probably come in second in the $20 million range at 4,210 locations. The live-action smash has grossed more than $404 million domestically in its first 20 days.
“Going in Style” is a reboot of the 1979 heist comedy about a gang of geriatrics who turn to bank robbery to enliven their retirements. George Burns, Art Carney, and Lee Strasberg played the unlikely felons. Zach Braff directs the new pic, with New Line and Village Roadshow partnering on the comedy, which cost an economical $25 million to bring to screens.
“Smurfs: The Lost Village” is Sony’s third iteration of the franchise of wide-eyed, blue humanoids living in mushroom-shaped houses. The studio’s live action-CGI “The Smurfs” grossed $563.7 million globally in 2011, followed by 2013’s “The Smurfs 2,” which made $347.5 million worldwide on a $105 million budget.
“The Lost Village” was shot entirely CGI, resulting in substantial cost savings. The latest film carries a $60 million budget. Sony is banking on stronger overseas results. | 2,634 |
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. -- More than two dozen people spoke in favor of Grand Rapids police officers wearing body cameras at Tuesday night's city commission meeting, which had a standing room only crowd.
Though the issue wasn't on the meeting agenda, the non-profit group LINC Community Revitalization organized a group to attend and speak about the issue as part of their #OperationBodyCamGRMI initiative.
No decision was made, but city leaders are promising "swift action," calling this a "moment full of opportunity."
The idea of outfitting police officers with body cameras has picked up steam in the recent months following the shooting death of Michael Brown, an unarmed African American teenager, who was killed by Darren Wilson, a white officer in Ferguson, Mo.
Among the main arguments of body camera proponents: accountability, both for police and the public.
"The thinking tonight was we needed the community's voice to be put into policy," said Darel Ross, co-founder of LINC.
"Right now we have a justice system that appears to not be working at times, and we have technology that could bridge the gap, and we want citizens to inform that process."
Of the roughly 25-30 people who spoke during public remarks, none were in opposition to police wearing body cameras. Several speakers shared their own stories of either being racially profiled by police officers or fearing officers rather than looking to them people who would protect them.
"I come to you today saying I'm too strong to stand down to police that do me wrong," said Michael Scruggs, chairman of the Kent County Black Caucus. "I have had them do me wrong, so maybe these cameras will keep me alive or keep somebody I know alive."
Grand Rapids Police Chief David Rahinsky has spoken out publicly against putting body cameras on his officers, citing concerns over lack of privacy and the fact the footage could be made available to any member of the public through the Freedom of Information Act. Speaking to reporters after the meeting Tuesday night, Rahinsky said he still had concerns about implementing the technology.
"I don’t think I ever expressed I was opposed, I expressed reservations based on lack of study," he said. "I appreciate the community coming forward and as being as forthcoming as they were.”
Commissioners voted Tuesday night to set a formal public hearing on the issue for Dec. 16 at 7 p.m. at City Hall. A vote on the issue could come as early as mid-January, according to City Manager Greg Sundstrom. | 2,635 |
to craft a public persona via avatars, Facebook posts, tweets, and the like. We can create an impression of ourselves that it is not really true. It’s not really who and what we are but who and what we want people to think we are.
Again, truth is what is. It is what God says. It’s what God wants us to understand about him, the nature of things, and who and what we are. The truth is that we were made in God’s image, that we were made in righteousness and true (real) holiness, in order that we might love God rightly and live with him in eternal blessedness (Heidelberg Catechism answer 6). We forfeited all that when we believed a lie, that which is not. What the Evil One said to us in the garden was not. He raised questions about the reality of what God had said: “the day you eat thereof you shall surely die.” The Evil One was the first skeptic. He did not say, “Well, that’s not true” but he raised doubts. At that instance Adam should have lopped off his head. Instead, as Caspar Olevianus wrote, we made an false covenant with Satan instead of submitting to and honoring God and his truth. The rest, as you know, is the history of the human race after the fall.
We are not true but God is and he must be true to himself. He is just. He must be true to that justice. In an age when liars are lionized the notion that there is fixed, unchanging truth seems implausible but you had better believe it. Jesus did. He died for the truth. He was raised on the third day. He is the truth. You can choose to by a cynic, you can seek to know what God knows the way he knows it, or you can receive God’s truth as he has revealed it to us in nature (the law), in Scripture (the law and gospel) and in Christ the Word.
Jesus the Truth came to satisfy God’s justice and truth. That happened and the Truth is returning at which time all the cynicism and games will come to an end. The truth can be difficult to receive by God’s grace it happens. I’m grateful that the Truth is and that, in Christ, the Spirit is witnessing to the it and conforming his people to it day by day.
Here are all the posts on the Heidelberg Catechism. | 2,636 |
DENVER -- A federal appeals court rejected yet another request by the state of Utah to halt same-sex marriage in the state.
In a ruling issued Tuesday evening, the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals denied the state's request for a stay on the ruling that declared Amendment 3 unconstitutional. The decision by the 10th Circuit means that same-sex marriages can resume on Thursday.
"Having considered the district court’s decision and the parties’ arguments concerning the stay factors, we conclude that a stay is not warranted. Accordingly, we deny Defendants-Appellants’ emergency motions for a stay pending appeal and for a temporary stay," Judges Holmes and Bacharach wrote. (Scroll down to read the full document.)
The court also denied the state's request for a stay pending appeal, but did say they would ask for the appeals process to be expedited.
In response, the Utah Attorney General's Office told FOX 13 it would seek an emergency stay with U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who oversees the 10th Circuit. That request would be filed Thursday morning, said attorney general's spokesman Ryan Bruckman.
"We're disappointed the stay was not granted and we will continue the appeal," he said.
On Friday, U.S. District Court Judge Robert Shelby overturned Utah's Amendment 3, which defines marriage as solely between a man and a woman, saying it violated gay and lesbian couples' due process and equal protection rights under the U.S. Constitution.
The decision by the 10th Circuit is the fourth time a federal court has rejected requests by the state to halt same-sex marriages. If the U.S. Supreme Court declines to issue a stay, same-sex marriages will continue to be performed throughout the length of the appeal.
Any decision is likely more than a year away, said Troy Booher, an appellate lawyer with Zimmerman, Jones, Booher, who has argued before the 10th Circuit.
"You're going to get a three judge panel in the 10th Circuit that's going to decide the appeal," he told FOX 13. "You have no idea which of the three judges will be on that panel. There's really no way to predict how the 10th Circuit is going to deal with this case."
Booher said with briefings and other filings, arguments could be held by November. A ruling, he said, is not likely until 2015.
Watch FOX 13 News and fox13now.com for updates.
10th Circuit Court document:
| 2,637 |
In France we are sad and angry. The Charlie Hebdo spirit is gone for ever, and with it any kind of national solidarity.
Politically we face a presidential election next year, a contest whose outcome will be determined by which candidate can demonstrate their determination to bring in new security powers and measures to our already overloaded statute books.
We were already under a state of emergency when the Nice attack took place. In fact, President François Hollande delivered the traditional Bastille Day speech to the nation declaring that he would lift the draconian measures imposed after the Paris atrocities last November.
But the Nice attacker was not on a watchlist, and the truck attack could not have been foreseen. The killer wasn’t known as an individual who had been radicalised. The intelligence services had no trace of him because he had apparently lived an ordinary life. This is the scariest part of the aftermath of Nice: how do we prevent such attacks coming from any ordinary neighbourhood?
I am afraid the answer is, we cannot.
Nice is a very secure city with a lot of CCTV cameras in the streets and a strong local police presence, in addition to national policing. The mayor of Nice is very involved in this situation.
Presidential and parliamentary elections are planned for 2017, and after this event security will dominate all the election manifestos even more than it already would have done.
After Nice we feel blindsided by violence. French society, like many others, is sick. We now have more than 10,000 young French people under surveillance who are believed to be on the verge of radicalisation, including 40% who are converts to Islam. But we need a reality check: no amount of new anti-terror legislation will bring them back from the fringes of extremism to where they belong in French society.
Hollande’s response to the Nice massacre will please only the far right | Philippe Marlière Read more
These people have in fact lost any link to their citizenship. For those lost children of France, we have to restore trust in the French Republic. And that means more education and less discrimination. We don’t need any further suspension of civil liberties; we need to apply the existing law with zero tolerance for any crime committed in France whether by a national or by a non-national. But we also have to avoid Islamophobia.
France, along with many other countries, is facing the most challenging time of its history. How do you fight against terrorism when you live in a democracy? It is possible – and it has to be done without losing your soul. | 2,638 |
Locals, environmentalists fight cyanide use in Turkish Black Sea forest
FATSA – Doğan News Agency
The Altıntepe mining company began cutting trees on the 10-hectare area two months ago before starting operations to extract gold using cyanide. DHA Photo
Ecologists and residents of the Black Sea district of Fatsa have begun standing guard around the clock to prevent a company from following through on plans to use cyanide in gold extraction on a 10-hectare forested area.“Our battle is not for our own personal benefit, but an act of resistance against a massacre against nature,” said Yusuf Ertopçu, an environmentalist helping to keep guard at the tent locals have erected in Fatsa’s Yukarı Bahçeler neighborhood.The company, Altıntepe, began cutting trees on the 10-hectare area two months ago before starting operations to extract gold using cyanide. The actions prompted fury on the part of the local populace, who erected a tent a month ago while hanging a banner at the site that said “No to cyanide.”“Our goal here is to inculcate consciousness in and be together with the people. The resistance here will continue until the end. If necessary, we will embark upon a death fast,” Ertopçu said.Fatsa-Ünye Nature Protection Platform member Metin Karaman accused the gendarmerie of attempting to intimidate those fighting against the company.“The gendarmerie said, ‘You’re blocking the road. You’re committing a crime,’” Karaman said. “But we’re not committing a crime. [What we’re doing] is our natural and constitutional right. We’re not blocking the road. They said this to try and deter us and the villagers. Despite all the pressure, we’re continuing with our resistance, which is attracting more support with each passing day. We will not allow them to extract gold with cyanide. Even if it results in death, we will maintain our determination.”The incident in Fatsa is the latest battle between locals and large companies around the country, many with ties to the government, who have been accused of gross environmental violations in the pursuit of profits to the detriment of residents and nature. The issue has been particularly acute in the Black Sea region, where companies have been attempting to construct hydroelectric power plants (HES) in protected natural reserves. | 2,639 |
To develop charging infrastructure for electric vehicles in Delhi, the government plans to have charging points at every 3 kilometres and the draft policy also offers a subsidy of 100% (up to Rs 30,000) to set up charging points (for the first 10,000 points) in Delhi.
Updated: November 28, 2018 4:21 PM By: Ronak Shah
Charging points every 3 km with 100% subsidy to popularise EVs: Delhi's new electric vehicle policy
Jumping onto the electric vehicle bandwagon, Arvind Kejriwal led AAP government has released a draft EV policy for Delhi. The new draft EV policy aims at having 25% of total vehicles in Delhi converted to electric vehicles and to do so the Delhi Government will offer an array of incentives and promote setting up of charging infrastructure in both residential and non-residential areas.
Kailash Gahlot, Transport Minister of Delhi says that about 3% of Particulate Matter pollution during the Delhi winters is caused by vehicles and switching to zero-emission EVs will reduce the Delhi air-pollution drastically. The policy further proposes a complete waiver of road tax, registration fee and parking charges for all-electric vehicles till 2023.
To develop charging infrastructure for electric vehicles in Delhi, the government plans to have charging points at every 3 kilometres and the draft policy also offers a subsidy of 100% (up to Rs 30,000) to set up charging points (for the first 10,000 points) in Delhi. Building laws for both upcoming building and existing building in Delhi will be amended to ensure it has EV charging infrastructure and a special tariff for electricity used by EVs.
To provide subsidies, the government plans to create a corpus of funds to provide incentivise to every segment which will be in addition to FAME scheme being offered by the central government. The draft policy also suggests an additional fee on non-electric vehicles to fund the bulk of corpus to give more subsidy to EV users. The transport minister has assured of inducting at least 500 electric buses in Delhi in 2019.
Cab aggregators like Ola and Uber will be encouraged to use electric taxis and electric autos by a ‘cash back; offer and rebates for first mile and last mile trips from metro stations. This will reduce the cost of travel by 20% says the government.
Get live Stock Prices from BSE, NSE, US Market and latest NAV, portfolio of Mutual Funds, calculate your tax by Income Tax Calculator, know market’s Top Gainers, Top Losers & Best Equity Funds. Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. | 2,640 |
TORONTO – According to reports, Stephanie McGrath’s laptop simply can’t keep up with her late nights, most often consisting of google searches such as “Tilda Swinton how old” and Buzzfeed quizzes to find out which type of mustard she is.
“I would perhaps be more understanding if she was burning the midnight oil finishing an assignment” stated the Macbook. “But she’s usually just watching compilations of dogs welcoming soldiers home or her middle school enemy’s wedding video.”
“Doesn’t she know I need 6-8 hours of sleep a night?”
McGrath’s 2012 MacBook Pro voiced its bitterness for McGrath’s 3am nights today, following years of senseless late hours of youtube spirals watching things like Dr. Pimple Popper videos or Bette Midler’s 1976 Live at Last Tour.
The MacBook went on to say, “I’m not as young as I used to be, the life-span of a laptop is generally 6-8 years and I’m hitting my sundown phase. I just don’t have the stamina, or the battery life, for that matter, to handle these constant late nights refreshing the same three social apps over and over. Plus I’m slowed by thousands of pictures of her weird cat and the entire Black Keys discography, which I know she’ll never listen to again. ”
“I even called in a favour with Netflix,” stated the laptop who asked the streaming service to prematurely interrupt her viewing with the, “Are you still watching?” prompt, just to get her to consider falling asleep. Unfortunately, McGrath clicked yes and powered on.
McGraths laptop was under the impression that it would be spending its retirement years growing old with its viruses and maybe being used to store old porn, not listening to McGrath state, “Just one more video, then I’ll go to bed” over and over into the wee hours of the night.
According to the MacBook, its hours are so long it often gets piping hot and it whirs loudly in protest but McGrath ignores these signs of overuse and continues mindlessly googling, “Tilda Swinton location?” and “Avril Lavigne conspiracy theory 2019.”
At press time, McGrath was thinking about getting a new MacBook in order to increase her productivity. | 2,641 |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican and Democratic lawmakers on Thursday discussed ways to prevent drugmakers from using rules developed to safeguard patients to instead block the sale of cheaper medicines.
The focus at a hearing, held by members of the House Judiciary Committee’s antitrust subcommittee, was on the use by some brand name drug companies of a Food and Drug Administration program, called “Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategies” or REMS, to protect their pharmaceuticals from generic competition.
Under the FDA program, generic companies often must buy samples of a drug they want to copy from the brand name company that makes the drug, rather than a wholesaler.
Drugmakers have been accused of refusing to make such sales, and the House and Senate are both considering legislation that would allow generic drug companies to sue to demand samples.
The legislation under consideration would also provide for damages for generic companies denied access to brand name drugs.
Lawmakers from both parties expressed discomfort with the practice of blocking cheaper drugs from getting to market. Representative John Conyers, the Judiciary Committee’s top Democrat, asked how he could help to stop it.
High and rising drug prices have proved a pain point for many voters, particularly those without insurance or on tight budgets. Drug companies argue that they need the high prices to fund multibillion-dollar research to discover the next life-saving medicine.
Republican Bob Goodlatte, the Judiciary Committee’s chairman, noted voter concerns about the high price of some medicines.
“While it is imperative that the U.S. continue to remain the world leader and innovator in the pharmaceutical market, it is important that... antitrust concerns be given significant deliberation,” he said.
Scott Gottlieb, an FDA commissioner, testified that drug companies sometimes “game” the government system.
Markus Meier, acting head of competition for the Federal Trade Commission, said any delay in the rollout of generic drugs has clear consequences.
“When drug companies can succeed in delaying generic entry, American consumers will pay higher prices for prescription drugs,” he said.
Under the FDA’s REMS program, 71 drugs are covered by varying levels of protection. In some of the most strict cases, the drugs can only be given to a patient on a registry or dispensed in a particular healthcare setting, like a clinic.
Drugs with REMS include Indivior’s Suboxone, Sanofi Genzyme’s Lemtrada and Danco Laboratories’ Mifeprex. | 2,642 |
“Restoration for Shea’s Seneca included apartments, and spaces for banquets and retail, which meant new electricity requirements, which often are necessary when older buildings are updated,” said National Grid regional director Ken Kujawa. “We often partner with customers and introduce our grant programs, which can play a role in making a vision for an adaptive reuse project such as this a reality.”
Currently, the commercial spaces at Shea’s Seneca are fully occupied by Shea’s Seneca Banquets & Catering, April Spencer Floral Design, Bottle Rocket Beer Reserve, and Cantina 62. The fifth and final commercial tenant, Public Espresso + Coffee. All of the these new tenants are helping to create a major buzz on Seneca Street, in a commercial district that has seen much disinvestment in the past.
The new marquee is a historical replica of the original that graced the main entrance of Michael Shea’s former movie house for decades. The replica was built by Buffalo’s own Flexlume Sign Company, the same company that built the original back in the 1920s.
The new café element is the icing on the cake, and the newly restored marquees acts as the brilliantly lit candles. Public’s owners James Rayburg and Sam Scarcello. Both Rayburg and Scarcello grew up in South Buffalo, so this opening marks a wonderful return for the two entrepreneurs. Actually, the business partners have been setting up at the South Buffalo Farmer’s market down the street in Cazenovia Park for the last few years. That experience is one of the triggers that led to investing in their latest retail adventure.
“I recall walking into the very storefront Public Espresso now occupies with my Mom when it was a Five & Dime years ago to pick up back to school supplies,” said Rayburg. “Being able to give back to the neighborhood and be part of Seneca Street’s renaissance is something that is close to both our hearts. We grew up here, our families still live in South Buffalo, and it’s what drew us to this transformative project.”
“The restoration of this building was a group effort and the list of those who contributed is long,” explained Schneider. “National Grid deserves special mention because the marquee is such an important symbol to the Seneca Street commercial corridor. Its return to Shea’s would not have happened without the National Grid Main Street grant. It’s that simple.” | 2,643 |
per second is no longer a Minority Report style dystopia — it’s already here.
And let’s look at it another way. Factoring in inflation, the ASCI Red cost around $70m. That amount of cash today would buy us about 117,000 TX2s. That would get us to 175,000 teraFLOPS (or 175 petaFLOPS, or one hundred and seventy five thousand million million floating-point operations per second) in potential processing.
This isn’t even Nvidia’s top of the line processor — Nvidia recently launched a new desktop graphics processor designed for the computer sitting in your office or living room. This graphics processor — the Titan Xp — can reach 12 teraFLOPS — and costs just $1,200.
There is an important proviso when looking at supercomputers and teraFLOPS. Computers are usually only as fast as their slowest bottleneck — so comparisons between computers based solely on operations per second — can be misleading.
‘Normal’ supercomputers require vast amounts of memory and storage to go with their processing abilities in order to ease bottlenecks on the processing of huge amounts of information. Clearly, newer designs such as the Jetson TX2 have very small amounts of memory and storage — while having extremely small and efficient processors.
But it is important to consider just how far processors have come in the past 20 years — and the comparison stands for just how far we have come in fitting more processing power on to ever smaller chips.
But let’s take this a step further — as a thought exercise.
Two things are likely to happen in the coming years. One is the increased use of solar energy combined with battery storage — which is being pursued by several companies. The second is the continued speed and efficiency of processors, combined with cost reductions in memory.
This is leading to the what is called ‘edge’ computing, or what could also be called the inverse of ‘cloud’ computing. Instead of centralised processing in big data centers, things may shift to millions of smaller devices (hopefully secured), which are powered by a growing distributed power and energy storage network.
Distributed power generation and storage — combined with distributed data processing — could radically change our understanding of cost. Or a supercomputer could be running in your home or in your hand for a very low (or maybe no) operating cost.
What happens to society when massive compute power is approaching free? That is the question for the next decade. | 2,644 |
Pope Francis met on Monday the grand imam of Egypt's highest Islamic authority, Al-Azhar, looking to heal Vatican relations with the influential center of Sunni Muslim learning after dialogue was frozen five years ago.
The 1,000-year-old mosque and university center cut contacts with the Vatican in 2011 over what it said were repeated insults toward Islam from Francis's predecessor, Pope Benedict.
MAX ROSSI via Getty Images Pope Francis talks with Egyptian Grand Imam of al-Azhar Mosque Sheikh Ahmed Mohamed al-Tayeb during a private audience at the Vatican on May 23, 2016.
The decision came just days after Benedict denounced what he called "a strategy of violence that has Christians as a target" following a bomb attack outside a church in the Egyptian city of Alexandria that killed 23 people.
Since his election in 2013, Francis has put great emphasis on improving interfaith relations and smiled warmly as he greeted Egypt’s top cleric, Ahmed al-Tayeb.
"The message is the meeting," the pope told reporters.
MAX ROSSI via Getty Images Pope Francis met the Grand Imam of Cairo's Al-Azhar Mosque at the Vatican on Monday in a historic encounter that was sealed with a hugely symbolic hug and exchange of kisses.
In a subsequent statement, the Vatican said the two men had discussed the problems of violence and terrorism, and the situation of Christians in the Middle East, including how best to protect them.
Pope Francis last year urged an end to what he called a genocide against Christians in the Middle East, but he has also said it is wrong to equate Islam with violence.
In an interview last week, he said "the idea of conquest is inherent to the soul of Islam" but added that Christianity had the same missionary goal in its "Great Commission" where Jesus told his apostles to "go and make disciples of all nations".
Looking to set an example for Europe, Francis has taken in Muslim refugees fleeing the war in Syria. Last week he criticized Western powers for trying to export their own brand of democracy to the Middle East and Africa without respecting indigenous political cultures.
Christians, mostly Orthodox Copts, account for about 10 percent of Egypt's population, which is overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim.
Sectarian violence sometimes erupts over disputes on issues related to church building, religious conversions and interfaith relationships.
The Al-Azhar university has some 450,000 students, many from countries across Asia and Africa. It also has a network of more than 9,000 schools across Egypt attended by more than 2 million students. | 2,645 |
. Recent study has emphasized the accessibility of ancient Greek law to ordinary Greeks.[6] While procedures of legislating and appealing were formally accessible to the citizens of Locris, Locrians could use those institutions only at the risk of their necks. Civic institutions that appeared to be accessible seem to have been more valued than civic institutions that were actually accessible. At least in Locris, constructing the republic was as much a matter of making good poetry as it was building a sturdy house.
* * * * *
Notes:
[1] From Demosthenes’ court speech, Against Timocrates (delivered in Athens, 353 B.G.C.) p. 37. Epizephyrian Locris, to which Demosthenes probably refers, was a colony that the Locrians, a Greek tribe, founded about 680 B.G.C. on the coast of Italy.
[2] Id. Josiah Ober, “Law and Political Theory,” in Gagarin, Michael, and David Cohen (2005), The Cambridge companion to ancient Greek law (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) pp. 408-10 considers Demosthenes’ Locrian example. Id. p. 409 states: “The theoretical premise behind Locrian lawmaking procedure is a settled preference for established law and a suspicion that, absent grave risk, would-be lawmakers will seek to benefit themselves rather than the community at large.” The second part of that statement seems to me to be a significant misinterpretation of the Locrian example. A one-eyed man getting a law passed about knocking out the eye of a one-eyed man is surely special-interest legislation. See above.
[3] Polybius, Histories, 12.16, probably written about 140 B.G.C. Zaleucus was a celebrated, archaic-era law-giver for the Epizephyrian Locrians.
[3] Socrates, in Plato, Timaeus, 20a.
[4] Strabo, Geography, 6.1. Zaleucus thus anticipated the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines. The Guidelines reduced federal judges’ sentencing discretion and increased the plea-bargaining power of prosecutors. The Guidelines were overturned in United States v. Booker, 543 U.S. 220 (2005).
[5] Diodorus Siculus, Library, 12.21.
[6] See Gagarin, Michael. 2008. Writing Greek Law. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. | 2,646 |
Our Story
It started when my niece was diagnosed with dengue (There was a dengue outbreak in our country: https://www.aljazeera.com/amp/news/2019/09/philipp...) so severe she had to stay in the hospital for two weeks (mostly inside ICU). Our family had to exhaust all our savings and still wasn't enough and it was very unfortunate that she did not have health plans or insurance (We've been declined financial assistance from government as well, and we didn't know why).
She's recovered well now but the amount of debts we incurred have gone off charts. This all happened after I lost my job and until now, couldn't land one, I had to live with my parents again and even stop paying my insurance. My sister and brother-in-law both work to provide for their family. My father (who still had to work despite his age) earns barely enough for our monthly bills and our debts are still piling with interests and penalties. Even our relatives have sent help and still wasn't enough.
Though still on-going job hunt, I find time to earn a little on the side just to help ease our life, but these debts are getting us nowhere. Not even banks would approve loans or debt relief. So, I decided to make this campaign.
This favor would mean a lot for our family as we've been struggling so much and I couldn't help but cry over the fact that I couldn't do much about it. Your help, no matter how big or small, is greatly appreciated.
How will the fund be used?
Every penny will solely be used to pay the medical bills. And since time isn't on our side, each time a help arrives, we tried to clear as much as we could. So, I will be posting the bills to give updates from time to time to prove that your trust in us is highly regarded.
My advocacy
It's my dream to be able to help others but as I am now, it's sad that I am the one in need of help. I have been involved in several charity missions and have participated in lots of fundraising events before, but I never imagined that I'll be doing this for my family as well. I had to accept that these things really do happen. Surely, I will not stop doing these things to help others despite our circumstances to repay all the kindness I have received or will receive in the future.
A little penny or a share is already a big help. Thank you so much for your support!
| 2,647 |
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Have any such brain differences been found?
Not convincingly. More than 100 scientific reports and surveys have studied screen habits and well-being in young people, looking for emotional and behavioral differences, as well as changes in attitude, such as in body image. In 2014, scientists from Queen’s University Belfast reviewed 43 of the best designed such studies. The studies found that social networking allows people to broaden their circle of social contacts in ways that could be both good and bad, for instance by exposing young people to abusive content. The review’s authors concluded that there was “an absence of robust causal research regarding the impact of social media on the mental well-being of young people.” In short: results have been mixed, and sometimes contradictory.
Psychologists have also examined whether playing violent video games is connected to aggressive behavior. More than 200 such studies have been carried out; some researchers found links, others have not. One challenge in studying this and other aspects of screen time is identifying the direction of causality: Do children who play a lot of violent video games become more aggressive as a result, or were they drawn to such content because they were more aggressive from the start?
Even if scientists found strong evidence of a single, measurable effect — if, say, three hours of daily screen time was associated with a heightened risk of being diagnosed with A.D.H.D. — such a clear association wouldn’t necessarily suggest there were any consistent, measurable differences in brain structure.
Individual variation is the rule in brain development. The size of specific brain regions such as the prefrontal cortex, the rate at which those regions edit and consolidate their networks, and the variations in these parameters from person to person make it very difficult to interpret findings. To address such obstacles, scientists need huge numbers of research subjects and a far better understanding of the brain.
Isn’t that what the N.I.H. study aims to address?
Yes. The ongoing A.B.C.D. study expects to follow 11,800 children through adolescence, with annual magnetic resonance imaging, to see if changes in the brain are linked to behavior or health. The study began in 2013, recruiting 21 academic research centers, and initially focused on the effects of drug and alcohol use on the adolescent brain. Since then, the project has expanded, and now includes other targets such as the effects of brain injury, screen time, genetics, and an array of “other environmental factors.” | 2,648 |
The White House on Friday defended physician Ronny Jackson from attacks coming from the left, releasing records that dispute allegations of wrongdoing against him.
The defense follows the White House physician's decision to withdrew his nomination to lead the Department of Veterans Affairs. The White House said the records raise doubt about unsubstantiated claims from some Democratic lawmakers, who cited interviews with anonymous current and former colleagues on Jackson, that the White House physician overprescribed prescription medications, drank alcohol while on duty, and was involved in a car accident that might have involved alcohol, the Associated Press reported.
The records, including police reports, show Jackson was in three minor vehicle incidents in government vehicles during the last five years, but none involved the use of alcohol and he was not found to be at fault. In one case, a side-view mirror was clipped by a passing truck. In another incident an enraged driver in Montgomery County, Maryland, allegedly punched out Jackson's window during a morning drive to Camp David. The White House medical unit that Jackson ran successfully passed regular controlled substance audits, according to the records for the last three years. The reviews did recommend improvements to the medical unit's handling of controlled substances, but did not find misconduct. […] Separately, the Secret Service said it has no evidence to support an allegation that its personnel intervened to prevent Jackson from disturbing former President Barack Obama during a foreign trip in 2015. In a statement dated Thursday, the Secret Service said it had conducted a "thorough review" of internal documents related to Obama's foreign trips in 2015 and interviewed people who were present. The agency said it has found "no information that would indicate the allegation is accurate" and no record of any incident involving Jackson. CNN had reported allegations that Jackson drunkenly banged on the hotel room door of a female employee and that Secret Service personnel intervened out of concern that he would wake Obama.
The information that Jackson successfully passed regular controlled substance audits directly challenges Sen. Jon Tester's (D., Mont.) assertion that Jackson was known as the "candy man" inside the White House. Tester's office led the charge in collecting the allegations against the former VA secretary nominee.
Tester spokeswoman Marmee Banks said there would be no comment until the office knew more about the White House records.
On "Fox & Friends" Thursday, President Donald Trump defended Jackson at length, calling him an "incredible man" and said the allegations were "completely false and fabricated."
Trump also called out Tester for airing the allegations and said, "I think Jon Tester has to have a big price to pay in Montana." | 2,649 |
The SNP has apologised after a "clerical error" meant it reportedly sent out thousands of European election letters without the right names on them.
Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie got a direct mailshot addressed to "Edna", while Scottish Labour health spokesman Monica Lennon wanted to know who "George Mackie" who lived in her house was.
There are also reports of one woman in the Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk constituency getting 30 letters posted to her, but not one with the right name on it.
First Minister Nicola Sturgeon's SNP said "some" of the 400,000 letters sent had the wrong name on them.
Mr Rennie joked: "I will insist that @NicolaSturgeon addresses me as Edna in the @ScotParl."
I will insist that @NicolaSturgeon addresses me as Edna in the @ScotParl pic.twitter.com/jF8ELJrBcd — Willie Rennie (@willie_rennie) May 10, 2019
Ms Lennon asked: "Who is George Mackie and why does @NicolaSturgeon think he lives in my house?"
Opposition members raised concerns of a data breach, but the SNP said it was a clerical error, and there was no issue of any data or identity theft.
Scottish Conservative MSP Murdo Fraser said: "The SNP has become so incompetent it can't even carry out a simple mailing exercise."
Who is George Mackie and why does @NicolaSturgeon think he lives in my house? pic.twitter.com/vkUTt6RcPp — Monica Lennon (@MonicaLennon7) May 10, 2019
He added: "This wasn't just inconvenient and confusing for tens of thousands of householders.
"It's a very serious data breach, and one that could land the party in all kinds of trouble.
"The SNP should apologise immediately, and refer itself to the Information Commissioner."
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An SNP spokesman said: "On Thursday mail arrived with some electors that had the wrong addressee name on the letter.
"A clerical error has been identified in our office. We have been in touch with the ICO, but there is no ongoing issue with the integrity and security of data or any issue of identity theft.
"We wish to apologise to the electors affected." | 2,650 |
The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has responded to Telegram’s counterclaim, insistence that Grams are securities.
Preventing Telegram from additive violation
Following Telegram’s counterclaim on Oct. 16, the place the agency argued that its native crypto isn’t a safety and the preliminary cease and desist order must be denied, the SEC has responded with a brand new submitting inside the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York on Oct. 17.
In the doc, the governor not alone insists that Telegram has truly profaned the U.S. securities legal guidelines but additionally argues {that a} preliminary cease and desist order must be granted to forestall Telegram from additive violation, stressing that the corporate is prone to violate the regulation once more.
The SEC distinct that Telegram’s proposal to disclaim the cease and desist order will permit them to proceed to interact in offending conduct after 5 months, and put the burden on the governor to hunt one other short-term restraining order (TRO) from the court.
The securities’ governor states that it’s a rare non-justified request that power represent a waste of judicial and public assets and thus must be denied.
According to a TRO filed on Oct. 11, Telegram must be at a court hearing to in New York on Oct. 24.
Grams’ standing after TON launch doesn’t matter
In the submitting, the SEC reiterated that Telegram has profaned the securities legal guidelines by promoting Grams, that are “securities” beneath the Securities Act, to sure traders, together with consumers inside the U.S., with none in question exemption from registration.
The governor then refuted Telegram’s declare that Grams will only be a forex or good after the launch of the Telegram Open Network (TON), arguing:
“Defendants’ Opposition to this showing rests entirely on the conclusory allegation that ‘Grams will only be a currency or good’ and therefore not a security ‘once the TON Blockchain launches.’ […] whatever Grams were in 2019 or what they will be whenever Defendants decide to distribute them, Telegram’s mere assertion that Grams ‘will … be’ a ‘currency’ does nothing to cure the preceding violation of law.”
Yesterday, Cointelegraph conspicuous an deep report on Telegram’s case, offering key occasions and points crosswise the TON community and Grams. | 2,651 |
.
There is apparently a.NET-based implementation of at least part of the theory, called Alchemi, which reached 1.0 in December 2005.
Web-Facing Service-Oriented Grids · Of course, multitudes of people do grid computing every day, when they search at Yahoo! or Google, or shop at Amazon, or use any of a huge number of Web-facing services. Most of which are implemented as grids; it’s the only practical way to deal with Web-scale traffic.
The trouble is that these guys all build their infrastructure themselves, by hand, down to the metal. None of them are in the business of offering general-purpose grid infrastructure that you can use to run your programs on your computers, or even on theirs.
So let’s revisit that table above, adding “Infrastructure” to the title and removing all the entries that aren’t in the you-can-use-it infrastructure business:
The Grid Infrastructure Landscape Today Futures Batch MPI, MapReduce, SGE, DRMAA Service-Oriented Globus Rio, Gridbus
Conclusion · There are a lot of options out there; this article has reviewed the ones that I turned up when I was looking for something to use myself.
Unfortunately, I decided that none of them really met my needs. My problem is that I’ve been a Unix guy for twenty years and a Web guy for ten. My feeling is that if something says it’s a service, the right way to talk to it is to get a hostname/port-number combination, call it up, send a request, and wait for a response. My feeling is that a good way to have processes work together is for them to exchange streams of text using standard input and standard output. My feeling is that if I’m going to be stressing out the performance of an app on a grid, I don’t want too many layers of abstraction between me and the messages. My feeling is that server failures are going to have to be handled in an application-specific way, not pushed down into the abstraction layer.
So I ended up writing my own piece of service-oriented grid infrastructure, named Sigrid, which isn’t like any of the other things in this essay. I’ll write that up here soon.
But I’m 100% sure that there are lots of problems out there where one of the alternatives described here will do just what you want. | 2,652 |
Before a Veiled Rhea
The small moon Mimas passes in front of the larger moon Rhea, which is partly obscured by Saturn's rings, in this movie from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft.
Observations of mutual moon-crossing events, in which one moon passes close to or in front of another, help scientists refine their understanding of the orbits of Saturn's moons. This movie is a concatenation of 10 still images obtained over a span of about 6 minutes. The images were re-projected to a uniform view and computer interpolation was used to smooth the moons' motions between the frames.
In this video, Mimas (396 kilometers, 246 miles across) moves in front of the rings. Rhea (1,528 kilometers, 949 miles across) reveals the delicate separations within the rings as the thin line of the F ring appears before the backdrop of the mid-southern latitudes of the moon. Mimas travels at an average speed of 14 kilometers per second (31,000 mph). Rhea's average speed is about 8 kilometers per second (18,000 mph).
(For other movies like this one, see PIA11692 and PIA11693.)
In this view Rhea, at a distance of approximately 2.7 million kilometers (1.7 million miles), is farther from Cassini than Mimas. Mimas is closer to the spacecraft at a distance of approximately 2 million kilometers (1.2 million miles).
This view looks toward the northern, sunlit side of the rings from just above the ring plane.
The images were taken in visible light with Cassini’s narrow-angle camera on Oct. 19, 2009. The view was obtained at a Sun-Mimas-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 95 degrees. Scale on Mimas is 12 kilometers (7 miles) per pixel.
The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging team is based at the Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colo.
For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov. The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org. | 2,653 |
The global provider of money transfer services, SWIFT, has warned that a second case of a targeted malware attack, similar to February’s $81 million breach at the Bangladesh central bank, has affected at least one other financial institution.
Without naming the new targets, the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) said that intruders managed to bypass risk controls potentially exposing the system to the possibility of illegal money transfers.
Read more
The “attackers clearly exhibit a deep and sophisticated knowledge of specific operational controls within the targeted banks – knowledge that may have been gained from malicious insiders or cyber attacks, or a combination of both,” the statement reads according to Financial Times.
While warning that the incident is part of a “wider and highly adaptive campaign targeting banks”, the Belgian company said that the “security and integrity of our messaging services are not in question as a result of the incidents.” Furthermore, the payment provider urged its clients to “urgently review controls in their payments environments, to all their messaging, payments and e-banking channels.”
SWIFT’s messaging services are used by about 11,000 financial institutions across more than 200 countries. The network processed 25.6 billion financial transfers in 2014.
In February’s heist, attackers attempted to transfer nearly $1 billion out of Bangladesh Bank’s account at the US Federal Reserve in New York but ultimately were able to move $81 million. It is believed that the attackers obtained valid computer credentials for operators to authorize, create and approve SWIFT messages, and then submitted fraudulent messages by impersonating those people.
On Thursday chief executive Gottfried Leibbrandt made it clear that the SWIFT payment network had not been hacked during February’s theft, after BAE researchers said in April that they had detected malware cybercriminals had used to manipulate SWIFT software.
“At the end of the day we weren’t breached, it was from our perspective a customer fraud,” Leibbrandt said. “I don’t think it was the first, I don’t think it will be the last.”
Earlier this month, SWIFT made clear to institutions that use their services that they were responsible for securing their own computers used to send messages over its network. In late April, SWIFT released a security update for the software that 11,000 financial institutions have been using to access its network, and has told customers the update should be installed by May 12. | 2,654 |
By Jon Herskovitz
AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) - Two major media firms threatened on Tuesday to pull out of South by Southwest (SXSW) after organizers of the major tech event in Austin canceled sessions about video gaming culture, including one on harassment, after receiving threats of violence.
Vox Media and BuzzFeed said by dropping the sessions at its gathering in March 2016, the organizers of SXSW Interactive are dodging their responsibilities to tackle a major issue that is engulfing gaming culture.
"By canceling the panels, they have cut off an opportunity to discuss a real and urgent problem in media and technology today," Vox Media said in a statement. Vox Media's CEO was set to be a featured speaker at SXSW, it said.
The industry has become embroiled in a movement that has come to be known as "Gamergate" in which self-described video game fans have lashed back aggressively online at criticism about sexism in gaming culture. The movement came into general public view more than a year ago.
On Monday, the head of the Interactive section of SXSW said that due to threats, it was cancelling the two sessions titled "SavePoint: A Discussion on the Gaming Community" and "Level Up: Overcoming Harassment in Games."
"In the seven days since announcing these two sessions, SXSW has received numerous threats of on-site violence related to this programing," Hugh Forrest, the SXSW Interactive director, said in a blog post.
The Interactive portion of South by Southwest, typically held in March, is one of the major annual events in the technology industry.
"If people cannot agree, disagree and embrace new ways of thinking in a safe and secure place that is free of online and offline harassment, then this marketplace of ideas is inevitably compromised," Forrest said in the post.
BuzzFeed sent a letter to SXSW organizers telling them the panels are taking on subjects that need to be addressed and it would withdraw from the conference if organizers do not reverse their decision.
Story continues
"We hope you can support the principle of free speech and engage a vital issue facing us and other constituents on the event," top BuzzFeed executives said in the letter.
The panel on harassment was scheduled to include several women who have been targets of the Gamergate movement, the letter said. BuzzFeed staff members are scheduled to speak or moderate on a half dozen panels at SXSW next year, it said.
(Reporting by Jon Herskovitz; Additional story by Lisa Maria Garza in Dallas; Editing by Mohammad Zargham and Eric Walsh) | 2,655 |
Lawyers for Senator Patrick Brazeau asked the Crown Friday for more information in his assault and sexual assault case and later told reporters Brazeau was "adamant" he would return to his job.
Hours later, a tweet posted on Brazeau's Twitter account vowed the senator would prove his innoncence.
"I will fight these charges against me to prove my innocence. I shall return!" the tweet to an account named TheBrazman said.
Gérard Larocque and Michel Swanston, Brazeau's lawyers, appeared on his behalf in a Gatineau, Que., court Friday morning. Brazeau was not required to attend, and the case was put off until June 10.
Brazeau was charged Feb. 8 with assault and sexual assault, one day after he was arrested in a Gatineau home. Friday was his next scheduled court appearance.
Brazeau has pleaded not guilty to the charges.
It's not unusual for cases to face delays during preliminary proceedings.
Crown prosecutor Sylvain Petitclerc said he doesn't know what other information the lawyers could need.
"I have no idea for the moment what could be missing in their eyes. It's a slightly ambiguous situation on the part of Maître Swanston and Maître Larocque," he told reporters at the courthouse.
'Contest vigorously'
Petitclerc says the police report and complainant's statement were provided to the defence on Feb. 12. The name of the complainant cannot be disclosed under the terms of a court-ordered publication ban.
"They've not even told me what they're asking for. They will think about it and they will send me a letter in a few days," Petitclerc said, adding that it's not unusual for the defence to say the evidence isn't complete in their eyes.
"It's a possibility," that the defence is trying to buy time, he said.
Swanston made a brief statement in French and in English, telling reporters he won't argue the case in the media.
"[We] are appalled by the fact that a version of facts is already circulating and that [it's happening] before the trial has commenced," he said.
"As to Senateur Brazeau, he is weathering this storm with his family and would appreciate that we respect his privacy during this instance. He is adamant to return to his functions after this situation has passed to represent the interests of Canadian citizens before the Canadian Senate." | 2,656 |
Austria is seeking the backing of Germany to impose more controls along its borders with Croatia and Slovenia, in the latest move to tear up the Schengen agreement on a borderless Europe amid the refugee crisis.
Austria has been overwhelmed by refugees flooding through from Hungary, Slovakia and Slovenia — all making for Germany, where Chancellor Angela Merkel famously declared its door open to refugees, precipitating the refugee crisis.
Vienna has been under more pressure, since Germany imposed controls along its border with Austria, sending more refugees back into the country, following protests from the President-Minister of Bavaria, Horst Seehofer, who said the southern German state could not cope with the influx.
Austria is seeking the support of Germany to send its own police into Slovenia and Croatia in an effort to check the flow of refugees arriving in Austria. According to Der Spiegel, the governments in Vienna, Ljubljana and Zagreb are in talks over the possible deployment of Austrian police on the Slovenian or Croatian border.
In particular, the governments are aiming to put more resources into checking for false documents — an issue that has gained importance following the November 13 Paris attacks, which exposed the ease with which the attackers were able to travel freely around Europe without being identified.
© AP Photo / Ronald Zak Austrian soldiers stand next to rolls of fence at the border between Slovenian and Austria in Spielfeld, Austria
Austrian Interior Minister Johanna Mikl-Leitner said she predicts other countries will follow.
"There is a domino effect from the north to the south. This is a good thing. We need a thrust reverser and must set the limits of refugees," she said.
Bordering on Chaos
Greece, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Hungary, Slovenia, Austria, Sweden, Denmark, Italy, Finland Austria and Germany itself have all imposed some form of border control — ranging from simply document checks to razor wire fences.
Austria's latest move — and, in particular, it's plea for German support — is further evidence that one of the core principles of the European union — a borderless Europe — lies in tatters and that the refugee crisis — which began with Merkel opening its doors — is now out of control.
Merkel admitted this week that Europe was now "vulnerable" because it does not have the "order or control" of the situation. She warned that the euro single currency was "directly linked" to freedom of movement in Europe and if countries continued shutting their borders, the European single market would "suffer acutely." | 2,657 |
Clowns, rejoice: The plush schnozz is about to become Hollywood's fashion accessory of choice.
May 21 marks America's first "Red Nose Day," a live-entertainment event that recruits famous faces for a night of foolery and fundraising. Originating in the U.K., the annual escapade has raised more than $1 billion for charity over the last 30 years. NBC will air the first stateside "Red Nose Day," a three-hour circus of musical performances, sketch comedy, and new videos produced by Funny or Die. The shorts are often high-caliber wish fulfillment; March's U.K. show saw a James Bond-themed short film that paired Daniel Craig with Roger Moore.
Who should you expect at the show? Esquire can exclusively announce that Benedict Cumberbatch, Sir Ian McKellen, and Orlando Bloom will be on hand, lending acting services to whatever hair-brained schemes Funny or Die has cooking. Just because "Red Nose Day" is jumping the Atlantic doesn't mean the British aren't coming with.
Joining the trio on "Red Nose Day" are the previously announced Will Ferrell, Jack Black, John Krasinski, Emily Blunt, Michelle Rodriguez, Gwyneth Paltrow, Sam Smith, John Legend, Matt Lauer, Carson Daly, Bill and Melinda Gates, Nick Offerman, Elizabeth Banks, Chris Pine, Jeff Goldblum, Billy Eichner, Martin Short, Laura Linney, Anna Kendrick, and Sean "P. Diddy" Combs.
Dollars earned from the "Red Nose Day" event will benefit 12 charity organizations that lift children and young people out of poverty, in the U.S. and throughout the world. Those interested in donating can pick up a red nose at a local Walgreens or Duane Reade store, or if you're one of the aforementioned clowns that already wears one (we get it, you're so cool, clown), NBC will offer plenty of ways to donate throughout the live-show.
Here's William Shatner explaining more:
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Matt Patches Senior Writer Patches is a Senior Writer at Esquire.com.
This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io | 2,658 |
on television. “In the spring of 1971, I met a girl,” he said, launching into his personal history alongside his wife’s incredible, history-making journey. Even if his speech felt tedious at points, it showed off how at ease he is in that forum.
Hillary Clinton — known to be more comfortable rattling off long lists of policy proposals than showing any sense of connection with a large audience from behind a podium — doesn’t give many emotional speeches. She is known to resist being viewed as a symbol and strips out paragraphs written by her speechwriters that she views as overly passionate for her Methodist sensibilities. Veteran aides also complain that the Clinton speechwriting process — which involves sharing a draft of a speech with a small Manhattan Project of consultants and outside advisers — sometimes has the effect of dulling any magic.
The most remarkable speeches of her campaign have been about issues, such as when she has addressed the country’s problem with systemic racism — not about herself. She has incorporated into her biggest addresses stories about the inspiration she took from her mother’s hard life and fortitude — but she still doesn’t often open up to give voters an un-canned sense of who she is.
Even the speech she delivered in Brooklyn on June 7, the night she clinched the Democratic nomination, was not deeply personal: The focus of the evening instead was on the long line of feminists who came before her and helped lead to the moment.
Few expect her to reach Bill Clinton levels of intimacy and comfort on the stage, but “the closer she could come to that the better,” Axelrod said. “It would be surprising and relieving to people who are used to her filtering stuff through a more political lens.”
For Clinton, who says on the campaign trail that she’s not a natural at politicking but will be expert at governing, the emotional, personal speech is the hardest piece of all. It’s exactly what she has recognized as a weakness since she ditched the role of political spouse and launched a political career of her own.
On the day she announced her run for New York Senate in 2000, from the porch of Daniel Moynihan’s farm, she realized with a thud that politicking did not come as naturally to her as it did to the man she had stood next to and learned from. On a phone call that night with White House adviser Harold Ickes, she sighed and admitted: “I never knew how easy Bill made this look.”
| 2,659 |
“It’s insane and has been driving everybody nuts for years,” said one student from a top 20 law school who had three interviews in New York that day, and three others across the Midwest this week. “But I don’t really see any way to fix it.”
Students are willing to jump through the hoops because the jobs are so precious. A clerkship is possibly a prerequisite for one’s own judgeship someday and a ticket to a higher salary at a white-shoe law firm. And while the process has always been competitive, it has become more frenzied in the last few years as law firm jobs have dried up and young lawyers have sought shelter in the public sector.
Clerkships traditionally go to third-year law students, but now more graduates are also competing for (and getting) these positions. The recruiting restrictions officially apply only to current students, so judges can hire graduates whenever they want without being accused of cheating.
Last year 382,828 applications were filed electronically for clerkships with 874 presidentially appointed federal judges, each of whom typically hires one to three clerks each year. (Some applications were submitted in hard copy only, but those numbers are not tracked.)
Given the abundance of candidates, it might seem strange that judges compete so intensely for interviews. Federal judges, though, are frequently fighting over a very small subset of law students from a few elite schools. After all, clerks are hired not only to research and write, but in some cases also to improve their bosses’ career prospects.
“There are some judges who like to position themselves as feeders to the Supreme Court, since that’s one way that a judge can make a reputation for him or herself,” said Joan Larsen, a faculty clerkship adviser at the University of Michigan Law School. “I have had a feeder judge say to me, ‘Yes, Joan, I’m sure he would be a great clerk, but I can’t send him upstairs.’ ” By 10 a.m. that Thursday, the official starting time for interviews, students were reduced to begging for positions in 2013. At least one judge was interviewing candidates for jobs in 2014.
No matter how far in advance an offer comes, schools pressure students to never, ever turn it down or even ask for time to consider it. Hesitating — let alone declining — is considered disrespectful, if not insulting, and can damage an entire law school’s reputation in the clerkship market. | 2,660 |
s wing. It’s no wonder that this is one of their best selling colors! I’ll definitely have to look into picking up some samples from them in the near future.
And here’s a familiar face! This little Matte Extended Wear lipstick sample didn’t come with a calling card or store label on the clam shell so I’d imagine that unless you’re familiar with Performance Colors, it might have been a bit of a mystery to try and figure out where this came from. I haven’t actually tried this on my lips, but I did review Performance Colors a little while back. If you’re interested in knowing how the product worked for me, have a peek at it! The nutshell version is that I found the formula a little dry on my desert-like lips, but I know a lot of people have had success with it so maybe it’s just me.
Performance Colors’ lippies are always beautifully pigmented and this one is no exception. I love the fun berry shade! Their products are really cost effective and the range of color options is huge so do check out this company if you get the chance to!
On the whole…
I am ecstatically happy with my first I+TA subscription and I cannot wait for next month’s package! I read on their Facebook page that September’s package may feature a collection of various I+TA products in lieu of the bonus samples which is pretty fine with me. I’m really excited to try their non-eye shadow products. I do hope that the bonus samples come back eventually, because it’s such a fun way to discover new companies.
Sample subscriptions are $12 for US subscribers and $16 for international subscribers (includes shipping). You will get:
3 deluxe sized samples that are exclusive ONLY to the subscriptions.
30% off coupon code
BONUS! Surprise items (Note that Sept 2014 may replace this with I+T products instead)
Full sized subscriptions are $18 for US subscribers and $22 for international subscribers (includes shipping). You will get:
3 full sized samples that are exclusive ONLY to the subscriptions.
35% off coupon code
BONUS! Surprise items (Note that Sept 2014 may replace this with I+T products instead)
Subscriptions will be available on the 1st of September and they sell out literally within minutes so be prepared to get your stalking game on!
Follow my blog with Bloglovin | 2,661 |
The Iberian ribbed newt defends itself by poisoning its own bones and shoving them through its skin. Humans took a look at it and decided that if any animal deserves to be an astronaut, this newt does.
Which is why the Iberian newt has been sent into space six times. Some of those times it was accompanied by humans, as it was on the Mir space station in the mid-1990s. Most of the time, however, it was thrown off of Earth with only animal companions. It was on the Kosmos satellite, along with rhesus monkeys and rats, all the way back in 1985. Most recently it went up in 2005 on the Foton-M, a spacecraft launched by the European Space Agency.
Will it eventually be going to Mars? That depends on what it can teach us. Iberian newts are studied for two qualities, their regeneration ability and their fertility. Any animal that shoves its bones through its own skin as its first line of defense has to have impressive healing properties. The earliest experiments looked at how newts regenerated limbs in space. The results were mostly lackluster — either there was no difference between limb regeneration times or very little — but one variation was interesting. When the newts had begun regenerating their limbs before they were sent into space, their 13-day spaceflight slowed down their healing process. Once they were back on the ground, though, the regeneration process sped past the progress of already grounded newts. Could we heal faster if we undertook a short trip in space? Maybe. If we were newts.
Iberian newts also went to space because of an odd quirk in their fertility. I'll let the paper describing the experiment explain it:
After mating (on Earth) the females retain live, functional sperm in their cloacum for up to five months, allowing normal in vivo fertilisation after hormonal stimulation.
How convenient! Astronauts spent time observing the development of the newly-conceived newts in microgravity, but the results were not promising. Many of the newts developed shrunken heads, or developed without heads at all. If they managed to grow normal heads, however, the baby newts grew normally, although the experiment didn't track them past the aquatic larval stage.
So what can the space newts teach us? Unfortunately, not how to make your own bones into space weapons, but there's always the next experiment.
[Via Pleurodeles Watl, Developmental Biology Research In Space]
Image: Peter Halasz. | 2,662 |
Assessing the effect of climate change on upwelling ecosystems is essential to be able to predict the future of marine resources. The zones concerned by this upwelling of cold deep water, which is very rich in nutrients, provide up to 20 % of global production of fish. Since the 1990s, the theory adopted by the majority of the scientific community affirmed that these phenomena were intensifying. The rising temperatures of the air masses above the continents were expected to quicken the trade winds, which would in turn increase the upwellings, thereby cooling the surface water. But this theory has been contradicted by the recent work of researchers from the IRD and its partners.
Coastal waters are getting considerably warmer
In their new study, led off the coast of North and West Africa, the scientists reviewed the wind measurements taken over the past 40 years and the data of the meteorological models along the Spanish and West African coastline, and discovered that they do not show an acceleration of the wind on a regional scale that would be likely to significantly cool the coastal waters. In fact, quite the opposite is true, since the satellite images and in situ measurements of the surface water temperature show a distinct upward trend in the temperature for the entire zone, at a rate of 1°C per century. These new findings contradict the hypothesis that the upwelling of the Canary Current is intensifying.
A reinterpretation of the paleoclimatic data
Until now, the study of this ecosystem focused primarily on paleoclimatic reconstructions based on samples of marine sediments. According to the geochemical analysis of these samples, planktonic organisms have evolved in an increasingly cold environment over the last few decades. This led scientists to conclude that the temperature of the surface water was dropping. But in view of the new findings, the oceanographers have put forward another explanation: the thermal signal deduced from the paleoclimatic data is due to a progressive migration of plankton towards the depths because, on the contrary, the surface water is getting warmer!
The reaction of the coastal ecosystems to climate change remains complex, because it depends greatly on local specificities -- other upwelling systems, such as that of the California Current, clearly show a trend of intensification and cooling of the water in recent decades. At the level of the ecosystem itself, the effects of the warming of the surface waters can be antagonistic: it can for example encourage the growth of fish larvae, but also increase the temperature gradient between the surface water and the deeper water and thereby modify the food chain, etc. Researchers will now have to address all these questions. | 2,663 |
JWs perceived JWs as morally lax, overindulgent in wine and parties, permissive of child abuse, and as hypocrites for denouncing the United Nations while having signed up as a Non-government Organization.
They still use WTS publications published up to 1961, including Russell and Rutherford, and reprint and study Rutherford’s books. They view Jehovah and Jesus as the superior authorities (Romans 13:1) — a doctrine JWs revised in 1962 — and denounce big business, government and religion. They believe in a soon-occurring Armageddon followed by a new Earth where a “great crowd” will live in paradise ruled by Jesus and a “little flock”.
The TFJWs permit more freedom of conscience and dissent than JWs do and are more ready to dialogue with dissidents. Preaching is encouraged but not compelled. Preaching is directed at family, friends, and the public in streets and parks. The house to house method of JWs is employed infrequently.
They are structured like the main organization with congregations, circuits, and pioneers. “Elders” are older men respected in their congregation but are not appointed by a centralized hierarchy. There are no formal committees that judge and disfellowship — each congregation decides for itself whom to associate with. Blood transfusion and tobacco are preached against, but non-conformity is not enforced
The majority of those who the TFJWs associate with outside of former communist countries are ones who originate from these countries. One of the concerns they expressed to Bible Students Jeff and Estera Mezera each time they visited with them was why they could not find any of their faith outside of former communist countries. The TFJW leadership expressed an idea that they believed that the non-former communist countries must have some sort of conspiracy against their faith and are hiding their members in these other countries. The people speaking with Ray Franz on the YouTube video and the same ones the Mezera’s spoke with when in Tirgu Mures.
Below are links to videos of Raymond Franz meeting with members of the TFJW in Eastern Europe:
Poland: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tTDozZ-CHg
Prague, capital of Czech Republic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6c6I0fjiYNU
Raymond Franz in Romania: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dh8r7hc3E4E | 2,664 |
a ceremony celebrating the new law in April. Federal prosecutors in Tampa, meanwhile, had filed paperwork to appeal that decision and force him back to prison. They dropped the appeal three weeks later, without explanation.
Legal experts say they are aware of few other cases in which the federal government has tried to re-incarcerate someone who has been freed due to a sentence reduction.
“It’s particularly cruel,” said Mary Price, an attorney with Families Against Mandatory Minimums, a nonpartisan group. “The whole point of the First Step Act was to give some relief to people who were sentenced to unduly long sentences.”
A TURBULENT LIFE
According to court documents and his own account, Davis has led a turbulent life. The son of a prostitute who entered the witness protection program when testifying in a criminal case, Davis was given a new name and moved to New Orleans when he was seven years old.
By the time he was fifteen, back in Buffalo, both parents and a younger brother were dead and he was selling drugs. He dropped out of high school.
He killed a woman accidentally when he was nineteen, he said, and records show he eventually pleaded guilty to state manslaughter charges.
By the time he was 30, federal agents say, Davis oversaw a network that sold crack and cocaine across western New York and Pennsylvania.
“Your life has been a disaster, and maybe not all of it your fault,” U.S. Judge William Skretny told him in 2009 as he sentenced him.
In March, the same judge ruled that Davis should be freed under the First Step Act.
“I fell off the chair,” Davis recalled. “I couldn’t believe it.”
Prosecutors told the court they intend to appeal. The U.S. Attorney for the Western District of New York, James P. Kennedy Jr., declined to comment on Davis’s case, but said in a prepared statement that asking for appellate review “is consistent with our mission of seeing to it that justice is done in each case.”
Meanwhile, Davis is learning to use a smartphone and planning to start welding classes in September. Eventually, he says, he aims to run a cleaning service or auto shop, and set aside money for his six grandchildren so they can have a better life than he did.
“I know God has a plan for me,” he said. “I know I’m not finished yet.” | 2,665 |
WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Today, Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-Ohio) released the following holiday letter to the American people:
Dear American People:
It’s Speaker Boehner here, writing my first and last ever holiday letter to you. Why am I doing this after all of these years, you might ask? Well, I won’t mince words. I’ve started drinking a little early this Christmas.
Yes, I’m sitting here in my man-cave, panelled in mahogany the color of me, doing a rack of Canadian Club shooters and smoking my way through a carton of Lucky Strikes as if they were the last Twinkies in creation. If my chief of staff knew that I was writing to you while I was this polluted, he’d shit a phone book. But guess what? I don’t fucking care anymore.
You see, this will be my last Christmas as Speaker of the House, all because a cabal of Tea Party miscreants in the House of Representatives doesn’t think I’m a ginormous enough asshole for their taste. Who’s more to their liking? Virginia’s own Eric Cantor. As a waiter might say at an all-you-can-eat shit buffet, “Excellent choice.” How odious is Eric Cantor? Let me put it this way: when we have to speak to the press, I actually prefer to stand next to Mitch McConnell.
What will life be like under Speaker of the House Eric Cantor? Well, he’s the guy who recommended cuts in disaster funding just hours after tornadoes hit Joplin, Missouri. Nice. And it was his “never met a dick-measuring contest I didn’t like” pathology that helped create last year’s debt-ceiling crisis. You can’t put a price tag on a performance like that. Well, actually you can: it cost the country nineteen billion dollars. Starting to miss me already, aren’t you? Fuck you.
So have a very Eric Cantor Christmas, America, and as that smug four-eyed sociopath drives the entire nation off the cliff, don’t say I didn’t warn you. Now leave me alone, God damn you. Damn you all to hell.
Happy Holidays,
Speaker Boehner
Get the Borowitz Report delivered to your inbox.
Photograph by Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg via Getty. | 2,666 |
The US-led Coalition operating on the side of ISIS in eastern Syria committed a new massacre scoring at least a dozen civilians killed near borders with Iraq.
The illegal coalition formed of rogue states operating outside any United Nations mandate and uninvited by the Syrian Arab Republic government targeted residential compounds in Tal al-Shayer, Duaiji village in Deir Ezzor countryside. The Coalition bombing killed 10 civilians and a number of paramedics who rushed to the targeted area to save the victims.
Large damage in properties was also reported in the air raid carried out by an unmanned drone operated by the US-led Coalition. The bombing also bombed a car carrying wounded civilians with their paramedics destroying the vehicle and killing everyone inside.
A heinous war crime added to the shameful criminal record of the Coalition of Pariah states formed allegedly to fight ISIS but instead attacked everyone who was fighting the terrorist organization.
The Syrian government repeatedly called on the crippled useless United Nations to dissolve this rogue coalition and stop its continuous massacres against the Syrian people and even against the Syrian Arab Army.
One of those horrific crimes where this Coalition assisted ISIS directly was the one committed by this group of rogue states led by the United States of America in September 2016, when a US-led raid bombed an SAA base on Thardeh Mountain near the Deir Ezzor Airport killing over 80 soldiers and officers paving the way for a large ISIS group waiting nearby to storm the strategic post and complete the total blockade over the City of 120,000 inhabitants.
Unlike how the regime in Washington and the way it treats its own citizens, the Syrian government didn’t leave the trapped civilians in Deir Ezzor surrounded by tens of thousands of ISIS terrorists to meet their destiny.
The Syrian Arab Army regiment positioned outside the city, which was targeted by the US bombing, offered a shield against the daily attempts by ISIS through assaults in herds of hundreds of suicide bombers and explosive vehicles for over 3 years, and 2 years before that from Nusra Front terrorists, al-Qaeda branch operating under the FSA umbrella in Syria.
Syrian government dropped food and essentials from the air on daily basis non stop throughout the 5 years long siege on the entrapped civilians in the city until finally managed to break the siege. During the remarkable defense, the Syrian Arab Army offered its finest men and women as martyrs for the cause of protecting their families in the city. The Syrian state saved its people from a massacre by famine, a massacre by diseases and a massacre by anti-Islamic Wahhabi Sex Jihadists covered by the United States and its allies and regional stooges. | 2,667 |
I’m particularly proud to be part of our amazing team across Austin and Edmonton. Their dedication and passion showed this weekend. Our war rooms in both locations were hot-beds of activity 24x7 all 3 days. We had fantastic support from EA and our partners.
It was an eventful VIP Demo weekend for BioWare. As I shared on Saturday, it started rocky, but we stabilized that afternoon and maintained it until we turned servers off Sunday evening. We learned a ton about our game, our service, and you, our community. We’re working hard to ensure everyone can enjoy the game exactly as we’ve designed it.
We’ve got a long list of things that were addressed during the weekend, or are being addressed for next weekend’s public demo. These include:
Entitlement bugs
Server performance updates to address much of the rubber-banding
Fixes for infinite loads and more being investigated
Platform bugs to validate Javelin unlocks
Client and platform login bugs
We’re doing more scale testing this week, particularly to be ready for the opening rush of players on Friday, and to verify we’ve got “infinite load” problems improved, the latter of which was a primary frustration for many players.
We’ve also been preparing for many weeks for our full launch. That version of the game already has a long list of things that are already fixed that won’t make the public demo weekend. That list includes
Weapons with 0% infusions
Weapons with bonus that applies to different Javelins
Plot integrity / party gather issues
Changes to Javelin unlock behavior
Fixes for losing XP at end of some expeditions
Performance Improvements
Additional stability fixes
A Social Hub: The Launch Bay
And a few thousand more (literally)…
Overall, we remain humbled by the response from players and appreciate the support from the community. One of my favorite experiences from the weekend was checking out all your fantastic screenshots, video clips, streams and other amazing content – and that’s in addition to all your direct feedback. Thank you. It’s incredible to think we had nearly 9M hours of play across the 2.5 days the demo was open. In that same time, over 1M strongholds were completed (go Freelancers!) and nearly 2M grabbits were slaughtered (seriously! – what is wrong with people? – they’re innocent grabbits!)
| 2,668 |
(Image credit: AMD)
BIOS is so unfamiliar to most people that it might as well stand for Basically Invisible Overlooked System. Few want to understand what it does, even fewer actually explore it, and fewer still bother to seek out alternatives. Those who do will probably be glad to hear that Coreboot seems to be getting ready to officially support AMD Picasso Accelerated Processing Units (APUs) sooner than later, according to a Phoronix report published on July 13.
Coreboot is an open source alternative to the proprietary Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) used by many systems. (UEFI was developed as a BIOS successor capable of handling larger storage drives and presenting an easier-to-use interface than its predecessor.) The last APU it officially supported was the Stoney Ridge line AMD released in 2016, leaving a three-year gap between compatibility updates for the company's latest APUs.
That was a problem for Google. Chrome OS devices rely on Coreboot, and as manufacturers struggled to source Intel processors during the company's long-running shortage, they started to make Chromebooks using chips from AMD. Being forced to use Stoney Ridge APUs limited what manufacturers could do with those devices, and with Google reportedly working on a Picasso-based reference device called Zork, it was clear something had to change.
So it's not surprising that Phoronix said Chromebook engineers had led development on Coreboot's support for Picasso. That work should bring products based on Zork closer to release, offer manufacturers additional options unaffected by Intel's supply problems, and essentially modernize Coreboot's support for APUs. That probably far more preferable to Google than having to explore UEFI and other alternatives for Chrome OS devices.
Not that Google is the only notable organization contributing to Coreboot: the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) recently assigned developers to the project. That predictably raised questions about trusting a spy agency with the low-level code used in many products, despite Coreboot's open source nature allowing other contributors to verify the NSA's code. Google helping the project expand to Picasso is probably far more welcome in comparison.
Phoronix reported that Picasso had been added to the Kconfig build system configuration. That makes the APUs the first chips based on AMD's Zen microarchitecture to be supported by Coreboot. Don't be surprised if that leads manufacturers to continue experimenting with AMD processors in their Chromebooks despite the improved availability of Intel's offerings, especially if the reports about Zork relying on Picasso are true. | 2,669 |
The National Botanic Garden of Wales is celebrating another increase in visitor numbers – even topping last year’s 17-year high.
A grand total of 163,403 leisure visitors crossed the threshold at the Carmarthenshire attraction between the beginning of April 2018 and the end of March 2019. Not only is this the highest visitor figure since the Garden opened in 2000, but a huge increase on three years ago, when the total for the year (2015-16) was a little over 114,000.
Director Huw Francis said:
“To increase our numbers by nearly 50,000 in three years is a fantastic success story for the Botanic Garden, a real credit to the hard work of our staff and volunteers, and a reflection of the huge support we receive from our members and friends.”
But, said Mr Francis, there are other milestone moments in the past year that are as important as the number of people through the gate:
“It’s not all about visitor numbers for a botanic garden: we have to work every bit as hard to meet other crucial goals, too.”
He explained that, as a national institution, the Botanic Garden delivers key benefits for Wales, especially against the Well-being of Future Generations Act:
“Delivering more than 27,000 educational engagements with our small team is a real high watermark for us,” he said. “And the exceptional work our science and horticulture teams are doing all around the world – as well as in our own backyard – is something all of Wales can be proud of.”
Against a backdrop of feared widespread insect collapse, Garden scientists are focused on their Saving Pollinators project, which involves researching the behaviour of pollinators to better inform what we can do to help them thrive, deliver habitat restoration and support species recovery.
This year, with specialist support from the Millennium Seed Bank and Botanic Garden Conservation International (BGCI), the National Seed Bank of Wales has been established, while conservation and research work continues on rainforest restoration within the Kinabatangan floodplain in Borneo, as well on endangered plant species in Wales.
Mr Francis added:
“The National Botanic Garden of Wales is a world-leading centre of excellence in science, horticulture and conservation representing Wales on the world stage, as well as a leading visitor destination, and we hope all of Wales is as proud of its National Botanic Garden as we are.”
Gary Davies, Chair of the Garden added: | 2,670 |
” Jackie Evancho. 2013. jackieevancho.com.
“The Best Age to Start Music Lessons.” Musika: Discover the Music in You. May 2013. https://www.musikalessons.com/blog/2013/05/the-best-age-to-start-music-lessons/.
Colourstrings. 2014. http://www.colourstrings.co.uk.
Di Cecco, Bruno. “Why Learn Music?” Music Educators Journal 73, no. 2 (1986): 49–51.
“For Parents.” Music Together. 2017. https://www.musictogether.com.
Homfray, Tim. “Teaching Focus: When to Start an Instrument – Too Much Too Young?” The Strad 120 (2009): 32–33, 35–36.
Jaupi, Eriona. “Going Into All that Treble: A Parent’s Guide to Starting Their Children on Music Lessons.” Canadian Music Educator (Winter 2016): 59–60.
Jørgensen, Harald. “Instrumental Learning: Is an Early Start a Key to Success?” British Journal of Music Education 18, no. 3 (2001): 227–239.
Kindermusik. 2017. https://www.kindermusik.com.
“New Horizons International Music Association.” New Horizons Music. 2017. http://newhorizonsmusic.org.
Owens, Janet Russell. “When Should Piano Lessons Begin?” Music Educators Journal 44, no. 5 (1958), 56 & 58.
Pinet, C. Michele. “The Adult Student Population in the Private Music Studio,” The American Harp Journal (Summer 2016): 44–47.
Pomfret, Bonnie. “The Private Studio—How Young is Too Young?: Teaching the Unchanged Voice.” Journal of Singing 68, no. 4 (2012): 445–449.
Schildkret, David. “Student Times: Making the Case for Teaching Music.” The Choral Journal 47, no. 1 (July 2006): 57–58.
“Starting Music Lessons.” Evergreen School of Music. http://www.evergreenschoolofmusic.com/when-is-a-good-time-to-start-lessons/. | 2,671 |
. According to dispatch, the person was shot in the leg. Crews did have a hard time getting to that person, they were about six miles into the forest off the road. They were life flighted to the hospital around 5:30 PM. No word tonight on their condition.
EAST PENN TOWNSHIP, PA, 11/21/15: State police in Carbon County said a 24-year-old Lehighton man was injured by gunfire early Saturday morning, although his injuries are not life threatening. Police said the accidental discharge happened around 12:55 AM in the Stoneybrook Campground in East Penn Township, according to the news release. Authorities did not identify the victim nor the man with the gun, although they said he is 42 and from Lehighton. Police said the 42-year-old man "accidentally discharged" a.40-caliber handgun inside a mobile trailer, hitting the victim in the right leg. The victim was taken to St. Luke's University Hospital-Fountain Hill and is expected to recover from his injury, police said.
RIDGWAY TOWNSHIP, PA, 11/21/15: State police received a report about an accidental shooting Saturday on Grant Road in Ridgway Township. Further, a 58-year-old Ridgway man was attempting to leave his residence to go bear hunting and manipulating a firearm inside his vehicle. While doing so, it caused the firearm to discharge and strike the male in his foot. State police are continuing their investigation of the incident.
CHESTERFIELD CO., VA, 11/21/15: Adkins Road – An unidentified victim was accidentally shot while riding in a vehicle with acquaintances in the 700 block around 2:30 PM on Nov. 21.
MINONG, WI, 11/21/15: A Washburn County man is dead after being shot in the chest early Saturday morning. No criminal activity is suspected. Forty-five-year-old Charles Lester Kroeze was shot in his Town of Minong garage. The Wisconsin State Patrol and the Minong Ambulance responded to the scene. Charles Kroeze was transported to the Spooner Hospital where an air ambulance was waiting, but Kroeze died while en route to the hospital. Investigators say the gunshot wound was from a.357 caliber revolver. The Washburn County Sheriff's Office says it was first believed to be a hunting accident, however preliminary investigation revealed it was not a hunting accident. The incident still remains under investigation. Sheriff Terry Dryden said his office does not believe a criminal act was committed. | 2,672 |
DETROIT (Reuters) - Workers at a Nissan Motor Co Ltd 7201.T plant in Mississippi will vote early next month on whether to be represented by a union, according to an agreement announced on Monday by the Japanese automaker and the United Auto Workers as the union once again seeks a major foothold after decades of failed attempts.
A Nissan logo is seen at a car dealership in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico May 30, 2017. Picture taken May 30, 2017. REUTERS/Jose Luis Gonzalez
The vote, which is subject to approval by the U.S. National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), would take place on Aug. 3 and 4 at Nissan’s Canton, Mississippi, plant, involving at least 4,000 production and skilled trade workers.
In a release announcing the agreement, the UAW said that in the days after the union filed a July 11 petition with the NLRB, “Nissan employees have reported widespread pressure by company supervisors in one-on-one meetings and in videos broadcast inside the Canton plant.”
UAW Secretary-Treasurer Gary Casteel said in the statement that Nissan is “running one of the most aggressive anti-worker campaigns that we’ve seen in modern U.S. history.”
Nissan said in its own statement that it does not believe UAW representation is “is in the best interest” of the plant and its workers.
“Our success has been built upon the direct relationship we have with employees,” said Rodney Francis, human resources director at Nissan’s Canton plant. “Given the UAW’s history of strikes, layoffs and plant closures, it is clear that their presence could be harmful.”
Francis added that Nissan technicians “enjoy pay and benefits that are among the best in Mississippi.”
The UAW's representation is largely focused in northern U.S. states. The last major vote on union representation in the South was at Volkswagen AG's VOWG_p.DE plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, in 2014.
That vote failed, but the union was able to get a toehold in the plant in late 2015 when around 165 skilled trades workers voted to become the first members of UAW Local 42.
But that toehold is tenuous, as the German automaker has refused to acknowledge the result, arguing against allowing a small group within the plant to have union representation and saying that all 1,500 hourly workers should be treated as one unit. | 2,673 |
Updated August 12 KST:
In addition to the previously released photos (which you can find below this video), check out the full video of today’s idol participants arriving at the “2019 Idol Star Athletics Championships – Chuseok Special” here!
Original Article:
Filming is officially underway for the “2019 Idol Star Athletics Championships – Chuseok Special”!
On August 12, a sea of idols arrived at the Goyang Gymnasium in Gyeonggi Province to film the annual competition, which is now in its 10th year. The upcoming show, which will air over the Chuseok holiday in September, will feature seven different events this year: track and field, archery, ssireum (Korean wrestling), pitching, penalty shootouts, eSports, and horseback riding.
Although certain sporting events that require special locations will be filmed separately, most of the events will be held during today’s filming at the Goyang Gymnasium.
A total of 231 idols from 44 different groups will be participating in this year’s competition, and many of them posed for group photos before heading into the event, including TWICE’s Dahyun, members of NCT 127, ITZY, MOMOLAND, (G)I-DLE, DreamCatcher, LOONA, AB6IX, CIX, fromis_9, ONF, Cherry Bullet, D1CE, VERIVERY, GWSN, TREI, LIMITLESS, NOIR, SATURDAY, and DONGKIZ.
The other male idols participating in this year’s event will include Stray Kids, ASTRO, NCT Dream, SF9, PENTAGON, The Boyz, Golden Child, JBJ95, 1THE9, IMFACT, GreatGuys, and 1TEAM, while the other female idols include TWICE, Red Velvet, IZ*ONE, Oh My Girl, Weki Meki, WJSN (Cosmic Girls), Lovelyz, EVERGLOW, DIA, Berry Good, NATURE, and Holics.
Check out some of the photos from this morning’s photo wall—as well as a sneak peek of the opening ceremony—below!
While you wait for Chuseok to arrive, watch the latest “Idol Star Athletics Championships” with English subtitles here:
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HONG KONG (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - The Philippines is not doing enough to tackle soaring HIV prevalence among men who have sex with men by offering greater access to HIV testing and condoms, an international rights group said on Thursday.
The prevalence of HIV among men who have sex with men in the Southeast Asian country has increased tenfold over the last five years, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a report.
Last year, at least 11 cities in the Philippines reported HIV prevalence rates of more than 5 percent among men who have sex with men, the study said.
The Philippines introduced effective policies targeting the outbreak of HIV among sex workers in the 1990s, however “it has failed to adapt its prevention strategies in line with the epidemic’s shifting epicenter”, HRW said in a statement.
In 2013, the World Health Organization (WHO) also warned the Philippines of the risk of focusing HIV prevention programs only on female sex workers, saying the virus continued to spread, unabated, among other key groups that had “little or no access to services suited to their needs”.
Officials at the Philippines’ Department of Health were not immediately available for comment.
HRW said national education on effective HIV prevention methods in the Catholic country were non-existent, adding that laws prohibit condom access and HIV testing to people under the age of 18 without parental permission.
“These factors are contributing to the worsening epidemic among adolescent males who engage in same-sex practices,” HRW said in a statement.
The report said although the government provides free condoms at a number of public clinics, many Filipinos stay away, because the clinic mainly cater to sex workers.
There are also obstacles from local authorities, HRW said. For instance, the mayors of Balanga and Sorsogon have banned government clinics, which poor people rely on for healthcare, from procuring and distributing condoms.
HRW also said it was concerned that a planned cut of 1 billion pesos ($22 million) from the Department of Health’s budget would mean fewer condoms being bought by government-run clinics.
“Reducing HIV transmission isn’t rocket science,” said Carlos Conde, Philippines researcher at Human Rights Watch.
“But it does require the... government to implement an HIV prevention program and remove obstacles to condom and HIV testing access so that young Filipinos - particularly men who have sex with men - can protect themselves from an otherwise preventable illness,” Conde said in a statement. | 2,675 |
Compare the Different Kratom Strains with our Kratom Information Table
Have you seen all the different kratom strains in our collection of kratom powder and are wondering where to begin? It can feel overwhelming at the start, but with a little kratom information and some trial and error at home, you’re sure to find your favorites in no time.
What is Kratom?
Let’s begin by explaining what kratom is. Kratom is a Southeast Asian tree from the coffee (Rubiaceae) family that grows in tropical jungle areas and has large leaves. These leaves were traditionally chewed by farmers and rubber-tappers to help them keep up their strength and energy throughout the day.
Today, the popularity of kratom has spread throughout the Western world and can be used to produce a variety of aromatic effects.
How are the Different Strains Obtained?
When we talk about different kratom strains, we are referring to varieties of kratom leaf that are harvested in different countries, regions, and climates. The leaves themselves can be harvested at different points of maturity, with the youngest leaves having a red tinge, changing to green when mature, and a brownish color when past maturation.
The various strains are said to have different effects, which we have listed for you here. Our information comes from local sources who have been using this herb traditionally or in shamanic practices since as early as the nineteenth century and before.
Which Strain Should I Try First?
While everyone’s preferences vary, the smooth and relaxing Bali kratom is a mainstay in almost every kratom connoisseur’s collection. Buying a few different kratom strains and using each, in turn, can also help to prevent adjusting to any one strain. For example, the Bali strain compliments well with the even more soothing Red Kali kratom and the slightly energizing Thai Red. If you’ve been using kratom for a while, you might like to try our 25X Extract or UEI kratom.
Trust Kratora for Pure, Quality Kratom
At Kratora, we pride ourselves on offering pure premium kratom. If you would like support with your order’s shipping, please contact us. Explore the various selection of kratom strains from our collection and find your new favorite!
Please note that the information below is purely intended for educational purposes, it does not intend to encourage the use of kratom or constitute any medical advice. Our kratom is not sold for human consumption. | 2,676 |
UCLA scientists, in collaboration with teams in China, have used the powerful technology of single-cell RNA sequencing to track the genetic development of a human and a mouse embryo at an unprecedented level of accuracy.
The technique could lead to earlier and more accurate diagnoses of genetic diseases — even when the embryo consists of only eight cells.
The study was led by Guoping Fan, professor of human genetics and molecular biology and member of both the Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center and the Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research.
Single-cell RNA sequencing allows researchers to determine the precise nature of the total gene transcripts, or all of the genes that are actively expressed in a particular cell.
“The advantages of this technique are twofold,” Fan said. “It is a much more comprehensive analysis than was achievable before and the technique requires a very minimal amount of sample material — just one cell.”
Major development in genetic diagnoses
Besides its implications for genetic diagnoses — such as improving scientists’ ability to identify genetic mutations like BRCA1 and BRCA2, which predispose women to breast cancer and ovarian cancer, or genetic diseases that derive from protein dysfunction, such as sickle cell disease — the technology may also have important uses in reproductive medicine.
The technique marks a major development in genetic diagnoses, which previously could not be conducted this early in embryonic development and required much larger amounts of biological material.
“Previous to this paper we did not know this much about early human development,” said Kevin Huang, the study’s co-first author and a postdoctoral scholar in Fan’s laboratory. “Now we can define what ‘normal’ looks like, so in the future we will have a baseline from which to compare possible genetic problems. This is our first comprehensive glance at what is normal.”
With single-cell RNA sequencing, much more gene transcription was detected than before. “The question we asked is, ‘How does the gene network drive early development from one cell to two cells, two cells to four cells, and so on?’” Fan said. “Using the genome data analysis methods developed by co-author Steve Horvath at UCLA, we have uncovered crucial gene networks and we can now predict possible future genetic disorders at the eight-cell stage.”
The research was supported by the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology, the International Science and Technology Cooperation Program of China, and the National Natural Science Foundation of China. | 2,677 |
On Thursday, the author and publisher stop releasing material, retract what had already been released, and apologize. Instead, publisher Henry Holt & Co. bumped up the book's publication date up four days from Jan. 9 to Jan. 5, citing "unprecedented demand."
This week, excerpts and early copies of "Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House" began to circulate among newsrooms, revealing by author Michael Wolff about President Donald Trump's first year in office.
"There has been increased interest in this title over the last 72 hours, with the book sitting on the top of our Best Sellers lists for Books, Kindle Books, and Audible," a representative from Amazon tells CNBC Make It Friday.
The rankings for Amazon are calculated roughly every hour from data on book sales, but the factors considered by the e-commerce giant's algorithms remain largely a mystery.
"It is like the most closely guarded secret in the universe," Ellen Geiger, vice president and senior agent at Frances Goldin Literary Agency, tells CNBC Make It.
While it isn't clear exactly how many copies of a book must be sold to break into a slot on the list, a 2013 study of Amazon's best-sellers list for a two-week period by Publishers Weekly found that "a title in Amazon's top five averages 1,094 print copies sold across all channels, including other retailers, on a typical day."
Since Amazon updates its rankings so frequently, "really what it measures is velocity of sales... over a short period of time rather than an absolute number of sales over a longer period," says Caroline Eisenmann, an associate agent at Frances Goldin. "What it reflects is how a book is selling relative to the other books on Amazon during any one time."
Still, that No. 1 slot in books is certainly an indication of a buying spike.
"If a book has cracked the top 100 and and particularly the top 20 and stays there — the duration is a huge part of it, if it stays there for a few days — that is generally a very strong sign that it is going to be a New York Times Best Seller and that it is going to start showing up on other lists," Eisenmann says. "To hit that top slot is huge. It means that a book is selling hugely during the period it is there."
Currently, the holder of the highest-selling nonfiction release is Hillary Clinton's "What Happened," which sold 300,000 copies in its first week, according to publisher Simon & Schuster, as reported by Fortune. | 2,678 |
Google today will finally remove the long-standing beta tag from some of its most popular web applications, most notably its wildly popular email application, Gmail.
In addition to the beta-less Gmail, Google Calendar, Docs, and Talk (i.e., the rest of the Google Apps suite) will also shed the beta moniker. Gmail has notoriously worn the beta badge since its initial invite-only launch back in April of 2004. Strangely, as the New York Times points out, Google's reasoning for keeping Gmail and other apps in beta for so long isn't all that fleshed out:
"Obviously we haven't had a consistent set of policies or definitions around beta," said Matt Glotzbach, a director of product management at Google. Mr. Glotzbach said that different teams at Google had different criteria for what beta meant, and that Google felt a need to standardize those. "It was time to address the issue and bring the products out of beta," he said.
The Times also points out that "[p]ractically speaking, the change will mean precious little to Gmail's millions of users" who've been happily using Gmail in beta for years. If our recent poll on whether "beta" bothers you, it seems clear that next to no Lifehacker readers were avoiding Gmail just because of its beta label. Still, if your workplace was hesitant to adopt Google Apps because of its beta status, this move could make all the difference (a fact not lost on Google).
Does Beta Bother You? Google-obsessed weblog Google Operating System noticed a few Gmail logos have versions without the… Read more
We're still seeing the beta label on every Gmail account we've got as well as our Docs accounts, but Calendar is beta-free. Google's rollouts are always just that—rolling—so you can probably still expect to see the rest of those beta tags drop sometime yet today or this week if they haven't already. The Official Gmail Blog even highlights a new tongue-in-cheek Gmail Labs feature called Back to Beta that, when enabled, "[s]oothes the soul by putting the familiar beta sticker back on the Gmail logo."
Does the beta-less Gmail, Calendar, Docs, or Talk mean anything special to you? Will it inspire you to use Google apps more confidently? Let's hear your thoughts in the comments.
Gmail leaves beta, launches "Back to Beta" Labs feature [Official Gmail Blog]
Gmail and Other Google Apps Finally Shed ‘Beta' Label [NYT] | 2,679 |
Ryan Gosling is in negotiations to star in Alcon Entertainment’s sequel to Blade Runner, to be directed by Denis Villeneuve (Prisoners) and executive produced by Ridley Scott. Harrison Ford will co-star as Rick Deckard, the role he portrayed in the original directed by Scott.
Principal photography is set to start in summer of 2016. Hampton Fancher (co-writer of the original) and Michael Green have written the original screenplay based on an idea by Fancher and Scott.
The story takes place several decades after the conclusion of the 1982 original. Story details, as well as Gosling’s character, are not being revealed.
Gosling will be seen next in Shane Black’s The Nice Guys opposite Russell Crowe, and in Terrence Malick’s Weightless. He is currently in production starring opposite Christian Bale, Brad Pitt and Steve Carrell in The Big Short.
Villeneuve’s upcoming feature film Sicario, a drug-trafficking drama starring Emily Blunt, Josh Brolin and Benicio Del Toro from Black Label Media, has been recently announced in Competition at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival. Villeneuve previously worked with Kosove and Johnson as the director of Alcon’s critically acclaimed Prisoners.
Alcon Entertainment acquired the prequel and sequel film, television and ancillary franchise rights to the iconic science-fiction thriller Blade Runner in 2011 from producers Bud Yorkin and Cynthia Sikes Yorkin, who will serve as producers on the sequel along Alcon Entertainment co-founders and co-CEO’s Andrew Kosove and Broderick Johnson.
Frank Giustra and Tim Gamble, CEO’s of Thunderbird Films, will serve as executive producers.
Released by Warner Bros., Blade Runner was adapted by Hampton Fancher and David Peoples from Philip K. Dick’s novel “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” and was directed by Ridley Scott following his landmark Alien. The film was nominated for two Academy Awards (Best Visual Effects, and Best Art Direction).
Blade Runner was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.” The film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry in 1993 and is frequently taught in university courses. In 2007, it was named the 2nd most visually influential film of all time by the Visual Effects Society.
(Photo Credit: WENN.com) | 2,680 |
SOUTH BEND, IN - SEPTEMBER 01: Brandon Wimbush #7 of the Notre Dame Fighting Irish carries the ball against the Michigan Wolverines in the second quarter at Notre Dame Stadium on September 1, 2018 in South Bend, Indiana. (Photo by Gregory Shamus/Getty Images)
Notre Dame football suffered a temporary setback on Thursday when news broke of Ian Book’s injury. Luckily, the Irish have an experienced winner as a backup.
The news that hit Notre Dame football on Thursday morning is news that no team in the country ever wants to hear. As the Irish prepare for the home-stretch — making a run at the College Football Playoff — losing their starting quarterback for the last home game of the season is about as worst-case of a scenario as you can get.
Luckily, the overall quarterback situation at Notre Dame is the best-case scenario.
Only Alabama and Notre Dame can claim to have backup quarterbacks with winning records and over a full season as a starters under their belts.
Enter Brandon Wimbush.
While we all focus on and dread the potential negative impact Ian Book’s injury could have, it’s easy to miss the positives.
Brandon Wimbush is a winner. He is an elite athlete, one of the best runners as a quarterback in the country, and a completely different player that Florida State now has to prepare for. He has the respect of the Notre Dame coaching staff as well as the lockerroom.
Notre Dame has the best win over any team (Michigan) in college football during the 2018 season. Let’s not forget who was under center during that game.
The Irish are in good hands.
Chip Long is a smart coordinator. He understands Wimbush’s strengths and weaknesses. He understands what Notre Dame needs to do in order to get the win against Florida State. It was always assumed that the gameplan would be run-heavy anyway, thanks in part to the weather. Now we can bank on it. Additionally, the threat of the big play through the air still exists.
Long will cater the gameplan to Wimbush.
Bottom line: the situation at Notre Dame could be much worse than it is. Not every team has a championship-caliber defense. Not every team has the weapons the Irish have. And not every team has a proven winner coming off the bench at quarterback.
The coaching staff and players trust and support Brandon Wimbush. The Fighting Irish faithful have no choice but to do the same. | 2,681 |
Retro Resolution Retro Review
System: Sinclair ZX81
Developer: Abacus Programs
Year: 1982
Oft-heard phrases amongst retro gamers include ‘modern games are visually stunning but utterly shallow’ and ‘in classic titles it’s the game-play that counts’ (or words to that effect). Text adventures aside, Abacus Programs’ ZX81 masterpiece Protector is a title which can certainly lend credence to the latter opinion.
At first glance Protector appears as a traditional side-scrolling shmup, most resembling a clone of Scramble, albeit one rendered in inimitable ZX81 style from capital letters, mathematical symbols and chunky solid character blocks. Although graphically reminiscent of the aforementioned arcade classic, Protector neatly inverts the coin-op’s gameplay, charging the player with defending the Zarqon home-world from the might of an alien invasion fleet with nought but the space ship Sentinel.
As is to be expected points are racked up with the demise of each alien fighter, bomber or missile, however a number of novel game mechanics introduce a level of strategy perhaps unique in a game of this vintage. As independent scores are tallied both for the player and for the alien invasion fleet, besides avoiding being shot down or colliding with the enemy it is necessary to prevent the hoard from destroying vital Zarqon installations (and thus piling up the points in the process).
Minimising the enemy score is only half the battle, however, as your craft carries only limited firepower, necessitating the recharging of your craft’s laser weaponry by momentarily lighting upon a launch pad – never easy in the heat of battle, especially as the enemy’s bombs have an unerring habit of destroying them at the most inopportune moments.
An unfortunately less welcome novelty comes in the form of an alien smart-bomb; as the pre-game instructions bluntly state “The alien commander may trigger the Damacles missile at any time destroying the ‘sentinel'”. This is implemented as a splendidly animated, incredibly frustrating, utterly indefensible nuclear explosion to the face. Ouch.
Despite the challenging difficulty level it’s certainly worth persevering with, if only to be rewarded with the unintentionally amusing message “you have beaten the aliens off” – that’ll teach them…
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, EDG won’t be afraid to play against SKT, as they succeeded in winning against the LCK teams in Rift Rivals.
As Worlds is taking place in China, this may also work as an advantage to EDG, being the home team.
■ Will ahq be able to survive and counter?
Based on their results, it does not seem like it will be easy for ahq to survive with SKT T1 and EDG in the same group.
ahq has never won against SKT T1, and has only 2 victories against EDG, in the Group Stage for the World Championship 2014 and the Rift Rivals Semifinals. Given this record, the fight seems fairly dismal for ahq.
However, it is too early to judge. After all, ahq is a team from LMS, a region that is quite capable of creating unexpected situations at international tournaments. For an LMS team like ahq, it is quite possible that they may produce some unexpected and astonishing results.
Just as Westdoor mentioned at Rift Rivals, “We have to play slowly and without burdens when playing against Korean teams, like a challenger.” Against SKT T1 and EDG, this challenger spirit may be just what they need to set the game to their own pace and triumph.
▲ ahq won against EDG after a 62-minute long game in Rift Rivals.
■ International Tournament Results for Each Team
◇ SKT T1 vs EDG - SKT T1 fairly advantageous by 5-3
- MSI 2015 Group Stage: SKT T1 won
- MSI 2015 Finals: EDG won by 3-2
- The World Championship 2015 Group Stage: SKT T1 2 wins
◇ SKT T1 vs ahq - SKT T1 highly advantageous by 4-0
- MSI 2015 Group Stage: SKT T1 won
- The World Championship 2015 Quarterfinals: SKT T1 wins by 3-0
◇ EDG vs ahq - EDG highly advantageous by 8-2
- The World Championship 2014 Group Stage: 1 win for each team
- The World Championship 2014 Tiebreaker Match: EDG Wins
- MSI 2015 Group Stage: EDG wins
- MSI 2015 Semifinals: EDG wins by 3-0
- The World Championship 2016 Group Stage : EDG 2 wins
- Rift Rivals Semifinals: ahq won | 2,683 |
their own form of entertainment and breathing new life into games that launched years ago.
users are creating their own form of entertainment and breathing new life into games that launched years ago.
Microsoft's Xbox One Twitch integration is a relatively recent addition, but Twitch has already shown its popularity among console users via the PlayStation 4. In early January, Sony reported that from Dec. 23-Jan. 3, 20 percent of Twitch broadcasts came from PS4 owners. In the first six weeks following the console's launch, PS4 owners created 1.7 million streams. Of course, not everyone initially understood that the console's Twitch functionality was reserved for video game content. The service had to be pulled from the PS4's Playroom — a feature that points the PS4's camera at the player and turns the living room into an interactive experience — because people were streaming non-gaming material, some of which was raunchier than Twitch and Sony were willing to broadcast. But people are slowly getting it.
"Having it built into the system legitimizes Twitch beyond anything they could have done on their own. It's basically sending a message that this is part of the PS4 and Xbox One experience now. We're telling you this is not some extra third-party thing that only weird people do. This is part of the experience of owning this console."
The service isn't perfect, though. As a relatively new platform that is dealing with enormous amounts of data and a rapidly growing user base, it's encountering teething issues. "The kinds of problems they're dealing with are the best kind of problems to have," Love says. "They're bandwidth costs, and they just have too many people coming to the site. So much that, for instance, their chat is constantly breaking."
During busy weekends, particularly when there is a big game tournament or, most recently, when thousands of users decided to play a game together, Twitch's chat function will struggle to keep up. Sometimes it won't show new messages. Sometimes it will freeze up entirely.
"They're going to need to scale appropriately," says Green. "I don't think there's a chance of this right now, but Twitch could become a victim of its own success just in terms of its ability to scale and keep up with the demand the sheer volume of people using it."
[According to a Twitch representative, "We remedied the chat issue with Twitch Plays Pokemon by moving the channel off of our general chat servers onto a dedicated event chat server, which we typically use for large events like The International and League Championship Series (LCS)."] | 2,684 |
This week Last Week Tonight tackles encryption, or as John Oliver calls, it, “The best way to keep people from reading your email short of making the subject line ‘Fwd: Fwd: Fwd: Hilarious Joke From Uncle Walter’.”
The high-tech issue of encryption has been in the headlines lately as the FBI has taken Apple to court to demand they crack the iPhone security features so the FBI can continue their investigation into the tragic San Bernardino shooting. While it sounds like a cut-and-dry case, as Oliver notes, it’s actually a “hugely complicated” story.
Apple CEO Tim Cook has said that creating a so-called Master Key that bypasses security features is out of the question, as it would make all iPhone users vulnerable to attack by hackers, cybercriminals and authoritarian regimes that would also like access to people’s private iPhones. As Oliver notes, if Apple capitulates to U.S. demands, it’s likely that China and Russia would demand similar access and, as Oliver says, “Russia and China have as much respect for privacy as horny teenagers in ’80s comedies.”
Apple is also concerned that if they give in to one request, they will be inundated with encryption-cracking requests from law enforcement around the world. “Think of the government like your dad,” says Oliver. “If he asks you to help him with his iPhone, be careful. If you do it once, you’re going to be doing it 14 times a day.”
In short, it’s not quite like “giving a house key to a trusted neighbor,” but a complex issue with wide-reaching ramifications. Luckily Oliver crafted a very helpful Apple ad to explain it all.
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Contact us at [email protected]. | 2,685 |
Like many companies, Facebook and Google, which developed the Android mobile operating system, prompted users last week to accept new terms of service that explained their data collection particulars. Facebook members who declined to accept the new terms were unable to log into their accounts. Android users who didn’t agree to the new terms were, in effect, locked out of their phones.
Mr. Schrems said these all-or-nothing privacy policies violated the G.D.P.R.’s requirement that consent be particularized and “freely given.” To comply with the law, he said, large tech platforms need to give privacy-conscious users the option of sharing certain types of data but not others.
Realistically, Mr. Schrems said, “you’re not going to walk away from all your friends on Facebook.”
Opponents of the G.D.P.R. have said the law could end up backfiring by making it harder for smaller companies, which don’t tend to have huge teams of European legal experts at their disposal, to compete with the American tech giants. It could mean that European users are required to pay more for certain internet services, to offset reduced advertising revenue. (The Washington Post is already offering an ad- and tracking-free “premium E.U. subscription” that costs 50 percent more than a regular subscription.) In a worst-case scenario, it could turn Europe into a kind of technological dead zone, a place where influential American tech companies simply refuse to tread.
Mr. Schrems shrugged off these concerns. The European market is too lucrative for companies like Google and Facebook to abandon, he said. And he doesn’t believe that social networks and search engines would suffer unduly if they were forced to be more judicious about how they collected fine-grain data about people for the purposes of selling more ads.
“You can still make a lot of money without microtargeting,” he said.
Mr. Schrems’s quest is far from finished. Regulators could decide not to pursue investigations, expensive litigation could drag on for years, and Silicon Valley companies are furiously adding lobbyists to try to influence the nascent rule-making process.
But if these types of complaints succeed — and it’s not entirely crazy to think that they could, given the current antipathy toward American tech giants and the satisfaction that European officials might take in kneecapping a few of them — it could be a watershed moment for large tech companies. | 2,686 |
Now, past APSAs have had their moments of peril, but this was still a ratcheting up of security protocols. If I had to guess, I would speculate that the new measures were the result of some threat that was low-probability but nonetheless required some precautionary steps lest APSA get accused of doing nothing if/when something happened. In other words, APSA, like all bureaucracies, engaged in CYA protocols, and it is hard to blame them. Since anonymous, low-level threats are easy to make online, I fear this will be a new feature of APSA.
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2. A new suggestion for roundtable chairs. I chaired a hastily assembled roundtable to honor Robert Gilpin. As chair, my responsibilities were exceptionally light, and so I also live-tweeted the keen observations of my academic all-star panelists. The feedback to this on Twitter was overwhelmingly positive. Given the number of political scientists who are unable to attend APSA, or cannot attend a particular roundtable due to a scheduling conflict, it seems to me that chairs on these panels could use threaded tweets as a means to broadcast the panel to a wider audience. Just a thought.
3. The political science discipline has caught up to 2016. By my count there were more than 200 panels that were Trump-related. The Trump effect could also be felt in the book room, which is where different university and commercial presses hawk their recent and forthcoming wares. It was impossible to look at a press's collection of books without noting two new kinds of releases: books about the rise of populism and books about the pervasive corruption of elites.
On the one hand, this is a clear sign of how Trump has affected political science. Indeed, the degree to which our toddler in chief sucks up all the oxygen in the room is impressive. On the other hand, political scientists often arrive at a problem just after its moment has passed. In the case of Trump, we will see come November.
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4. The key ingredient to a great conference is.... Good coffee. Seriously, I have attended APSAs where the coffee near and in the conference center was subpar, and those conferences did not go well at all. This one, thankfully, was adjacent to the newly opened Prudential Center Blue Bottle cafe, and dear God their coffee was so, so good!!! It was so obviously superior that I confess to devaluing the senior colleagues I observed lining up at a nearby Dunkin' Donuts. Why wait in a longer line for inferior coffee?! | 2,687 |
Donald Trump claimed victory Tuesday following his first debate against Hillary Clinton, saying the showdown made it clear that she is “the candidate of yesterday” and he is the candidate of “the future.”
Making a campaign swing through Florida, Mr. Trump said the campaign is already reaping the benefits, raising more than $18 million in a post-debate fundraising push.
“For 90 minutes on issue after issue Hillary Clinton defended the terrible status quo, while I laid out our plan, all of us together, to bring jobs, security and prosperity back to the American people,” Mr. Trump said at a campaign stop in Melbourne, Florida. “For 90 minutes she argued against change, while I called for dramatic change.”
Mr. Trump received mixed reviews for his debate performance.
At the same time, debate moderator Lester Holt of NBC News faced criticism for challenging some of the Republican nominee’s statements, while failing to press Mrs. Clinton with follow-up questions.
“The single weapon she has got in the media,” Mr. Trump said Tuesday. “Without the mainstream media, she wouldn’t even be here, folks, that I can tell you. She wouldn’t even be here. She wouldn’t have a chance.”
Still, political pundits from across the ideological spectrum said the billionaire businessman could have done more to capitalize on the momentum that he carried into the debate, with polls showing that he had cut into Mrs. Clinton’s lead nationally and in key swing states.
Mr. Trump, meanwhile, declared victory, pointing to online surveys that showed respondents believed he won the first of three scheduled debates.
He also outlined parts of his agenda that went unmentioned in the debate — including his plan to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, to expand school choice, and nominate justices to the Supreme Court that will uphold the Constitution. He called Mrs. Clinton “Crooked Hillary” — something he did not do in the debate — a number of times.
And he said he took it easy on Mrs. Clinton by not bringing up her husband Bill Clinton’s extramarital affairs.
“I didn’t want to do anything to embarrass her,” he said. “But I watched her, and she was stuck in the past.”
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Copyright © 2020 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission. | 2,688 |
20/60 ft., one target. Hit: 2 (1d6+3) slashing damage.
ATTACK ROUTINE (action surge to repeat) bonus action divine favor + movement + action green-flame blade and smite (2nd-level spell slot) → 1d8+5 slashing + 2d8+1 fire + 1d4 radiant + 3d8 smite plus ancillary 1 fire to creature adjacent to target
EQUIPMENT GOLD 122
chain mail, a longsword and a shield, two handaxes, a dungeoneer’s pack (50 ft. hemp rope, a backpack, a crowbar, a hammer, 10 pitons, a tinderbox, 10 days of rations), hooded lantern
Rallaine’s stuff
Waterskin
Illegal herbs found in the wizard Kaius Grimaldi’s house, jailed Lewkyo the servant
Commendations stars to award to subordinates
CITY OF EASTPORT (game info)
G-watch was recently wiped out (Sargeant Murtaugh was healing from a bad head wound)
Assigned to Guildsman District which includes the Warrens – riddled with thieves and beggars and Southlander immigrants (japanese) and Uster vagabonds (including many Uster Teflings).
Character Information
Worships Oban
Lives in the nicest area of the Warrens in a home with his wife and five kids (all of which he finds annoying but loves dearly)
Has an Uster gypsy ex-flame, Nessva, that sometimes gives him tips on potential orc threats (though Murtaugh’s wife Cassia hates her so he’s reticent to see her)
Murtaugh once received honors from Lord Marcus Vermidor after leading a brilliant counterattack against invading orc raiders (tipped off by Nessva) but that was more than a decade ago
Murtaugh is only a few months from retirement and has never valued his life more, though his sense of duty still puts him into danger despite his days of glory being behind him
As a native to Eastport and long-time member of the guard he is liked by those who know him — most of the time as long as an infringement does not hurt anyone directly Murtaugh avoids the harshest sentences, letting people off with warnings (confiscating contraband if that’s involved) rather than tossing them in jail | 2,689 |
As amazing as VR headsets are, haptic technology offers a way to make virtual reality seem even more real. With that in mind, investigators from Disney Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab, and Carnegie Mellon University need to step forward and take a bow for their new proof-of-concept “Force Jacket.”
Resembling a life vest, the jacket is lined with airbags which can either inflate or deflate on command. By doing this, it is possible to accurately mimic sensations including (but not limited to) racing heartbeats, a tap on the shoulder, the impact of a snowball, the vibrations of a motorbike, or slime dripping down a person’s back. In other words, this is probably not the best jacket to wear to your next high pressure job interview!
“Force Jacket can enrich narrative embodied experiences — [such as] VR or AR — by providing variable force feedback on targeted locations on the upper body,” Ken Nakagaki, a Ph.D. candidate in the Tangible Media Group at MIT Media Lab, told Digital Trends. “The Force Jacket can create variety of haptic effects such as a hug, punch, or even a snake slithering around your body. [It] consists of 26 inflatable airbags, with force-sensitive registers placed on individual bags for tracking the force applied to the body as the bags [are] being inflated and deflated. Studies in our paper include development of a software ‘Haptic Effect Editor’ to design hundreds of haptic effects with the jacket, and a user study which evaluated 14 haptic effects generated by the software.”
With Disney involved, we wouldn’t be surprised to find the jacket incorporated into one or more of its theme park experiences. However, Nakagaki speculated that, in addition to VR, the technology could also be useful for rehabilitation or training, or to help blind or partially sighted people navigate better by conveying spatial information around the body via haptic feedback.
In the future, the team hopes to make the jacket more compact and mobile while improving the haptic technology. “As it is exciting to imagine what other haptic effects can be created with this type of jacket, I think another future work could be letting other people use our Haptic Effect Editor to expand the library of haptic effects,” Nakagaki said.
A paper describing the work is available to read online. It will be presented at the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems later this year.
Editors' Recommendations | 2,690 |
Square Enix power player has issued the most direct denial yet of a Final Fantasy VII remake. Speaking with Japan's monthly Dorimaga gaming publication, character designer Tetsuya Nomura said, "It appears that there are often overseas rumors like 'Are you currently developing a VII remake?' My apologies, but we're absolutely not making [such a game]."
But, as usual, all isn't necessarily lost. Yoshinori Kitase, overall director of the FFVII series, followed up with, "However, when we ask the staff who are making FFXIII why they entered the company, there are many people who say, 'I'm an FFVII fan, I also want to do a remake.'" To this, Nomura added, "We of course know ourselves what the fans want so we'd like to continue thinking up a variety of things. As long as there are people who want to make it and people who are waiting for it, we don't want to proclaim 'the end.'"Outside of these comments, the two shared a few interesting insights into the development of what is arguably the most renown Final Fantasy game to date.Nomura recalled the creation of the game's plot, which was originally written by Hironobu Sakaguchi, now of Mistwalker. Nomura, who claims to still have a copy of the plot, noted how "completely different" it is from the final version. "I think he wanted to do something like a detective story? There was a character called Hot Blooded Detective Joe."The Midgar city was already in place at this point. The early part of the story that was written by Sakaguchi involved Detective Joe chasing after the main characters, who then blow up the city.Obviously, the story changed some once Nomura and Kitase got involved. While Nomura went off into the character design and visual work following some initial changes to Sakaguchi's plot, Kitase and Kazushige Nojima came up with the sections on Avalanche and Shinra, Cloud's background story, and the relationship between Cloud and Sephiroth. Sakaguchi came up with the specifics on the Life Stream in his original plot, but this also saw some work by Kitase and crew before finally being placed in the game.With Nomura's strong denial in this interview, all those hoping for an FFVII remake to close off the series' 10th anniversary in style this year appear to be out of luck. Of course, there's no law against flat out lying to magazines that include pullout posters of big-busted anime chicks in every issue, so keep the candles lit. | 2,691 |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - As a partial shutdown of the U.S. government stretched into its sixth day, the agency that oversees the federal workforce offered advice on staving off creditors to the estimated 800,000 employees who could be affected by a lapse in pay.
The U.S. Capitol is lit during the second day of a shutdown of the federal government in Washington, U.S., January 21, 2018. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts
The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) suggested furloughed workers could offer partial payments to mortgage lenders and posted on its website form letters they could use.
“I am a Federal employee who has recently been furloughed due to a lack of funding of my agency,” said one of three templates offered by the agency. “Because of this, my income has been severely cut and I am unable to pay the entire cost of my mortgage, along with my other expenses.”
In a Twitter post, OPM said idled workers should contact personal attorneys if they needed advice on dealing with creditors.
President Donald Trump and congressional leaders have reached an apparent stalemate in a fight over government funding with the president insisting on $5 billion from taxpayers for a wall along the U.S. border with Mexico against stiff resistance from Democrats.
Unable to reach a compromise, about a quarter of government agencies shut down at midnight last Friday.
Trump has said he will wait to reopen the government for however long it takes to receive the funding for the wall, and Democrats sound willing to wait until they claim control of the U.S. House of Representatives on Jan. 3.
The stakes are high for the estimated 15 percent of the federal workforce whose agencies are affected. Although they will receive paychecks as normal for the pay period that ended Dec. 22, future pay remains in doubt, even as their bills do not.
According to the American Federation of Government Employees, a union that represents federal employees, about 420,000 federal employees will be working without pay, while 380,000 others have been told to stay home.
AFGE spokeswoman Ashley De Smeth said the letter templates were developed during a shutdown in 2013.
“It is business as usual,” she said. “It is up to each agency to decide how to use them.”
OPM did not respond to a request for comment.
“Due to a lapse in appropriations, OPM responses to incoming media (requests) may be delayed,” an email from the office said. | 2,692 |
Lisk announced on Twitter the upcoming integration in Pantos platform, an open-source and open-innovation driven scientific research project focused on cross-blockchain transfers.
? We are pleased to announce #Lisk will be integrated with @PantosIO. Created by @Bitpanda, Pantos aims to solve the #blockchain fragmentation problem, by enabling sustainable collaborations between projects and common technical standards for cross-blockchain transfers. pic.twitter.com/p9iRF6cs65 — Lisk (@LiskHQ) 7 marzo 2018
The project is backed by Bitpanda, an Austrian trading platform for cryptocurrencies, in collaboration with researchers at the Technical University of Vienna, the Research Institute for Future Cryptoeconomics (RIAT) and the Austrian Academy of Sciences.
The University of Vienna is already involved in the research crypto project “Ethertrust“, that aims to improve the security of smart contracts on Ethereum blockchain.
BitPanda, formerly known as Coinimal, is a Bitcoin, Ethereum, Dash, Litecoin, BitcoinCash and Ripple wallet that allows users to buy cryptocurrencies with fiat currency (EUR) using Skrill, SEPA or a Credit Card.
They will be focused on Token Atomic Swap Technology (TAST), as cross-chain token transfers will make it possible for users to easily migrate between any current and future blockchain asset, and Lightning Networks.
The ICO
Pantos will initially be launched on the Ethereum platform, but as soon as possible it will support also Bitcoin, Litecoin, Lisk, Komodo and Wave.
Pantos will raise funds through an Initial Coin Offering, with an hard cap sets at 1500 BTC and the release of PAN tokens. 40% of PAN will be allocated among participants of the ICO, while the remaining 59% of PAN will be reserved as a company reserve for future fundraising, management & employees and bounties. 1% of PAN will be airdropped to eligible Bitpanda users. Click here for more information: Pantos ICO Details.
Founders of Bitpanda Eric Demuth, Paul Klanschek and Christian Trummer stated that:
“The various networks compete not only for investment, resources and market share – but also for knowledge. This is where Pantos comes into play: With the new technology and the PAN Token, for the first time, it is intended to enable valuable transfers of tokens across several blockchains“
———————————————-
Lisk Magazine is a project supported by Lisk Italian Group. | 2,693 |
– The Slippery Rock University football team unveiled the new, one-of-a-kind Adidas uniforms and Riddell helmets the team will wear next Saturday when it faces Mercyhurst at Michigan Stadium in the Big House Battle.Rock head football coach, director of football operationsand representatives from Adidas were in talks for nearly a year developing the commemorative uniform The Rock will wear next Saturday for the one and only time."We wanted to find a unique way to show appreciation for our gracious hosts at the University of Michigan," said Mihalik. "We thought that in order to respect the Wolverines' great rivalry with Michigan State, we wouldn't wear our traditional home green uniforms in their stadium."Instead of wearing the traditional green that has become a staple of Rock football home games, Slippery Rock will wear a specially designed all gray uniform, from head to toe.The uniform features the latest and most advanced material Adidas puts into its football uniforms, from the socks all the way to visors some players will wear.In addition to the socks, gloves, jerseys and pants provided by Adidas, The Rock will also sport special reflective silver Riddell Speed helmets with white facemasks, a change from the traditional white helmets and green facemasks.The traditional "The Rock" that has become a staple of SRU football uniforms is proudly featured across the chest of the jersey, along with a commemorative Big House Battle patch and a patch featuring the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference.The numbers on the jersey are another special twist from Adidas. Rather than the traditional white numbers, The Rock will sport reflective silver numbers on the front and back of the jerseys. The reflective glow matches the new gloves Slippery Rock players will wear.In honor of the 125th anniversary of the university, Slippery Rock will also wear the commemorative striped undershirts the team has worn all year. Rather than the white and green stripes, the shirts will feature gray and green stripes."We want to thank Adidas and Riddell for coming together and helping us create this incredible uniform," said Mihalik. "We're really hoping the Michigan fans will come out and support us next weekend and become Rock football fans when we return to the Big House."The uniform was unveiled to the team for the first time Sunday night, in a presentation where Mihalik spoke about the values of Rock football and the 125th anniversary of the uniform.For complete, in depth photos of the university, view the gallery linked above.Kickoff in the Big House Battle is set for 1 p.m. next Saturday, Oct. 18, at Michigan Stadium. Tickets and information available HERE. | 2,694 |
two decades — from 1999 to 2006; starting in 2007; and then again starting in 2014 — that led to the opioid death rate being five times as high as it was in 1999. “The epidemic's three waves — driven by a procession of legal and illicit opioids alike — have ricocheted across the country, creating a scenario in which Americans now are more likely to die from an opioid overdose than a car crash,” they write. “By slicing the epidemic into phases, the analysis offers a glimpse into how America's ever-changing drug habit morphed into an all-consuming crisis.”
Overlooked communities: The attention to the opioid crisis has been focused on mostly white communities and individuals impacted by a boom in prescription pills, Joseph P. Williams reports. “Yet population health analysts, academics and on-the-ground specialists say heroin and its related plagues of crime and death have stalked African-American neighborhoods for decades, garnering little to no attention,” he writes. “The disparities in attention, resources and long-term strategies have led to a tale of two opioid crises. One is white, a malady of medical and mental health, and worthy of a White House-level task force. The other is black, criminal and largely ignored, even as statistics show black opioid users are dying at a skyrocketing pace.”
Treating addicted youth: America’s youth have also been partly left out of the conversation. “The same opioids abused by adults have taken their toll on younger generations: prescription painkillers, heroin and, increasingly, the synthetic substance fentanyl,” reports Casey Leins. “Adolescents suffering from opioid addiction can face a difficult road to recovery, as only a small percentage receive medication-assisted treatment — a mix of counseling, behavioral therapy and craving-reducing medications like buprenorphine or naltrexone that's widely accepted as an effective means of rehabilitation.”
— And here are a few more good reads:
TRUMP TEMPERATURE
MEDICAL MISSIVES
INDUSTRY RX
STATE SCAN
DAYBOOK
Today
The Senate Finance Committee holds a drug pricing hearing
The House Oversight and Reform Committee holds a hearing on drug companies and rising drug prices.
The House Ways and Means Committee holds a hearing on preexisting conditions.
The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee holds a hearing on health-care access.
SUGAR RUSH
Do third-party candidates impact elections? | 2,695 |
The UK’s leading producer of electric buses, the BYD ADL partnership, has delivered more 100% emissions-free single deck electric buses to Transport for London (TfL) operator Go-Ahead London. 22 BYD ADL Enviro200EV models are now in service on route 214 between Highgate, Camden Town, King’s Cross and the City.
These latest deliveries mean the BYD ADL partnership – BYD (Europe) and Alexander Dennis Limited, part of leading global independent bus manufacturer NFI Group – has now delivered 98 electric buses to Go-Ahead London; nearly half the total of over 200 electric buses that the BYD ADL partnership has delivered to operators throughout the UK.
This most recent delivery also signals the introduction of the shorter 10.2-metre variant to provide a reduced turning circle and enhanced maneuverability. A 9.6-metre model will follow later in the year with 11 buses for Go-Ahead London, and the operator additionally has 13 BYD ADL Enviro200EV electric buses with a length of 10.8-metres on order and scheduled to go into service in early 2020.
The BYD ADL partnership’s single deck and double deck electric buses are both being delivered in significant numbers to operators in London as the capital’s transport system transitions from diesel. Over 170 BYD ADL electric buses are now in operation on TfL services, with over seven million electric miles having been completed, and more than four million completed by Go-Ahead alone.
“It’s true,” said Frank Thorpe, Managing Director at BYD (UK), “the order book looks very healthy for both our single deck and double deck products – and against a broadening customer portfolio outside of London, too. Manchester and Birmingham are switching to BYD ADL electric mobility and there’s considerable interest elsewhere. There’s a public transport revolution taking place in the UK,” said Thorpe, “and it is electric mobility that really is leading the charge.”
Colin Robertson, ADL Chief Executive, added, “Our customers enjoy the operational benefits of pure-electric drive – lower running costs, easier maintenance – and passengers are really responding, too. There’s a genuine feel-good factor when travelling in quiet comfort on a vehicle which emits zero emissions and improves the city’s air quality. As more and more routes are switched to electric, London is setting new standards for sustainable mobility.” | 2,696 |
Parallel iOS Testing using Bluepill, Fastlane and Jenkins
How to integrate Bluepill using Fastlane and Jenkins
Bluepill is an open source repo that allows for parallel testing of Xcode projects. (https://github.com/linkedin/bluepill) This parallelization reduces test time by observing the runtime complexity of your tests and bundling them in an even distribution of the number of simulators that you choose to run. I will try to walk you through installation of Bluepill and its implementation for Jenkins and Fastlane.
First download the latest release found https://github.com/linkedin/bluepill/releases/ (at the time of this writing it is version 1.1.2). Place the BP and bluepill files inside of your Fastlane folder. Now the repo lists two options for building your test environment, you can either create a bash script or configure a json file. I personally was having trouble getting the json file to run correctly so I made a test script called bluepill.sh, you can modify the contents of this script as needed for your use. (https://gist.github.com/EricADockery/90f806e86113b6d5e29c101a6e665d2a#file-bluepill-sh)
What this script does is back out of our Fastlane folder in the repo grab the derived path of our test build, go back into Fastlane and runs bluepill on 4 simulators retrying the tests once and storing the output in a test_output directory. Then if if finds a failure in the test_output Final report file it exits with a 1 reporting the failure to Jenkins.
Now inside of your fastfile add your bluepill lane:(https://gist.github.com/EricADockery/90f806e86113b6d5e29c101a6e665d2a#file-fastfile)
And lastly update your Fastlane test in Jenkins to run
fastlane bluepill
And watch your tests run in parallel. Determining the right configuration took a couple of days but the results were a reduction in test time by about 15%. I hope this helps you setup bluepill and reduce your test time. One thing that I did notice was that any tests that involve the keychain in our project failed. I am not sure if it is something on our repo or something with bluepill.
Find a bug, or think I’m wrong? Leave me a message and I will take a look. | 2,697 |
By Holly Cook
Final development plans for the Mission Gateway site passed through the city’s Planning Commission Monday with a vote of 8-1.
The $162 million project outlined during this week’s meeting was virtually the same as what was put before the Mission City Council in December 2016 by developer Tom Valenti of Cameron Group LLC.
Plans include construction of a hotel, apartment building, restaurant and retail space and potentially an office building. The site will also include a partially free-standing parking structure and courtyard with seating and a performance area.
Construction will roll out in three phases. The first phase will develop the apartment building with retail and restaurant space. The second phase will develop a 200-room Aloft and Element hotel and restaurant.
The final phase will develop three buildings in the area previously slated for the Walmart Superstore at the corner of Johnson Drive and Roe Avenue. Walmart backed out as a potential tenant in October 2016. According to Valenti these three buildings will serve as “placeholders” until tenants are secured.
Valenti said they would like to start the first phase of construction “as soon as possible” but did not provide details on a timeline. Previously Valenti had planned to initiate construction at the end of this month.
The commission did not delve into a construction start date or how tax-increment financing (TIF) or community improvement district (CID) funds may be leveraged to finance the plans.
Instead Monday’s discussion centered on a presentation of the modern-style design planned for the development.
Buildings will be wrapped in corrugated metal, stained cedar, aluminum composite panels and precast concrete. The proposed color scheme used mostly blues and greys with a pop of canary yellow.
City Planner Danielle Murray said the plans complied with Johnson Drive design guidelines.
Planning Commissioner Robin Dukelow said she liked the usage of yellow as an accent color.
“I think it’s kind of fun, but that’s just my opinion,” she said.
Planning Commissioner Jim Brown said he did not care for the heavy usage of metal and voted against approving the plans for that reason.
“It just seems like a lot of corrugated metal,” he said.
City staff determined the sign criteria outlined in the plan was not sufficient and recommended the commission revisit that piece at a later time.
Planning Commissioner Stuart Braden made the motion to accept the proposal, minus the sign component. | 2,698 |
Throughout the BMW world, there are consistently tremors of which cars are going to be the next model to rise in value. Although high-quality 2002s have been on that list for a while, honest drivers that still need a good amount of finishing work are rapidly becoming desirable as well. This 1974 2002 tii here on eBay will need a fair amount of bodywork in the future, but it’s a running, driving example that you can enjoy while tackling the cosmetics in phases.
This tii has lots of desirable bits, from the Recaro seats to the European-style chrome bumpers. It also is a rare factory sunroof model. The three-spoke steering wheel is a take-it-or-leave it option for me; personally, I like the sport wheel out of an E21 for an OEM+ upgrade. No word on whether the dash is cracked, but given it lives in climate with lots of sun, I’m going to assume it needs replacing to be perfect. The Recaros are likely the ones found in the E21, but appear to be cloth. I’d want to have them recovered in black vinyl to match the rear bench.
The seller claims the motor runs well enough that there’s a likelihood it was rebuilt at some point. Though tii’s are sometimes harvested for the Kugelfischer injection system or because previous owners wanted to run carbs, this example appears unmodified. One of the modifications the seller did perform is a sensible one, which is the upgrade to a 5-speed gearbox. Other enhancements include an aftermarket suspension, consisting of Bilsteins and unnamed lowering springs and larger sway bars. The battery has been moved to the trunk for better weight distribution and the next owner will have his choice of either the Minilite wheels shown or stock BMW steelies.
The square tail light models were slapped with the generous “park bench” bumpers front and rear, so the presence of the neatly-tucked European-style chrome bumpers is a visually-pleasing upgrade. While the Golf Yellow paint is a tad rough, it’s one of the best factory colors to come on a 2002. More importantly, the rear shock towers are solid and none of the rust appears to be anything out of the ordinary for a daily-driven car of this vintage. Bidding is already over $5,000 with plenty of time left in the auction. Cars like these are always interesting to watch as it provides some indication as to the market’s appetite for original projects over turnkey drivers. | 2,699 |
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