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They’re finally gone. Early this morning about 4:30 or so, the General Assembly adjourned. They left a lot of damage in their wake, but it could have been worse.
On the down side, our pubic schools continue to be underfunded and our teachers underpaid. In a blatantly discriminatory move, they’ve allowed magistrates to opt out of marrying gay couples. They privatized Medicaid despite having a system that was working, saving money, and providing good service. An anti-environmental bill that passed last night stripped away protections and monitoring because they were working. The GOP again raised taxes on poor and middle-class families by expanding sales taxes on services but exempting services most used by upper income people and businesses. They passed a bill that will allow leaders of the legislature to essentially run their own parties and take unlimited contributions from a variety of sources including corporations. I’m sure there was more bad stuff but that’s what I remember without digging.
Not much really good legislation passed, but some bad legislation was stopped. At the end of the session, when mischief and bad ideas flourish, the Senate tried to pass a bill that would syphon money from traditional public schools and give it to charters. The House bottled it up at least until next spring. Another Senate bill that would have restricted the power of local government also died in the house. The House also blocked a sales tax redistribution plan that would have harmed cities while managing to get some increased funding to rural areas. They restored a portion of the film credits that will help keep the movie industry in Wilmington. The House also protected teaching assistants that the Senate wanted to eliminate. We will get to vote on a bond referendum that would fund some much needed infrastructure improvements.
The big take away from the session is that House Speaker Tim Moore is a serious player. He served as the counter balance to Phil Berger’s Senate that his predecessor, U. S. Senator Thom Tillis, never could. While the Senate is full of ideologues who would remake North Carolina into a free-market utopia, Moore is a conservative pragmatist who wants government to function. Having Moore as a counterpart is a setback for the Senate after years of outmaneuvering the overly ambition Tillis.
Pat McCrory, for his part, comes out just as he went in. He’s a hapless politician with limited skills who was more of a spectator than a participant. The Senate and House control the state.
Thomas Mills is the founder and publisher of PoliticsNC.com. Before beginning PoliticsNC, Thomas spent twenty years as a political and public affairs consultant. Learn more > | 4,600 |
Not content with dubbing some of his former Sunderland players "cowards", Paolo Di Canio has singled out Lee Cattermole, Phil Bardsley, John O'Shea and Steven Fletcher for further criticism.
Cattermole's return to the first team fold coincided with the players' revolt that unseated Di Canio from the manager's chair at the Stadium of Light in September, while Bardsley crossed him on a couple of well documented occasions.
Both players have been rehabilitated under Gus Poyet – with Bardsley's place at right-back seeming slightly more secure than Cattermole's midfield berth – and both have played key parts in helping Sunderland reach the League Cup final.
Di Canio, though, clearly felt they were beyond redemption. "Those two players [Cattermole and Bardsley] were rotten," he said. "The most unprofessional players I ever worked with. What Bardsley has done in the last year speaks volumes. Photos of him lying on the floor in a casino covered by £50 notes and laughing at the team losing on the opening day, that's public. It's no surprise these players were kicked out of my plans. The reason Sunderland stayed up at the end of last season was because Cattermole was injured and Bardsley played very little."
Di Canio believes Sunderland are deeply embroiled in another relegation battle partly because of their "weak" mentality and he used the term two-faced to describe his former captain, O'Shea.
"I don't like people who, when they speak to you, don't look into your eyes," said the 45-year-old Italian who now believes it is his "destiny" to manage West Ham. "He [O'Shea] should say sorry to some of his team-mates for the many times he came into my office to say something unfavourable about them. This is the same person that also came to me when I first took over and said things about [Martin] O'Neill."
Di Canio is still angry with Fletcher after the Scotland striker claimed he did not allow him to laugh or smile in training. "I don't like people fooling around when we're having a serious discussion about strategy," said Poyet's predecessor. "I don't like people who laugh when they keep missing the goal in training or miss a tackle that leads to conceding a goal."
The former Swindon manager insisted he commanded the support of the bulk of Sunderland's squad. "On my phone, I have 14 text messages from players at the club supporting me," said Di Canio. | 4,601 |
WASHINGTON, DC — President Trump reiterated his view that former FBI Director James Comey lied under oath to the Senate during a joint press conference Friday with Romanian President Klaus Iohannis Eastern at the White House. Asked whether he would testify to that fact under oath, Trump said he would, potentially committing himself to testimony before Special Counsel Robert Mueller. You can watch a replay of the event below.
The press conference was the media's first chance to ask Trump questions publicly since Comey delivered his highly anticipated testimony before the Senate on Thursday, during which he accused the president of lies and described the extensive concerns he had about Trump's relationship with the bureau. (For more information on this and other political stories, subscribe to the White House Patch for daily newsletters and breaking news alerts.) When asked why Trump said Comey's testimony made him feel "vindicated," Trump said that Comey confirmed a lot of what he said and that a lot of what Comey said wasn't true. He also called Comey a "leaker." "No obstruction, no collusion," he said. He said that he never asked Comey for loyalty, as Comey said, and he never told Comey he hoped he would drop the investigation into former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn.
Since he was accusing Comey of lying under oath, a reporter asked if Trump would be willing to contradict Comey under oath. Trump said he would. But he also said that even if he had asked Comey to drop the Flynn investigation, there would have been nothing wrong with it.
When asked whether he has tapes of his conversations with Comey or others, Trump said he might give that answer sometime soon. "I'll tell you about that maybe sometime in the near future, " he said. When he was later pressed on this question, he said the answer would be disappointing.
Asked whether the two discussed the issue of visa waivers, Trump said it didn't come up. Iohannis then contradicted the president; the Romanian president said he has brought up the issue in their talks.
Discussing NATO, Trump said he was committed to Article 5, a part of the treaty that pledges all NATO members to recognize an attack against one as an attack against all. Trump had previously declined to offer support for Article 5 specifically when he spoke at NATO headquarters, a move which sparked widespread criticism.
Trump also addressed the continuing crisis in the Arab Gulf surrounding the blockade of Qatar. He said Qatar has been a "funder of terrorism at a very high level." He continued: "I decided, along with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, our great generals... the time had come to call on Qatar to end its funding." In a press statement before Trump's press conference, Tillerson had called for easing the blockade. | 4,602 |
, and nearly 90% will do so within five years.
THE CHIEF JUSTICE draws an analogy to the car market. An individual "is not 'active in the car market,'" THE CHIEF JUSTICE observes, simply because he or she may someday buy a car. The analogy is inapt. The inevitable yet unpredictable need for medical care and the guarantee that emergency care will be provided when required are conditions nonexistent in other markets. That is so of the market for cars, and of the market for broccoli as well. Although an individual might buy a car or a crown of broccoli one day, there is no certainty she will ever do so. And if she eventually wants a car or has a craving for broccoli, she will be obliged to pay at the counter before receiving the vehicle or nourishment. She will get no free ride or food, at the expense of another consumer forced to pay an inflated price.
Underlying THE CHIEF JUSTICE's view that the Commerce Clause must be confined to the regulation of active participants in a commercial market is a fear that the commerce power would otherwise know no limits. As an example of the type of regulation he fears, THE CHIEF JUSTICE cites a Government mandate to purchase green vegetables. One could call this concern "the broccoli horrible." Congress, THE CHIEF JUSTICE posits, might adopt such a mandate, reasoning that an individual's failure to eat a healthy diet, like the failure to purchase health insurance, imposes costs on others.
Consider the chain of inferences the Court would have to accept to conclude that a vegetable-purchase mandate was likely to have a substantial effect on the health-care costs borne by lithe Americans. The Court would have to believe that individuals forced to buy vegetables would then eat them (instead of throwing or giving them away), would prepare the vegetables in a healthy way (steamed or raw, not deep-fried), would cut back on unhealthy foods, and would not allow other factors (such as lack of exercise or little sleep) to trump the improved diet.
When contemplated in its extreme, almost any power looks dangerous. The commerce power, hypothetically, would enable Congress to prohibit the purchase of all meat, fish, and dairy goods, effectively compelling Americans to eat only vegetables. Yet no one would offer the "hypothetical and unreal possibilit[y]" of a vegetarian state as a credible reason to deny Congress the authority ever to ban the possession and sale of heroin. THE CHIEF JUSTICE accepts just such specious logic when he cites the broccoli horrible as a reason to deny Congress the power to pass the individual mandate.
For the reasons explained above, the minimum coverage provision is valid Commerce Clause legislation. | 4,603 |
The vaping trend seemingly knows no bounds as the first “cannabis” e-cigarette goes on sale in the UK tomorrow.
The KanaVape, which contains hemp, has been legalised for use in France by people with cancer, multiple sclerosis (MS) and other conditions requiring pain relief.
Its creators told The Independent it will go on sale around the world tomorrow but the Home Office has cast doubt on whether that would be legal, saying the product must be tested for controlled substances.
Antonin Cohen and Sebastien Beguerie said the KanaVape cannot be compared to a joint or spliff because it does not contain THC, the chemical credited with causing cannabis highs.
A statement on its website said the product is made from certified hemp, which contains far less of the chemical than marijuana, and “does not have any psychoactive or euphoric effect”.
The KanaVape hemp vapouriser (KanaVape)
It is one of more than 60 active “cannabinoids” in the plant, which have varying effects including relaxation and pain relief.
“We made KanaVape to give millions of people a legal and tasteful way of using cannabinoids,” Mr Cohen and Mr Beguerie said.
“We craft our production with love, care and scientific research. KanaVape is good for our customers and good for the planet.”
The website boasts that the vaporiser allows the enjoyment of the “original flavour” of hemp without the accompanying smoke or psychotic effects.
“Stay relaxed, keep a clear mind and an active lifestyle with KanaVape – anytime, anywhere,” it says. “It will not make you ‘high’ but will help you relax.”
Different strains of hemp with varying cannabinoid content are grown for different uses (MARCEL VAN HOORN/AFP/Getty Images)
The hemp inside contains 5 per cent cannabidiol, which is being tested for medical applications around the world.
Licences are available to grow hemp in the UK and it can be legally sold in certain forms, including oil, paper and clothing.
A spokesperson for the Home Office said KanaVape would have to be tested for illegal substances before going on sale.
“Cannabis is classed as an illegal drug under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971,” he added.
"It is an offence to supply and possess a controlled drug and to supply any article believing it to be used for their administration.” | 4,604 |
Bouvetøya is a Norwegian island in the South Atlantic. The closest land mass is Dronning Maud Land in Antarctica, 1 700 km farther south.
It was the Frenchman Jean-Baptiste Bouvet de Lozier who first discovered Bouvetøya in 1739. Map: Norwegian Polar Institute
People often think of Bouvetøya as being part of Antarctica, but it lies north of 60°S and is therefore actually a sub-Antarctic island. Bouvetøya is tiny, a mere 49 km2, most of which is covered in ice. The island was formed from a volcanic crater, but the volcano has not erupted for ages. The highest point on the island is the edge of the old crater, Olavtoppen, 780 metres above sea level.
It was the Frenchman Jean-Baptiste Charles Bouvet de Lozier who first discovered Bouvetøya in 1739, when led two French ships exploring for a better route to the Far East. There was thick fog, so Bouvet never went ashore on the land he believed to be a peninsula extending from “Terra Australis” – the unknown continent in the south. He named the point he had sighted “Cap de la Circoncision”. The geographical coordinates that were noted turned out to be incorrect and many years passed before the island was rediscovered. It was not until 1808 that English whalers caught sight of the island again, and the first landing was in 1822. That was when the island was named Bouvetøya, in honour of its discoverer. On 1 December 1927, members of the crew of the first Norvegia expedition went ashore on Bouvetøya and claimed the island for Norway.
Bouvetøya is still usually enshrouded in mist or fog, just as it was in Bouvet’s time. Countless birds and animals live on Bouvetøya and both the island and the waters surrounding it were declared a nature preserve in 1972. The Norwegian Polar Institute sends expeditions to Bouvetøya regularly. In conjunction with a research expedition in 1979, three huts were established on the island. These huts were later lost. A new building (actually a container fitted out as a research station) was erected in 1996 for the use of researchers visiting the island. When a research team from the Norwegian Polar Institute arrived on Bouvetøya in late autumn of 2007, the patch of ground that had housed the research hut and a weather station had collapsed into the sea. The researchers had no choice but to set up a new camp elsewhere on the island.
| 4,605 |
A massive dust storm is whipping across at least seven countries in the Middle East this week, leaving at least twelve people dead. And a weather expert says the storm required only a “remarkably simple set of conditions.”
Big dust storms like this are called haboobs, which is Arabic for “violent wind.” Haboobs can develop in many parts of the world and are known to travel for thousands of miles, even all the way across the Pacific, says Ken Waters, a meteorologist with the U.S. Weather Service in Phoenix who studies the phenomena.
The storm blowing across the Middle East has reduced visibility and sent thousands of people to hospitals with breathing problems in parts of Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Jordan, Israel, and Cyprus. The storm has been blowing for at least two days and is thought to have started in Syria and Iraq. It is expected to continue until Wednesday.
Disruptions to transportation and potentially dangerous air quality are typically the two biggest impacts of the storms, says Waters.
Although meteorologists at Beirut’s Rafik Hariri International Airport have called the storm “unprecedented” in recent Lebanese history, Waters says severe dust storms aren’t actually very rare. Haboobs are most common in hot and dry conditions, which have been prevalent across much of the Middle East this summer. The two ingredients needed are an availability of dust or sand particles at the surface and enough sustained wind to get those particles moving, says Waters.
Scientists aren’t sure what the minimum wind speed is for a dust storm to form, but small, localized storms have been observed with speeds as low as 20 miles (32 kilometers) per hour. Larger ones, like the one that has pummelled Damascus and Beirut this week, need higher speeds to travel long distances. The sand storm that ripped through the same region in 2013 had wind speeds up to 60 miles (97 kilometers) per hour.
In the Western U.S., dust storms are most common between June and September, during hot, dry conditions. Moisture tends to weigh dirt down and keep it in place, so more dust storms tend to occur during droughts. Human activity that disturbs the soil, such as construction or fallowing farm fields, can also expose dirt that can contribute to storms. Poor farming practices are blamed for the massive dust storms that caused the Dust Bowl in the 1930s, rendering thousands homeless. (Is a new dust bowl developing?)
In July and August 2011 huge dust storms swept hundreds of miles across Arizona, blotting out the sun. Many smaller dust storms have developed there in the years since. | 4,606 |
Moscow (AFP) - A former US marine who was arrested in Moscow on espionage charges said Friday he had been injured by guards in the prison where he is being held awaiting trial.
"I was injured in the prison... the prison doesn't want to tell you," Paul Whelan told journalists from a cage in a Moscow court, which was to decide on whether to extend his provisional detention.
Whelan arrived in the court handcuffed and escorted by two security guards wearing black masks and plain clothes.
"You can see the treatment," he said as he entered.
"I am standing here in great pain due to an injury sustained in the prison by the prison guards," he said later from the cage in the courtroom, looking pale.
He did not say what type of injury he suffered, but his lawyer later said guards made him carry heavy belongings to another cell, exacerbating a hernia.
Whelan told the judge he needed to go to a hospital to receive suitable care.
The hearing into whether to extend his detention was interrupted when paramedics were called to examine Whelan, but the judge ultimately said hospitalisation was not required.
She ruled to extend his arrest to October 29.
Whelan's lawyer Vladimir Zherebenkov said after the hearing he expected the trial to start in earnest early next year.
He said Whelan has formally requested an operation, which will be filed through proper channels promptly.
The US Embassy in Moscow has asked the Russian foreign ministry for "immediate consular access" to Whelan to discuss "his serious health allegations," spokeswoman Andrea Kalan wrote on Twitter.
Whelan, who also holds Canadian, Irish and British passports, was arrested in December after allegedly receiving state secrets. He risks up to 20 years in prison if convicted.
On Friday he complained none of the documents supplied for the hearing were translated into English, and he was given only two hours to prepare.
"How can I participate in my defence?" he asked.
"I'm innocent of any charge," he said.
Story continues
He maintains he has been framed and that he took a USB drive from an acquaintance thinking it contained holiday photos.
His family said Whelan had been in Moscow for a friend's wedding.
During an earlier hearing, he made a direct appeal to US President Donald Trump.
"Mr President -- we cannot keep America great unless we aggressively protect and defend citizens wherever they are in the world," he said.
Whelan is among high-profile detainees mooted for a potential prisoner swap with the United States. | 4,607 |
The past half-decade has been a very busy one for inXile boss Brian Fargo. His studio successfully crowdfunded and then launched Wasteland 2 and Torment: Tides of Numenera, it's got The Bard's Tale 4 and Wasteland 3 in the works, and he also helped set up the investor-friendly, game-exclusive crowdfunding platform Fig. But his career stretches back a whole lot farther than that—Moby cites his first credit as an Apple II adventure called The Demon's Forge, and he very famously headed up the glory days of Interplay—and now, according to Eurogamer, he's starting to feel an urge to try something else.
"I love this industry, but I've been at this since 1981," Fargo said. "I've been at it with Ken and Roberta Williams, Trip Hawkins, the guys from Brøderbund—I look at my friends, they have a lot more spare time than I do. It's a very intense business. It's all encompassing. It seems like I should relax for a little bit."
The husband-and-wife Williams team, who co-founded Sierra Online (originally known as On-Line Systems) in 1979, retired from the industry around 2000, while Hawkins, who launched Electronic Arts in 1982, got out of the mainstream game development business a few years later. Brøderbund, which at one time was something of an industry heavyweight, went under in 1998. Fargo has stuck around through it all: He left Interplay in 2000 and founded inXile a couple of years later, which released games including the comedy action-RPG Bard's Tale, Super Slacker, Hei$t, and Hunted: The Demon's Forge. But it was the advent of Kickstarter, which enabled the development of Wasteland 2, that really put him and his studio back on the PC gaming map.
Wasteland 3 isn't expected to be out until 2019, so it's not as though Fargo is headed out the door tomorrow, and it leaves him plenty of time for second thoughts. But he said the company is in a good position to see him go, both from a personnel standpoint—"I've been training these people for years to make me obsolete," he said—and financially.
"We don't owe any external people any money. We don't have any debt. The other shares are with some of the employees of the company. So as long as it continues doing good product it should be fine," he said. He also acknowledged a certain downside to declaring that Wasteland 3 will be his final game: "It puts even more pressure on me to make damn sure that thing is stellar." | 4,608 |
LSU and Alabama are the top two teams in the country one month before their game in Tuscaloosa.
The SEC West rivals held the first two spots in The Associated Press college football poll released Sunday as the second-ranked Crimson Tide jumped past No. 3 Oklahoma.
Alabama's rise gives the Southeastern Conference the top two teams in the country for the 10th time in the last four seasons. And for the first time since 2000, the Nos. 1 and 2 teams reside in the same division. That season Nebraska and Kansas State of the Big 12 North held the top two spots in the AP poll for one week.
The Tide beat Florida 38-10 on Saturday night in Gainesville, then received 12 first-place votes in the media rankings.
LSU remained No. 1 for a second straight week, receiving 40 first-place votes and 1,473 points. Alabama had 1,435 points. The Tigers play the Tide on Nov. 5 in a game that could ultimately decide the division -- and much more.
Oklahoma, which started the season No. 1 before slipping behind LSU last week, got seven first-place votes.
Wisconsin also moved up after a big victory, jumping three spots to No. 4 after a 48-17 win against Nebraska.
Boise State, which had one first-place vote, slipped a spot to No. 5.
Oklahoma was No. 1 in the USA Today coaches' poll, followed by LSU, Alabama, Stanford and Wisconsin.
The top eight in the AP poll were all undefeated, with No. 6 Oklahoma State followed by Stanford and Clemson.
Oregon was ninth and Arkansas was No. 10.
Three more unbeaten teams were next: No. 11 Texas, which faces rival Oklahoma on Saturday in Dallas, No. 12 Michigan and No. 13 Georgia Tech.
Nebraska fell six spots to No. 14 and Auburn jumped back into the poll all the way to No. 15 after the Tigers beat South Carolina 16-10 on the road. The defending national champions have fallen out of the rankings twice this season.
No. 16 West Virginia is the only Big East team in the rankings.
No. 17 Florida dropped five spots after getting thumped by Alabama and No. 18 South Carolina dropped eight spots.
No. 19 Illinois has its best ranking since the final regular-season poll of 2007. No. 20 Kansas State is ranked for the first time since Oct. 14, 2007.
The final five were Virginia Tech, Arizona State, Florida State, Texas A&M and Baylor.
Falling out after losses were TCU and South Florida. | 4,609 |
European philology.
Free from the obvious burdens of British colonialism, he engages in a subtler form of Orientalist imposition, the kind of imposition I have analyzed in my book Breaking India. This involves a tendentious reading of the Indian past and of its present problems that is fixated on caste, class, race and gender oppression and regards our cultural achievements as tainted by this legacy. I do not deny that these problems exist, and that they have ancient roots, as they do in the past of most global cultures today. But to read our entire tradition in these terms and to treat every attempt to revive and re-invigorate it as a form of nationalism or saffronization does no service either to our heritage or to our future.
My book looks at some key points of tension in Indology. It frames the issues by looking through the lenses of two opposing camps: the ‘insiders’ who subscribe to a Vedic worldview and the ‘outsiders’ who dismiss the spirituality of the Vedas. The byline of the book’s title captures three broad areas of contention that are discussed in its chapters:
Is Sanskrit political or sacred?
Oppressive or liberating?
Dead or alive?
In each pair of opposites, the first position mentioned is that of the outsiders, and the second position is that of the insiders. Thus, outsiders find Sanskrit and sanskriti to be political, oppressive and dead. The insiders would disagree and find our Sanskrit-based sanskriti to be sacred, liberating and alive.
Pollock’s critique is serious, informed, and motivated by strong commitments; but it is also myopic and captive to a single, reductionist political ideology. He deserves both respect for his positions and a reasoned response that is neither ignorant nor bombastic. Such a critique must acknowledge whatever in his work has validity, but also defend our tradition, its roots in a transcendental perspective and its capacity for growth and change. Such a response has been singularly lacking from the traditional side.
It is important to clarify that only a small portion of today’s Indologists are American Orientalists. It would be incorrect to project my critique of Orientalists onto the whole community of academic scholars of the social sciences and humanities, many of whom have gone to great lengths to shed the mentality I am criticizing here, and to understand and express an insider perspective, whether from the point of view of their own commitments and practices or as a matter of principle. However, the influence of Pollock’s group is significant in academics, media, education and public opinion. Hence, his works must be discussed in detail. | 4,610 |
To help malware analysts and security researchers overcome FinFisher’s advanced anti-disassembly obfuscation and virtualization features, ESET researchers have framed some clever tricks into a whitepaper, “ESET’s guide to deobfuscating and devirtualizing FinFisher”.
FinFisher, also known as FinSpy, has a history of being used in surveillance campaigns, both against legitimate targets and against political opposition in countries with oppressive regimes. Despite that, the latest thorough analyses dealt with samples from as long ago as 2010. Since then, FinFisher’s developers added strong anti-analysis measures; apparently, this is also the reason why subsequent reports about FinFisher don’t go into much technical detail. In one of the reports, a reputable security company even admitted that due to strong obfuscation, it was not possible to extract the C&C servers.
Having discovered a wave of surveillance campaigns in several countries in mid-2017, ESET researchers dug deep into the samples of FinFisher. To be able to start a thorough analysis of how these recent samples work, they first had to break through all of FinFisher’s protective layers.
“The company behind FinFisher has built a multimillion-dollar business around this spyware – so it comes as no surprise that they put a much bigger effort into hiding and obfuscation than most common cybercriminals. Our aim is to help our peers analyze FinFisher and thus protect internet users from this threat,” comments Filip Kafka, ESET malware analyst who leads the analysis of FinFisher.
Kafka expects the FinFisher creators to improve their protections to make FinFisher hard to analyze again. “With their huge resources, there is no doubt FinFisher will receive even better anti-analysis features. However, I expect their additional measures to cost more to implement while being easier to crack for us the next time around,” he says.
ESET’s research into FinFisher is ongoing. In the first stage, ESET researchers focused on the infection vector used in the mentioned campaigns. They strongly believe internet service providers have played the key role in infecting the victims with FinFisher.
Filip Kafka’s presentations of these findings along with a brief overview of FinFisher’s anti-analysis capabilities raised a lot of interest at the Virus Bulletin Conference as well as the AVAR conference in 2017.
Learn about latest ESET research into FinFisher: “ESET’s guide to deobfuscating and devirtualizing FinFisher” | 4,611 |
White House counselor Kellyanne Conway Kellyanne Elizabeth ConwaySpecial counsel investigating DeVos for potential Hatch Act violation: report George and Kellyanne Conway honor Ginsburg Trump carries on with rally, unaware of Ginsburg's death MORE said on Sunday that President Trump Donald John TrumpOmar fires back at Trump over rally remarks: 'This is my country' Pelosi: Trump hurrying to fill SCOTUS seat so he can repeal ObamaCare Trump mocks Biden appearance, mask use ahead of first debate MORE meant he was unaware of his lawyer's payment to adult-film star Stormy Daniels at the time it occurred when he previously denied knowing about it.
Conway during an appearance on CBS’s “Face The Nation” sought to clarify Trump’s initial comments last month that he was unaware of the payment. She also rejected the notion that the money qualified as a campaign contribution.
“This was a private matter, had nothing to do with campaign funds,” Conway said.
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The White House has come under scrutiny in recent days for its changing story about whether Trump knew that his personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, paid Daniels $130,000 as part of a nondisclosure agreement in the weeks before the 2016 campaign.
Trump said aboard Air Force One in April that he was not aware that Cohen had paid Daniels, and said he did not know where the money came from.
However, Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s new attorney in the Russia probe, said on Fox News last week that the president reimbursed Cohen for the money and was generally aware of the arrangement.
On Sunday, Conway disputed Giuliani’s characterization that the payment was a “campaign expenditure.”
“I don’t know why anyone would say that. I would not characterize it that way,” she said, adding that the matter never crossed her desk while she was serving as Trump’s campaign manager in 2016.
Conway said that Trump gave Cohen authority to use funds that “had nothing to do with the campaign” as he saw fit.
She added that Trump's tweets on the matter, in which the president said he paid Cohen a monthly retainer that was used to cover the payment to Daniels, emphasize that it was a private agreement, and not related to the campaign.
Daniels, whose legal name is Stephanie Clifford, is suing Trump and Cohen to be released from the nondisclosure agreement, which bars her from speaking about an alleged affair with Trump in 2006. She claims the agreement is void because Trump never signed it.
In addition, she has filed lawsuits against both men for defamation. | 4,612 |
EMBED >More News Videos At least seven people have been killed and several others hurt from gun violence across Chicago Memorial Day weekend.
Bobbieana Lyons. Family provided photo
CHICAGO (WLS) -- Seven people have been killed and several others hurt from gun violence across Chicago Memorial Day weekend.As of Sunday morning, Chicago police have reported more than 20 wounded, including a Chicago police sergeant, since Friday.The sergeant was traveling northbound on Noble Street in West Town when she was struck by gunfire between two cars at about 11:56 p.m. Saturday.The shot grazed her bulletproof vest and she was taken to Northwestern Hospital in good condition.Police said no one was in custody on Sunday.Then at about 1:15 a.m. Sunday, a 29-year-old man was shot four times in the abdomen as he was sitting in a car in the 800-block of West Garfield Boulevard. He was taken to University of Chicago Medical Center in serious condition.Police said the man was unable to give details about the shooting and no one is in custody.Unfortunately, this year's Memorial Day weekend is on track to be as violent as last year. In 2017, 45 people were shot and seven people died.In the Auburn Gresham neighborhood, a 20-year-old woman was shot in the back of the head at close range Saturday night.The shooting occurred at about 8:30 p.m. near 76th and Halsted in the city's Auburn Gresham neighborhood on the South Side. The woman was walking when a man came behind her and shot her, police said.The woman was taken to the University of Chicago Hospital where she was pronounced dead. The woman was identified to the Cook County Medical Examiner's Office as Bobbieana Lyons.Earlier on Saturday, an 18-year-old woman was killed after someone accidentally shot her in the Back of the Yards neighborhood on the South Side, police said. China Lyons-Upshaw was shot in the chest about 9 p.m. in the 800-block of 49th Place, Chicago police and the Cook County Medical Examiner's Office said. Witnesses told police the man was playing with the gun when it fell to the ground and discharged. The man ran away after the shooting and was not in custody.In the Englewood neighborhood, a 34-year-old was shot in the head. Officers found Timothy Brown facedown about 1:30 a.m. in the 2300-block of West 70th Street, Chicago police and the Cook County Medical Examiner's Office said. He was pronounced dead at the scene. Brown lived in the Marquette Park neighborhood. Police were conducting a homicide investigation. | 4,613 |
HACKENSACK -- If a town has public transit, apartments and restaurants, there's only one thing some think could sweeten the deal for investors and residents -- beer and booze.
If a bill making its way through the Legislature becomes law, Hackensack will be the guinea pig in a pilot program allowing municipalities that fit a very specific set of requirements to distribute liquor permits as more residences are developed.
Under the bill, A4734, a permit would be issued for every 100 units added through redevelopment.
The permit holder would be randomly selected by the issuing authority, perhaps in a lottery system, said Assemblyman Gordon Johnson, the bill's sponsor.
The permit's annual fee would be $25,000 in its first year and $15,000 every year after.
"We're trying to create a vibrant pedestrian-friendly city by having people live in our downtown," Hackensack Mayor John Labrosse said.
Hackensack is undergoing a transformation downtown, with hundreds of apartments and thousands of square feet of retail space planned.
The permits would encourage even more development on Main Street. Eventually, Hackensack could model Jersey City or Hoboken, said Jerome Lombardo, chairman of the Board of the Hackensack Main Street Business Alliance.
"We're trying to create that same kind of ambience, that same kind of nightlife that attracts the millennials and the older generation that want to move downtown," Lombardo said.
"Before we can do that, we need tools more tools in the toolbox."
Municipalities designated as "transit villages" by the state that have adopted a "Smart Growth Redevelopment Plan" would qualify.
Johnson said he acknowledged potential grievances from liquor license holders, who sometimes have paid thousands of dollars for their licenses.
So, he said, the bill was written to give them a cut of the profit.
For 15 years, once the permit is issued, 80 percent of the money from the fees will go to liquor license holders in the municipality. After the 15 years is up, the entire fee will go toward the municipality.
Unlike the liquor licenses, the permits can't be sold or moved to another part of town. And, as Lombardo countered, more foot traffic to the downtown area would bring more business to the restaurants that have a liquor license as well.
"It would be huge," Labrosse said. "Developers would be even more champing at the bit to develop here."
Sara Jerde may be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @SaraJerde. | 4,614 |
Houston judge makes pivotal ruling in murder trial of David Temple, former coach and Katy high football player accused of killing wife
David Temple arrives for a hearing at the 178th District Court Tuesday, Oct. 10, 2017, in Houston. The former Alief Hastings High School football coach spent almost a decade in prison after being convicted of killing his wife but his conviction was reversed last year. He is awaiting retrial in Harris County. >>>See a timeline of the David Temple case... less David Temple arrives for a hearing at the 178th District Court Tuesday, Oct. 10, 2017, in Houston. The former Alief Hastings High School football coach spent almost a decade in prison after being convicted of... more Photo: Godofredo A. Vasquez, TempleAppears1010 / Godofredo A. Vasquez Photo: Godofredo A. Vasquez, TempleAppears1010 / Godofredo A. Vasquez Image 1 of / 48 Caption Close Houston judge makes pivotal ruling in murder trial of David Temple, former coach and Katy high football player accused of killing wife 1 / 48 Back to Gallery
The trial for David Temple, the Alief Hastings High School football coach whose conviction for his wife’s murder was overturned because of prosecutorial misconduct, has been delayed until June 20.
His trial was originally set to begin on Feb. 1, just over 20 years from the date of the infamous killing. But neither side has said for sure whether he actually will stand trial again.
The criminal case against the football coach was controversial from the beginning, since Temple was not charged with the crime until years after it occurred. Harris County prosecutors argued that Temple, who was having an affair with an school employee, shot his pregnant wife to death in their Katy home and attempted to make the homicide appear to be a botched home invasion.
His defense attorney claimed that prosecutors did not disclose they had alternative suspects for the slaying of Belinda Lucas Temple. And they said a timeline of the coach’s movements the day of the slaying made it nearly impossible for him to have committed the crime.
Special prosecutors from the Texas Attorney General’s Office in Austin have been tasked with the decision of whether to retry Temple in the Jan. 11, 1999, killing of Belinda Lucas Temple.
In court on Tuesday, both sides seemed to want to postpone the trial — it had been set to begin in 10 days. State District Judge Kelli Johnson agreed to grant a continuance.
Neither the prosecutors nor Temple's attorney, Stanley Schneider — who was successful in getting the first conviction overturned —spoke after Tuesday’s hearing.
[email protected] | 4,615 |
There’s a silver lining to the upcoming weekend MBTA station closures (and it’s not the Silver Line).
Bluebikes announced this week that it will offer discounted rides during the downtown Boston station closures, which will begin Friday night on the Orange Line and recur every weekend between Sullivan Square and Tufts Medical Center through Nov. 10. The closures will then hit the Red Line, shutting down stations from Kendall/MIT and Broadway nearly every weekend from Nov. 16 to Dec. 15.
On those weekends, Bluebikes will offer single trips of up to 30 minutes for $1, down from the normal $2.66 price for nonmembers. According to the Boston-area bike-share program’s website, the one-buck trips can be redeemed by tapping “Single Trip” on the Bluebikes mobile app and entering code “BLUECROSS.” The $1 trips can be redeemed an unlimited number of times.
“We hope these discounted Bluebikes fares will help our communities reduce the challenges of traveling in the city during these scheduled MBTA shutdowns,” said Kathy Klingler, the chief marketing officer of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, which sponsors BlueBikes.
The bike rental system — which is owned by the municipalities of Boston, Brookline, Cambridge, Everett, and Somerville — will also offer expanded “valet service” at West End Park, at Copley Square by the intersection of Dartmouth and Boylston streets, and at Boston City Hall at 28 State St., from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. during the affected weekends.
MBTA officials say the unprecedented series of closures will significantly hasten the completion of several station improvement projects.
In the meantime, the Bluebikes website has recommendations for bike-docking stations near the closed MBTA stations, as well as routes to traverse the distance impacted by the weekend construction.
Earlier this weekend, the MBTA announced the timing of the station closures on the Orange Line:
8:45 p.m. on Oct. 4 through Oct. 6. 8:45 p.m. on Oct. 11 through Oct. 13. 8:45 p.m. on Oct. 18 through Oct. 20. 8:45 p.m. on Oct. 25 through Oct. 27. 8:45 p.m. on Nov. 1 through Nov. 3. 8:45 p.m. on Nov. 8 through Nov. 10.
The agency has yet to announce the exact timing of the closures on the Red Line, but these are the weekends: | 4,616 |
Nova Scotia should consider establishing a per-booking levy on sharing-economy companies such as Airbnb and VRBO, according to the working group set up a year ago to review the impact of such businesses.
The group says forcing people who run short-term rental businesses to pay commercial tax rates "could drive these operators out of business and take needed accommodation units out of the marketplace."
It said a per-booking levy would work better.
Business Minister Geoff MacLellan, the minister responsible for the file, told a roomful of tourism operators in Halifax Monday that cabinet would need more time to decide what to do.
After his luncheon speech, MacLellan told reporters not to expect a decision till the spring. He said the final report by the working group landed on his desk just a few weeks ago.
Call to repeal Tourist Accommodations Act
Among its suggestions is exploring the feasibility of an "online platform tourist levy," encouraging government to work with online booking platforms "to encourage hosts to understand and comply with current regulatory and taxation responsibilities," and a call for the province to "repeal the Tourist Accommodations Act."
MacLellan said his department was still considering what to do.
Banning Airbnb and other short-term rental companies is not an option, according to the minister.
"We need more accommodations, whether they be constructed through the traditional channels of hotels, motels, bed and breakfasts, etcetera, or it's the shared economy. We need 9,000 more rooms," he said.
The government has set a target of seeing $4 billion worth of tourism business by 2024. Currently the industry generates about $2.7 billion worth of business.
Hosts earn about $6K a year
The report says in 2017 there were about 2,000 Airbnb hosts in Nova Scotia. They ran between 2,500 and 3,000 unlicensed short-term rental units across the province.
"Around 12 percent of the total Nova Scotia hosts have multiple listings, such as a home and cottage, two or more rooms in a bed and breakfast, or two or more homes, apartments or condos," it said. "A typical listing is available between 40 and 50 nights a year."
It said Airbnb reported the median income for the hosts is $6,000 a year.
Tourism Nova Scotia, the provincial agency responsible for promoting the industry, has been exploring a marketing partnership with Airbnb and the working groups said those talks should continue.
The working group was made up of 14 non-government members and 11 government representatives from six departments. | 4,617 |
the Seattle Seahawks at 8-1, according to sportsbook operator CG Technology. The Green Bay Packers (9-1), Pittsburgh Steelers (9-1) and Carolina Panthers (10-1) are deemed to be the next most likely teams to win the title game.
The appeals ruling follows a September decision by U.S. District Judge Richard Berman that went against the league, letting Brady skip the suspension. In his ruling, Berman cited "several significant legal deficiencies" in the league's handling of the controversy, including no advance notice of potential penalties, the refusal to produce a key witness and the apparent first-ever discipline of a player based on a finding of "general awareness" of someone else's wrongdoing.
The panel on Monday said the league's discipline was properly grounded in the collective bargaining agreement and that Brady was treated fairly. Chief Judge Robert Katzmann dissented.
"I am troubled by the Commissioner's decision to uphold the unprecedented four-game suspension," Katzmann said. "The Commissioner failed to even consider a highly relevant alternative penalty."
The appeals court settled the issue well before the start of the 2016 season, avoiding the tension that built last year when Brady didn't learn until a week before the season that he would be allowed to start in the Patriots' opener.
At oral arguments in March, appeals judges seemed skeptical of arguments made on Brady's behalf by the NFLPA.
Circuit Judge Denny Chin said evidence of ball tampering was "compelling, if not overwhelming" and that there was evidence that Brady "knew about it, consented to it, encouraged it."
The league argued that it was fair for Goodell to severely penalize Brady after he concluded that the prize quarterback tarnished the game by impeding the NFL's investigation by destroying a cellphone containing almost 10,000 messages.
Parker said the cellphone destruction raised the stakes "from air in a football to compromising the integrity of a proceeding that the commissioner had convened."
"So why couldn't the commissioner suspend Mr. Brady for that conduct alone?" he asked. Parker added: "With all due respect, Mr. Brady's explanation of that made no sense whatsoever."
Parker was also critical of the NFL at the arguments, saying Brady's lengthy suspension seemed at "first blush a draconian penalty."
Brady signed a two-year contract extension during the offseason that dropped his 2016 salary from $9 million to $1 million. That could save Brady almost $2 million in lost salary during a four-game suspension.
ESPN's Andrew Brandt, Mike Reiss and Darren Rovell, ESPN Chalk, and The Associated Press contributed to this report. | 4,618 |
Yet another popular communications app has disappeared from app stores in China. According to a report from The New York Times, Microsoft's messaging service Skype is no longer available from app stores, including Apple's App Store. Google's Play Store doesn't operate in China, but Skype hasn't appeared on the various third-party Android app stores in the country since late October.
“We have been notified by the Ministry of Public Security that a number of voice over Internet protocol apps do not comply with local law,” an Apple spokeswoman told The New York Times. “These apps remain available in all other markets where they do business.”
Skype still functions in China, and a Microsoft spokesperson quoted in the report said the Skype app had been "temporarily removed" from Apple's App Store. An Apple representative stated that the company is "working to reinstate the program as soon as possible." However, that doesn't address Skype's removal on a number of websites from which Android users can download apps for their devices.
It's unclear if Skype mobile apps will return to these app stores in the future. This is just the latest push from the Chinese government to block Internet-enabled applications over which it doesn't have full control. WhatsApp is unusable in China ever since the government blocked the Facebook-owned app earlier this year. Recently, the government has blocked other programs including Gmail, Facebook, Twitter, Line, and Telegram.
A new cybersecurity law is suspected to be the reason why Skype has been blocked. Implemented in June, the new law cracks down hard on communications tools that the local government cannot control, even though it doesn't explicitly ban foreign messaging apps.
As a whole, China has become very strict about blocking or throttling foreign programs that might hinder the government's ability to filter the flow of information into the country. One of the most recent and somewhat peculiar restrictions shut down LTE service for new Apple Watch Series 3 devices in China, as the government doesn't currently have a plan to regulate or control eSIM use.
While Google doesn't have control over third-party app websites that provide Android apps to Chinese users, this Skype block is another thorn in Apple's side. In recent memory, Apple has removed its iBooks and iTunes Movie services in China, along with a bunch of VPN service apps from the local App Store. Many users were frustrated with the VPN removal, as those programs gave Chinese citizens a way to bypass the "Great Firewall" that controls Internet content available in the country.
Despite user irritation, Apple has stated that those apps and programs will only be reinstated to its App Store once Apple has complied with local laws and obtained necessary licenses. | 4,619 |
Festival du Voyageur is proud to partner with United Way Winnipeg in supporting Indigenous communities. We believe in the strength of Indigenous communities and the significant contribution they make to Winnipeg. Your donation will support 15 Indigenous-led agencies and the life-changing programs and services they provide. Together, we can build a better and brighter Winnipeg.
A Patrik Laine beard won’t make the cut at this contest. Rest asheared, only the wooliest, softest, and curliest of beards will impress our worthy panel of judges. Participants will compete in 4 categories: Clean shaven, Voyageur Beard, Novelty and Open.
CLEAN SHAVEN CATEGORY – INSPECTION ON DECEMBER 12th or 13th 2020 from 8:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. at 233, PROVENCHER BLVD
By registering for the Clean Shaven category, contestants will let their beard grow for 8 weeks before the Festival du Voyageur Beard Growing Contest! Contestants MUST pass inspection by arriving freshly shaved at the Festival du Voyageur office on December 12th or 13th, 2019.
OPEN CATEGORY
To take part in this category, a participant doesn’t have to be able to grow a beard, all he or she has to do is show their originality and create their own beard! The contestant with the most creative beard will take home the grand prize. Please note that all participants must be 18 and over to participate in the contest.
VOYAGEUR BEARD CATEGORY
The Voyageur beard is the oldest category of all, celebrating its 35th birthday this year. In this category, contestants must naturally grow their beard, as long and as thick as they can, without help from chemicals or drugs. Please note that extensions and/or artificial coloration are not allowed. You are not allowed to use hairstyling product.
NOVELTY
Let your imagination run wild with the groomed mustache or beard category! Here you are allowed to use hairstyling product to craft your beard or moustache in the most imaginative way possible… you can even have the help of a stylist if you’d like! Please note that extensions and/or artificial coloration are not allowed.
Please note that ALL contestants participating in any category may raise funds for United Way Winnipeg.
Registration
Participants from every category are asked to register in advance and raise funds for United Way Winnipeg. Registration can also happen on the night of the event, except for the Clean Shaven category. | 4,620 |
. But I just don’t want that we go back to the stereotype that existed about Bollywood there. People there will always try to pull you back.”
Watch | Priyanka Chopra talks about her marriage:
Priyanka had almost punched Karan Johar once
She proved that she is a no nonsense person. At least, that’s what KJo’s story proved to support her expression. Karan said, “I was supposed to be Mary Komed for groping you from behind.”
Talking about why Priyanka never spoke about her relationships or never thought to associate herself with biggies, the Quantico actor said, “A lot of things like that happened but it is no one’s business. There is no point of it (being vocal about relationships) because you never know for how long it will remain. Nazar bhi lag jaati hai.”
The rapid fire round was modified into a Koffee shots round. Taking the famous tradition of the host giving shots to Priyanka forward, even Karan got her “drunk” but with a twist. He threw some no-bars attached questions about Priyanka’s personal life, to which she had no option but to reply honestly. Yes, immensely honest she was, so much so that she had to beg that she hopes her mother doesn’t watch the show!
Karan asked Priyanka to gulp a coffee shot as a yes to a question. Here is the list of ‘sins’ she wished she hadn’t accepted of committing:
Kissed an ex after break up – Yes
Judged someone’s fashion sense at a party – Yes
Had phone sex – Yes
Hit ‘send’ and immediately regretted – Yes
Sent a sensual message – Yes
Taken shower with partner – Yes
Made out with lights off – Yes
Priyanka also denied of being dressed for role-play in bed, called someone by the wrong name while hooking up and lied about being a virgin!
This woman is not just ruling Indian hearts, Hollywood screens, but even the couches! This was one of the most eye-popping and extremely bold episodes this season. Hail Priyanka!
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-show reservation can affect a restaurant's bottom line, charging a customer for not showing up can be bad for future business.
"Restaurants get nervous about charging customers because, after all, they're in the hospitality business," says Hayler. "They know if they do, the customer may never come back or tell their friends how horribly they were treated."
And many restaurants in the UK and US have gone in entirely the opposite direction to make sure they are full all the time - abandoning the whole concept of booking.
Many gourmet burger and Asian-cuisine restaurants have long eschewed bookings - prompting snaking queues outside the popular venues. The trend is spreading.
Image copyright Thinkstock
Jose and 10 Greek Street are two of the increasing number of London restaurants where diners can't make reservations for dinner. "Our customers at Jose don't seem to mind," says spokeswoman Hannah Norris. 10 Greek Street has waiting times that apparently can be anything up to three hours.
Dodd's Restaurant in Ambleside, in the Lake District, has plenty of TripAdvisor reviews that praise the no-booking policy. The same applies to Thyme Cafe in Sheffield.
What works for some might not for others and Kokonas acknowledges his ticketing system isn't right for everyone.
"Tickets will work for a certain kind of restaurant - small, chef-driven, limited seating per night, high demand, etc," says Kokonas.
"It's unclear how many places would do it," says Hayler. "It's a bold step and they'd have to be incredibly confident that they can pull it off."
Evolution of the restaurant
The title of "world's first" has been contested by various restaurants in Europe, with The Guinness Book of Records giving that award to the Botin Restaurant in Madrid, Spain.
But the first restaurants opened in Paris in the 1760s, says Rebecca Spang, author of The Invention of the Restaurant.
"The first'restaurants' were called that because they promised to'restore' a customer's health," says Spang.
"In an era when sophisticated urbanites scorned innkeepers' hearty fare, these new'restaurateurs' rooms' offered flavoursome bouillons, delicate puddings, and unadulterated wines. Most important, they seated patrons at small, individual tables. Each table could have its own, private meal in a public space. And, of course, each table had its own bill to pay."
Subscribe to the BBC News Magazine's email newsletter to get articles sent to your inbox. | 4,622 |
The politically incorrect professor on leave since his NYU colleagues griped about his “incivility” has been promoted — and his fellow liberal-studies profs were lectured about their conduct.
Michael Rectenwald, 57, was bumped from assistant professor to full professor on Monday, just days after he was placed on paid leave. The promotion comes with an 18 percent raise to $80,000, a source said.
“I’m very relieved,” the liberal-studies professor told The Post. “I was worried the administration might use my views against me.”
Rectenwald’s exit came on Oct. 26, two days after he outed himself as the “Deplorable NYU Prof,” an undercover Twitter profile he used to argue against college trends like “safe spaces” and “trigger warnings.”
His unmasking prompted a 12-person committee calling itself the Liberal Studies Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Working Group to publish a letter in the student paper charging that Rectenwald was “guilty of illogic and incivility.”
The same day, he was summoned to a meeting with the dean, where it was suggested he take a paid leave, Rectenwald said.
“I thought my career was over,” he told The Post.
But amid public outcry following The Post’s report on his exit, NYU e-mailed Rectenwald last week to inform him that his application for a full professorship had been approved. He had applied six months ago.
On Wednesday, liberal- studies dean Fred Schwarzbach sent a strongly worded e-mail to department faculty reminding them to be respectful of opposing views.
One of the program’s “core values,” he wrote, is “the importance of the free and open exchange of different views, even those with which most of us disagree.”
His promotion came along with 18 other faculty promotions and was “simply the normal course of business,” said NYU spokesman James Devitt.
The professor continues to feel “shunned” by his colleagues, who he said had “defriended me by the dozens on Facebook.”
He hopes for a reconciliation.
“I’d like to have some understanding reached between myself, the dean and the people who felt the need to attack me for no reason,” he said. “Rather than write off my views, they could actually listen to what I have to say.” | 4,623 |
Back in February of last year, football star Rob Gronkowski starred in a Tide commercial as a dry cleaner who rips stains out of a customer's shirt.
Now, the member of the NFL's New England Patriots has made an ad urging people not to eat Procter & Gamble's Tide pods. The commercial is being shown on the laundry brand's Twitter and Facebook pages.
Some teenagers have been making videos showing themselves eating the brightly colored laundry packets in what has become known as the "Tide pod challenge."
The challenge first appeared around 2015, and videos of teens eating detergent packets are now doing the rounds on social media, according to a USA Today report.
Now the American Association of Poison Control Centers has warned that the trend is already a significant concern in 2018.
TWEET
The AAPCC reported 39 cases of teenagers aged 13 to 19 eating laundry pods deliberately in the first 15 days of 2018 alone, equivalent to the number of cases it dealt with in the whole of 2016. In 2017, it handled 53 cases. The AAPCC does not name Tide specifically, instead warning about "potential poison exposure to single-load laundry packets."
"The 'laundry packet challenge' is neither funny nor without serious health implications," said Stephen Kaminski, AAPCC's chief executive and executive director, in an online statement. "The intentional misuse of these products poses a real threat to the health of individuals. We have seen a large spike in single-load laundry packet exposures among teenagers since these videos have been uploaded."
Younger children find laundry pods attractive because they can be mistaken for candy or a toy, according to a 2013 report by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission and the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission. But cases where under-fives ingest the packets tend to be unintentional, and Procter & Gamble made tubs of Tide harder to open in August 2017. Tide also has safety information on its website, including the Gronkowski advert.
A spokesperson from Procter & Gamble said it was working with social networks to remove harmful content, as well as the American Cleaning Institute to provide information to college students. "Nothing is more important to us than the safety of people who use our products. We are deeply concerned about the intentional and improper use of liquid laundry packs by young people engaging in intentional self-harm challenges," the company said in an emailed statement.
Tide led the liquid laundry detergent market in the U.S in 2017, with more than $1 billion in sales, according to figures from the Statista website.
This story has been updated to include a comment from Procter & Gamble. | 4,624 |
A protester waves a Confederate battle flag in front of the South Carolina statehouse, Thursday, July 9, 2015, in Columbia, S.C. (Associated Press/John Bazemore)
Marine Corps Commandant Gen. David Berger has ordered all Confederate-related paraphernalia to be removed from Marine Corps installations, his spokesman confirmed on Wednesday.
A document showing the commandant’s decision appeared online on Wednesday, though it did not say when all of the Confederate-related paraphernalia needed to be removed by.
Berger’s spokesman confirmed to Task & Purpose that the commandant had sent a directive to his senior staff ordering all installations to get rid of symbols of the Confederate States of America.
“Last week, the Commandant of the Marine Corps directed specific tasks be reviewed or addressed by Headquarters Marine Corps staff,” Maj. Eric Flanagan said in an email. “Many of the tasks were published on Twitter Friday. Other tasks not published previously are mostly administrative matters.”
“Any official policy decisions, changes or implementation plans will be published via appropriate orders and messages,” he continued.
The question of whether Confederate symbols represent heritage or hatred has been vexing for the U.S. military. In January 2016, the Marine Corps refused to allow a man with a large tattoo of a Confederate flag to enlist, yet 10 Army bases are still named for Confederate generals.
Meanwhile, several Marines have been investigated in the past few years for allegedly having links to white supremacist groups, including former Pvt. Vasillios Pistolis, who was kicked out of the Corps after beating counter-protesters at the August 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Va.
Two other Marines, Sgt. Michael Chesny and Staff Sgt. Joseph Manning, were discharged after being arrested at a May 2017 pro-Confederate rally in Graham, North Carolina, where they flew a white supremacist banner.
The issue of white supremacists in the military is not limited to the Marine Corps. Alex Fields Jr., who was kicked out of the Army after only four months, sentenced to life in prison in 2019 for using his car to ram counter-protesters at the Charlottesville rally, killing Heather Heyer.
In November the video network Newsy and the investigative website Bellingcat found that eight service members posted on a now deactivated white supremacist message board while they were on active duty.
Most recently, an Air Force administrative board recently recommended discharging Tech Sgt. Corey Reeves, whom investigators learned was raising money for the white supremacist group Identity Evropa. A review process is currently ongoing. | 4,625 |
Telltale Games is (at least on paper) returning to business, as reported earlier today by Polygon. Holding company LCG Entertainment (run by industry veterans Jamie Ottilie and Brian Waddle) have bought up the studio name and some of their licensed properties after Telltale's messy closure last September left hundreds of staff displaced. Effectively a new studio with new management operating under an old name, the new Telltale will be based in Malibu, California, with plans to "stay small over the next six months".
The immediately good news is that according to an interview with Polygon, the new Telltale has rights to a handful of their better games, including The Wolf Among Us and Batman. In-house properties like Puzzle Agent are looking good, too. With a little luck, this means they'll be returning some of their games to sale before long, as they were de-listed from digital stores earlier this year. There's the possibility of more to come, as Ottilie says "There are some other expired licenses that we’re looking at".
Some of Telltale's licenses have been snapped up by other companies or reverted to their original owners. Netflix are back in full control of the Stranger Things brand, effectively putting one final nail in that project's coffin. Skybound have also taken over Telltale's The Walking Dead series, including hiring some of the original crew to finish the final episodes, which launched earlier this year. There's still no word on Tales From The Borderlands, Guardians Of The Galaxy and Minecraft: Story Mode, but hopefully they'll be able to work out deals to get those back on virtual shelves soon.
Telltale's future as a studio producing new games is a little less sure. LCG/Telltale plan to offer freelance roles to some former Telltale employees with the possibility of full-time work in the future. While I wouldn't go pinning hopes on another season of Sam & Max adventures any time soon, publisher Athlon Games are a partner in this deal, and former Telltale developer Emily Grace Buck mentioned on Twitter that she has heard from "more Telltale people that they have indeed been brought on."
While they don't have much experience in adventure games, the new studio heads do at least have industry experience. Ottilie was CEO of Galaxy Pest Control, the studio behind licensed games using the Duck Dynasty and Power Rangers brands. Waddle is a former Havok game engine marketing exec. I remain dubious if much will come of this beyond re-releasing some of Telltale's back catalogue, but I'm hoping that they can untangle enough red tape to re-release Telltale's Wallace & Gromit adventure series. | 4,626 |
Photo : Ricardo Roa / EyeEm ( Getty Images )
We humbly submit, for consideration in the lede hall of fame, this gem from the Minneapolis Star-Tribune:
Al Overland is not saying you should refer to almond milk as nut juice. He’s also not saying you shouldn’t. “I’ve heard it called that,” said Overland, a dairy farmer near Sturgeon Lake, Minn. “They can call it juice or beverage, or whatever they wish, but we just don’t want them to call it milk.”
To catch you up/provide context: Dairy farmers don’t want nut milks to be called milk. Things aren’t great in the dairy industry—trade wars, decline in demand, industry turmoil, etc.—and they’d prefer that the nut juices get out of their word turf, thank you very much. The dairy folks aren’t the only ones: The U.S. Cattlemen’s Association also objects to “plant-based meats” being called meat.
The Food And Drug Administration has been considering changes to its existing guidelines concerning the labelling of plant-based products for some time; per the Star-Tribune, a “four-month public comment period closed at the end of January,” after some 8,600 comments were logged. The dairy lobby’s argument is essentially that nuts can’t be milked, and that milk should be milk. Plant-based groups say “the objections are much ado about nothing.”
Part of the trouble is that milk has a federal “standard of identity,” which states that milk can be defined as “the lacteal secretion, practically free from colostrum, obtained by the complete milking of one or more healthy cows.” There’s no equivalent for plant-based products, which are considered “nonstandardized foods.”
Trust me on this: The full Star-Tribune article is worth a read. It draws a line from this conflict to the debate that took place from the late 19th century to the middle of the 20th over the classification of butter. But in short, the F.D.A. will be making a decision at some point, though there’s no set date for a decision. Accordingly, you should expect to hear the words “nut juice” a lot more frequently. For the second time today, we suggest you clicking on the Star-Tribune’s site and to suppo local journalism. | 4,627 |
Hurricane. But in general, the passive theatre approach seemed to be reaching saturation point.
The development of the next generation of VR theatre experience sees a drive towards building a more compelling virtual attraction to enthuse a jaded audience. One of the leaders in the Chinese VR Park development and operation scene is VR LEKE – the company has already established partnerships with HTC, illustrated by VR LEKE being the first to show the HTC Vive Pro headset at this or any show. The first usage of this Prosumer HMD was in the Deep Ocean Adventure nine-seater submersible-themed attraction.
The second generation of interactive audience motion theatre experiences; VR LEKE was also driving the move towards next gen motion theatres with an interactive element – the company showed their Starship platform for has six-players on a motion theatre, with mounted weapons that they use to blast oncoming aliens – the machine using the Deepoon headset.
Several exhibitors showed paragliding-style VR motion harnesses, hoisting the players into the air and allowing them to control their decent, while taking part in game experiences. Systems such as the JMDM unit, and the more elaborate paragliding systems were on display – offering this unique approach to an exhilarating virtual experience. Not all the systems on display were from Chinese manufacturers, ICAROS showed their unique body powered virtual motion platform – looking to penetrate this profitable territory.
The majority of new VR motion simulators seen at AAA were those of single seat solutions. A considerable number of the single seat systems offered inverted 360° motion platforms experiences – examples included the Skyfun Animation VR 360 King Kong unit. While more open seat variants included – and one of the most stylish was from Virtual Alliance with their VR Simulator Tornado, a seat based 360° rotational platform – the rider viewing the virtual experience on the mobile VR Pico headset.
The ultimate 360° motion platform on display incorporated the use of a robotic arm throwing the rider through a wide motion envelope. Called the VR Enlightenment – presented by the exhibitor K-Unattended – the developers had mounted a single seat and harness to a KUKA robotic arm. Another major surprise to this exhibit was that the attraction was using one of the first Pimax 8K head-mounted displays (HMDs). A first for the show, and a first for the market, being the only appearance of the Kickstarter funded HMD in public so far, underscoring Pimax’s focus on commercial entertainment deployment.
So much to try and cram into these short features, so we will end here and continue next time. Look out for the second and final part of this coverage next week. | 4,628 |
the other arm, pressed one button turned five gears and caused two hidden buttons on opposite sides of the machine to become exposed. He then pressed one of those buttons, which cascaded into hundreds of different permutations and possibilities. The excitement became infectious as the kids’ curious eyes widened with each new knob-pull or switch-flip.
“That’s really cool,” Mark said.
“I think so,” Daniel replied. He turned and ambled back to his truck, device in hand.
He paused when he reached the passenger side door. With instinctive selflessness, Mark ambled over and yanked the door open. Daniel delicately set the puzzling device into the seat, pulled the seat belt across it, and turned to face the kids again.
“Thanks, son. I guess I owe y’all for diggin’ this thing up out in the middle of nowhere.”
“We didn’t have to dig up anything,” Mark replied. “We just found it in the middle of that old dirt road, like someone had left it there to find.”
“Hm,” Daniel let out with a single chuckle. “That makes sense.”
“How?” Kayla asked out of earnest curiosity. “How did it get out here?”
“Same way as the rest of us, I reckon.” The others smiled at this.
The old man slammed the truck door and withdrew his wallet.
“Here,” he said as he leaned in to give the kids their well-deserved reward.
“Wow, that’s a lot, sir!” Aaron replied.
“A token of my appreciation.”
They took the money, and the old man bid them adieu. He slinked off into his truck and the children were startled when his old, barely-legal diesel engine pushed black exhaust out of its ancient and rusting tailpipe.
“Wait!” Mark screamed as the truck shifted out of park. Daniel leaned his elbow out of the driver’s side window and looked down to face the boy.
“How’d you find us? How’d you find us and your present and how’d you know where to meet us?”
The old man shrugged his shoulders and smiled.
“I Googled it.”
-Kyle Barnhart, 12 Apr. 2012 | 4,629 |
We’re in June, and the view from the Cheap Seats is looking at the MLB pace of play. It is time to put a limit on mound visits by catchers, coaches and managers. Nothing gums up the beauty and flow of batter versus pitcher, like the trip to the pitcher’s mound. It’s not to be expected that they get rid of that bit of strategy all together, but a limit has to be placed upon it. The temptation to over use these visits has to be taken away from all involved to help the game.
Cheap Seats: Pace of Play and Mound Visits
As it is stated now, there are only restrictions by the manager to go out only three times and once per inning, per pitcher. That does not restrict the catcher from going out by himself, or the pitching coach making an additional trip too. This is all too regularly used to buy time for the bullpen to get ready. Which is ridiculous. All managers should be held accountable for forecasting what could happen, and have their arms ready to go.
A maximum of three mound visits per game should be the rule. This would not include pitching changes. This also means that any kind of strategy or signal changes the catcher needs to go over would be taken care of at the pitching change. There is also loads of time in the dugout between innings, and pregame, obviously. If the game goes to extra innings, like time outs, managers would be awarded one extra visit.
Not only would this shorten the time of the games, this rule would also keep the flow of the game itself going. Fans can absorb a few mound visits, but multiple ones can lose the viewer. In this day and age of multi-channels, and various other media outlets, the key is to keep the viewer on your channel. A reach for the remote, because the catcher and pitcher can’t decide what two fingers means is ridiculous.
I have been, and always will be, a baseball purist. Get rid of the DH, unplug any clock, showboating is for the NBA and let the game police itself. There are times, though, that you have to change with the times. Keeping the flow of the game moving at a faster pace is paramount. If a little tweak here and there helps to keep MLB a fan favorite, and not an aging game that bores the younger generation, then it’s worth a try. Besides, how many times do we need to see the battery mates whisper about the fact that they’re about to pitch around another batter, until the lefty is warm in the pen.
Main Photo: | 4,630 |
If you live in New York City, chances are you value being close to public transportation—so much so that proximity to a subway station is a convenience worth paying for. But how much more are New Yorkers paying to live near subway station? RentHop has analyzed the data to find out.
In a new study, the rental search engine looked at Brooklyn, Queens, and Manhattan to come up with maps that illustrate how rent typically decreases as you move further away from subway entrances. No surprise there, but there were a few other key findings that you may not have expected.
To calculate median rent by proximity to subway, RentHop utilized information found on the publicly available NYC dataset of MTA subway entrances. From there, they created “buffer areas” around subway entrances at varying distances until they found one that provided a large enough sample size with a significant number or listings. RentHop looked at listings from the last full year, removing any duplicates and analyzing apartments of different sizes.
In the the three boroughs analyzed, they found that apartments closest to a subway stop cost about six to eight percent more than the borough median, while apartments furthest from a station tend to cost about eight to ten percent less. In the Bronx, rents near the subway were actually cheaper than those further out; Renthop notes that this could be because of noise from the borough’s myriad above-ground stops, but the company admits it may also be due to a smaller sample size of rental data.
Since 90 percent of listings in Manhattan were within a quarter mile of a subway, Renthop chose to analyze smaller distance measurements. They found that apartments less than a two minute walk, or 1/16th of a mile, typically charged 4.2 percent more in rent, while those located 1/6th and 1/8th of a mile from a subway entrance were the cheapest.
In Brooklyn, apartments within 1/16th of a mile of a subway entrance had rents that were around 8.4 percent higher than the borough median. Queens, which suffers from poor subway access compared to Brooklyn and Manhattan, has higher rent prices for apartments located within 1/6th and 1/5th of a mile. But RentHop also found that as you move further away from the subway in Queens, you’ll find fewer apartment buildings and higher rates of homeownership, along with less densely populated neighborhoods.
The bottom line: if you’re willing to walk a little bit further, you could see some savings on your rent. A ten-minute walk could save you up to ten percent off your rent, concludes RentHop.
You can read the full study for yourself here. | 4,631 |
UK called for 30% as green groups say increase does not go far enough
This article is more than 2 years old
This article is more than 2 years old
The EU is raising its target for the amount of energy it consumes from renewable sources, in a deal lauded by the bloc’s climate chief as a hard-won victory for the switch to clean energy.
Energy ministers agreed a binding renewable energy target of 32% by 2030, up from the previous goal of 27%, but fell short of the hopes of some countries and green groups for a more ambitious share.
The EU council deal caps 18 months of negotiations. It was welcomed by the renewables industry and the trade body for European energy utilities called it: “a well-balanced compromise”.
Deterring onshore windfarms means higher energy bills – Lord Deben Read more
The talks saw the UK call for a target of 30%, below the 32% a newly pro-renewables France wanted and the 35% that new governments in Spain and Italy argued for.
Miguel Arias Cañete, EU climate commissioner, said: “This new ambition will help us meet our Paris agreement goals and will translate into more jobs, lower energy bills for consumers and less energy imports.”
He added that the binding nature of the goal would provide certainty to investors.
Whether the target will apply to the UK after it leaves the EU will depend on the exit deal reached by London and Brussels.
The agreement also includes plans for a 2023 review on whether the target should be bumped even higher.
Around 17% of EU energy consumption in 2016 was from renewables, with the UK on about 9%.
Green energy advocates argued the existing 2030 target was unambitious because member states were already on track to exceed it.
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Environmental groups said the increase did not go far enough and were critical of a decision to keep counting biomass as renewable energy.
Molly Walsh, renewable energy campaigner for Friends of the Earth Europe, said: “EU decision-makers have agreed a paltry 32% target for renewable energy that is inadequate for a climate-safe fossil-free future, and shows a failure to grasp a shifting energy landscape, including rapidly falling renewables costs.”
However, the group welcomed the deal’s recognition of rights for consumers to produce and sell their own renewable energy, such as from solar panels on rooftops.
The agreement now needs to be formally approved by the EU parliament and council in coming months. | 4,632 |
CALLS HAVE BEEN made for Housing Minister Eoghan Murphy to resign as the latest homeless figure show that there are just under 10,000 people living in emergency accommodation in Ireland.
Sinn Féin housing spokesperson Eoin Ó Broin said that Murphy should “do the decent thing and resign” in light of the new figures.
“This is Eoghan Murphy’s record as Minister, ever increasing levels of adult and child homelessness,” he said.
“He should now do the decent thing and resign. Anything short of this will be yet another example of the Minister putting his own political career before the people he is meant to serve.”
Figures released by the Department of Housing yesterday show that there were 6,157 adults and 3,811 children homeless and living in state-funded emergency accommodation in Ireland.
The vast majority of these are in Dublin, and include families living in hotels.
The numbers show an overall increase of 158 adults and 86 children across the country.
Commenting on the release of the figures, Minister Murphy said that it was “very disappointing to see more children in emergency accommodation as we enter into Christmas week”.
The department pointed to the fact that the number of homeless families in Dublin had decreased for the fourth month in a row. The number of homeless families in Dublin decreased by one, but the number of homeless children increase by 16.
“I want to assure all individuals and families experiencing homelessness that it is an absolute priority for my Department to deliver the housing solutions needed,” Murphy said.
The government has been widely criticised for its handling of the homeless and housing crisis which has been a feature of the country for the last number of years.
“It is totally unacceptable that at the same time one child became homeless every 4 hours in November in Dublin alone,” said Focus Ireland CEO Pat Dennigan on the release of the figures.
“Nobody thinks this is acceptable and people on all sides offer sympathies but we need more than that.
“We need greater action and must not to tolerate the fact that nearly 4,000 children are homeless in our society.
We need to all work to change this in 2019 and the Government must lead the way
Anthony Flynn – CEO of Inner City helping Homeless – said the government had “continuously failed” children.
“As we come towards the end of 2018 it is clear that the homelessness and housing crisis continues to get worse while the government continue to fail people when they need it the most,” he said. | 4,633 |
TETERBORO, N.J. — Donald Trump is shaking up his campaign again, bringing in Breitbart News’ Stephen Bannon as campaign CEO and promoting pollster Kellyanne Conway to campaign manager.
The move comes just 82 days before the election as a slew of national and battleground state polls show Trump losing to Hillary Clinton.
Trump told The Associated Press in a phone interview early Wednesday that he has known both individuals for a long time. He says, “They’re terrific people, they’re winners, they’re champs, and we need to win it,” he said.
Trump’s campaign chair, Paul Manafort, will maintain his current role.
“It is imperative we continue to expand our team with top-tier talent. Steve and Kellyanne are respected professionals who believe in Mr. Trump and his message and will undoubtedly help take the campaign to new levels of success,” Manafort said in a statement to reporters.
The move, however, is seen as a demotion of Manafort, who was promoted to right the ship after Trump got rid of his previous campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski.
Lewandowski praised the move. “You’ve got a candidate that wants to win,” he said on CNN’s “New Day,” comparing Bannon’s street fighting sensibilities to his own.
“This is a clear indication of that. If you look at Stephen Bannon and what they’ve built at Breitbart, it’s win at all cost, and I really think that makes people on the left very afraid because they are willing to say and do things that others in the mainstream media wouldn’t do,”
Bannon, a former Goldman Sachs banker who got rich after purchasing a stake in the hit show “Seinfeld,” has been running the Breitbart website, a pro-Trump clearing house.
In his own statement, Trump said, “I have known Steve and Kellyanne both for many years. They are extremely capable, highly qualified people who love to win and know how to win.”
The Republican presidential candidate added: “I believe we’re adding some of the best talents in politics, with the experience and expertise needed to defeat Hillary Clinton in November and continue to share my message and vision to Make America Great Again. I am committed to doing whatever it takes to win this election, and ultimately become President because our country cannot afford four more years of the failed Obama-Clinton policies which have endangered our financial and physical security.
With Post wire services | 4,634 |
Big man: Kurt Tippett has enjoyed an injury-free pre-season. Credit:Getty "We will have that look at some stage, all being well and all being fit, which is exciting – we've had a few trainings where we've all been out there together," Tippett said. "We love playing alongside him [Franklin] and he brings other people into the game and he's really good with his knowledge of the game and helping us and directing us around and leading us as a forward group. "So far this pre-season I've been playing both roles and splitting my time between forward and ruck so we'll wait and see how that one balances out. "Sam [Naismith] had a very good end to last year and really carried us in that ruck area and he took over number one spot and did a fantastic job. He's only going to get better with another pre-season under his belt."
Sydney's ruck stocks are bulging despite the trade of Toby Nankervis in October and the retirement of Tom Derickx. Tippett and Naismith are ably supported by Callum Sinclair, and mature-age draftee Darcy Cameron, who was taken with pick No.48 at the end of last season. It means coach John Longmire is blessed with numerous possibilities when it comes to rotating his big men through the forward line in 2017, which shapes as a huge year for Tippett. He was one of the AFL's leading ruckman in 2016 before hurting his hamstring, after which he struggled to regain anything close to his best form. A fractured jaw in the qualifying final loss to GWS certainly didn't help and he was barely sighted in the decider against the Western Bulldogs.
"I wasn't overly happy with the way the year finished, but you know you do your best with your circumstances," Tippett said. "We weren't good enough as a side to finish off the year on the note we would've liked. "It's never easy coming back in after extended time off, but you do the best you can, you train really hard in what you're able to do. I was doing lots of conditioning of my legs and trying to stay as fit and in touch as I could over the break. "You come back and give your best in that sort of situation. I would've liked to have been in better form heading into the finals – I think everyone would've liked that – but that's the cards you're dealt. "It's disappointing to have a good year and then not be able to finish it off in a grand final, it's certainly hard. Loading | 4,635 |
The devil is especially in the details of the seemingly good thing he's about to do.On Thursday, Blair called for rising up - or as one Arabic newspaper headlined it, an intifada - against Brexit, as part of his political comeback But part of his agenda, judging by his own words, seems to be either racist or Islamophobic, or maybe both.Yes, the former New Labour British PM, co-architect of the Iraq War and alleged top adviser to dodgy leaders and corporations around the world, wants to persuade the British populace to change their minds and stay in the EU.In a speech hosted by the pro-EU platform Open Britain, he made a rallying call to those who want to remain in the EU, to fight against Brexit.
"I don't know if we can succeed. But I do know we will suffer a rancorous verdict from future generations if we do not try. This is not the time for retreat, indifference or despair, but the time to rise up in defence of what we believe."
Well, many in and outside Britain welcome the prospect of maintaining the UK as a nation tolerant and open, which can hardly be achieved with the inwardly looking, insular Brexit movement and its starkly anti-immigrant agenda.
Yet tackling this particular issue, immigration, Blair showed his true colours.
He said: "There is, in some parts of the country, a genuine concern about numbers from Europe - real pressures on services and wages. But for many people, the core of the immigration question... is immigration from non-European countries, especially when from different cultures in which assimilation and potential security threats can be an issue."
A-ha! Whom does Blair mean? Brown people? Muslims?
Blair continued: "Nonetheless, we have moved in a few months from a debate about what sort of Brexit, involving a balanced consideration of all the different possibilities, to the primacy of one consideration - namely controlling immigration from the EU - without any real discussion as to why and when Brexit doesn't affect the immigration people most care about."
Let's translate that from Blairese, shall we?
Translation: "The British people were deceived about Brexit. They were told it would stop immigration, but in reality, it stops the wrong kind of immigration. It stops Europeans coming in, when the issue should be stopping Muslims and other brown people coming in, and Brexit doesn't do much to address this."
Maybe, Mr Blair, you could just suggest that a Muslim ban is in order for Britain, too.
Follow Karim Traboulsi on Twitter: @kareemios | 4,636 |
BEIJING (Reuters) - The Chinese government said on Saturday it had stopped a communication mechanism with Taiwan because of the refusal of the self-ruled island’s new government to recognize the “one China” principle, in the latest show of tension between the two.
China, which regards Taiwan as wayward province, is deeply suspicious of Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen, who took office last month, as they suspect she will push for formal independence.
Tsai, who heads the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party, says she wants to maintain the status quo with China and is committed to ensuring peace.
But China has insisted she recognize something called the “1992 consensus” reached between China’s Communists and Taiwan’s then-ruling Nationalists, under which both agreed there is only one China, with each having their own interpretation of what that means.
In a brief statement carried by the official Xinhua news agency, China’s Taiwan Affairs Office said that since May 20, when Tsai took office, Taiwan has not affirmed this consensus.
“Because the Taiwan side has not acknowledged the 1992 consensus, this joint political basis for showing the one China principle, the cross Taiwan Strait contact and communication mechanism has already stopped,” spokesman An Fengshan said.
The announcement came as Taiwan expressed anger at Cambodia’s deportation of 25 Taiwanese nationals wanted on fraud charges to China on Friday, ignoring attempts by Taiwanese officials to have them returned to the island.
Taipei has accused Beijing of kidnapping when other countries such as Kenya and Malaysia have deported Taiwanese to China, also in fraud cases.
Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council said on Friday it had expressed its concerns to the Taiwan Affairs Office about the Cambodia case using the communication system.
In a statement on Saturday, the council said both sides of the Taiwan Strait had a responsibility to maintain peace and stability.
“The government will continue to keep open the door to communication and dialogue,” it said.
The regular communication mechanism had been ushered in following a rapid improvement of ties under the rule of Taiwan’s then-president Ma Ying-jeou, who took office in 2008 and signed a series of landmark trade and tourism deals with China.
Tsai is currently on her first trip overseas as president, visiting diplomatic allies Panama and Paraguay, with transit stops both ways in the United States.
Defeated Nationalist forces fled to Taiwan after a civil war with the Communists in 1949, which has never formally ended. China has also never renounced the use of force to bring Taiwan under its control. | 4,637 |
The Sundance hit “The Spectacular Now” was just that in its limited box office preview, raking in $200,181 from four theaters in New York and Los Angeles.
That’s an impressive $50,925 per-screen average for the comedy drama distributed by upstart A24 and written by Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber, the team responsible for "(500) Days of Summer.”
Miles Teller, Shailene Woodley, Mary Winstead and Brie Larson star in the high school-set film, directed by James Ponsoldt (“Smashed”).
Also read: 'Smurfs 2' Smushed in U.S. but Runs Up $52M at Overseas Box Office
Meanwhile, Woody Allen‘s “Blue Jasmine” nearly stole the show with a great second week and Lindsay Lohan’s “The Canyons” didn’t bring much heat in its debut.
“Blue Jasmine,” which stars Cate Blanchett and Alec Baldwin, brought in a little over $2 million from 50 theaters for a per-theater average of $40,411. That’s a terrific follow-up to its debut last week, when it averaged more than $100,000 in six theaters for Sony Pictures Classics. It means that it’s tracking ahead of Allen’s highest-grossing film “Midnight in Paris,” which took in more than $56 million domestically in 2011.
Also read: How Cate Blanchett Got Ready to Play a Boozer in Woody Allen's 'Blue Jasmine'
Lohan’s “The Canyons,” directed by Paul Schrader and co-starring porn star James Deen, brought in $15,200 on a single New York screen for IFC Films. It was available for streaming and on video-on-demand as well.
The Weinstein Company expanded “Fruitvale Station” by 22 theaters to 1,086 in its fourth weekend, and the Sundance jury and audience award winner grossed $2.7 million for a $2,486 per-screen average. The Ryan Coogler-directed tale has now taken in $10.9 million.
Fox Searchlight’s “The Way, Way Back” upped its domestic tally to $13.6 million after five weeks, averaging $2,847 on roughly 1,000 screens, up 115 locations from last week.
More to come … | 4,638 |
MACOMB TOWNSHIP, Mich. — Authorities excavating woods in southeastern Michigan for the remains of a 12-year-old girl last seen in 1979 also could be looking for the bodies of up to half a dozen others who have been reported missing over the years. Digging resumed Tuesday in Macomb Township, about 30 miles from downtown Detroit.
The search started Monday for the remains of Kimberly King, but Warren Police Commissioner Bill Dwyer told WJBK-TV that there could be others buried in the area.
"We have probable cause to believe that (Kimberly) is buried there," Dwyer said. "We also believe that there's maybe four to six other girls that have been reported missing that are buried there. We certainly are convinced we have the right area. It's just a sad type of situation."
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Dwyer did not give the names of the other missing girls.
In 2008, the remains of 13-year-old Cindy Zarzycki were found near the same area. Zarzycki disappeared in 1986 after being lured to a Dairy Queen in Eastpointe, just north of Detroit.
Arthur Ream Michigan Department of Corrections
Arthur Ream was convicted of first-degree murder in her slaying. He later was temporarily released from prison to lead police to Zarzycki's body. He told investigators that Zarzycki's body was buried near a creek. He also drew a map of the site and spent about an hour at the search scene with authorities before being returned to prison.
Zarzycki had been dating Ream's son at the time of her disappearance. Authorities said Ream tricked her by telling her that he was planning a surprise party for his son.
Ream, 68, is serving life in prison. At the time of his conviction for Zarzycki's killing, he already was serving a 15-year sentence on an unrelated molestation charge involving a 14-year-old girl.
Officers using shovels and excavation equipment began digging at the Macomb Township site Monday. Police in Warren, Michigan, about 17 miles from the Macomb Township dig site, have long searched for answers in the 1979 death of 14-year-old King, and the newspaper reports investigators are hoping to find her at the site.
King went missing while visiting her grandparents in Warren.
Ream has not been charged in connection with her death, or for any of the other missing girls.
Editor's note: This story has been updated to indicate police are searching for King in addition to the remains of four to six other missing girls. | 4,639 |
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When the first touch screen was introduced, the first hand-held mobile phone or even the first computer mouse, they were all received with some marvel and a lot of skepticism.
It took many years of further development and sometimes re-invention of the product before it caught on.
Digital currencies or crypto currencies as they are more commonly known are nothing new. As early as the 1990's some very smart people started working on some form of digital currency but as the case with many early innovators the time for digital money was not right.
The reinvention of digital currencies came in the wake of the largest financial crash the world had seen in the past 50 years, with many people becoming either unemployed, bankrupt or even homeless.
The impact of bitcoin wouldn’t have been so profound as it has been if it wasn’t for these scars many had to carry out through the recession.
Now a decade later, the development and interest in crypto currencies has spawned a global industry. With over 1500 different digital currencies to choose from and many hundreds under development.
The majority of these digital currencies will provide a short-term gain for some people and loss for many others. While a few digital currencies will push the agenda forward.
With one particular crypto currency becoming the foundation on which, all future payments will happen.
Is it such a stretch to not have physical notes or coins in our wallets?
Most of the wealth in the world is already digital, it exists in banking systems across the world and is consisted of a row of binary numbers which makes up the account balance and history.
With bitcoin, the internet and a global recession the seed for a digital currency was planted and it’s growing fast.
Out of this growth came many new innovations and new digital currencies that stretched the usability from a hand full of applications to many thousands of applications and integrations, through the form of smart contracts.
Now 10 years after our global crash we are getting a 3rd generation crypto currency.
This new generation also hails forth a real step in getting the world currencies going digital.
With the introduction of banking integrations and other digital currency integrations through so called side chains.
A security and validation system called Proof of Stake which keeps all the security benefits while reducing energy waste and a share holder decision making process to allow future ownership and development changes to be controlled by everyone who owns this digital currency.
We are reaching the final steps of global adoption.
The ideas were there in the past, the technology has now become the present and the global digital currency framework is in the very near future.
Antonie | 4,641 |
North American esports organisation OpTic Gaming – and its Overwatch League franchise Houston Outlaws – have announced that GameStop will act as their official video game retail partner.
The deal includes OpTic Gaming and Houston Outlaws’ players and personalities getting involved with GameStop Live clinics, aiding amateur players with their aspirations of making it into esports on a professional basis.
Chris DeAppolonio, EVP of Partnerships at Infinite Esports & Entertainment discussed the partnership: “For over a decade, GameStop has been an ancillary supporter both of our brand and fans. Now through this partnership, OpTic Gaming can help curate GameStop’s success in esports. We look forward to bringing new and exciting opportunities for the Greenwall both in and out of GameStop stores.”
GameStop will also allow fans of OpTic Gaming and its Overwatch League brand – dubbed the GreenWall – to meet those who represent the organisation in-person through “exclusive opportunities”.
Ryan “OpTicJ” Musselman, President of Infinite Esports & Entertainment added: “GameStop has been a core part of our early retail gaming experiences. This partnership is a testament to our roots, and to OpTic Gaming becoming a powerhouse within the gaming and entertainment space.”
OpTic Gaming is also partnered with SCUF Gaming, DXRacer, Mountain Dew AMP Game Fuel, and Turtle Beach. Most recently, it announced a partnership with Nissan alongside FaZe Clan. Houston Outlaws is partnered with Turtle Beach and DXRacer too, as well as T-Mobile.
Frank Hamlin, Chief Marketing Officer for GameStop also commented: “The DFW area is becoming the epicenter of esports and we are excited to partner with a storied franchise such as OpTic Gaming – who also share our local roots in North Texas. Through this partnership, we are hoping to provide access and resources to the amateur community that’s looking to learn new techniques and strategy from the very best in esports.”
GameStop is ramping up its esports efforts, also announcing today that it has acquired the naming rights to compLexity Gaming’s new headquarters and partnering with Team Envy.
Esports Insider says: It’s starting to seem like GameStop is a fan of North Texas, considering all three organisations it has partnered with today are all based there. It’s cool to see a mainstream brand get involved with esports in such a big way but we’ll have to see if it has spread itself too thin or not over time.
Join our Discord Server! | 4,642 |
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Updated: Aug 30, 2019 06:03 IST
Two Bihari brothers who worked as migrant labourers in Kashmir are in serious trouble after marrying two Kashmiri sisters soon after annulment of Article 370, and simultaneously bringing them to their home in Supaul.
On Wednesday, Kashmir police arrested the two brothers, Mohammed Tabrez, 26 and Mohammed Parwez, 24, from their house in Rambishanpur village, Raghopur police station of Supaul district of Bihar on charges of abducting the two Kashmiri sisters, who are adults. The women’s father lodged an abduction case against the brothers.
Assisted by the Supaul police, the Kashmir police team led by sub-inspector Sameer--he goes by one name—reached Supaul on Wednesday morning and picked up the two sisters from their Rambishanpur house before arresting Tabrez and Parwez. Later, all four were produced in a Supaul court where the two sisters recorded their statements before the magistrate. They said they were adults and married the two men on their own will without any coercion. They pleaded that they be allowed to live with their husbands. The court allowed the Kashmir police to take them back on transit remand.
According to family members of the brothers, the two men worked as masons at Nagma Banihal village of Ramban district in Kashmir for about four years. While there they fell in love with the Kashmiri sisters and began dating them. Their relationship culminated in a marriage -- soon after abrogation of Art 370 from Jammu and Kashmir.
“The annulment of Article 370 came as the most opportune moment for us as we learnt that anyone could marry a Kashmiri girl and settle in Kashmir. Soon all four of us solemnized our nikah as per Muslim rules in Kashmir,” Tabrez Ahmed said.
After this, the two couples left Kashmir and reached Supaul on August 16. Meanwhile, on learning about the incident, the women’s father lodged a complaint with Nagma Banihal police station levelling abduction charges against the brothers.
The two brides hoped that with the annulment of Article 370 there should not be any legal complexity in their marriage. “We waited for three years for to fulfil our weddings dreams. We are adults and happy with our husbands, who love us,” they told the magistrate.
“The matter is in court now. We are bound by the law and hence have to produce them in the Kashmir court that will decide the fate of the two couples,” the Kashmir police officer said. | 4,643 |
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PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — Philadelphia police are looking for a real Grinch this holiday season. The Holy Family was stolen from a Nativity scene in South Philadelphia’s Italian Market.
A local priest was planning to bless the Nativity scene on Saturday, but that opportunity is gone and the tight-knit South Philadelphia community is upset about it. They want to know who stole their Nativity scene and why.
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Eyewitness News obtained surveillance video from nearby businesses, showing multiple angles of the suspect.
The video shows what appears to be a man getting out of a car. He walks over and unplugs the display lights, before grabbing baby Jesus, Mary and Joseph.
The suspect then carries the items back to the vehicle and drives away.
The scene is on private property.
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For the past 15 years, local businesses have raised money to help set up the Nativity. This year, it cost $500.
It took a week-and-a-half to set up the display, and it was up for about week before it was stolen.
“It’s Christmas and this is Christmas. We don’t really do a big tree on 9th Street. We’ve always done the Nativity. We’re probably one of the only streets in Philadelphia that puts a Nativity up and nobody’s tree is bothered but it always seems to be a problem with our Nativity and that’s why it’s heartbreaking to spend all that time. If you don’t like it, don’t look at it. There’s no reason to vandalize and steal it,” said organizer Cookie Ciliberti.
Ciliberti says baby Jesus has been stolen in the past, but never the entire Holy Family.
“We even have a sign that tells you, ‘Smile: God is watching you and so are we,'” said Ciliberti.
The gaping hole is now an eyesore to residents in the neighborhood.
“It’s terrible,” said Ana Marie. “I think it’s terrible.”
Ciliberti ordered a new Nativity and hopes to have that reinstalled in about three days.
If you have any information about this incident, call police. | 4,644 |
In 2009, 15% was the average effective tax rate for households making between $75,000 and $100,000, in the middle quintile of U.S. families. That means Mitt Romney, a mega-millionaire, pays the tax rate as if his were a firmly middle class family, which would seem to pose a considerable political problem to a candidate fighting for middle class votes. To be clear, I don't think it's a moral problem. It's not like it's his fault, or anything. It's just the natural outcome of a tax system designed to give special treatment to investors -- and private equity managers, in particular.
Whether investment taxes should be preferential is a matter for debate. You can think of investment income from, say, a company's stock, as being taxed twice: first by the corporate income tax and second by the investment tax. That's a reason for capital gains taxes to be lower, and lower investment taxes theoretically means more savings and investment. On the other hand, the rich are more likely to invest, and if we want to protect a progressive tax code and raise enough money to fulfill our promises, taxing wealthy people's investment income as ordinary income in the 35% bracket would raise money we would otherwise have to borrow or cut.
Either way, private equity's "carried interest" loophole is not capital gains. Capital gains are income from your own investments. Carried interest is income from other people's investments. "If you manage money for a mutual fund or a public company, you pay regular income taxes," James Surowiecki explained in the New Yorker. "Do it for a private fund, and you pay capital gains." That's backward.
But don't expect Romney to hear much about carried interest from his fellow GOP presidential hopefuls. Under chief rival Newt Gingrich's tax plan, all investment income would be tax free and Romney's overall rate would fall quite near to zero.
___________
*Bonus background from an explainer we wrote last year:
Private equity and hedge fund managers tend to get paid according to what's known as the principle of 2 and 20. They charge 2% annual fees for managing the portfolio of assets, and they collect 20% of the fund's annual profits.
There's nothing strange about this arrangement. It makes sense to align managers' financial interests with their clients'. There is something strange about the way the government taxes these revenue streams. The 2% fees are considered income, so they're taxed up to the 35% marginal rate. The 20% profit returns are considered capital gains, so they're taxed at the long-term capital gains rate of 15%.
| 4,645 |
Credit: CC0 Public Domain
An international team of researchers has developed a way to detect the likelihood of making off-target cuts when using the CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing technique. In their paper published in the journal Nature, the group describes the new technique and how well it worked when tested.
CRISPR-Cas9 has held out promise of a revolution in gene editing for medical purposes, but has yet to live up to expectations. This is mostly because the technique has a serious flaw—it sometimes cuts non-targeted parts of DNA, which can, of course, be a very serious problem. In this new effort, the researchers have come up with a way of testing proposed guide RNA prior to use in CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing.
The idea behind this new research is to identify the parts of DNA that could be mistaken for a real target by guide RNA. If such parts are found, then a different guide RNA can be selected. This process can be repeated until a guide RNA is found that will only select the actual targets.
The testing method developed by the researchers consisted of cutting groups of base pairs from DNA strands from a test subject. Next, they applied adapters to circularize the DNA in each group. After that, they added a Cas9 nuclease and the proposed guide RNA—this step resulted in cuts to the DNA at certain sites. Then another pool of nucleases was used to degrade the circular DNA that did not get cut by the CRISPR-Cas-9, giving the researchers material to sequence for use in comparing places where cuts did occur. This allowed them to spot cuts that were not intended targets.
The researchers tested their method using mice. They found that their method detects guide RNA known to make off-target cuts. They also found that when they used guide RNA that had been found to produce no erroneous cuts, their test showed it was likely error-free.
The team sums up their work by suggesting the importance of selecting the right guide RNA for CRISPR-Cas9 editing to avoid off-target cuts—and their technique can ensure sure that happens.
Explore further Researchers show that nucleosomes can inhibit CRISPR-Cas9 cleavage efficiency
More information: Pinar Akcakaya et al. In vivo CRISPR editing with no detectable genome-wide off-target mutations, Nature (2018). Journal information: Nature Pinar Akcakaya et al. In vivo CRISPR editing with no detectable genome-wide off-target mutations,(2018). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-018-0500-9
© 2018 Medical Xpress | 4,646 |
John C. Sherwood
RICHLAND – Gull Lake Community Schools officials barred a former student from school property and events this week after it was learned the student had posted a seemingly threatening song on YouTube.
“I would say it was preventive,” Kalamazoo County Undersheriff Paul G. Matyas said Wednesday. “We thought this was an appropriate course of action.”
Matyas said the sheriff’s department is continuing to investigate the matter as a potential criminal case, adding that sheriff’s officials plan to question the student.
“We intend to talk to him and we’ll make an assessment at that time,” Matyas said. “Free speech doesn’t absolve you from poor decision-making or breaking the law.”
In a letter to parents distributed Wednesday, Superintendent Christopher Rundle described the former student as having posted a disclaimer with the song, “expressly stating that ‘[t]his is just a song’ and that ‘[n]o harm [is] intended.’ Nevertheless, the District is taking this matter seriously.”
Matyas said detectives have determined that the song had been removed from the Internet.
A student informed school officials Tuesday about the song’s presence online, but the song had been available online for months, a Kalamazoo television station reported.
Later that day, school officials sent an automatic telephone call to district parents, in which Rundle described the song without revealing how it could be found on the Internet.
A student “wrote a song that contains lyrics that describe violence against the Gull Lake Community Schools,” Rundle told parents in the phone call, adding that “other than the lyrics of the song itself, we have no reason to suspect that the former student intends any actual harm against the Gull Lake Community Schools.” Those statements also appeared in the letter to parents.
School administrators sought investigation from the Richland Police Department as well as the Kalamazoo County Sheriff’s Office. The district also requested increased police presence at upcoming school events, Rundle stated in the letter. Richland police today referred inquiries to the sheriff’s office.
The student’s name was not reported for reasons of privacy, but the pupil was described in a report on WWMT-TV Ch. 3 as a high school student who had dropped out of school last fall before entering junior year.
Call John C. Sherwood at 966-0698. Follow him on Twitter: @jcsherwood | 4,647 |
Alone in her bedroom, alone in a 40-room mansion, alone on a 70-acre estate, Marge Schott finishes off a vodka-and-water (no lime, no lemon), stubs out another Carlton 120, takes to her two aching knees and prays to the Men. To Charlie, the husband who made her life and then ruined it. He taught her never to trust. To Daddy, the unsmiling father who turned her into his only son. He taught her never to be soft. To Dad Schott, the calculating father-in-law, whom she may have loved most of all. He taught her never to let herself be cheated.
"I pray to them every night, honey," she says. "How many owners do that, huh? Hit their knees every night?"
Hard to say. For that matter, how many baseball owners keep in their kitchen drawer plastic bags containing hair from a dog that died five years ago? Or are worth millions but haven't shopped for clothes in nine years? Schott just wears the stuff people send her. "If it fits, honey," she says in her No. 4 sandpaper voice. "I wear it."
Honey is what Schott calls everybody, unless you're baby or sweetheart. It's what she does instead of remembering your name. "This guy is from SportsChannel, honey. He's here doing a big story on me."
"Sports Illustrated, Mrs. Schott."
"Right, honey."
Schott does not really have to remember anyone's name, because she's 67 years old, as rich as Oman, and she answers to nobody. She owns 43% of the Cincinnati Reds, but she hasn't had time to actually learn the game yet. After all, it has only been 12 years since that Christmas when she "saved the team for Cincinnati," as she has said over the years. (Why ruin the story by mentioning that the previous owners insisted that they never would have sold the Reds to anyone but a Cincinnatian, and there were no offers on the table from any other city. None of the men in Cincinnati were stepping up to buy the team, she says now.)
It is not unusual, for instance, for Schott not to know the names of her players. Oh, she knows a few—Eric Davis, Barry Larkin, Chris Sabo—but the rest are just uniforms that she steers her current St. Bernard, Schottzie 02, around before games, hoping to spy a familiar face.
"Who's that, honey?"
"George Grande, Mrs. Schott." | 4,648 |
don’t know as much as the scientists do, I do know that when I look at those symptoms that I can say, ‘Check, check, check — we have experienced those,’” said Grant, who now home schools three of her four children. She said all of them have had health issues — nosebleeds, migraines and brain fog — that she believes were caused by spending time at Sky Valley. Her youngest daughter and some of her classmates experienced the start of menstruation as young as age 6.
The Monroe school district, which owns Sky Valley Education Center, said in a statement that recent sampling found no elevated levels and noted that nobody involved in the lawsuit “has produced a diagnosis or opinion from a licensed physician finding that their claimed injuries are the result of exposure to PCBs or related substances” at the school. The district also said that it removed PCB-containing caulk and contaminated light fixtures and has encapsulated other sources.
Monsanto said there is no proof PCBs cause significant health problems, especially at the levels found in building materials and light ballasts.
Still, former EPA toxicologist Mark Maddaloni said it’s crucial to reduce PCBs in schools because children are more vulnerable and continued exposure begins to “chisel away at the margin of safety,” and could increase the odds of long-term health problems.
What’s more, a recent study that found schools can be a greater source of PCBs to children than food and outdoor sources, even toxic waste sites, said Hornbuckle, who led the study funded by the federal government’s National Institute of Environmental Health Services.
Toxicologists have said more studies of the health effects of inhaled PCBs are needed to more confidently assess health risks in schools and other buildings.
Herrick, the Harvard professor, said neither Congress nor the EPA have stepped up to create a “coherent national policy” on PCBs, as they did to a greater extent for asbestos and lead contamination.
“They intentionally dodged their responsibility to put some sort of framework around the problem,” said Herrick, who retired last year. “I think it’s because they don’t want the answer.”
___
Webber reported from Hartford, Connecticut, Chicago and Washington, D.C. Irvine reported from Hartford, Chicago, Washington, D.C., and Monroe, Washington.
___
Follow Tammy Webber on Twitter: www.twiter.com/twebber02. Follow Martha Irvine at www.twitter.com/irvineAP. | 4,649 |
Image copyright PA
Poundworld is poised to announce its intention to appoint administrators.
The move will allow the company 10 days to two weeks to continue talks with potential buyers without the company's creditors being able to make a claim on the business.
It also allows its staff and suppliers to continue to be paid.
It is understood that investment company R Capital is in talks to try to buy Poundworld, which has 5,300 workers and 355 stores.
Poundworld, which also trades under the Bargain Buys brand name, serves two million customers a week. It is owned by the US private equity firm, TPG.
Earlier this week, talks with potential purchaser Alteri Investors, whose website says it specialises in "challenging retail situations", collapsed.
About 100 of Poundworld's outlets were already under threat of closure, but were kept open while takeover talks took place.
Retail woes
Deloitte is understood to be standing by to be appointed administrator if the company fails to find a buyer.
Sources have played down the possibility of former owner Chris Edwards being able to buy the company outright.
Poundworld has been losing money for the past two years. Losses for the financial year 2016-17 were £17.1m, up from £5.4m the year before.
Like many retailers, Poundworld has been hit by falling consumer confidence, rising overheads, the weaker pound and the growth of online shopping.
What is R Capital?
The company was founded in 2004 and has been involved over 50 investments across the UK and Europe
It bought Little Chef and attempted to turn round the business with the help of the chef Heston Blumenthal.
The company bought Tie Rack in 2013 and sold it to Samsonite in 2015 for £15.7m.
Its current portfolio include the property company Cluttons, the Harley Medical Group and Odyssey Health Clubs.
Earlier on Thursday, House of Fraser announced it was planning to close 31 of its 59 stores including its flagship outlet on London's Oxford Street.
Retailers including Maplins, Toys 'R' Us, Mothercare, Carpetright plus a string of restaurant chains have hit the headlines this year because of trading trouble.
Poundworld, which has its headquarters in West Yorkshire, was formed in 2004, but it says it can trace its origins "back to 1974 and a market stall in Wakefield, West Yorkshire".
TPG, which bought a majority stake in Poundworld in 2015, also controls the restaurant chain Prezzo whose landlords and creditors agreed a restructuring last month. | 4,650 |
patriotism and keen on appeasing its 83 percent white fan-base, "shut up and play" could very well be the unofficial tagline for the NFL. Especially for politically conscious athletes of colour, like Kaepernick, whose stance has moved fans to call him everything from the N-word to a "Muslim terrorist".
READ MORE: Colin Kaepernick says he has received death threats
However, efforts to intimidate Kaepernick into silence have not only come from the stands and on social media, but from NFL leadership by way of a de facto blackball. Although Kaepernick led his team to the Super Bowl and had a productive season in 2016, boasting statistics that best several starting quarterbacks in the league, he has been passed over for journeymen and marginal backups. League executives and coaches, including Seattle Seahawks coach Pete Carroll, have called Kaepernick "a starter in this league", indicating that the man's afro and unapologetic Blackness, and not his abilities, are why an NFL franchise won't sign him.
For the NFL, Kaepernick is a threat because of what he stands for as an individual, but even more so, for his potential to inspire others to follow his course. To prevent this, NFL brass and gatekeepers have dangled Kaepernick as a cautionary tale, used to chill the speech of other athletes and warn them of the consequences if they choose to speak out on controversial matters. Therefore, blackballing Kaepernick had this intended collateral effect, particularly in a league whose owners helped bundle over $107 million for Donald Trump's presidential inauguration.
Ray Lewis, one of the NFL's most iconic players with influence in the Baltimore Ravens' front office, a team that contemplated signing Kaepernick (at time of this article's publication), towed the NFL line, stating, "What you do off the field, don't let too many people know, because they gonna judge you anyway, no matter what you do, no matter if it's good or bad".
In other words, shut up and play, stay silent and subservient, and remain within the lines drawn by your league masters. In response to Lewis, and the league he spoke on behalf of on August 1, Kaepernick tweeted, "Ignorance allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have." He stood up to his blackballing and chose freedom over a league that covets his body but castigates his mind.
Khaled A Beydoun is an associate professor of law at the University of Detroit Mercy. He is also senior affiliated faculty with the University of California-Berkeley Islamophobia Research and Documentation Project.
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy. | 4,651 |
The Obama administration has harshly denounced the letter that a group of Republican senators sent to Iran's supreme leader regarding nuclear negotiations, but Sen. Rand Paul, R-Kentucky, insists the letter should actually help the administration's attempts to negotiate.
"I want the president to negotiate from a position of strength, which means that he needs to be telling them in Iran, 'I've got Congress to deal with,'" Paul said Sunday at the South by Southwest (SXSW) Festival in Austin, Texas.
The letter, signed by 47 GOP senators including Paul, warned that without congressional approval, any deal between President Obama and Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, could be easily reversed. "The next president could revoke such an executive agreement with the stroke of a pen," they wrote, "and future Congresses could modify the terms of the agreement at any time."
In an interview Sunday on "Face the Nation," Secretary of State John Kerry told CBS News correspondent Margaret Brennan that the letter contained "false information" and was "directly calculated to interfere" with negotiations that conservatives oppose.
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Paul, a potential 2016 presidential candidate, insisted Sunday, "There's no one in Washington more against war and more for a negotiated deal than I am. But I want the negotiated deal to be a good deal."
He also said he signed the letter out of concern that President Obama "doesn't care or understand the separation of powers."
"I wouldn't have signed the letter had he not altered immigration law on his own, had he not altered the health care law on his own, and had he not taken us to war on his own," Paul said.
At the annual Gridiron Club dinner in Washington, D.C. on Saturday, Mr. Obama used his otherwise lighthearted speech to admonish Republicans. "You don't diminish your office by taking a selfie. You do it by sending a poorly written letter to Iran. Really. That wasn't a joke," he said, according to a pool report of the event.
Khamenei, meanwhile, has called the letter a sign of "the collapse of political ethics and the U.S. system's internal disintegration." Iran's foreign minister Mohammed Javad Zarif called the letter "unprecedented and undiplomatic."
Sen. Tom Cotton, the Republican from Arkansas who spearheaded the letter, said on "Face the Nation" that he had "no regrets at all" for sending it.
"It's a simple fact of our constitution that if Congress does not approve that deal, then it may not last," Cotton stated. | 4,652 |
At a time when the Rohingya crisis in Myanmar is being debated — including whether India should indeed deport them or adopt a humanitarian stand — the Indian Council of Historical Research (ICHR) is organising a seminar on Wednesday to flesh out the difference between “refugees” and “illegal infiltrators”, seeing Rohingya Muslims as an example of the latter.
“Victims of religio-ethnic cleansing from the neighbouring countries that were part of eternal Bharat since time immemorial but got separated from us in 1947, are entitled to shelter and rehabilitation in India, but illegal infiltrators from outside India are not,” says a brief concept note on the seminar accessed by The Hindu.
“Rohingya are certainly not entitled to the refugee status. We have another category of refugees — who are internally displaced — like the Hindu community from our own Kashmir Valley, unfortunately now refugees in their own land!”
The note also says: “Study on refugees, or ‘forced migration’, is an established academic discipline in various countries, but somehow, it has yet to receive that kind of acceptability in India. As against this, there is the issue of illegal infiltration, and the two cannot be clubbed together.”
Governor of Tripura Tathagata Roy will inaugurate the seminar at the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library (NMML) and Indian Council of Social Science Research Chairman BB Kumar will deliver the valedictory address.
The speakers will include former Foreign Secretary Kanwal Sibal, Gen. G.D. Bakshi, Jawaharlal Kaul, Jitendra Bajaj, Jayanta Kumar Ray — who has researched Pakistan and east Pakistan, now Bangladesh — and retired police officer R.K. Ohri.
ICHR member Saradindu Mukherji told The Hindu that the idea was to draw a brief historical outline of India’s refugee policy from Independence to the present day. He, however, sought to draw a sharp distinction between the refugees of Partition and the 10-million refugees who came from East Pakistan around 1971 on the one hand, and the present Rohingya refugees.
“Lahore and Dhaka were very much part of India, but were given to Pakistan. The Hindus there did not want Pakistan. India was duty-bound to give them shelter. Similarly, we were duty-bound to give shelter to the largely Hindu refugees in 1971,” he said. “But Rohingya are from Myanmar and are not India’s responsibility. There is also a security threat as they are being radicalised and have links with Pakistani terror groups.” | 4,653 |
Oh to be young and feel stupidity's keen sting. A recent high school graduate took to Twitter to boast about her grades, appendages, and scholarship - which was fraudulently acquired... Because she's an illegal immigrant. Tell me again how illegal immigrants are "hiding in the shadows." Also, she's getting a free ride through college via taxpayers' money. Yay her! Except not really, because her bragging went viral. Now everyone knows her full name, school, and location. Aaaand they know she's a law-breaking criminal. #Oops
Here's a screenshot of that fateful tweet, courtesy of AllenBWest.com...
She forgot to tack on "oh and I'm prime for deportation." But Twitter reminded her.
Yeah, she deleted her account. Just couldn't take the heat, despite what one may assume about someone from Mexico. I know, I know. She may be illegal but she's successful. No harm done. She has a high GPA so she must be a good person, right?
She's an unfortunate turdbomb. And no, it's not because she's Mexican... which she's obviously very proud of. Stupidly, might I add, seeing as Mexico won't be paying for her college tuition. Or her healthcare. Or her food stamps. The point is that this person broke the law and is happy about it. There are plenty of American students (or legal immigrants) who have high grades and accolades. Can we give them scholarships first?
By the way, this perfectly illustrates the non-existence of "white privilege." A little research shows this person received tons of rewards because she's smart and brown. No, really. She got "Latino" specific awards. I suspect her skin color also had more to do with her scholarship than her actual grades. But I'm just a law-abiding bigot. What do I know?
Are you frustrated? You should be. This dummy just insulted every immigrant who's ever come to the States legally. While they're working hard to do it the right way, she's cheating the system. This is why people are fed up with the current state of politics. Under Obama, these crimes are encouraged and rewarded (see Five Shocking "Free" Things Illegals Get Under Obama That You Don't...). For example, this gal gets expensive college tuition for free. Meanwhile you get to pay for it. And if you complain... you're a racist.
NOT SUBSCRIBED TO THE PODCAST? FIX THAT! IT’S COMPLETELY FREE ON BOTH ITUNES HERE AND SOUNDCLOUD HERE. | 4,654 |
EU Promises Trade War If Trump Imposes Steel Restrictions
The results of the Trump administration’s investigation into whether steel imports represent a national security threat are expected any day now, and could open the door to restrictions on U.S. imports — and spark conflict with the world’s biggest economic bloc.
Ostensibly, the object of the administration’s review of steel and aluminum trading practices is China, notorious for dumping cheap steel on global markets. But trade experts have repeatedly explained that any new restrictions on steel imports into the United States would actually hurt countries like South Korea, Germany, and Canada — not Beijing, which is already hamstrung by a spate of trade restrictions.
“We will respond with countermeasures if need be, hoping that this is not actually necessary,” European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said Friday ahead of meetings in Hamburg of the Group of 20 world economies. “We are prepared to take up arms if need be.”
According to media reports, nearly all of Trump’s advisers have warned against against any additional steel import tariffs or quotas. That disharmony within the administration has delayed the conclusion of the security review.
In addition to aiming at the wrong target, and angering big trade partners, such tariffs would raise costs for millions of U.S. consumers and thousands of U.S. manufacturers. But a small cadre of economic nationalists close to Trump are urging him to take advantage of the Cold War-era trade rules to protect a relatively small U.S. industry.
Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross is almost done with his multi-month inquiry into whether steel imports put national security at risk. He has argued that large steel imports from foreign sources makes the United States vulnerable because it undermines the domestic steel industry. (The Pentagon has never expressed much concern about foreign steel undercutting U.S. defense needs, but foreign aluminum is a different matter.)
The potential spat over steel added yet another contentious issue to the G20 meeting which was already tense because of Trump’s decision to leave the Paris climate agreement, making the United States one of only three countries outside that pact. But creeping trade protectionism, and what seems to be a deliberate abdication by the Trump administration of a commitment to global free trade, is concentrating minds in Hamburg — especially for European leaders who can recall the disastrous consequences of protectionism and autarky.
“It’s up to us to avoid such things as protectionism, this very simple thing. That would be wrong,” Juncker said.
Photo credit: LUDOVIC MARIN/Getty Images | 4,655 |
, served by 300,000 experts in sectors such as healthcare, energy, accounting and finance. One UK-based expert with GLG said: "You get 15 minutes' ethics training but it's very basic. They tell you 'don't say anything if it is confidential'. It is that level. I don't think there is much vetting. It is 'buyer beware'."
Another GLG expert insisted said there was "quite a stringent process of form filling", while in a recent note to clients after the industry-wide controversy, GLG's chief executive, Alexander Saint-Amand, said: "We believe our policies and approach are the most robust in our industry and add significant transparency and controls over many types of uncontrolled and undocumented methods of information-gathering that exist outside of an expert network framework."
Still, despite these efforts, even experts admit that problems occur. John Ansell, a pharmaceutical consultant who has conducted over 200 consultations for GLG over four years, added: "Only once has there been a problem. I told a bank something based on a rumour but they didn't want to hear it. It can happen inadvertently."
Big names accused
Last week's announcement that Rajat Gupta, the former head of management consulting group McKinsey, was among those charged in the securities and exchange commission's long-running insider dealing investigation propelled the inquiry's profile to new heights.
Gupta, who denies any wrongdoing, is a former Goldman Sachs and Procter & Gamble director as well as being a one-time adviser to the United Nations and the biggest name to be directly dragged into the investigation thus far. It is alleged he passed corporate secrets to Raj Rajaratnam, whose hedge fund Galleon is being examined in another part of the case, which in turn triggered charges against four further hedge fund managers.
One-time Olympic speed skating hopeful, Donald Longueuil, and Noah Freeman – who both once worked at $12bn hedge fund SAC Capital – have been charged with Samir Barai, founder of Barai Capital Management, and his employee Jason Pflaum.
Prosecutors allege the four men swapped tips from employees of public companies and from expert network consultants. Former hedge fund analyst Danielle Chiesi, who compared insider dealing to an orgasm, has admitted making $4m (£2.45m) from the illicit deals.
SAC founded by famed trader, Steven A Cohen, has a high profile on Wall Street but the fund has been embarrassed by names of other former employees being dragged into the glare of this SEC investigation.
Following the charges against Longueuil and Freeman the company said it was outraged by their alleged actions. | 4,656 |
President Donald Trump ridiculed Rep. Justin Amash (R-MI) on Sunday after the rogue Republican accused the president of impeachable conduct.
“Justin is a loser who sadly plays right into our opponents’ hands!” Trump wrote on Twitter.
“Contrary to Barr’s portrayal, Mueller’s report reveals that President Trump engaged in specific actions and a pattern of behavior that meet the threshold for impeachment,” Amash previously wrote on Twitter, criticizing Attorney General Bill Barr for misrepresenting the report from Special Counsel Robert Mueller:
Contrary to Barr’s portrayal, Mueller’s report reveals that President Trump engaged in specific actions and a pattern of behavior that meet the threshold for impeachment. — Justin Amash (@justinamash) May 18, 2019
But Trump accused Amash of trying to showboat on the issue by playing into the hands of Democrats.
“Never a fan of Justin Amash, a total lightweight who opposes me and some of our great Republican ideas and policies just for the sake of getting his name out there through controversy,” he wrote.
Trump said that although the Mueller report was biased, it was still correct in concluding that there was no collusion or obstruction of justice.
“If he actually read the biased Mueller Report, “composed” by 18 Angry Dems who hated Trump, he would see that it was nevertheless strong on NO COLLUSION and, ultimately, NO OBSTRUCTION,” Trump wrote. “Anyway, how do you Obstruct when there is no crime and, in fact, the crimes were committed by the other side?”
Democrats were delighted by Amash’s statements which earned him heavy media coverage for his dissent.
Rep. Rashida Tlaib urged Amash on Saturday to join Democrats on a resolution to impeach the president.
You are putting country first, and that is to be commended. We both took an oath to uphold the U.S. Constitution. Please let me know if you are interested signing on to the resolution to begin the investigation into impeachment. https://t.co/f5CT3uB81d — Rashida Tlaib (@RashidaTlaib) May 18, 2019
Never a fan of @justinamash, a total lightweight who opposes me and some of our great Republican ideas and policies just for the sake of getting his name out there through controversy. If he actually read the biased Mueller Report, “composed” by 18 Angry Dems who hated Trump,…. — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 19, 2019 | 4,657 |
avinng and never coming back — Drini Gjoka (@YoungDrini) August 26, 2018
I am literally so lucky. The bullet hit my thumb — Drini Gjoka (@YoungDrini) August 26, 2018
Chris “Dubby” McFarland said he had been grazed in the head by a bullet but was also OK.
They took me to the hospital. Bullet grazed my head. I feel fine, just a scratch on my head. Traumatized and devastated. — DUBBY (@DubDotDUBBY) August 26, 2018
All the time you hear about these shootings and pray for everyone involved. Donate money. Raise awareness and do everything you can. But to be in the room getting shot at and seeing your friends dead......man — DUBBY (@DubDotDUBBY) August 26, 2018
Others at the event told friends via social media that they were present for the shooting but safe.
Please everyone keep your thoughts and prayers for my brothers. — Kiv (@young_kiv) August 26, 2018
CompLexity gave this statement confirming Gjoka was injured in the shooting:
We’re obviously shocked and saddened by this afternoon’s events. Our player, Drini, was hit in the thumb but is going to be fine. He managed to escape and run down the street to a nearby gym. He’s currently cooperating with the authorities and we will be flying him out of Jacksonville as soon as we are given the green light from the officials on the ground.
The Los Angeles Times reported Sunday afternoon that the suspect was a competitor at the tournament who had lost. Veteran esports reporter Rod Breslau reported the same information, and said oLARRY2K, of Bucks Gaming in the NBA 2K League, was also wounded.
According to @ImSteveyJ, the Jacksonville shooter was a competitor in the Madden tournament that lost, opened fire on multiple people after, and then killed himself. One person hit includes NBA 2K pro player @oLARRY2K. https://t.co/0eHARZV049 — Rod Breslau (@Slasher) August 26, 2018
oLARRY’s mother confirmed that her son was hit three times.
My son was shot 3 times please keep him in your prayers — Sujeil (@olarrysmom) August 26, 2018
Update: This story has been substantially revised since its first version and subsequent updates. Polygon will continue to revise and update this story as more developments become known. | 4,658 |
The Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank is the only bank for which no Series 2017 $1 notes have been printed.
The Bureau of Engraving and Printing has printed just three denominations of Series 2017 Federal Reserve notes — $1, $10, and $20.
The Bureau of Engraving and Printing’s January Production Report reveals that only three denominations of Federal Reserve notes, $1, $10, and $20, are being printed so far with the Series 2017 designation and bearing the facsimile signatures of Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Treasurer Jovita Carranza.
Of the three, only the $20 note has been produced for each of the 12 Federal Reserve districts. The Washington facility printed notes for all districts except for the St. Louis and San Francisco districts. Issues for Dallas have been printed at both the Washington and Fort Worth, Texas, facilities. Star notes were made in Washington for New York, Cleveland, Kansas City, and Dallas.
The Fort Worth plant has so far printed the $20 star notes for only the San Francisco district.
Inside Coin World: Collector finds Chicago businessman’s lucky silver dollar giveaways: Responses to collector questions, market trends for the 1895-O Barber dime, and the impact of the first grading guide are all the focus of columns in the April 15 “Coin World.”
It is too early to make estimates of rarity, but the lowest printing so far is the 25,600,000 St. Louis $20 notes printed in Fort Worth only in June 2018.
Notes printed at the Texas plant are distinguished by the presence of a small FW facility mark in front of the face-plate number.
The number of $10 notes printed is relatively small, with no issues yet for Atlanta, Chicago, and Dallas. Star $10 notes exist only for Minneapolis, Kansas City, and San Francisco. Printing is being done at both facilities.
The serial numbers on all $10 and $20 are preceded by the letter “N.” The second letter represents the Federal Reserve district.
The printing of 76,800,000 $1 notes for Richmond in January leaves the Philadelphia bank as the only holdout for that denomination. Star notes are recorded for eight banks, excepting Philadelphia, Cleveland, Richmond, and San Francisco. With the exception of the Richmond notes printed in Fort Worth, the distribution is as originally intended, with Fort Worth printing for the banks in Chicago and points westward, and Washington taking care of the others.
Connect with Coin World:
Sign up for our free eNewsletter
Access our Dealer Directory
Like us on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter | 4,659 |
SWANSEA, WALES - DECEMBER 26: Bob Bradley, Manager of Swansea City looks on during the Premier League match between Swansea City and West Ham United at Liberty Stadium on December 26, 2016 in Swansea, Wales. (Photo by Michael Steele/Getty Images)
A star-studded ownership group launches a new vision on the West Coast.
Major League Soccer continues to move forward in its progression, and expansion is certainly a key part of those plans. 2018 introduces the division’s newest team, and Los Angeles Football Club will have to contend with high expectations thanks to some of the moves in-place already.
LAFC’s decision for a head coach was a statement of intent all on its own, bringing on former US national team manager Bob Bradley. At the MLS level, the 59-year-old’s work has been extremely impressive at a variety of different locations.
Bradley led the Chicago Fire to the MLS Cup title in 1998, marking the only occasion in league history that an expansion side have captured the trophy.
All our matches in one place. Print out the #LAFC 2018 regular season schedule. ⬇️⬇️⬇️ pic.twitter.com/0pjuVsrXV0 — LAFC (@LAFC) January 6, 2018
Successful runs with the Metrostars and Chivas USA led to even bigger opportunities. After his stint at the helm of the USMNT, Bradley managed Egypt and was also briefly in-charge of Swansea City.
The New Jersey native brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to Los Angeles, but the real reason expectations should be high for fans is the players that have already been signed.
Strong at the front and at the back
Recent expansion franchises New York City FC and Orlando City SC each made quite a splash with their first designated players (David Villa and Kaká). LAFC were no different when it comes to this trend, adding Mexican international Carlos Vela.
The talented forward will bring quite a bit to the attack with his pace and skill on the ball. Los Angeles also signed Diego Rossi and Benny Feilhaber.
However, the club did not ignore the back-line. With defenders like Laurent Ciman and Walker Zimmerman, the team will have balance in the line-up.
Excitement should be present, as it normally is for a brand-new squad. But LAFC and Bob Bradley have begun to build with smart pieces. Considering what the likes of Seattle Sounders and Atlanta United accomplished in their maiden campaigns, fans should be looking for a run at the playoffs and will definitely be expecting it. | 4,660 |
.
"Being with family and friends, having your health, having a laugh, having a great meal,'' Kerr says. "That's what matters.'' Kerr told MacMullan: “this is all bullshit,” as he waved a hand at … the NBA Finals his team was playing in at the time. So if a death in Myers’ family taught him to cherish relationships, and if Kerr and Myers are practiced at prioritizing each other … well, why in the hell would Bob Myers ever leave that job?
Because there’s almost nothing an owner can’t screw up. The answer is right there in Jackie’s story, and it involves Warriors owner Joe Lacob:
Lacob's son Kirk is the team's assistant general manager, and it's not much of a stretch to assume he's being groomed to replace Myers someday. "You hope to do it for a long time,'' Myers says, "but the turnover rate is so high in our business. That's why you cultivate relationships that are meaningful and water them, and let them grow, and care about each other and enjoy the moments.''
They don’t have advanced stats for owner performance yet, but it’s easy to imagine even Golden State could be hurt by this. Maybe Kirk Lacob, whom I barely know, will be an epic basketball executive. But his very existence appears to put a clock on the nirvana by the bay. What other reason could you imagine for Myers to sniff around? Kerr will, of course, leave one day, maybe that’s sooner once his friend is gone?
Which leads to one more question: Has the child of any NBA owner ever done a good job running a team? There aren’t many current examples for the Lacobs to draw on. James Dolan took over the Knicks from his dad, and despite massive revenues that team is abysmal. The other team run by the child of an owner is the Lakers.
That’s where Marc Stein’s tweet got me. If every NBA team were simply trying to win, it’s hard to imagine that Myers would consider leaving, or that the Lakers would have employed a president who would wander away down a loading dock some Tuesday night. But both things happened because owners have family trees to nourish, and ultimately you only get to have one top priority. If it’s not winning, it’s something else.
Coming tomorrow on TrueHoop: David Thorpe’s playoff preview and the TrueHoop Stat Geek Smackdown.
Banner art by Mike McGrath Jr. | 4,661 |
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Zaki Yahya Awadallah, a freelance photojournalist, was hit by a live round fired by the Israel Defense Forces while covering a protest east of the southern Gazan city of Rafah on July 20, 2018, according to news reports, the Palestinian press freedom group Palestinian Center for Development and Media Freedom (MADA), and the regional press freedom group Skeyes Center for Media and Cultural Freedom.
The bullet went through Awadallah’s right leg below the knee, severing the artery, and pierced his left leg, according to Skeyes and a Facebook post by Awadallah.
Pictures and video footage shared on Facebook and Twitter show that Awadallah was carrying his camera, but was not wearing any protective gear that identified him as journalist, when he was shot.
Video footage shared on social media also shows that protesters tried to stop the bleeding in Awadallah’s right leg by tying a Palestinian scarf above the wound. They then took the journalist to an ambulance and transferred him to the European Gaza Hospital in Rafah, according to the footage.
Awadallah said on Facebook on July 21 that the artery in his right leg was ligated and he is in stable condition. In a video interview shared on social media, Awadallah spoke from his hospital bed and called on Israeli authorities to allow him to travel to the West Bank to complete his treatment.
The Israel Defense Forces did not reply to CPJ’s email requesting comment.
Awadallah has been covering ongoing protests in Gaza since they began on March 30, 2018. He posts his photographs to his Facebook account, which has over 2,600 followers. He is also director of the media production and marketing company One Media.
News reports said that four Palestinians, three of whom were members of Hamas’ armed wing Al-Qassam Brigades, were killed during the July 20 protests in Gaza.
On the same day, freelance photojournalist Hiba Awad was hit in her left arm by a tear gas canister while covering the protests east of the southern Gazan city of Khan Younis, according to news reports and a Facebook post from Awad. Awad was immediately transferred for treatment to a nearby ambulance and did not sustain serious injuries, according to the same sources.
Since the protests began on March 30, 2018, CPJ has documented that at least 17 journalists have been hit by live rounds fired by Israel Defense Forces, two of whom–Yaser Murtaja and Ahmed Abu Hussein–later died from their injuries. | 4,662 |
The Government has received tacit backing from the EU Commission for an easing of tight fiscal curbs ahead of its spring economic statement later this month.
The development comes as the Coalition takes further steps to tackle the mortgage arrears crisis.
The Government is finalising plans which would see courts given power to overrule banks when they reject proposals from borrowers with arrears.
Ministers are considering proposals to allow the Circuit Court to impose alternative arrangements to those suggested by banks or other lenders.
Currently, banks can veto deals arranged by advisers to struggling borrowers.
The Government is expected to announce its final mortgage arrears package at the end of the month, following the spring economic statement.
In what would amount to a significant weakening of the banks’ veto, the Circuit Court could decide proposals put forward by advisers to people in mortgage distress offered a viable route to “return to solvency”, according to sources.
Main priority
Should the court decide a bank had unreasonably rejected a proposed settlement put forward by insolvency advisers, it could assess the proposal and impose an arrangement if it felt it was both workable and in the public interest, the sources said.
The new initiative is described as “examinership for homeowners”, taking its lead from the process under which struggling businesses operate as a going concern with the approval of the courts.
One source suggested it would provide “another weapon to borrowers” to encourage them to engage with their lenders.
Bankruptcy term
Well-placed sources said while bankruptcy for businesses could provide a clean break, figures from the Insolvency Service of Ireland showed 70 per cent of homeowners who opted for bankruptcy ended up losing their homes
Separately, Coalition figures expect banks to act on the issue of standard variable rate mortgages in the coming months.
Earlier this week, Taoiseach Enda Kenny told the Dáil the banks had a moral duty to pass on lower European Central Bank interest rates from which they benefited.
Minister for Finance Michael Noonan and Minister for Public Expenditure Brendan Howlin this week received a 20-page draft of the spring economic statement in which they will outline a joint fiscal plan for 2016 and the years beyond it.
At issue now is how they refine the document before publication on April 28th.
Following positive signals from Brussels, the Coalition will be in a position to signal greater scope to raise expenditure and cut tax next year without running the risk of an objection from the commission.
The move presents the Government with increased room for economic manoeuvre in the run-up to the general election. | 4,663 |
Celebrating the writing of Cormac McCarthy. For more information, contact Bill Hardwig or Steve Blackwell. McCarthyFest is part of the AuthorFest series.
Thursday, November 1
4 – 5 PM
Keynote Address: “Cormac McCarthy, the City, and Performance”
Stacey Peebles, NEH Associate Professor of English, Director of the Film Studies Program, Centre College; Vice President of The Cormac McCarthy Society; and Editor of The Cormac McCarthy Journal
Lindsay Young Auditorium
UT Hodges Library
Keynote Address: “Cormac McCarthy, the City, and Performance” Stacey Peebles, NEH Associate Professor of English, Director of the Film Studies Program, Centre College; Vice President of The Cormac McCarthy Society; and Editor of The Cormac McCarthy Journal Lindsay Young Auditorium UT Hodges Library 7:30 – 9 PM
Abridged staged reading of Cormac McCarthy’s The Sunset Limited with post-performance discussion, Q&A, and refreshments
Actors: Greg Congleton and Steve Dupree
Respondent: Stacey Peebles
The Historic Southern Railway Station
306 W. Depot Avenue
Knoxville, TN 37917
Friday, November 2
1 – 2 PM
Student activities and McCarthy special collections display
Lindsay Young Auditorium
UT Hodges Library
Student activities and McCarthy special collections display Lindsay Young Auditorium UT Hodges Library 2 – 3:30 PM
“McCarthy’s Literature, Life, and Influence: A Discussion Panel”
Panelists: Roland Kopp, member of the musical group Buddy and the Huddle, Nuremberg, Germany Stacey Peebles, NEH Associate Professor of English and Director of the Film Studies Program, Centre College; Vice President of The Cormac McCarthy Society; Editor of The Cormac McCarthy Journal Wes Morgan, Professor Emeritus in the UT Department of Psychology, Longtime member of the Cormac McCarthy Society and author of many essays on McCarthy’s life and writing in Knoxville Liliana Gonzalez, Assistant Professor of Latino/a Literature, Culture, and Theory in the UT Departments of English and Modern Foreign Languages and Literatures
“McCarthy’s Literature, Life, and Influence: A Discussion Panel” Panelists:
Moderator:
Brad Bannon, Lecturer, UT Department of English, Co-editor of Cormac McCarthy’s Violent Destinies
Lindsay Young Auditorium
UT Hodges Library | 4,664 |
By Karolina Tagaris
ATHENS (Reuters) - A group of Afghan refugees in Greece protested against their living conditions on Monday by chanting "Liar!" as they tried to block a minister from entering the former Athens airport terminal where they have been stranded for months.
Children stuck inside the compound climbed up a metal gate while dozens of protesters pushed and shoved one another as they shouted "Go, Go!" at Migration Minister Yannis Mouzalas. One man handed him a crying child as he reached the chained gate.
About 1,600 refugees and migrants live at Hellenikon, a former airport complex that also houses abandoned venues used in the 2004 Olympic Games. Of those, 600 live in the old arrivals terminal, sharing tents in unsanitary conditions.
"We have a bad situation in this camp. It's like one year in jail," said an Afghan man who identified himself as Massoud.
Human rights groups, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, have criticized conditions in Greece's makeshift and formal camps, describing them as deplorable and unfit for humans.
"The situation in Greece... is still very concerning to us," said Monica Costa of Amnesty International, who is on a fact-finding mission at Greek camps this week.
"There are still thousands of people languishing in camps that are not prepared for long-term stay," she said.
Greece has long said it plans to clear out Hellenikon - which housed up to 3,000 refugees and migrants in scorching temperatures last summer - after agreeing to lease it to private investors under its bailout program.
"Hellenikon must be cleared out," Mouzalas reiterated on Monday.
The protesters were demanding better quality food, better sanitation facilities and hot water.
"I completely understand their pain and hardship. We are trying to ease it as much as we can," Mouzalas said.
About 60,000 refugees and migrants have been in Greece for nearly a year after border shutdowns throughout the Balkans halted the onward journey many planned to take to central and western Europe.
Story continues
Costa said Amnesty researchers had observed "psychological deterioration, a lot of stress," in the camps, exacerbated by lengthy asylum procedures and uncertainty over the future.
Greek authorities have yet to determine the cause of death of three migrants who died within a week in one camp on the island of Lesbos this month.
"Since the closure of the Balkan route, this humanitarian crisis unfolded, and we have already said that this crisis was completely avoidable," Costa said.
(Editing by Pritha Sarkar) | 4,665 |
FANS of Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials could get the chance to appear in the TV adaptation of the popular trilogy.
Last week it was announced that Scottish movie star James McAvoy has joined the cast of the Bad Wolf production as Lord Asriel, alongside Logan star Dafne Keen, who will play Lyra Belacqua.
The new eight-part series is starting production in Wales but some scenes will be shot in Oxford and now Pinewood Studios Uni-versalExtras are looking for people to take part in scenes expected to be shot next month.
A casting session is taking place on Saturday at New Road Baptist Church in Oxford, from 10am to 4pm.
Uni-versalExtras events co-ordinator Amy Leyshon said: “We work on the biggest and best feature films and have provided supporting artists for numerous projects including Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Justice League, Kingsman: The Golden Circle and Paddington 2.
“We have some exciting projects coming up in and around Oxford so are looking for people to come and register to work as a supporting artist with us.
“We look forward to meeting everyone.”
The casting session costs nothing and any roles are paid. The only requirement is that any person attending must be over 16.5 years of age with the right to work in the UK.
Bad Wolf bosses have notified the county council that they will be filming in New College Lane from July 2 to July 4.
Nigel Heath, 63, from Witney, urged would-be professional actors to try out being an extra for the day.
He said: “They never tell you beforehand what you are going to be in - they just tell you the address and you have to turn up - sometimes very early in the morning. I was one of the extras in the recent BBC drama, A Very English Scandal, about the suspected murder plot involving Liberal leader Jeremy Thorpe, played by Hugh Grant.
“One of the scenes featured an election count and I shook Hugh Grant’s hand.
He gave us lots of encouragement - it was like he was helping to direct the scene.”
Mr Heath warned there could be lots of waiting around between takes, with little pay.
He added: “You might get £100 but you could end up working a 13-hour day.
“It’s hit and miss when you get called - earlier this year I was a race goer in a Netflix cold war drama so I got to have a day at the races.” | 4,666 |
Tampa, FL | A 22-year-old man from Florida has been found dead after he allegedly succumbed from indulging in sexual activities with his 23-foot-long anaconda.
It took several hours for authorities to separate the large serpent from the young man as the victim was in “full erection” and had “deeply penetrated” the female anaconda’s genitalia according to the coroner’s report.
David Brown, 22, was found naked and completely enveloped by his pet anaconda by a friend when he contacted authorities, hoping they could save his life.
“I knew he was into bestiality and erotic asphyxiation but I never thought it would go so wrong,” explained his friend in tears to reporters.
“He always told me he wasn’t hurting anybody and that animals loved sex as much as humans, that it was a consensual thing. Who am I to judge?” he added.
An animal lover
The young man that was an avid animal fan had a wide collection of pets ranging from dogs and cats to tarantulas, snakes, scorpions, turtles and even a baby wild hog he described himself as “extremely horny.”
“He’s loved animals since he was a young boy,” said his mother.
“I wasn’t too fond of that big snake but he reassured me he’d take care of it and that it wasn’t dangerous,” she said, exploding in tears.
An eye-opening incident
David Brown was also brought to the emergency room last October after an incident with a pet gerbil who had “accidentally perforated his anus and chewed through his intestinal track,” explained another family friend.
The young man had suffered severe internal bleeding and necessitated surgery but was up and running again two months later.
“I thought he had learned his lesson from that previous incident but he definitely did not” explained one of his former girlfriends who wished to remain anonymous.
“He once convinced me into a threesome with his German Shepherd but I wouldn’t get close to that snake, even if David proposed it several times and was really persuasive,” she remembers.
Although the state of Florida has officially outlawed bestiality in October 2011, the bestiality law does not forbid oral sex between a human and an animal, and only forbids “penetration” of a human sex organ into an animal’s mouth according to legal experts. | 4,667 |
Today, U.S Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross praised President Donald J. Trump’s signing of Space Policy Directive 3 (SPD-3), America’s first National Space Traffic Management Policy. The policy acknowledges the rapidly increasing volume and diversity of commercial space activity and announces that the Department of Commerce should be the new civil agency interface for space traffic management (STM) and space situational awareness (SSA).
“I commend President Trump and the National Space Council for reaching yet another important milestone as we work to ensure U.S. commercial leadership in space,” said Secretary Ross. “I look forward to working closely with DoD and other departments and agencies as we meet the challenge of increased commercial and civil space traffic.”
SPD-3 establishes foundational principles, lays out achievable goals, and provides specific guidance to achieve each goal. It emphasizes safety, stability, and sustainability, foundational elements to successful space activities. The Department of Commerce will work closely with the Department of Defense (DoD) to develop a plan to transfer the responsibilities for commercial dissemination of SSA data and STM.
Currently the DoD’s USSTRATCOM officers at the Joint Space Operations Center (JSpOC) collect SSA data and create the authoritative catalog of space objects. JSpOC will continue to maintain this catalog, but Commerce will transition to provide basic SSA data and collision avoidance support services to the public.
“Given that there are over 800 operational American satellites amidst a sea of space debris numbering over 600,000, efforts must be taken to protect those significant investments,” continued Ross. “The transition will allow DoD to concentrate on its main objective, defending and securing the United States in both Earth and space. Communicating with various space companies and providing basic SSA data for innovative commercial applications will become the province of Commerce.”
Commerce’s STM and SSA efforts will be coordinated by its new Space Policy Advancing Commercial Enterprise (SPACE) Administration. The SPACE Administration will soon oversee all Department space activities, including the existing Office of Space Commerce and the Commercial Remote Sensing Regulatory Affairs office, presently housed in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The addition of space traffic management responsibilities will further establish the SPACE Administration as a voice for the space industry in the Federal Government.
Today’s announcements demonstrate the Department and Administration’s continued emphasis of the importance of developing and supporting the U.S. commercial space industry.
Secretary Ross and the Department of Commerce will work with President Trump, Vice President Pence, the National Space Council, Congress, and private industry as America continues its leadership in space. | 4,668 |
The American Suppressor Association is proud to announce that after 3 years and a lot of teamwork, suppressor hunting is now legal in the Granite State! Earlier today, Gov. Maggie Hassan signed Rep. John Burt’s (R-Hillsborough)HB 500 into law, making New Hampshire the 40th state to legalize suppressor hunting. We could not be more proud to have been part of the team that got this bill introduced, passed through both houses of the legislature, and finally signed into law!
As you may recall, the ASA began working with the New Hampshire Sportsmen’s Caucus three years ago to introduce legislation to bring New Hampshire on board with the 17 (now 18) states that have legalized suppressor hunting since 2011. We faced many obstacles along the way, including skeptical committee chairmen and Department of Fish and Game leadership, but in the end the logic in favor of allowing sportsmen and women to protect their hearing in the field prevailed.
The American Suppressor Association would like to thank a long list of people and groups who came together to make this day possible. First and foremost, we are incredibly grateful for Rep. John Burt’s sponsorship of the bill, as well as his continued championing of the issue each step of the way. We also could not have gotten here without the tireless efforts of Rep. Jeff Goley (D-Hillsborough), who was a constant champion from the Democratic side of the aisle. At the federal level, Rep. Frank Guinta (R-NH) played a crucial role by making sure that the voices of his constituents were relayed to Governor Hassan. A special thanks is also due to Gov. Maggie Hassan for taking the time to learn about the benefits of suppressor hunting, and for signing HB 500 into law.
On the organizational front, we would like to thank the New Hampshire Sportsmen’s Caucus, and in particular Brent Miller, the Northeastern States Manager for the Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation, who testified and advocated on behalf of this bill on too many occasions to count. We are also very grateful to New Hampshire-based Sig Sauer for the tremendous help they provided in pushing the bill past the finish line. This was a true team effort, and could not have happened without the efforts of everyone listed above, as well as many more we haven’t named.
Finally, the American Suppressor Association is grateful for the support of our members, and we are very excited about bringing legal suppressor hunting to New Hampshire. We will continue to work towards our goal of legalizing suppressor ownership and hunting in all 50 states. Special thanks to New Hampshire for taking us one step closer! | 4,669 |
(AFP) — President Donald Trump paid tribute to the “great warriors” who died in World War I as he visited a U.S. cemetery in France, a day after drawing fire for cancelling a similar trip due to bad weather.
Speaking at Suresnes cemetery in the western Paris suburbs Trump hailed the “great warriors who gave everything for family, country, God and freedom”.
Trump, who is in Paris to attend ceremonies marking the centenary of the end of the war, also paid tribute to the French and other Allied troops killed in “one of the bloodiest conflicts in human history”.
Hailing the “American and French patriots” who served in the war, he said: “It is our duty to preserve the civilisation they defended and to protect the peace they so nobly gave their lives to secure one century ago.”
The US leader was heavily criticised for cancelling a trip to Belleau Wood battlefield in northern France on Saturday due to the rain, with some critics accusing him of disrespecting America’s war dead.
On Sunday, he braved the continuing wet weather to remember those who braved “rain, hail, snow, mud, poisonous gas, bullets and mortar” fire in pursuit of a “great, great victory”.
Speaking at an open-air podium, without an umbrella, he named World War II veterans present and thanked them each in turn.
Addressing one veteran, he joked: “You look so comfortable up there under shelter as we’re getting drenched. You’re very smart people!”
"You look so comfortable up there under shelter as we're getting drenched, you're very smart people" – Donald Trump thanks the Second World War veterans at the Suresnes American Cemetery #LestWeForget pic.twitter.com/zytIBPFXlb — Sky News (@SkyNews) November 11, 2018
Earlier, Trump joined dozens of other leaders, including Russian President Vladimir Putin, for a solemn ceremony hosted by President Emmanuel Macron at the Arc de Triomphe war monument on the Champs-Elysees.
Trump said he and his wife Melania were “deeply honoured” to have been in attendance.
“It was very beautiful, so well done,” he said.
Over 1,500 US soldiers who fought in World War I are buried at the hillside cemetery in Suresnes.
Some 2,289 others are buried at the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery next to Belleau Wood. | 4,670 |
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December 2, 2015
These are the short fiction collections I have recommended most to blog readers, friends, and family throughout the year.
All links go to the authors' contributions to the Book Notes series. I have reposted my original comments for each book.
Two exceptional short fiction anthologies were also published this year, New American Stories (edited by Ben Marcus) and 100 Years of The Best American Short Stories (edited by Lorrie Moore).
What was your favorite short story collection of 2015?
Get in Trouble by Kelly Link
Kelly Link proves herself one of the modern short fiction masters with her new collection Get in Trouble, which brilliantly melds the fantastic with the everyday.
Man V. Nature by Diane Cook
Diane Cook's dark and boldly imaginative Man V. Nature is one of the decade's finest short story collections.
Mothers, Tell Your Daughters by Bonnie Jo Campbell
Bonnie Jo Campbell's remarkable new short story collection Mothers, Tell Your Daughters is filled with sharp observances of Midwestern life and the hardships women face.
The Tsar of Love and Techno by Anthony Marra
Anthony Marra's brilliant linked story collection The Tsar of Love and Techno spans almost a century of Russian history and reads like a novel.
Upright Beasts by Lincoln Michel
Lincoln Michel's short story collection Upright Beasts enthralls with its tales of the surreal and the absurd.
Viral by Emily Mitchell
Emily Mitchell's Viral is one of the year's finest short story collections, a startlingly clever book.
also at Largehearted Boy:
online "best of 2015" book lists
Largehearted Boy favorite nonfiction books of 2015
Largehearted Boy favorite novels of 2015
Largehearted Boy favorite short story collections of 2014
Largehearted Boy favorite short story collections of 2013
Largehearted Boy favorite short story collections of 2012
Largehearted Boy favorite short story collections of 2011
Largehearted Boy favorite short story collections of 2010
Largehearted Boy favorite short story collections of 2009
Largehearted Boy favorite short story collections of 2008
previous lists at Largehearted Boy
Antiheroines (interviews with up and coming female comics artists)
Book Notes (authors create playlists for their book)
Note Books (musicians discuss literature)
guest book reviews
musician/author interviews
52 Books, 52 Weeks book reviews
permalink | 4,671 |
prominent role. We need to cultivate a deeper understanding of our neighbour’s interests, attitudes and perceptions, and a willingness to give them due attention.
What might this mean in practice? First and foremost, a drastic improvement in the presently abysmal level of Indonesia literacy in this country. Complementing the study of Indonesian - which has been languishing for years in our schools and universities - must be greater knowledge of Indonesian society, its history, its culture, its values, and above all its ancient and still living wisdom.
EPA/Made Nagi
To this end, a ten-year nationwide strategy is needed, integrating all key stakeholders: educational institutions, federal and state governments, parliaments, the media, business and the professions.
Australia must also seek - as a matter of high priority - Indonesia’s advice and support in responding to the emerging regional and global challenges facing our region. To this end, we must embark on a far-reaching dialogue that engages the two societies, not just the two governments.
A time must come, sooner rather than later, when Australian political leaders are in the habit of consulting with Jakarta as intensively as with Washington before determining Australian policy on such difficult international issues as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Iran, Afghanistan, as well as global financial regulation, nuclear non-proliferation and nuclear disarmament.
In the meantime, Australia and Indonesia are strategically placed to act collaboratively on a range of important regional issues, notably maritime tensions in the South China Sea and the rapid and potentially destabilising arms build-up in southeast Asia.
The two countries are, of course, well-placed to exercise joint leadership in pressing for a regional solution to the protracted asylum seeker and refugee crisis based on firm and interlocking commitments for asylum, resettlement and repatriation.
Indonesia and Australia could greatly benefit from sharing their experiences as highly diverse, multicultural societies, and from developing the Asia-South Pacific profile of the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations (UNAOC). Under UNAOC auspices, a range of joint projects could be devised involving extensive state and civil society cooperation. The forthcoming sixth UNAOC global forum to be held in Bali in August 2014 offers an important signpost for future bilateral and regional collaboration.
Australians have to negotiate an uncertain future in which US power and influence will steadily decline. In the emerging multi-centric world, different centres of power and influence reflecting different histories and worldviews will have to learn to co-exist and co-operate. A creative, culturally sensitive, long-term approach to our relations with Indonesia may be an indispensable asset as we navigate though turbulent waters of change. | 4,672 |
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Audi's appeal against Mattias Ekstrom's disqualification from victory at the recent Norisring DTM round will be heard on July 30.
Abt Sportsline driver Ekstrom won the race on the road, but was thrown out later the same day for breaching Article 44.1 of the DTM Sporting Regulations.
Race officials decided that Ekstrom had broken the rules in parc ferme when his father Bengt squirted the contents of a water bottle into his pocket before a post-race weigh-in.
Abt served notice of its intention to contest the decision shortly afterwards and then officially lodged an appeal with German motorsport federation, the DMSB, two days later.
A spokesperson for the DMSB confirmed to AUTOSPORT that the appeal hearing will commence next Tuesday afternoon in Frankfurt.
The verdict is expected to be made public later that evening.
AUTOSPORT says
Jamie O'Leary, DTM correspondent
@mrjamieoleary
"Car #11 under investigation" was the message that flashed up on the media centre timing screens at the Norisring.
"Hang on. That's Ekstrom," said one media colleague.
It was. Cue a chain of confusing events that would lead to the race winner's exclusion once most attendees had long since departed the circuit (I was handing my boarding card to a flight attendant as my phone rang with the news).
The details of Bengt Ekstrom pouring water into his son's pocket have been debated since that Sunday.
Did it give Mattias an advantage? No. His car weighed in a good 7kg above the minimum limit, and he'd have to have had a fishtank dumped down his overalls to get anything like that kind of weight of moisture absorbtion.
So why do it at all? Was it a family tradition or something more sinister? I have no idea.
The DMSB told AUTOSPORT, amid much confusion as to what part of Article 44 had actually been breached, that the driver is considered part of his or her car in parc ferme and that any stepping out of line, such as went on, warrants one penalty: elimination.
Trouble is, the word 'driver' is nowhere to be seen within that particular sub-article, and it is on this technicality that Audi Sport and Abt Sportsline will undoubtedly base their case.
I'm just glad the appeal is being heard before the next round at Moscow Raceway. Nobody would have thanked the powers-that-be for hanging on until later in the year. | 4,673 |
The City of Santa Monica Cultural Affairs’ Art at Tongva series continues this weekend with Among Us withdirector Marike Splint and Los Angeles Performance Practice. Among Us is an audio-theater experience where you and the city take the stage. Go from the bustle of the Santa Monica Pier to the green surroundings of Tongva Park while listening to meditative prompts that reveal what may lie beneath the surface of daily life. Among Us takes you through familiar places and invites you to look deeper. This is a ticketed event at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/among-us-tickets-44463924796.
On April 25 and 26, Art @ Tongva presents work by Artistic Director Annie Saunders and her company Wilderness. Wilderness push the envelope of the traditional theatre-going experience. Inspired by unexplored and uninhabited spaces, they create experiential and interdisciplinary theatrical events that disrupt the boundaries between observer and observed. This live immersive experience will activate the intimate “rooms” of Tongva Park for two nights only. This is a free event.
Leaves of Grass is a text and movement work, originally created with Sarah Corman of Frantic Assembly. The piece examines how we as couples grow to become alike, what that means about the insularity of the self, and how this phenomenon of similarity affects our relationships. On Paper is a durational and intimate duet that examines domestic relationships through movement, music and recorded sound. Both works are newly revised and staged for the landscape of Tongva Park.
Audiences are invited to find their way freely through the space, encountering at different moments each performance. The program highlights Tongva Park’s unusual geography of gardens, winding paths, and urban vistas, reimagining the small, exquisite spaces of the park designed by James Corner Field Operations, the creative geniuses behind the High Line in New York.
Art @ Tongva is a series of intimate and informal events in Tongva Park running since 2014. The season will continue in May with additional performances of Among Us and an evening of performance and art by contemporary indigenous artists. Art @ Tongva is co-produced by Santa Monica Cultural Affairs and Dyson & Womack
Visit bigbluebus.com for bus routes to Tongva Park. Ample bike parking is located near each park entrance (Ocean Ave., Main St., and Olympic Blvd.).
Parking is available at the Civic Center Parking Structure, 333 Civic Center Dr. First 30 minutes free, $1 per each additional hour. $5 maximum per day.
For updated information, visit smgov.net/tongvapark/events. | 4,674 |
izing the other states to our own detriment, and to the detriment of our children,' according to their website.
Farage, the former UKip leader, was the first British politician to meet Trump after his election win.
He and the other 'Bad Boys of Brexit' held a boozy Washington DC party ahead of now-President Donald Trump's inauguration in January
Farage toasted the billionaire tycoon in front of a rowdy crowd during a speech ahead of the presidential win.
In a speech to the packed room he said: 'Brexit was great but Trump becoming president is Brexit plus, plus, plus. He was right when he said it was a movement - but a movement can't exist, or flourish, without a leader. And Trump is the only man I've ever met in my life who has made me feel like an introvert.
'He is a larger than life personality. When he was given the rule book for how you run for president he tore up the book and threw it out of the window.
In February, Farage posted a picture of him having 'dinner with The Donald' at a Trump Hotel on Twitter
'And I guess, when I look back in the years to come, perhaps the greatest joy of 2016 was that realisation, as state after state in the mid-West went red, just to see the faces of those democrats.
'I've spent most my life in politics being regarded, I suppose, as the patron saint of lost causes.
'Through most of my life, what happens in America in terms of social trends or developments, we follow four or five years later. America is the leader.
'Now I would like to think in my own little way that what we did with Brexit was the beginning of what is going to turn out to be a global revolution and that Trump's victory is a part of that.'
Farage said: 'We've had Brexit and perhaps that contributed just a little bit to things changing in the USA and who's to say that bandwagon won't continue to roll in 2017 across much of Europe.'
In February, Farage posted a picture of him having 'dinner with The Donald' on Twitter.
Finding common ground with some of Trump's criticism of the political establishment, Farage met the president in November and has offered his services as Britain's ambassador to the United States - something that has been rejected by Prime Minister Theresa May's government.
Entitled 'Dinner with The Donald', Farage posted a picture of himself smiling at a camera, with Trump and four other people around a table in a photo which gave the location as the Trump International Hotel. | 4,675 |
To my Italian’s Panettone is like a box of chocolates would be to my family, you bring it when your told not to bring anything.
If you have never heard of this before which I hadn’t either, to give you the run down. The bready cake comes in a square tall box and was first made in the region of Milan, Italy. It is usually eaten at Christmas and is considered as a poor man’s dessert because it was originally made from leftover bread and dried fruit. It is a light, soft, shreddy, rich, flavorful bread, speckled with candied orange, citron, raisins and lemon zest. The cake is usually eaten with coffee or dipped in a sweet dessert wine called Vin Santo (holy wine) after dinner.
Recently Mamma had been given quite a few from friends, she was getting bothered by them being in her cupboard. Not because they were going to go off, they last forever. But because she didn’t have any other use for them apart from eating with coffee and the family were getting a little bit tired of having it. I told Mamma I would take one home as I wasn’t sick of them yet she was very happy to part with it.
I happened to come across a recipe in one of my favourite Italian cook books ‘Two Greedy Italians’ by Antonio Carluccio and Gennaro Contaldo and they use a whole Panettone in a dessert. So I attempted to make it for family dinner next week.
The ‘Two Greedy Italians’ recipe for Zuccotto Di Panettone (Panettone and ricotta pudding) was easy to follow and quite quick to make. My only suggestions to the recipe would be to-
* Make it the night before I find it sets better and all the Vin Santo has absorbed into the bread.
*Turn it out of the bowl just before you are ready to eat it. After a while out of the bowl it starts to lose its form.
*For the candied fruit I used dried pawpaw and candied citrus.
* I added a little extra (30g each) choc chips and almonds to the ricotta mix as there seemed to little for the amount of ricotta.
Mamma and the family devoured the pudding, you know you have made something good when u barely get a chance to get a piece. They were very impressed with the dish so much, that Mamma has given me more Panettone so I can make it again and bring it to the next family function. | 4,676 |
The European Court of Justice has famously ruled that Google must abide by a new “Right To Be Forgotten” and stop showing links to stories on request from the people the stories concern. This is not good for privacy; it’s disastrous. Here’s why.
The “right to be forgotten” in the European Union was presented as a privacy-strengthening law, but is the exact opposite. It’s no more strengthening of privacy than tax laws are strengthening of financial autonomy. When the government can order something to be forgotten, it has given itself the right to change history, to erase embarrassment, and to protect its echelons against a free press.
But looking from the bright side, isn’t it good that you can have bad, embarrassing, or outright false stories about yourself deleted from human consciousness? Wouldn’t this be a service you’d be grateful for the government providing, standing up for the little guy against the powerful publishers? Wouldn’t you like to be able to erase those bad photos from Facebook, for example?
To understand why this is bad, we need to first look a little bit closer at what a government is.
One of the primary functions of the modern nation-state government is to settle disputes between its citizens. The idea is to avoid “might makes right” by, ehm, giving a monopoly on legal violence to one entity – the government – which can then outgun every other party in its territory. So it’s not avoiding “might makes right” at all; it’s just putting all the might and all the guns in a trusted party, a government, and then giving it ability to enforce its judgment in disputes.
Such disputes between citizens have always been material – they have concerned transfer of wealth, property, or resources in various ways. But for the first time, an Alice has gone to the government and demanded that a Bob forgets something bad about her.
The government agreed in this dispute, and by doing so, it gave itself a vastly greater power than determining who owns what: it has now taken itself the right to determine who thinks what.
So for the first time ever, a government has given itself the right to determine what somebody may or may not remember, backed by the full gunforce of law enforcement. That’s not good for privacy. That’s disastrous.
A right to be forgotten for somebody else is a right for the government to determine what is and what isn’t in my memory. And yours. That’s terrible.
Privacy remains your own responsibility. | 4,677 |
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Rush Limbaugh wonders if riots aren't part of the Obama administration's "Grand Plan" for the US economy, since he says they are trying to kill the economy. Does that remind you of someone who's leaving Fox?
Limbaugh: inaudible Whadda ya got riots and things happening out there with poets and other people. Long hot summer schedule, and I'm not sure that's not part of the grand plan. The more unrest and chaos there is out there the more the government will be called on to fix it. Same old thing.
I seem to remember a certain summer that had near riots, violence, hate and unrest during the health care town halls and not a peep out of Rush Limbaugh that that was in fact Obama's plan all along or for the government to stop it.
Wisconsin's response to Gov. Scott Walker's anti-union legislation has the right wing nervous because other states are also experiencing buyers' remorse over who they elected, as we've been covering on C&L. Polling is coming out every day backing up those concerns.
Matt Yglesias:
ThinkProgress has done a lot of coverage of controversial policy measures being inaugurated around the country by the new breed of Republican governors elected last fall due to the recession. And according to survey data from Margie Omero at Public Policy Polling, the voters in most of these states (though not all, Nevada’s an exception) aren’t liking the cocktail of budget cuts, union-busting, anti-abortion laws, etc. Polls show voters in battleground states regret having voted for their new Republican Governors. Since February, Democratic firm PPP released surveys in eight states asking voters “if you could do last fall’s election for Governor over again, how would you vote?” In seven of the eight, the Democrat now would win, with all seven showing double-digit improvements in their margin. (Only Rory Reid in Nevada still trails.) The chart below shows both the actual 2010 margin and the new margin, sorted by the shift.
John Kasich, one of the first Fox News pundits to get a job from the Roger Ailes-led Tea Party movement, has the worst showing of all the new Governors at this moment in time. As MM notes, Limbaugh's having a Beck moment. | 4,678 |
Altidore to hell and back. So yeah. Haris getting bodied into the moon here.
0 for 3 here Haris, sorrrrry.
We’re starting to get into guys that Haris definitely has a size advantage over. Thing is though, everyone involved feels pretty athletic. I mean we haven’t seen a lot of them yet but we gotta assume they’re at least more athletic than Haris. Haris also jinxed the hell out of Liverpool in the 2018 Champions League final by showing up to a Liverpool bar as a City fan and I gotta think Brooks Lennon wants revenge for that. Most likely Haris gets tackled immediately and punched in the face repeatedly by either of these guys.
Going to have to give the edge to everyone but Haris.
Tier Five: Brendan Moore
Not entirely sure who this is. Haris is getting thumped.
Tier Six: Emerson Hyndman, Dion Perreira and Eric Remedi
These are probably the smallest guys on the team who aren’t in our final tier. Haris is definitely much bigger. However, this one time Haris won a contest to kick a 20-yard field goal at halftime of a football game. If he made it, he won Chick-fil-a for life. He didn’t make it but the crowd thought he did so they cheered Haris for missing a chip shot. None of these guys are missing this field goal so I gotta think they’re breaking Haris in half like Bane did to Batman.
Look these folks are in our final tier because they’re teenagers and they’re on the smaller side. Bello has been bulking for sure but still, he’s like 17. You just don’t even remotely have the dad-strength you need to win fights. Haris has a huge size advantage on both of them. He’s got age on his side. And he’s very determined. I once watched him eat like 30 wings in a sitting. He follows MMA and wrestling pretty closely so there’s a good chance he understands some pretty intricate nuances of fighting and how to win should things go to the ground like most fights do.
But he spells y’all like “ya’ll” so, going to have to say Bello and Carleton take his pinky fingers off and then throw him into the nearest river.
Anyway, donate to Fugees Family here: https://www.gofundme.com/f/dss-drive-for-the-fugees | 4,679 |
GREEN BAY, Wis. -- The immediate reaction when a player gets hurt is to bring back an aged veteran to replace him, but the Green Bay Packers should -- and likely will -- resist that temptation.
General manager Ted Thompson would have a couple of those options to replace starting nose tackle B.J. Raji, who has a torn right biceps and learned on Saturday that he will miss the entire season.
But don't look for the Packers to bring back Ryan Pickett, who teamed with Raji on the defensive line the past five seasons. The same is likely the case for Johnny Jolly, who was the third member of the starting defensive line in Green Bay last year.
Both Pickett and Jolly are out of work and available, but neither fits what the Packers want to do on defense this season. Defensive coordinator Dom Capers aspires to be quicker across the front line, which means they have to get younger. Pickett will turn 35 in October, while Jolly turned 31 in February. Also, Jolly is coming off a neck injury that required fusion surgery.
A year after the Packers started a three-man defensive line that combined to weigh 1,000 pounds -- with Raji at 337, Pickett at 338 and Jolly at 325 -- this season they planned to pair Raji with Mike Daniels (305) and Datone Jones (285).
The Packers signed former Minnesota Vikings backup Letroy Guion to play behind Raji, but Guion has yet to practice because of a hamstring injury.
That leaves former fifth-round pick Josh Boyd, who replaced Raji after his injury on Friday against the Oakland Raiders, as the most likely replacement. It would mean the starting defensive front would feature a pair of second-year players (Boyd and Jones) and a third-year pro (Daniels). The Packers also are high on undrafted rookie Mike Pennel, who likely would have made the team even before Raji’s injury.
While the Packers lose a starter in Raji, he's not a full-time player. Last season, Capers used his base 3-4 defense on just 252 of 1,015 snaps (24.8 percent). Raji was slated to see some playing time in the nickel package, but Daniels and Jones are the primary duo in that package. Raji would not have played at all in the dime defense.
For Raji, the injury comes at the worst possible time. The 28-year-old former first-round pick signed just a one-year, $4 million contract this offseason with the hope that he could improve his stock with a strong season and parlay that into a bigger deal next offseason. | 4,680 |
Pictured: The South African who keeps his car ssssafe by placing two pythons on his dashboard
Forget immobilizers, trackers and alarms – this is car security South African style.
A car owner in Durban has found a way of combating spiralling vehicle crime: leave two deadly pythons on the dashboard.
The giant reptiles slither round inside his Audi TT while their faith healer owner, Dr Mbuso Makhathini, visits customers.
Sssstay away: Tiny and Naughty the pythons guard their owner's car
Named Tiny and Naughty, the male snakes have become something of a tourist attraction in the coastal city with onlookers keeping a cautious distance.
Both are African Rock Pythons with four-and-a-half-year-old Tiny measuring an impressive 12ft and Naughty, three, not far behind at 10ft.
Dr Makhathini, 37, who runs a traditional African healing clinic like his grandfather, says the snakes are pets as well as guards.
'I take them around with me but no one has dared break into my car. They come up and look but don’t get too close. They can sense if someone is unfriendly and they hiss and start coiling.
'But with me and people they like, they are very friendly. They have a cage at home but we let them travel about and we often wake up with them in our bed in the morning,' said Zulu Dr Makhatini who is married with two young boys.
The snakes each eat a dead rabbit once a week and the doctor said he ensures they have enough water.
However the local Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals is not impressed.
Senior inspector Dougie du Plessis said he had been trying to locate the owner to check he had a permit for the African Rock Pythons which can grow up to 16ft and kill their prey by crushing them to death.
Mr du Plessis said: 'We are concerned for the snakes’ welfare. He shouldn’t be keeping them in his car all day because they can dehydrate, particularly in Durban where it gets so hot and humid.
'We’ve tried to get in touch with him but it’s proving a little difficult. This is unacceptable behaviour.'
There were 82,000 hijackings and car thefts in South Africa last year.
Drivers are often targeted at traffic lights or pulling into their properties by thieves who work in gangs and are armed. | 4,681 |
QuickBooks is amongst the most broadly utilized accounting software by small and medium size enterprises. QuickBooks is packed with features intended to save you time and get you organized. It offers billing, viewing of invoices, transactions and other critical tasks in a Calendar view to help you stay organized. It permits you to rapidly retrieve invoices, old transactions and more items at a glance in the Calendar. The “to-do” catches all the important data, and presents it all in Calendar view. QuickBooks Pro permits you to save your worksheet format while converting the QuickBooks Reports into MS Excel, thus saving you even more time. QuickBooks recalls your Excel format so you can work flawlessly with both of the software programs.
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39.745438 -75.546300 | 4,682 |
I joined the Socialist Party, USA in 1972, when I was 16. That was seven months before the name change to Social Democrats, USA. I was a subscriber to the Party's publication, New America for four years by that point. I grew up in a Catholic working class neighborhood. Many of my neighbors read the Catholic Worker. However, I would not meet another self described social democrat or democratic socialist who was close to my age until I completed college and entered the seminary when I was 21. That was not for a lack of my attempts at persuasion. Now when I speak on behalf of the Social Democrats, I meet many people who call themselves socialists or they are considering doing so. Two things have changed. First, Stalinism in the Soviet Union finally and thankfully collapsed and The Peoples' Republic of China is a transparently "state capitalist" regime. Second, the propaganda machine that equated private ownership of productive property with democracy is spurting under onslaught of facts that indicate just the opposite. There were two presidential elections in a row were[sic] the count look[sic] fishy and the money trail lead to the top of Republican Party. Then the banks collapsed and it was apparent that the largest financial institutions in the world were involved in sub-prime mortgage ponzi schemes. I am not sure whether to celebrate or lament becoming an economist and union organizer instead of a priest given the current crisis. As my mentor, Michael Harrington, was fond of saying there are many kinds of socialism. Stalin, Hitler, and Mao, history's three greatest mass murderers, all called themselves socialists. Hopefully, America is ready for a broad social democratic movement that works with trade unions and community organizations for national health care, re-industrialization, ecologically friendly mass transit, infrastructure repair, and eventually a democratization of our economy. Building such a movement will be very hard work. The cyber-world has many benefits, but people seemed to be convinced that social change can occur by email. It is great shame, that it takes 8.2% unemployment and massive economic dislocation to push people back to real time organizing and protest. Simply that people are angry is not enough. The Bolsheviks, Fascists, and Nazis all road[sic] waves of mass discontent to power. A peoples' movement must be militantly democratic and refuse to make common cause with even the'mildest and friendliest totalitarians.' A truly democratic movement for social democracy must transcend the narrow special interest group politics that has made up most of political discourse since the protests against the Vietnam War. To transcend the current economic crisis we need a full employment economy and that means a movement concentrated on'red letter' social democratic issues of democratic worker and community control of industry. | 4,683 |
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Banjul (Gambia) (AFP)
Dawda Jawara, the first president of The Gambia following independence from Britain, died Tuesday at the age of 95, officials said.
Current President Adama Barrow, in online comments, described Jawara's death as "a great loss to the country in particular and humanity in general".
Fisheries Minister James Gomez told AFP that "the former head of State Sir Dawda Jawara died this afternoon. Flags would fly at half mast" and the body will lie in state for mourners to pay their respects.
Jawara, a Glasgow-trained veterinary doctor, led the former British Colony to Independence on 18th February 1965 until July 1994 when his reign was brought to an end by a bloodless military coup led by Yahya Jammeh, who went on to rule the tiny West African state for 22 years.
The Gambian presidency, in a statement on Twitter announced that a state funeral would be held on Thursday.
"In honour of his enduring legacy, President Barrow has ordered that the former president be accorded a befitting state funeral and that flags at all public institutions to fly at half-mast.
"Sir Dawda has lived a life that epitomises peace, tolerance, respect, and patriotism. His time as president has put the country on the path of development at both human and institutional standards. His legacy as the father of the nation shall forever live on."
Jawara was born in 1924 into a Muslim family in central Barajally, where his father was a tradesman.
He worked as a vet and it was not until 1960 that he decided to enter politics, joining the Protectorate People?s Party in 1960 while the country was still under British rule..
His party, which later changed its name to the People Progressive Party (PPP) won the elections in 1962 and he became the country's prime minister.
That was the post Jawara held when The Gambia gained its independence in 1965, ending British colonial rule which begun in 1888.
It was not until 1970 that he assumed his post as the country's first president.
Jawara resisted post-independence pressure to become part of neighbouring Senegal, which surrounds the whole country with the exception of its Atlantic coastline.
Following his 1994 ouster, Jawara sought refuge in Britain where he lived with his family until 2002 when he returned home after President Jammeh granted him amnesty and returned his assets to him.
While in power his regime was considered one of the most democratic on the African continent.
© 2019 AFP | 4,684 |
chenko, the main opposition candidate who ran against Viktor Yanukovych in 2004: “Mr. Putin intervened outrageously in the attempt of the people of Ukraine to make a self-determined government of their own… I do not believe anyone in the Ukrainian KGB would have dared to try to poison the opposition leader if they thought the Russians didn’t know or might disapprove.”
Considering how suspicious Hitchens was of Russia’s attempt to subvert Ukrainian democracy, does Yglesias think he would’ve had nothing to say about Putin’s interference in the U.S. election in 2016? Or the president who refuses to acknowledge it?
Does Yglesias think the author of God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything would’ve ignored Vice President Mike Pence’s hyper-religiosity? Or Trump’s cynical appeals to American Christians? Does he think the man who wrote an article headlined “Believe Me, It’s Torture” about waterboarding would’ve forgiven Trump’s promise to “bring back a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding”? Does he think Hitchens would’ve backed Trump’s endorsement of Roy Moore? If you don’t know what Hitchens would’ve said as flocks of Alabama evangelicals came bleating to a sexual predator’s defense during the special election, you haven’t read him.
Hitchens considered himself a “free speech absolutist.” He described reading, writing, and public speaking as “what I am, who I am, what I love.” He never would’ve defended a man who only favors free speech when it comes in the form of groveling praise—a bullying, ignorant narcissist who bans newspapers from his rallies and threatens to revoke the broadcasting licenses of news organizations that run negative stories about him.
Hitchens knew journalists and dissidents who were imprisoned or killed for telling the truth, and he would’ve noticed when dictators started using the words “fake news.” He understood that the First Amendment is our bulwark against tyranny. He wouldn’t have ignored and forgotten all of this to annoy a few liberals.
After Yglesias received some criticism for his tweet, he posted a follow-up: “The Hitch stans trying to convince themselves that he wouldn’t have been loudly pro-Trump are funny.” Here’s what isn’t funny: the sordid spectacle of a guy trying to malign the reputation of a writer he knows nothing about. | 4,685 |
's armored members to the side. Holding on the side was an animated version of Saint Trunnion, her face toned down and in a glassy battle helmet, but with a smile tipped by diamonds.
"Time for the test of the Type 34, Mod.25!" Trunnion screamed a battle cry as the boats and warriors were thrown away from the harbor by the giant robot.
Zorthar had been last to go, running away and swimming to his Fortress island. "GO NOW ULITIA." With a groan, the island was off, Zorthar screamed one last Russian epitaph as he flew away.
Tare's USB retracted away from the sticker-clad laptop of Bridget, the projection disappearing. "In addition to a TV show that could probably be done better by people who aren't pressed for time on a garbage train, i have prepared samples of various merchandise that could be sold to turn this into a franchise!". Tare revealed a prototype Bumaro figure. "How do you like it?."
"Tare, Jasper, you can wait outside." Judith said. "This show- While not correct to history at all- is by far good to syndicate as part of the Ennui protocol. I vote Yay to forward to O5-4."
The other foundation researcher in the room took a moment to speak. "I'll have to agree with Low on this one. It's a bit over the top, and not at all correct, but it's definitely a way to turn the masses against the Sarkics, and no Memes is a plus. I vote Yay to forward to O5-4."
Hedwig's fans whirred up for a moment, but quieted down. "I vote Yay to forward to O5-4. It's simple, but it's enough for the moment."
The priest spoke up next, seeming to have just awoken. "I-I'll abstain for now."
GOC Major Fisher voted to abstain as well. "I don't know what the kids like anymore, i can't tell ya."
"The tiebreak falls to Agent Johnson. Do you choose to Forward this project to O5-4 for final approval." Judith sat patiently, running her hands together as she awaited the answer.
"With my division overseeing all production for unacceptable leakage, I vote Yay to send this to I5-4. I'll begin Release paperwork tomorrow. "
And so, after a short approval period by O5-4 and the sourcing of talent, Bumaro Vs The Flesh became an instant hit. | 4,686 |
The armed wing of Hamas, the terror group which rules the Gaza Strip, said Sunday it had executed one of its members, with sources familiar with the case calling him a senior official accused of spying for Israel.
“The Al-Qassam Brigades announce that the death penalty pronounced against its member Mahmud Eshtawi has been applied today at 1600 hours,” Hamas’s armed branch said in a statement.
Websites linked to the Palestinian Fatah group had in the past alleged that Eshtawi had led Israel to the hiding place of Hamas commander Muhammed Deif during the 2014 Gaza war, resulting in a failed assassination attempt against him, according to Israel Radio.
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Executions have previously been carried out in the Gaza Strip, including in public squares in the Palestinian territory, but it appeared to be the first time Al-Qassam itself had sentenced one of its own through a court martial and executed him.
The statement did not provide details on the accusations against him other than to say that “the Brigades’ military and Islamic judicial committee issued the sentence because he violated rules and ethics.”
עפ"י דיווחים המוצא להורג היה בעמדה בכירה בזרוע הצבאית של חמאס ונעצר לאחר מבצע צוק איתן. pic.twitter.com/DCOOQRPgmF — Middle East News (@arab_il) February 7, 2016
Eshtawi’s duties included overseeing tunnels that have previously been used to store weapons and carry out attacks against Israel, the sources said.
Last week saw at least three separate tunnel collapses in the Gaza Strip, according to Palestinian reports, killing several Hamas diggers.
According to the sources, he was in charge of a large unit and was previously a close associate of Deif, the Al-Qassam chief who has been a frequent target of Israeli assassination attempts.
The Palestinian Center for Human Rights said in late December that nine death sentences had been issued in the Gaza Strip in 2015 and two in the West Bank.
Since the start of 2016, four Gazans have been handed death sentences after being accused of spying for Israel. | 4,687 |
Ribosomes are among the most important molecular machines within the cell that hardly changed in the course of evolution. Their function is to read copies of our genes, or building plans, and to translate them into proteins.
Research groups from ETH Zürich and the University of Bern, with financial support by the Swiss National Science Foundation, used electron cryo microscopy in order to obtain the atomic-resolution structure of a very unusual ribosome present in the mitochondria of Trypanosoma brucei, the unicellular parasite that causes sleeping sickness. Their study appeared in the latest issue of Science.
Mitochondria are organelles that can be found in each eukaryotic cell. They are the power plants of the cell and contain their own mitochondrial ribosomes (mitoribosomes). They produce a number of proteins that are essential for these power plants. The mitoribosomes of trypanosomes have the same basic function as ribosomes from other organisms, however, they are specialized for the biology of trypanosomes and their structure deviates substantially.
All ribosomes are composed of two types of components; ribonucleic acid (RNA) and proteins. Intriguingly, the researchers found that mitoribosomes of trypanosomes are larger than any other ribosomes, including the ones found in humans. "The mitoribosomes of trypanosomes are primarily build up by proteins, whereas the structure of other ribosomes is dominated by RNA. Consequently, in trypanosomal mitoribosomes, proteins took over the architectural role of the RNA building blocks," says ETH professor Nenad Ban. In analogy, a small wooden house would differ from a big concrete construction, but both would need a roof, stairs, windows and so on.
"Furthermore, the comparison between the protein-dominated mitoribosomes of trypanosomes with the RNA-dominated ribosomes of other organisms allows us to better understand the most basic functional elements and building blocks shared between all ribosomes," Prof. Ban explains.
Trypanosomes are not only an important model system for basic research, but they are also of considerable medical relevance since they cause sleeping sickness, a fatal disease in humans if left untreated. The mitoribosomes are essential for the survival of trypanosomes. As their structure deviates substantially from human ribosomes, they represent a promising drug target to potentially treat sleeping sickness. Comparison between the structures of human and trypanosomal mitochondrial ribosomes could be useful for the identification of selective inhibitors to treat diseases caused by trypanosomes. | 4,688 |
Qatar migrant workers 'treated like animals' - Amnesty Published duration 17 November 2013
media caption Andrew North reports from Nepal on the plight of migrant workers
Qatar's construction sector is rife with abuse, Amnesty International (AI) has said in a report published as work begins on Fifa World Cup 2022 stadiums.
Amnesty says migrant workers are often subjected to non-payment of wages, dangerous working conditions and squalid accommodation.
The rights group said one manager had referred to workers as "animals".
Qatari officials have said conditions will be suitable for those involved in construction of World Cup facilities.
It has not yet commented on the latest report.
Amnesty said it conducted interviews with 210 workers, employers and government officials for its report, The Dark Side of Migration : Spotlight on Qatar's construction sector ahead of the World Cup.
The report includes testimony from Nepalese workers employed by a company delivering supplies to a construction project associated with the planned Fifa headquarters.
The workers said they were "treated like cattle", working up to 12 hours a day, seven days a week, including during Qatar's hot summer months.
Disabilities
Amnesty said some of the abuses amounted to "forced labour".
Some migrant workers were threatened with penalty fines, deportation or loss of income if they did not show up to work even though they were not being paid, Amnesty said.
More than 1,000 people were admitted to the trauma unit at Doha's main hospital in 2012 having fallen from height at work, Amnesty said, citing an unnamed hospital representative.
Some 10% were disabled as a result and the mortality rate was "significant", AI said.
"It is simply inexcusable in one of the richest countries in the world, that so many migrant workers are being ruthlessly exploited, deprived of their pay and left struggling to survive," said Salil Shetty, Amnesty's secretary general.
"Our findings indicate an alarming level of exploitation.
image copyright AFP image caption Many of the migrant workers in Qatar come from South Asia, Amnesty says
"Fifa has a duty to send a strong public message that it will not tolerate human rights abuses on construction projects related to the World Cup."
It follows a report by the UK's Guardian newspaper in September, which likened workers' conditions to "modern-day slavery".
The Guardian investigation drew a strong response from the world professional footballers' association Fifpro, which collaborates with the Uni Global Union, the voice of 20 million service sector workers.
Qatar must protect the rights of the workers who are to deliver the 2022 World Cup, it said. | 4,689 |
The driver involved in a serious car crash over the weekend says he lost control of his car after hitting a gaping pothole on the Highway 40 service road in Kirkland on Montreal's West Island.
St. Lazare resident Matthew Brown told CBC Montreal's morning show Daybreak that he was exiting from the eastbound Highway 40 on Friday when he spotted a large hole on the service road he was about to merge onto.
He said it was too late for him to react once he realized the size of the pothole.
Brown says he slammed on the brakes, but his car was thrown into the cement divider.
His car ended up flipped upside down on the side of the road, just after the Chemin Sainte-Marie exit.
"This is ridiculous, this could have killed me," he said.
Driver Matthew Brown blames a large pothole on Highway 40 in Kirkland for flipping his car on Friday.
Brown said the pothole extends nearly the full width of the off-ramp — measuring almost two metres across and 2½ metres long and close to 10 centimetres deep.
He said once he checked himself and realized he only had a few minor injuries, he went back to take a look at the pothole.
"First thing I did was I took some pictures of the car, the skidmarks on the road where my car had travelled and of course, the pothole itself."
On Saturday, Brown posted his story and the photos on an online car forum — Montreal Racing. Since then, the post has received over 11,000 views.
Brown estimates the pothole was about two metres across and two-and-a-half metres long. (Matthew Brown)
Kirkland Mayor John Meaney told CBC he wasn't aware of the accident and intended to investigate.
Because the service road is part of the provincial highway network, it falls under the jurisdiction of Transport Québec.
Ministry officials said they intend to do repairs this evening. In the meantime, road crews have drained the pothole and marked it with traffic cones.
The president of Quebec's Automobile Protection Association, George Iny, said his advice to drivers who find themselves unable to avoid a pothole is not to brake.
"You actually would want the wheels to continue rolling," Iny said. "One of the risks is if you apply the brakes in the pothole the wheels will come to a full lock."
Iny said he has heard of cars flipping after hitting potholes before — in Africa — but never on a Canadian highway. | 4,690 |
Three weeks ago, I posted an extensive piece on my evening with the Chinese Intelligence Service, concluding that it was time to get back into the Middle Kingdom (click here for the piece at http://www.madhedgefundtrader.com/september-28-2010.html ).
It proved to be a timely call, as QEII has since gone global, taking the Shanghai index up 17% since then, the move this week being particularly explosive. We have blasted through the 200 day moving average, suggesting that this move may have the legs of Secretariat.
I really like the idea of increasing my weighting in China here. Both the Chinese, and the many trading partners I talk to, tell me that things are going well there, that inflation is under control, and rumors of its imminent demise are premature by at least a decade. Jim Chanos, please widen your circle of contacts.
The recent international action has been predominantly in the second tier emerging markets which I have been aggressively pushing, including Indonesia (IDX), Chile (ECH), Thailand (TF), Singapore (EWS), and South Korea (EWY), while the mainline BRIC’s slept. Many of these “emerging, emerging” markets are now up 50% or more on the year.
I can really see cash rotating out of these virile, young sprinters back into the established BRIC long distance runners as a great risk control measure. That way, if you get a sudden risk reversal, and markets can turn on a dime these days, your downside will be much less.
With Ben Bernanke fitting both turbochargers and superchargers to the printing presses in Washington as I write this, I am loathe to tell anyone to sell anything, even their Beenie Baby collection.
So use any new cash inflows from new and existing clients to add to positions on dips not only China (FXI), but Brazil (EWZ), India (PIN), and Russia (RSX) as well. If you have been following the advice of this letter all year, you should have new cash pouring in through the transom.
To see the data, charts, and graphs that support this research piece, as well as more iconoclastic and out-of-consensus analysis, please visit me at www.madhedgefundtrader.com. There, you will find the conventional wisdom mercilessly flailed and tortured daily, and my last two years of research reports available for free. You can also listen to me on Hedge Fund Radio by clicking on “This Week on Hedge Fund Radio” in the upper right corner of my home page. | 4,691 |
It also puts the United States in a difficult position, as we saw earlier this week, when Mark Toner, a State Department spokesman, was asked about Ali al-Nimr, and about the crucial role Saudi Arabia is meant to play in the advancement of human rights. A transcript of the relevant exchange is posted below. I don’t know Toner, but I feel pity for any U.S. government official who believes that he is forced by the nature of his job to cover up for Saudi Arabia:
QUESTION: Yesterday, Saudi Arabia was named to head the Human Rights Council, and today I think they announced they are about to behead a 21-year-old Shia activist named Muhammed al-Nimr. Are you aware of that?
MR. TONER: I’m not aware of the trial that you—or the verdict—death sentence.
QUESTION: Well, apparently, he was arrested when [he] was 17 years old and kept in juvenile detention, then moved on. And now, he’s been scheduled to be executed.
MR. TONER: Right. I mean, we’ve talked about our concerns about some of the capital punishment cases in Saudi Arabia in our Human Rights Report, but I don’t have any more to add to it.
QUESTION: So you—
QUESTION: Well, how about a reaction to them heading the council?
MR. TONER: Again, I don’t have any comment, don’t have any reaction to it. I mean, frankly, it’s—we would welcome it. We’re close allies. If we—
QUESTION: Do you think that they’re an appropriate choice given—I mean, how many pages is—does Saudi Arabia get in the Human Rights Report annually?
MR. TONER: I can’t give that off the top of my head, Matt.
QUESTION: I can’t either, but let’s just say that there’s a lot to write about Saudi Arabia and human rights in that report. I’m just wondering if you [think] that it’s appropriate for them to have a leadership position.
MR. TONER: We have a strong dialogue, obviously a partnership with Saudi Arabia that spans, obviously, many issues. We talk about human-rights concerns with them. As to this leadership role, we hope that it’s an occasion for them to look at human rights around the world but also within their own borders. | 4,692 |
The news that the Eagles blocked quarterbacks coach John DeFilippo from interviewing for the offensive coordinator position with the Jets wasn’t surprising. Teams have the right to prevent assistant coaches under contract from leaving for any job except head coach. The story behind the story definitely raises eyebrows.
Jeff McLane of the Philadelphia Inquirer reports that the decision to block DeFilippo came a year after coach Doug Pederson and executive V.P. of football operations Howie Roseman promised DeFilippo that the team wouldn’t stop him from becoming an offensive coordinator elsewhere. Per McLane, the decision to stop DeFilippo came from owner Jeffrey Lurie.
Reportedly, Lurie wants to be sure that quarterback Carson Wentz will thrive; part of that plan apparently includes standing in the way of DeFilippo’s opportunity for advancement.
The story gets even more interesting. At the Senior Bowl, Roseman passed the buck for the DeFilippo decision not to Lurie but to Pederson. Pederson declined comment on the issue.
DeFilippo likewise declined comment, saying that he’s “thrilled to be with the Eagles for another year.”
Clearly, someone is talking off the record, and the end result is a bad look for the Eagles. While I’ll never shed a single tear for a position coach who is prevented from leaving after choosing the financial security of a multi-year contract (the easiest way to have upward mobility is to do one-year deals only), the notion that the team made a promise to DeFilippo a year ago that the team won’t currently honor sends a negative message to others who may be considering job offers from the Eagles in the future.
Indeed, the development calls the credibility of any promise made by the Eagles to coaching candidates into question, and anyone offered employment by the team would now be wise to insist on getting everything in writing — and to have the written terms of the contract massaged relentlessly by a lawyer to ensure there are no loopholes or land mines.
And for those of you who will be inclined to argue that DeFilippo should have gotten the promise from Lurie directly, there’s a concept in business law known as “apparent authority.” Certain employees based on their titles and responsibilities have the ability to bind the company. Surely, Roseman and Pederson possess that power.
So even though Lurie has the power to trump them, DeFilippo has every reason to believe that he’s been lied to — regardless of whether his public position is that everything is fine. | 4,693 |
�正します。ということを告白しておきます。
[28:49]
まあ、あの、いずれにしてもDVDになる時には必ず修正入りますんで、今回、360°配信までに、簡易的にでも修正しておきます。
[39:06]
「本日のプログラムの流れ：コンサートのエピソード→質問コーナー→休憩→驚きの公開」
ということで、私から皆様にお話しできるエピソードというか、そういうものは以上で、既に8時40分になったのですが、ここから質問コーナーに移りたいと思いますけれども、今日はですね、告知にも有りましたように、質問コーナーが終わった後、驚きの公開を致します。ので、おそらく1時間では終わりません。1時間半から、もしかしたら、これからQ&Aをやりますけれども、それの流れによっては2時間近く行ってしまうかもしれません。ということで、途中で休憩を入れましょうか。じゃあここで、キリがいいので、一旦休憩をしましょうかね。それでは5分位、休憩致します。また5分後にお会いしましょう。 | 4,694 |
The military could punish imprisoned whistleblower Chelsea Manning for attempting suicide earlier this month, her lawyers said today.
Manning, 28, received a military letter on Thursday notifying her that she’s under investigation for three alleged offenses that could put her in solitary confinement indefinitely. An Army employee told Manning that the investigation stemmed from the former intelligence analyst’s July 5 suicide attempt in the Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, barracks, her attorneys said in a statement.
Manning, a transgender woman in a prison for men, is serving a 35-year sentence for releasing a trove of classified documents about American diplomatic and military actions to WikiLeaks in 2010. Her lawyers worry that she’s not getting adequate care behind bars.
“She called me in tears when she got this information. She did not sound good,” ACLU attorney Chase Strangio said to The Huffington Post. “These charges are adding to her sense of anxiety. Her big fear is formal isolation. She relies on access to phones and written communication. If that were cut off, I’d be even more worried.”
Manning remains in an observation unit at the barracks, Strangio said.
Military police are investigating her for allegedly possessing prohibited property, “conduct which threatens,” and “resisting” staff that entered her cell, according to the charge sheet that Manning dictated to a supporter over the phone.
The charges are baffling, Strangio said, because investigators did not provide any specific details of alleged wrongdoing. Manning has no recollection of the events in her cell the evening that she tried to take her own life, according to Strangio, and was unconscious when staff entered to check on her.
The military could also punish Manning with an additional nine years in medium security and by denying her parole eligibility, the ACLU said in a statement.
The disciplinary process for this investigation is different than for a criminal offense. For instance, Manning does not have a right to have an attorney present during any questioning, Strangio said.
”My reaction to everything that’s transpired in the past month is to be completely concerned for her well-being and care,” Strangio said.
The U.S. Army did not immediately respond to The Huffington Post’s requests for comment.
If you or someone you know needs help, please call 1-800-273-8255 for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. Outside of the U.S., please visit the International Association for Suicide Prevention for a database of international resources.
This story has been revised based on information from the ACLU. | 4,695 |
s is where one of his core values resides.
Barnes’ ability to defend 4s competently helps the Warriors play the style that has become most successful for them: Put better basketball players on the floor than the other team, size be damned.
Think about how the Warriors substitute to start many games. Andre Iguodala comes into the game for Barnes at some point in the first quarter. Then, after Barnes gets a rest, he often returns to the game, replacing Draymond Green, the team’s starting power forward.
At that point, Barnes will usually defend the opposition’s power forward, leaving Iguodala to stay on the small forward, which is what he does best. Frequently, those are periods where the Warriors excel. And a big reason is because Barnes can hold his own against bigger players in the post at the defensive end and then exploit the hell out of them at the other end – but only when it comes naturally, through the Warriors’ organic flow.
Off the top of my head, I’m thinking about other NBA wing players … Rudy Gay, Paul George, DeMarre Carroll, Gordon Hayward, Lance Stephenson, Chandler Parsons, Nic Batum, Marvin Williams, etc.
Well, Barnes defends 4s better than any of those guys. Now, that’s not to say Barnes is necessarily a better player than any or some of those guys, just that he excels at an aspect of the game that they don’t.
And that strength helps allow the Warriors to be the Warriors. Golden State used a lineup of Curry, Thompson, Iguodala, Barnes and Green to finish up against the Clippers, and that’s when they overcame a 10-point deficit.
Barnes had to match up with Blake Griffin for much of the fourth quarter. Griffin went scoreless. Was that solely because of Barnes? Of course not. In fact, the Warriors sometimes must double 4s when Barnes is defending them, but note: sometimes.
The fact is that Barnes can hold his own most nights at that spot. And Green can hold his own most nights at power forward and center positions, if needed.
That kind of versatility makes the Warriors unique. And Barnes is a huge part of it.
***Hey, if you made it down this far, this guy Matt Steinmetz co-hosts the Sal and Steiny Podcast, along with Bay Area legend Sal Castaneda, and a few people have said it’s pretty good. You can download ’em here:
http://apple.co/1FkAyGI | 4,696 |
Engineering undergraduate students marked the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women by designing and constructing an original monument on King’s College Road, next to the Sandford Fleming Building. The monument is a tribute to the victims of the killings at l’École Polytechnique de Montréal on December 6, 1989, in which 14 female engineering students studying at the university were shot and killed because they were female. Thirteen others were wounded.
The U of T Engineering students’ monument features 14 silhouettes arranged in a semi-circle — each bears white lights in the shape of a memorial ribbon that observers can light by pressing a button on one of three informational plaques. The hand-shaped buttons encourage readers to light the tribute as an act of solidarity with girls and women in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) disciplines.
“I made a very conscious decision when choosing to pursue a career in engineering. I didn’t only take my own interests and passions of math and science into consideration, but also what it would mean other young women to see someone like myself in an engineering program,” says Danja Papajani (Year 2 ElecE). “I’m not afraid to stand up for myself, or to call myself a feminist, and I will try, as much as I can, to uplift the voices who are still uncomfortable doing so themselves. I recognize that I’ve been privileged with a fantastic education, a loving and supporting family, and a very accepting school community. This day reminds me that it is no longer just about myself.”
“This day means two things to me. First, it is an awful reminder of how deep prejudice can run, and second, it is a hopeful contrast to our present day progress,” says Joshua Calafato (Year 3 EngSci), a co-chair of the Engineering Society’s Blue & Gold Committee. “Though we still have much distance to cover, it seems that the stigmas against women in science and engineering are being lifted: the percentage of female engineering students entering our community is growing every year, and it seems that society is finally accepting that the fallacy of mathematical fields being ‘for men’ is just that — a fallacy.”
“The awful memory of the Montréal massacre provides us with an enduring call to action. Each of us has the power to say no to misogyny, reject sexist language, call out even casual sexism, and be respectful in our interactions with others,” says The Honourable Patty Hajdu, Canada’s federal Minister of Status of Women. | 4,697 |
awk women, children, and elders leaving Kahnawà:ke were stoned in their cars by Quebecers on August 28, 1990.
Two Rivers says the incident was premeditated.
“There was fellows going to the different businesses there and saying ‘come on out, and let’s stop these Indians.’ These people, they didn’t care,” said Two Rivers.
Still, Two Rivers takes pride in helping to broker peace on the Kahnawà:ke side near the end of the 78 day stand-off.
Then, in 1998, after 20 years on council, Two Rivers retired.
Well, retired might be a misnomer.
Since then he’s done acting in films and TV shows like Mohawk Girls, had a photo of himself used on the cover of a Van Morrison album – without his permission – (that led to an out of court settlement) and served as an elder for the Assembly of First Nations.
But most of all, Two Rivers is proud of his nine grandchildren.
Many of whom speak Kanienʼkehá꞉ka, the Mohawk language, with him.
Judging from pictures of his family pinned to a bulletin board, it also appears they have also inherited his athleticism.
“There’s my granddaughter, she won her [Olympic] wrestling championship,” Two Rivers says of a photo of her pinning another wrestler with a headlock.
To say that Two Rivers has lived a rich life is to state the obvious.
“I don’t know how much longer I’ll be in this world over here, I’m trying to pass everything I know on to the next generations,” he concludes.
But to assume that Two Rivers doesn’t have at least few more chapters left would likely be a mistake.
And while he doesn’t mind being remembered for his wrestling, his body of work suggests he should be better known as something else: Billy Two Rivers, renaissance man.
Tom Fennario Producer Nouvelles Nationales d'APTN - Montreal Born and raised in Montreal, Tom cut his teeth working in community television in Kahnawà:ke Mohawk Territory before joining APTN as a cameraman/editor in 2008. In 2015 he was promoted to Video Journalist. Since 2019 Tom has been a producer for the French weekly newscast Nouvelles Nationales d’APTN.
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its basic facilities.
Programming Paradigms
Course description:
Advanced memory management features of C and C++; the differences between imperative and object-oriented paradigms. The functional paradigm (using LISP) and concurrent programming (using C and C++). Brief survey of other modern languages such as Python, Objective C, and C#.
Machine Learning
Course topics:
Supervised learning (generative/discriminative learning, parametric/non-parametric learning, neural networks, support vector machines). Unsupervised learning (clustering, dimensionality reduction, kernel methods). Learning theory (bias/variance tradeoffs; VC theory; large margins). Reinforcement learning and adaptive control. The course will also discuss recent applications of machine learning, such as to robotic control, data mining, autonomous navigation, bioinformatics, speech recognition, and text and web data processing.
Natural Language Processing
Course description:
This course is designed to introduce students to the fundamental concepts and ideas in natural language processing (NLP), and to get them up to speed with current research in the area. It develops an in-depth understanding of both the algorithms available for the processing of linguistic information and the underlying computational properties of natural languages. Wordlevel, syntactic, and semantic processing from both a linguistic and an algorithmic perspective are considered. The focus is on modern quantitative techniques in NLP: using large corpora, statistical models for acquisition, disambiguation, and parsing. Also, it examines and constructs representative systems.
Effective ML Programming
Video lecture description:
A guest lecture given by Yaron Minsky of Jane Street about how to program effectively in ML. The talk was given as part of the intro computer science class at Harvard, CS51, where the students had spent much of the semester programming in OCaml.
The Evolution of Lisp
Lecture description:
In this presentation recorded at OOPSLA 2008, Guy L. Steele Jr. and Richard P. Gabriel reenact their presentation called "The Evolution of Lisp" which took place during ACM History of Languages Conference in 1993.
Related Posts
Hey everyone, this month I have various programming video lectures for programmers of all levels.They include: Steven Skiena's programming challenges with solutions. IOI 2009 problems and solutions. Haskell programming. Scheme. SICP. Scheme Macros. Machine Learning. Natural Language Processing. Programming Methodology. Programming Abstractions. Programming Paradigms. Evolution of Lisp. Programming Effective ML.I hope you become a better programming with these lectures. See you next time! | 4,699 |
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