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Michael Pena may have hinted that a third Ant-Man movie could be in the cards.
Every Character Confirmed for Marvel's Ant-Man and the Wasp 13 IMAGES
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Although they are both parts of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the actor, who plays Luis opposite Paul Rudd’s Scott Lang/Ant-Man, had never previously met Chris Hemsworth, aka Thor, until they made 12 Strong, the military drama opening later this month.When asked by IGN if he discussed the MCU on the set of 12 Strong, he told IGN: “We talked about it on the first day. It's a whole different kind of club to be in, the Marvel Universe. I don’t know if they'll use me for the third movie, I still really don't know. It's cool to make a little bit of a mark on that Marvel Universe and it's kind of a cool club, they run a really cool studio.”However, Pena stopped short of asking Hemsworth for a crossover role in a Thor movie, lamenting: “I didn't but I should have so maybe I should say something? I've never worked with anyone else from the Marvel Universe. I've just worked with Paul Rudd and Evangeline Lilly and Michael Douglas which is a pretty cool list.”In Ant-Man and the Wasp, Pena reprises his role as Lang’s friend, Luis, but stayed tight-lipped about how the relationship between the two has changed. He mused: “I can't really say because I guess they're good buddies, they've always been good buddies and I think they're remaining good buddies. I've got to be very vague, very general, but I guess he's following more of the American dream and trying to better himself. He loves that universe and everybody knows Tony Stark and those guys. I guess he's just trying to make his life better. I think that's the best way to say it.”Pena also revealed that, whereas in the original Ant-Man film he was given a lot of room to make the character his own, this time around there were more parameters. He explained: “In the first movie, me and Paul created the character, I was trying out different characters, they were a little bit more lenient with ideas and I would improvise a lot. This one was different, they wanted me to do more pre-written alternative takes so I would do those and then I had a little bit of time for my improv but I think it's mainly written, this one.”Ant-Man and The Wasp will hit theaters July 6, 2018. 12 Strong opens January 19.
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as untracked.
# vi.gitignore
*.[oa]
Save and exit.
You need to stage/commit this file, so that, moving forward, you shall ignore.o and.a files.
# git add.gitignore # git commit -m ""Added a.gitignore files to ignore.o and.a files"
Now,
# vi test.o
This is a test object file
Save and exit.
# git status
# On branch master nothing to commit, working directory clean
Now, as you could see, git has ignored test.o, since we have committed a.gitignore file, in which we have asked to ignore.o and.a files. Whenever you want to ignore some type of files, edit the same.gitignore and commit it.
Viewing your staged and unstaged changes
Sometimes, you want to know exactly what you changed, not just which files were changed. To check files that were changed, you can use # git status command. But to know exactly what you have changed, use the # git diff command.
To be precise,
# git diff /* to view unstaged changes. This compares your working directory and staging area */
# git diff --cached /* to view staged changes. This compares your staging area and previous commit. */
Now, do this yourself. Create 2 files. Stage just 1 file alone (# git add filename to stage it) and run # git diff and # git diff –cached and you could see that commands work the way i mentioned above.
Removing and Moving files
Say, for example, you want to remove the file sample.
# git rm sample /* to add files we used git add, here to remove, hence rm. This deletes the file sample and also stages file removal for committing. You need not run a # rm sample seperately*/
# git commit -m "deleted sample file"
Now, you have successfully removed the “sample” file from your working directory.
Similarly, to rename files, use mv in the place of rm.
Using GUI to visualize history
If you like to use a graphical tool for viewing your commit history, you can use gitk command. It’s basically a visual git log tool, and it accepts nearly all filtering options that git log accepts.
Shall discuss further on Git/Remote Git/Tagging/Branching/Public Git server (like github) in my next article. Stay tuned.
Thanks for reading. Cheers!
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[/caption]
Stars can range in temperature, from the relatively cool red dwarfs to superhot blue stars. So what is the hottest star in the Universe?
First, let’s talk a bit about temperature. The color of a star is a function of its temperature. If a star looks red, that means its surface temperature is approximately 2,500 Kelvin. Just for comparison, our Sun, which actually looks white from space, measures about 6,000 Kelvin. The hotter the star, the further up the spectrum you go. The hottest stars are the blue stars. A star appears blue once its surface temperature gets above 10,000 Kelvin, or so, a star will appear blue to our eyes.
So the hottest stars in the Universe are going to be a blue star, and we know they’re going to be massive. So the question is, how massive can stars get? One example is the star Rigel, in the constellation Orion. Rigel is thought to have 17 times the mass of the Sun, and puts out 40,000 times the luminosity of the Sun. It’s surface temperature is a mere 11,000 Kelvin. Another star in Orion, Bellatrix, has a temperature of 21,500 Kelvin. That’s even hotter.
But the hottest known stars in the Universe are the blue hypergiant stars. These are stars with more than 100 times the mass of the Sun. One of the best known examples is Eta Carinae, located about 7,500 light-years from the Sun. Eta Carinae could be as large as 180 times the radius of the Sun, and its surface temperature is 36,000-40,000 Kelvin.
Just for comparison, 40,000 Kelvin is about 72,000 degrees F.
So it’s the blue hypergiants, like Eta Carinae, which are probably the hottest stars in the Universe.
We have written many articles about stars on Universe Today. Here’s an article about how Eta Carinae is almost ready to explode as a supernova. And here’s a link to a nice photo of the nebula around Eta Carinae.
Want more information on stars? Here’s Hubblesite’s News Releases about Stars, and more information from NASA’s imagine the Universe.
We have recorded several episodes of Astronomy Cast about stars. Here are two that you might find helpful: Episode 12: Where Do Baby Stars Come From, and Episode 13: Where Do Stars Go When they Die?
References:
NASA: Eta Carinae
University of Illinois
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Bill Nye mocks the intolerant views of conservative Christians when it comes to sexuality and all hell breaks loose.
After mocking gay conversion therapy favored by some conservative Christians on his new Netflix show “Bill Nye Saves the World,” the science educator is facing death threats from angry Christians.
Pink News reports on the violent reaction from some anti-LGBT Christians after watching an animated video from an episode from Nye’s new series, noting:
Several of the comments on the clip included direct death threats aimed at Nye.
The episode in question is entitled the “Sexual Spectrum” and uses ice cream “as part of a hysterical analogy on the intolerant views of Christians when it comes to sexuality.”
In the video, a vanilla ice cream cone (representing a straight Christian man) tries to to convince the rest of the ice cream cones that everyone should be vanilla just like him:
As a vanilla, I feel that I am the most natural of the ice creams; and therefore, the rest of you should just go ahead and also be vanilla. It’s the one true flavor.
Following the analogy, the message from the intolerant vanilla ice cream cone is clear: being gay, or being anything other than a heterosexual, cisgender, Christian, is wrong.
The cartoon is funny, and simple, and makes a good point, with a happy ending. Because in the end, all the different ice cream flavors jump into a bowl together. It is an ice cream orgy, and a good time is had by all. Even Mr. Vanilla enjoys himself in the end.
Not surprising, the sweet and lighthearted ice cream orgy has conservative Christians hot under the collar.
Huffington Post reports on some of the reactions:
Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief Ben Shapiro posted a video to his official Facebook page criticizing Nye’s analogy, noting, “There is no scientific basis for anything that is in this video… Just on a scientific basis, ice cream does not have genitalia.” PJ Media columnist Megan Fox felt similarly. “The message here is clear (and not at all scientific): Christian, straight white people are bigots, racists and not even straight,” she wrote in a Tuesday column. “Bill Nye offers no proof of that, other than a poorly drawn cartoon about debauched ice cream.”
Bottom line: The truth hurts. The fact that conservative Christians can become so angry over a humorous video depicting “debauched ice cream” only reinforces the notion that their anti-gay Christian morality deserves to be mocked and ridiculed.
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The narrative for the 2019/2020 Greyhounds season will be focused around how the team can cope with a number of important departures over the course of the off-season.
With the likes of Morgan Frost, Jordan Sambrook, and Matt Vilalta graduating from the OHL club, the team is now in the midst of finding players to fill those holes.
While the likes of Jaromir Pytlik, Ryan O’Rourke, and Cole MacKay all having breakout campaigns in the previous season, this season comes with a different perspective for two of the other current Hounds.
Jacob Holmes was the first round draft pick of the Hounds in this year’s OHL draft, and when asked if this is the most excited he’s been for an upcoming season of hockey, he answered “Absolutely” with a smile. “It’s a big step for me and I feel that I’ve been working hard to be here”.
The Aliston, ON native is the newest member of the Hounds blueline, and at just 16 stands an impressive 6’1’’, the same height as the average NHL player.
When asked who he models his game around. “Aaron Ekblad. I love the way he jumps into the rush after moving the puck while being able to shoot hard, something I think I can do too”.
Sault fans will have plenty of time to see the big defenceman develop, but will not have much longer to watch Jaden Peca who was acquired last year for the team’s playoff push. He posted an impressive 13 points in 10 playoff games for the Hounds.
“I want to be leader for the younger guys this year,” says the overage Peca who is still in search of an elusive NHL contract.
“It’s in the back of my mind, but I just want to leave it all on the ice. Everyone’s goal in the OHL is to leave with a contract and to know where you’re playing next, but all I can focus on is the now”. Peca will come into the season as the team’s oldest player, with a 1999 birth year.
The annual Luke Williams Memorial Red and White Game takes place Friday, August 30th at 7 p.m., with a price of admission set at $9.25. This will be the final showcase for the Hounds hopefuls to impress the brass before pre season.
The regular season begins September 20th against the Flint Firebirds, at the GFL Memorial Gardens.
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on gaze position on a per-frame without the need of calling any of the variable rate shading initialization routines again.
... // Init routines Loop { GetGazePosition(&GazePos) { UpdateShadingRatePattern(GazePos); } Draw(); }
Use Case: Lens-Optimized Shading
Even though VRS provides the ability to customize the shading rate pattern as frequently as the application wants, developers may choose to derive a static pattern. For example, the pattern may be based on the lens characteristics of the targeted VR HMD. An example of one such shading rate pattern could be as follows, shown in figure 8:
// Init routines... GetLensCharacteristics(&LensCharacteristic) UpdateShadingRatePattern(LensCharacteristic);... Loop { // no need to update shading rate pattern per frame Draw(); }
Use Case: SuperSampling
Variable rate shading also allows shading with more detail than native shading with supersampling. Traditionally, this is possible only throughout the render target. The ability to supersample selectively sets variable rate shading apart from standard supersampling. You can either selectively perform supersampling at the center of the scene (supersampled foveated rendering) or based on detecting the crucial content in the scene, such as content adaptive shading for rendering high-quality text. Figure 9 shows the shading rate surface populated with text shaded using much higher details by supersampling while the surroundings are shaded coarsely.
Performance Considerations
Variable rate shading operates primarily on the pixel shader load of a scene. The more computationally complex the pixel shaders used, the greater the potential gain. The type of content in the scene also plays a role. For example, scenes that contain greater numbers of large primitives may also see performance improvements using VRS. So real-world performance depends on numerous factors, including pixel shader complexity and type of content. Figure 10 shows potential performance gains using a synthetically-generated pixel load*.
Try Out Variable Rate Shading
NVIDIA Variable Rate Shading is simple to integrate and substantially benefits pixel shading within applications. Learn more about variable rate shading on the VRS developer page.
The NVIDIA Variable Rate Shading interface APIs require driver revision R410 and above NVIDIA graphics drivers. The VRWorks Graphics SDK 3.0 release includes the API and sample applications along with programming guides for NVIDIA developers. We are also working on VRS plugins for major game engines — stay tuned for more information!
If you’re not currently an NVIDIA developer and want to check out VRWorks, signing up is easy — just click on the “join” button at the top of the main NVIDIA Developer Page.
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But the big margins in DeKalb and next-door Fulton weren’t nearly enough for Democrats to break the GOP grip on every statewide office.
As Raffensperger waged a low-key campaign focusing on rural Georgia, Barrow tried to drive out turnout in the east Georgia district he long represented in the U.S. House. He captured two sparsely-populated counties that voted GOP in November but it wasn't enough.
The PSC race largely mirrored the secretary of state race, and there was little evidence of vote-splitting. Republican incumbent Chuck Eaton, aided by $1 million in outside spending from a pro-nuclear group, declared victory shortly before 11 p.m.
The results were not unexpected. Republicans have long dominated fall general election runoffs, which are necessary if no candidate gets a majority of the vote in the general election because of a third-party contender.
But Democrats hoped that swirl of voting rights issues that dogged the November vote would energize liberal voters still seething from Kemp's victory and eager to prevent another Republican from overseeing state elections.
Republicans have cause for concern, too.
The last statewide runoff in Georgia came in 2008. That’s when U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss was drawn into a runoff against Democrat Jim Martin. In that race, the incumbent secured a hefty 57 percent of the vote.
Tuesday’s results more closely resemble the 1992 runoff for U.S. Senate, when Democrats controlled state politics and Republicans were clambering for a foothold. In that contest, GOP challenger Paul Coverdell stunned Democratic incumbent Wyche Fowler, 50.6 to 49.4 percent.
Had Abrams forced a runoff – she came within about 17,000 votes – it would have transformed the contest into another nationally-watched contest and presidential proxy battle. But Barrow's centrist policies and mild-mannered approach didn't lend themselves to a lower-profile vote without her.
The two Republican victories mean that Republicans will retain control of all constitutional offices in Georgia, including all five PSC seats, as well as a majority of the Georgia Legislature and both U.S. Senate seats.
Democrats will now shift their attention to 2020, when U.S. Sen. David Perdue is up for a second term and a slate of U.S. House and state legislative seats are back on the ballot.
“There was a significant drop in enthusiasm after the general election,” said state Rep. Scott Holcomb. “That was true on both sides, but it was greater for Democrats. These were winnable races, but instead we came up short.”
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Article content continued
The Canadians kick off pool play on Saturday vs. Japan at 8:30 a.m. PT (12:30 p.m. local).
The team has played full-on scrimmages in preparation, with “kickoffs” at the same time as their three scheduled pool games. (Canada’s second game on Saturday is vs. Brazil at 3:30 p.m. PT.)
They’ve also played in three-day events before — events on the Women’s World Series are usually two days — so the Rio schedule won’t be a problem.
The Sunday game vs. Great Britain (8:30 a.m. PT) will likely settle first and second place in the group. Their quarterfinal match will go later on Sunday, either at 1:30 or 2 p.m. PT, depending on their final placing. Either way, the path to the semis is clear: they’ll play the second place team from either group — most likely the USA and either France or Spain — teams the Canadians have generally handled well in series play the last three seasons.
Hey brother! Do you still believe in one another?
Hey sister! Do you still believe in love? I wonder
Oh, if the sky comes falling down, for you
There’s nothing in this world I wouldn’t do
“We’ve got an ‘as one’ attitude,” Moleschi said. It was hard to see friends come up short on selection, Moleschi admitted, “but you know what they’ve put in.”
“We’re here because of that,” she said. “We’re not a team of seven (on the field), of 12 (in the Olympic squad), we’re 26.”
Head coach John Tait assembled a large training group at Rugby Canada’s Centre of Excellence in Victoria.
“The girls at home, they made this happen,” Moleschi said. “Any one of us could have come up short. Every time you put on that jersey, you’re reminded of who has come before.”
The team has settled nicely into Olympic Village life. They flew down to Rio last weekend after a final training week in Toronto. This week has been about acclimating to the weather: it’s been mid-20s all week and, of course, humid. Temperatures this weekend are expected to climb into the high 20s, possibly even creeping into the 30s.
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their capital.
A spokesman for the European Stability Mechanism -- the currency union’s crisis loans fund -- said that Greece can “quickly” use 10 billion euros which have been mobilized for Greek bank recapitalizations and are currently sitting in a segregated account. With sufficient private-sector participation, the remaining 15 billion euros, which have been earmarked for capital injections under the terms of the bailout, will not be needed, the spokesman added, asking not to be named in line with policy. This will also mean that Greece may not use the full 86 billion euros envisaged back in July.
“Capital shortfalls under the baseline scenario, which may be further reduced by the currently ongoing liability management exercises by the Greek banks and the restructuring plans to be submitted to the ECB, are manageable,” analysts at Athens-based Euroxx Securities Vangelis Karanikas and Yiannis Sinapis wrote in a note to clients. “All Greek banks should be able to cover the AQR and baseline needs through the private sector.”
Recapitalization Terms
The new recapitalization legislation empowers the state-owned Hellenic Financial Stability Fund to regularly evaluate the management and boards of Greek lenders that seek state aid. Board members in Greek banks must have 10 years of international banking or finance experience, of which three years as board members. At least one board member should have five years or more experience in bad loans management, and three independent board members, who will be presiding over all committees, mustn’t have worked in a Greece-based bank during the past 10 years.
Officials who have served in senior political or public-sector posts over the past five years are banned from being appointed board members. No bonuses will be distributed while a lender receives state aid and salaries of management are capped at the level of the annual compensation of the governor of the Bank of Greece, according to the legislation.
With assets totaling 296 billion euros at the end of June, the four banks tested by the ECB account for about 90 percent of the assets of credit institutions in Greece, the ECB said. Attica Bank, which isn’t considered a systemically significant lender, was assessed by the Bank of Greece, which identified a 1 billion-euro shortfall. The recapitalization bill which was approved Saturday allows HFSF to participate in capital raising actions of smaller banks and not just the four biggest ones.
“The shortfall number was in line with our expectation,” Jonas Floriani, a London-based analyst with Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, said in an e-mail. “The key now will be the capital plans and the recap framework.”
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Ag Commissioner Sid Miller likes ‘get a rope’ comment regarding Sen. Cory Booker
Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller liked a comment on this post that read, "Get a rope. Or just vote straight ticket Republican." Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller liked a comment on this post that read, "Get a rope. Or just vote straight ticket Republican." Photo: Courtesy Of Facebook Photo: Courtesy Of Facebook Image 1 of / 20 Caption Close Ag Commissioner Sid Miller likes ‘get a rope’ comment regarding Sen. Cory Booker 1 / 20 Back to Gallery
AUSTIN — Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller liked a comment on his Facebook page that called for getting “a rope” to handle his Democratic opponent, Kim Olson, and an African-American U.S. Senator in an apparent reference to lynching.
The comment came in response to a Facebook post Miller made about Olson appearing in a picture with New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, a Democrat. Miller’s post painted Olson as a liberal “out-of-touch with the majority of Texans.”
Miller’s campaign said the comment from a Facebook fan, which read, “Get a rope. Or just vote straight ticket Republican,” was a throwback to Pace Picante salsa commercials from three decades ago. Miller’s was one of 20 likes on the comment.
“Sid Miller doesn’t have a racist bone in his body,” said Todd Smith, Miller’s campaign spokesman, who said the comment reflected Miller’s feeling that liberal, “Yankee” values are out of touch in Texas.
But others disagreed, including the Texas Democratic Party.
“This time, Miller liked to notion of ‘getting a rope’ for [Olson] and an African-American United States Senator,” read an emailed statement from Democratic Party Press Secretary Delma Limones. “Sid Miller is completely unhinged. Texans deserve better than a Trump Republican Party who spreads hatred …”
MORE: Ag Commissioner Sid Miller tangles with Texas cattle raisers
Miller’s post had attracted more than 500 comments by late Monday.
Miller’s Facebook account liked almost every comment on that thread, which is unusual for the conservative agriculture commissioner. He or his campaign posts several posts and pictures a day, often garnering hundreds of comments, but rarely blankets the entire comment list with likes or feedback.
Miller has a penchant for making controversial comments on social media. Once his Twitter account retweeted a post calling then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton a vulgar word, which the campaign blamed on an intern and deleted.
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‘particularly damaging’(Park et al., 1992, p.228).
Attachment theories have us know that children will do all they can in order to preserve a good image of their parents. Even when their parents are incompetent, abusive or neglectful, children naturally blame themselves because it is not safe to think of the people they depend on as ‘bad’ (Winnicott, 1960). This scenario is complex if the child is naturally intuitive; many emotionally gifted children have strong feelings of love and responsibility for their parents, and often feel compelled by a need or desire to take care of them.
If the parents either explicitly or implicitly reject the child — he or she will internalise the shame of being rejected, and experience him/ herself as being profoundly bad (toxic shame). As a result of their negative experience of themselves and those around them, these children’s natural gifts in perceptivity become ‘highjacked’ by negative bias and negative projections. Without an environment where they can learn to set healthy boundaries andexperience secure attachment without exploitation, these children develop ’symptoms’ such as as an inability to self- soothe and regulate emotions, a fear of rejection, and a deep sense of internal hollowness.
Many emotionally intense adults have struggled all their lives feeling lonely, misunderstood, with the belief that there is something deeply wrong with them. If you are one of them, I hope that you can reconsider the potential gifts that are within you.
Whilst the history cannot be changed, you can re-write the story that you have been telling yourself. You are in no way ‘bad’. You are not ‘too much’. What you are, is a sensitive, intuitive, gifted individual, who were deprived of the right kind of nourishmentas you were growing up. Your high level of awareness and acuity to subtleties is not only unusual but also extremely precious.
Because of your innate perceptivity, you cannot ‘un-see’ or ‘un-feel’ things. Perhaps like a poppy that has outgrown his peers, you were being shamed and ‘chopped down’. Your struggles are not your fault, and the shame that you carry is a natural reaction to a childhood environment that has failed to support you.
Perhaps there is a little voice within you that has always known you were not fundamentally wrong. If you can begin to listen to that voice, you can liberate yourself to retrieve the long-forgotten gifts inside you.
Your psyche wants to heal. Once you can begin to recognise and trust your own fundamental goodness, restoration and integration would naturally happen.
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Amazon has launched a Square and PayPal Here competitor called Local Register, which provides users with a free app and a $10 card reader, and charges merchants and anyone selling services who use it just 1.75 percent per swipe on both credit and debit transactions, so long as users sign up before October 31. That’s a special rate, and is a full percentage point lower than Square’s 2.75 percent per swiped transaction (3.5 percent plus 15 cents for manual entry), and will last until January 1, 2016, at which point it will return to the standard 2.5 percent per transaction Amazon is charging (or 2.75 percent for manually entered transactions).
The $10 fee Amazon is charging for people to buy its reader is also essentially erased since Amazon grants users of its payment system $10 in transaction credit right off the bat. Amazon is clearly hoping it can lure real-world sellers away from the established competition with more attractive rates, but it’s also boasting that Local Register is backed by Amazon’s customer support, a secure card reader design that “limits swivel” during swiping, and their existing secure infrastructure for accepting payments which is backed by all the experience of their online storefront.
Amazon also offers business reporting within the Local Register app, which is available on the Amazon Appstore, iOS App Store and Google Play, which provides info like when you experience peak sales and overall performance. Amazon is also offering an ecosystem of accessories, including cash drawers, receipt printers and semi-permanent stands and mounts for mobile devices in order to give shop owners and food truck vendors everything they need to set up more involved installations.
Payments received through Local Register go into a seller’s bank account the next business day, and Amazon makes funds available to use on its own ecommerce portal almost immediately. It’s a clever way to funnel some money back into its ecosystem.
Overall, Amazon looks to be pushing business owners to do all their sales, both online and off, via its platform, and to make that happen it’s willing to undercut the competition. Starting August 19, the new Amazon reader will also be available in Staples locations in the U.S., which should help it somewhat in matching Square’s general retail availability.
Square recently announced an EMV chip card reader that would be coming to the U.S. soon, so that might give it a temporary edge over Amazon, but Amazon can move quickly to iterate on its product when the time comes. Overall, this could be a big challenge to Square and PayPal’s local payment efforts, depending on how aggressively Amazon decides to go after winning over users of its competing services.
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will be a big part of funding, Tito said. “I envision Dr. Phil talking to the husband-wife crew about marital problems on way to Mars,” he said.
But this is not a money-making endeavor, Tito said. “I won’t make any money on this – I’ll be a lot poorer after this mission.”
Speaking of money, one thing the Inspiration Mars team didn’t do at the briefing today was talk about how much the mission was going to cost. They said that whatever number they might quote today would probably end up being wrong. But they did say it would be a fraction of what the Curiosity rover mission cost, which is $2.5 billion.
The mission system will consist of a modified capsule launched out of Earth orbit using a single propulsive maneuver to achieve the Mars trajectory. An inflatable habitat module will be deployed after launch and detached prior to re-entry. Closed-loop life support and operational components will be located inside the vehicle, designed for simplicity and “hands-on” maintenance and repair.
Tito said the time is right for this mission, not only because of the orbital window of opportunity. “Investments in human space exploration technologies and operations by NASA and the space industry are converging at the right time to make this mission achievable,” he said.
Foundation officials are in talks with several U.S. commercial aerospace companies about prospective launch and crew vehicles and systems.
Asked about how they can possibly get a launch vehicle ready by 2018, Tito said, “The vehicles are there and we have time to get it together. I’m more concerned about the life support, the radiation and the re-entry systems.”
“Mars presents a challenging, but attainable goal for advancing human space exploration and knowledge, and as a result, we are committed to undertaking this mission,” MacCallum said. “Experts have reviewed the risks, rewards and aggressive schedule, finding that existing technologies and systems only need to be properly integrated, tested and prepared for flight.”
Tito explained that the “beauty of this mission is its simplicity.” The flyby architecture lowers risk, with no critical propulsive maneuvers after leaving Earth vicinity, no entry into the Mars atmosphere, no rendezvous and docking, and represents the shortest duration roundtrip mission to Mars. The 2018 launch opportunity also coincides with the 11-year solar minimum providing the lowest solar radiation exposure.
Find out more about the mission at the Inspiration Mars website.
. Here is a link to a fact sheet about this mission.
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, which means at least two more weeks of potential high water.
Other warnings and advisories
The B.C. River Forecast Centre flood warnings remained in effect for the Fraser River at Prince George and upstream, and downstream from Quesnel to the Fraser Canyon. A high streamflow advisory remains in place for the lower Fraser River.
On Tuesday afternoon, the forecast centre also issued a flood advisory for the North and South Thompson rivers, warning that water levels on both rivers will likely rise at least 60 centimetres over the next few days.
It also warned that as of Wednesday all boat launches would be closed, and the City of Kamloops is asking boaters to stay off the water.
The North Okanagan Regional District also issued a evacuation alert for low-lying properties along the Shuswap River from Sugar Lake to Mara Lake on Tuesday, warning residents to be ready to leave at a moment's notice should water levels continue to rise.
Advisory guidelines: A high streamflow advisory means that river levels are rising or expected to rise rapidly, but that no major flooding is expected. Minor flooding in low-lying areas is possible.
A flood watch means that river levels are rising and will approach or may exceed bankfull. Flooding of areas adjacent to affected rivers may occur.
A flood warning means that river levels have exceeded bankfull or will exceed bankfull imminently, and that flooding of areas adjacent to the rivers affected will result.
Other flood watches, warnings and advisories include:
Shuswap River downstream of Mabel Lake (near Enderby) — flood warning.
Shuswap River upstream of Mabel Lake (near Lumby) — flood watch.
North Thompson River and tributaries — flood advisory.
South Thompson River and Shuswap Lake — flood advisory.
Quesnel River — flood watch.
Nechako River near Prince George — high streamflow advisory.
North Thompson River and tributaries — high streamflow advisory (downgraded).
Cariboo region (including the Horsefly River) — high streamflow advisory (downgraded).
Skeena and tributaries (including Bulkley River) — ended.
Upper Columbia River and tributaries — ended.
Seymour River and Eagle River (Shuswap tributaries) — ended.
Okanagan (including North Okanagan and Mission Creek) — ended.
DriveBC is reporting river ferries at Big Bar, Little Fort, Lytton, McLure and Usk have all been closed because of high water.
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LOS ANGELES: When a fast-moving wildfire licked up to the fringes of the sprawling Getty Center complex on Tuesday (Oct 29), the staff of the Los Angeles museum betrayed no sign of panic, confident that its priceless art was safe and secure within its walls.
Mindful of Southern California's vulnerability to fires and earthquakes, architect Richard Meier designed the US$1.3 billion center with an array of special features to protect a collection that includes paintings by Van Gogh, Rembrandt and Manet, ancient Greek statues and an expansive array of manuscripts.
Built in 1997 on a hilltop in the Brentwood section of Los Angeles, about 21km west of downtown, the center describes itself on its website as a "marvel of anti-fire engineering."
“The buildings are impervious to fire from the outside and they’re constructed to be basically fire proof,” said Lisa Lapin, spokeswoman for the Getty Trust, as a firefighting helicopter flew overhead.
"Evacuating the art would put it at greater danger. There's no need to move it, it's very, very safe," she said.
Buildings on the center's campus, which house the J Paul Getty Museum and other Getty Trust programs, are clad in stone and steel with stone rooftops that keep burning embers from igniting the structures.
READ: Millions face power cuts as California fires spread
The museum's galleries are double-walled and compartmentalised to prevent an interior fire spreading. They have systems that can recycle air to stop smoke and ash entering and remove oxygen from the air to extinguish any flames inside.
Since Monday, a million-gallon water tank has allowed museum staff to irrigate grounds that act as a fire buffer zone around buildings, Lapin said by phone from the center.
The so-called Getty Fire had burned 265 hectares as of Tuesday afternoon, destroying eight homes and forcing the evacuation of thousands of residents, including celebrities such as NBA star LeBron James and actor and former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.
The flames have come within 1.2 km of the Getty Center's office buildings, and 1.6 km from structures housing art, burning in a wildland area of the more than 243 hectare complex, Lapin said.
Firefighters are using the center as a rest area, eating at its cafe, and using it as a vantage point from which to manage their air attack, Lapin added.
“Although we’ve extinguished all visible flames, we have countless smoldering hotspots and we have another severe wind event forecasted late tonight through Thursday," Los Angeles Fire Department spokeswoman Margaret Stewart said.
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A recent study has proposed that Tether, the US dollar-pegged cryptocurrency, was ”explicitly responsible” for the highs in Bitcoin price during December of 2017. The report goes on to suggest that the cryptocurrency’s rise to nearly $20,000 was in fact supported by a ”conscious strategy to provide price support” using Tether tokens.
Tether is a stablecoin token, which can essentially be described as a cross between fiat currencies and a ”true” cryptocurrency, as it is pegged to the value of one US dollar. Tether is nonetheless attractive to investors, as it is a cryptocurrency that is comparatively easy to trade and sell, the price is stable, and there are no transaction fees for moving the tokens between different Tether wallets.
Nonetheless, the study comes from two professors at the University of Texas, John Griffin and Amin Shams, and specifically examines the Tether stablecoin’s relation to that of Bitcoin during late 2017. The two researchers employed algorithms in order to analyze and interpret blockchain data, which they found revealed a correlation between the timing of Tether purchases following market downturns and significant increases in the price of Bitcoin.
Moreover, the study goes on to outline that this conclusion provides a ”clear link between the printing of new Tether tokens and Bitcoin’s price increases following bear runs”. The researchers were also supposedly able to determine that actors associated with the Bitfinex exchange used Tether to buy Bitcoin as prices began falling, effectively preventing the nominal price decrease of the cryptocurrency from truly showing.
If the findings of this study are indeed accurate, it would mean that Tether was used to ”prop up” the price of Bitcoin during late last year. Griffin and Shams also claim that they were able to discover that the amount of Tether used in order to keep Bitcoin’s price high artificially was minuscule, and that ”even less than 1 percent of extreme exchange of Tether for Bitcoin has substantial price effects”.
The algorithms used by the researchers also allowed them to understand and map how Tether was distributed. The study outlines that Tether was created, and subsequently moved to Bitfinex – from where it then slowly made its way to other cryptocurrency exchanges, such as Bittrex and Poloniex.
This study is likely to become subject for discussion, and may very well be grist to the mill of those already questioning the supposedly opaque nature of cryptocurrencies. This study also comes as Tether passed both Dash and Monero to become the world’s twelfth largest cryptocurrency (according to market capitalization) earlier this week.
Image Source: “Flickr”
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Thailand is experiencing the worst drought in decades, with seven out of 67 provinces affected and water rationing taking place in almost a third of the country.
Thailand’s Irrigation Department said that the amount of usable water in dams across the country, except in the West, have dwindled to below 10 percent and in the capital Bangkok tap water production has been slowing down since May, reports the Associated Press.
Meanwhile the drought is taking its toll on the country’s farmers.
Rice farmers usually plant their paddy in June or July but because of critical water shortages, the Agriculture Ministry has asked farmers to delay planting their crop until August.
According to the Office of Agricultural Economics, the delay could cost farmers in Thailand’s central plains 60 billion baht ($1.8 billion) in losses and straddle them with significant debt.
“My entire investment for this crop could be gone with the wind,” 66-year-old rice farmer Boontham Cei-pa told Bloomberg. “I’m stressed out and don’t know what to do.”
Thailand is one of the world’s top producers of rice, exporting more than 10 million tons annually. As a result of the drought, the Thai government has lowered its forecast rice exports for this year by 2 million tons.
Fearing the drought could mean a rise in rice prices, African countries have increased their imports, the Nation reports.
“The African market remains an important market for Thailand especially rice and parboiled rice,” Chukiat Opaswong, honorary president of the Thai Rice Exporters Association.
In an effort to support farmers affected by drought, Thailand’s Finance Ministry Monday approved loans of up to 60 billion baht ($1.77 billion) for emergency funds and long-term assistance to increase farm productivity.
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Write to Helen Regan at [email protected].
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The Handmaid’s Tale made a huge splash in its first season, racking up eight Emmys, two Golden Globe wins, and three Critics Choice awards. All eyes are on the harrowing Hulu series about a near-future dystopia where women have been stripped of all their rights. But the series has doubly daunting task for its second season. Not only will it have to maintain the momentum of its acclaimed first season, it will have to venture out beyond Margaret Atwood‘s masterful 1985 novel.
Showrunner Bruce Miller has near-complete creative freedom for The Handmaid’s Tale season 2, which just debuted its first look. The first images from season 2 hint at what will happen to Elisabeth Moss‘ June, and where her rebellious actions have left her fellow Handmaids.
What was hinted at in Atwood’s novel can now be fully realized in The Handmaid’s Tale season 2. Entertainment Weekly has the first images from the Hulu series, which tease what happens to June, who at the end of season 1 was heading to an uncertain fate, pregnant and hauled away in a van that was controlled either by Gilead or its rebels. The rest of season 2 will focus on world-building, with input from Atwood, who serves as consulting producer on the series.
“Margaret and I had started to talk about the shape of season 2 halfway through the first,” Miller told EW.
Miller says the season will also expand on the lives of refugees who escape Gilead (such as Samira Wiley’s Moira) as well as the prisoners who have been sent to work at the polluted “Colonies” scattered throughout America. But one of the scenes that Miller is most excited to share is that of a handmaid’s funeral in Gilead, which offers some of the most striking imagery from the series.
Miller said about the scene:
“Everything from the design of their costumes to the way they look is so chilling. These scenes that are so beautiful, while set in such a terrible place, provide the kind of contrast that makes me happy.”
The first season was ambitious yet wildly uneven, but the series never lacked for striking images. (You can see the other stunning pictures at EW.) While the episodes that attempted to build the world beyond Atwood’s novel often stumbled (I’m looking at you, the sluggish Luke-centric episode, “The Other Side”), it might benefit Miller to have no limitations as he pushes forward with season 2.
The Handmaid’s Tale season 2 will debut on Hulu in April 2018.
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On sunday 9 june, the apartment on the Da Costastraat 137H was squatted. This apartment was empty for many years and is owned by a person who has 22 properties in his own name. There is also a company that is registered on his name which has another 99 properties.
The main reason that we have taken this action is to provide ourselves with housing. We would rather rent the house for a reasonable price. Nevertheless, there are still a number of points that we would like to raise.
In Oud-West (Old West), the waiting time for a social housing is up to 14 years. Oud-West is therefore one of the districts where the number of social housing has since long dropped down under 35%, the boundary where there is a mixed district. Unfortunately, this is already a reality in large parts of the city. For example, this lower limit has already been passed in large parts of the Centre, West, South, and Ijburg. In West, in addition to Oud-West, the Baarsjes are also important. This is something we are worried about.
A poignant example is the wasteland on the Jan Pieter Heijestraat, where the 35 social housing units were demolished in 2009. Instead of new houses coming back to replace the demolished ones, it turned out to be for the construction of a hotel. Now, 10 years later, this plot is still vacant.
In recent years, the neighbourhood has been hit hard by gentrification. With dirty marketing tricks such as the Hallenkwartier, the district is being sold at an expensive and increasingly unaffordable price. The city is increasingly becoming a kind of amusement park for tourists and big money where residents come in last place. As usual, people with less money are hardest hit and are allowed to work in the city, but living is too much to ask for.
Nevertheless, by taking matters into our own hands, we now have a temporary solution for living and giving a home a new meaning.
Some squats in the Netherlands: https://radar.squat.net/en/groups/country/NL/squated/squat
Some squats in Amsterdam: https://radar.squat.net/en/groups/city/amsterdam/country/NL/squated/squat
Groups (social center, collective, squat) in the Netherlands: https://radar.squat.net/en/groups/country/NL
Events in the Netherlands: https://radar.squat.net/en/events/country/NL
Indymedia: https://www.indymedia.nl/node/46212
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Please note, all of this post was written prior to AB-InBev’s purchase of Elysian Brewing. While the beers still may good, I can not give money to a company that is actively undermining the craft beer industry world-wide. If you’d like to read more about AB-InBev’s malfeasance, please click on this link to a post I did that lists a very small percentage of the unethical acts they perpetrate.
Sometimes all you want is a FRINKIN’ BEER WITH A FRICKIN’ TIGER ON THE LABEL SHOOTIN’ FRICKIN’ LASER BEAMS OUT ITS FRICKIN’ EYES! Is that too much to ask for? Well, good thing Elysian Brewing has your back on this one! Elysian Dayglow IPA is the summer 2014 entry in their rotating Manic IPA Series, it takes the place of last year’s smash hit, Space Dust IPA which will make a reappearance in the Fall Manic IPA spot before moving to a full time beer in 2015. Dayglow IPA is the followup to the spring’s Savant IPA.
Dayglow IPA is brewed with wheat in addition to Pale Malt and Dextrapils malt. It uses Centennial and El Dorado hops plus the super hot Mosaic hop. Plus the label has a tiger shooting lasers out of its eyes! And believe me, when the tiger is staring at you he’s hypnotizing you. “You’re getting thirsty; you’re getting thirsty; very, very thirsty.”
Appearance: Hazy gold, beige head, great retention.
Aroma: Mango, pineapple, lightly dank, light “cat pee” hop aroma, hints of pine and grapefruit, spicy.
Taste: Grassy, spicy, citrus, fruity.
Overall Impression: Dayglow IPA is a fantastic IPA. It’s got a nice bitter finish, a lot of crispness, and a nice round mouthfeel. This IPA will make IPA fans happy as well those who aren’t as into the style. It’s bright, fresh, flavorful, and the only critique I can give it is that it’s standing in the way of me getting more Space Dust! Oh yeah, it’s got a label with a tiger shooting laser beams out of its eyes!
Availability: Seasonally, in states where Elysian is available (Consult with their website for location details).
6.5%
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ZeroHedge, the dissident financial webzine in my opinion worth more than the whole of the business MSM put together, has revisited the statistical survey which in March caused me to post ZEROHEDGE Again Demonstrates Immigration Hurting Most Americans – Without Breaking Taboo
This time the updated story is entitled The Reason Why There Is No Wage Growth For 83% Of US Workers
The most confounding aspect of the economy, and the one metric that has flashed a red light on Janet Yellen's "labor market dashboard" for years, is that wage growth has been completely non-existent, and roughly at half the Fed's targeted level of 3.5-4.0%. What's worse, and what the Fed may not even realize is that while Yellen is looking at the average wage growth for the entire US population which has been flat as a pancake for the past 6 years the wage reality for the vast majority of the US working population, or the 98 million non-supervisory workers which comprise 83% of total US private payrolls, is that their wages are not only not rising, or even flat, but for the past year have been declining at a rapid pace after hitting 2.5% in early 2014… in inflation-adjusted terms there is no wage growth for more than 4 out of every 5 workers.
...a conspicuous weak spot in this economy: wage growth. Wages rose a scanty 0.1% in April. By this time in the recovery cycle gains of 3.0% per year are the norm. The influx of low wage foreign-born workers is undoubtedly a factor—albeit unacknowledged by the Main Stream Media—in keeping wages low.
ZeroHedge does not explainthis is happening but the reason is quite obvious: heavy immigration impacts non-managerial job markets far more than managerial. As Ed Rubenstein has frequently documented, most recently in National Data: American Worker Finally Catch A (Brief) Break—But New Immigration Surge Continues The recent acceleration in immigration accounts for the deterioration since 2014 pointed out by ZeroHedge.
ZeroHedge is a strange outfit. It posts far too much and of too high a quality to be an amateur effort. I used to think Left Libertarian money was the reason immigration seems to be taboo (as in the Sierra Club case), but the site has come out ferociously against TPP as in A Multinational Trojan Horse: The Trans-Pacific Partnership 05/09/2015 and even more amazingly just posted a race realist piece The Faces Of Baltimore You Won't See In The News 05/12/2015.
So maybe there is hope.
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A mortar round fired from the Gaza Strip struck southern Israel on Tuesday, the first such shelling since a truce took effect last month ending seven weeks of fighting between Israel and Palestinian militants.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, which caused no injuries or damage, according to a statement from Israeli military. Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri told news media that the group remained committed to the cease-fire.
“We will not accept sporadic fire on our communities,” said Haim Yellin, head of the region council in Eshkol, where the shell landed, urging Israel’s government to secure a long-term calm for its citizens.
Israel’s 50-day military assault on Hamas and other militant groups in Gaza came to a halt Aug. 26 when both sides accepted an Egyptian proposal to hold their fire and agreed to begin negotiations for a more lasting cease-fire within a month. These have not yet begun.
Earlier Tuesday, Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon told reporters there were “no signs fire from the strip will resume at the end of the month, with or without the renewal of the cease-fire talks in Cairo.”
In the meanwhile, the minister said, Israel was “working to stabilize reality on the ground” by relieving restrictions on Gaza, including expanding the coastal enclave’s fishing zone and increasing the number of cargo trucks allowed into Gaza.
Yaalon said construction material would be allowed into Gaza within a month, once a special supervision mechanism was in place to ensure it goes to civilian rebuilding efforts only and not to restoring Hamas’ military infrastructure.
Israel and the Palestinians Authority have agreed to a plan proposed by the United Nations to monitor the use of construction materials in Gaza and provide security assurances so “they will not be diverted from their entirely civilian purpose,” U.N. Middle East Envoy Robert Serry reportedly told the Security Council on Tuesday.
A report from Serry’s office emphasized the importance of both sides’ demands and said either continued Israeli closure of Gaza or the smuggling of weapons by militants would set the stage for “another, even more catastrophic war.”
Palestinian economists recently estimated the reconstruction of Gaza would cost $7.8 billion, of which $2.5 billion would be needed to rebuild the homes destroyed.
According to the World Bank Group, the Gaza crisis has worsened the Palestinian Authority’s economic challenges and deepened its deficit. The group plans to assist the Palestinian Authority with an emergency development grant to cover urgent expenditure, and says an aid conference is slated for October.
Sobelman is a special correspondent.
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suburb.
Open this photo in gallery New homes being built in a development in North Oshawa. Fred Lum/The Globe and Mail
The historic downtown is enjoying a modest renaissance. Two new hotels have opened. One of the roughest streets, Celina, now boasts a board-game cafe, Brew Wizards, where patrons can sip Romeo is Bleeding stout while playing Days of Steam.
Oshawa likes to think of itself as a caring place, too. Every Sunday, a group of locals gather to hand out sandwiches and water to the needy in the city’s Memorial Park.
Mr. Henry says Oshawa has a host of groups that work with the disadvantaged, from a big addiction centre that helps clients withdraw from drugs and alcohol to a settlement house that hands backpacks full of school supplies to poor children. An agency that assists the unemployed in finding work keeps 150 suits in the basement so that clients can look presentable when they go for interviews.
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One reason Oshawa draws so many needy people, the mayor says, is that the services they need are there. Oshawa has the only urban downtown in Durham, another draw.
But some say Oshawa could be doing a lot more. One young man hanging out down by the creek says he is living in a drug house after doing a 30-day stretch in jail for theft. “Let’s be real, Oshawa has no support system for nothing,” says Zack, who prefers not to give his full name. “The community-outreach programs, there isn’t any.”
City Councillor Amy McQuaid-England wants city hall to crack down on slumlords. When she goes on door-knocking walks through the city she finds tenants complaining of everything from rats to heat that never comes on. “It’s horrible, some of the circumstances people are living in.”
Christeen Thornton, the anti-poverty activist, says the city spent millions on upgrades to its airport but can’t seem to find the money for affordable housing. “You know, asphalt needs money thrown at it,” she says sarcastically.
She accuses the city of taking a “not-our-problem” approach to the tent city by Oshawa creek.
Yet it’s there, hidden in the bush, just steps from the streets of the comeback city. As Ms. Thornton walks through the “rooms” of Tarp Mansion, a happy murmur drifts in from across the creek. It’s the sound of children playing in a nearby schoolyard.
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The 2018-19 campaign started in a somewhat controversial manner for the Red Devils as the club suffered a disappointing pre-season which led to Mourinho complaining about the lack of transfers till the time he got sacked. United endured one of the worst starts to their Premier League campaign, and the performance against arch-rivals Liverpool proved to be the final nail in the coffin for Jose Mourinho.
Manchester United appointed a former player and club legend, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer as the caretaker manager until the end of the season. The Norwegian had a stellar start to his managerial campaign, winning nine out of ten games in all competitions. The players have looked happy, and there is a sense of positivity around Old Trafford which eluded the fans for all these years.
The most notable change under Solskjaer’s reign is the performance of few of their star players like Rashford, Pogba, Lingard, and Martial. Pogba and Martial had a fallout with Jose which somewhat affected their form, but now both of them are looking a completely different player under the new manager. Even Marcus, who seemed to play under enormous pressure, is looking relaxed and has cemented his place as the number one striker in the side.
Despite some eye-catching performances, the recent 2-2 draw against Burnley and a hard-fought win against Leicester shows there are still some loopholes, and Solskjaer needs to address those immediately as a tough test lies ahead in February.
#3 AVERAGE PERFORMANCES WEEK IN AND WEEK OUT FROM ASHLEY YOUNG
Ashley Young has been a loyal servant to the club since he signed in 2011. The former Watford and Aston Villa player started his career as a left winger, but with age, he has established himself as a full back who can play in either flank.
There is no doubt about Young’s crossing ability. The way he used to curve those inswinging crosses is a delight for any forward to play. However, he has looked a mere shadow of himself in recent times. Playing as a right back under Solskjaer, Young’s crossing has been weak and so has the defending.
In a recent match against Leicester, he got caught out of position on several occasions and even overplayed a few simple passes at the other end. The problem Solskjaer faces is that United don’t have a reliable backup for Ashley Young.
Valencia is struggling for fitness and Dalot is not yet ready for the Premier League. With some tough fixtures coming up, it would be interesting to see how Solskjaer changes his tactics to get the best possible results from those games.
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George Clooney, appearing on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday, said that there was a difference between the money being raised at events he hosted for Hillary Clinton and that of Republican donors like the Koch brothers.
Asked by host Chuck Todd whether donors would enjoy better access for giving sums as high as $353,400, Clooney said, “No, I actually don’t think that is true.”
“I think there is a difference between the Koch brothers and us,” he said. He pointed to the contrasting tax policies between the parties. The ones he and other Democratic donors support “would probably cost us a lot of money” while “the Koch brothers would probably profit if they get their way.”
Clooney and his wife Amal hosted a fundraiser for Clinton at their Studio City home on Saturday. The money raised went to the Hillary Victory Fund, a joint committee for the Clinton campaign, the Democratic National Committee and state parties.
Supporters of Bernie Sanders protested down the street from the event, and even threw cash at her motorcade as it went by.
But Clooney said that one thing the Clinton campaign has not been good at explaining is that the money raised benefits Democratic candidates down ballot. Proceeds from the Victory Fund are split between the Clinton’s campaign, the Democratic National Committee and state parties.
He said that Sanders supporters were “right,” and that the money being raised was “obscene.” But the money also would be going to elect a Democratic majority in the Senate who would be tasked with confirming Supreme Court nominees committed to overturning the high court’s Citizens United decision.
“It is one of the worst laws passed since I have been around,” Clooney said.
His views are in line with a number of Hollywood Democrats who decry money in politics yet say that the party can’t disarm in the face of huge sums being raised by Republicans. Clooney cited the huge sums the Kochs have said they plan to invest in the election.
Clooney praised Clinton, noting that he had worked with her when she was Secretary of State on his signature cause, that of the crisis in Sudan. “She understood it, she understood the issue. I found her to be knowledgeable and to care about the issue,” he said.
He also praised Sanders, noting that he has brought up issues that have helped the party. “I hope he stays in for the entire election,” he said. If Sanders were to get the nomination, Clooney said that he would support him and work for him.
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of it is offensive. The fun house. The scary murderous stuff. It brings bad vibes. It’s projecting the wrong kinds of things.”
A doll of Laurie Cabot sits on a shelf inside her home in Salem. Jessica Rinaldi/Globe Staff
It is a question of intent, which is a huge part of being a witch. Intent is how witches manipulate environmental energy. And when it comes to dressing up for Samhain, the intent of a costume is to cast a spell projecting the kind of person they want to be for the New Year. “We don’t allow any devil costumes into our parties,” she said.
And intent is something Cabot is thinking about lately, as she looks back through the long lens of all that has happened in Salem since her cat went up that tree.
It is late in her story, and she knows this. She has been suffering significant health problems of late, including a recent bout of dizziness and nausea that lasted for so many weeks that she thought she was ready to go. (Doctors eventually found an ulcer, and medication has curbed the symptoms.)
But she is proud that she helped transform the city, and in some ways became its face. (And what a face it is — with an elaborate tattoo on her left cheek and huge black-framed glasses, all surrounded by a magnificent mane of black hair ringed with white.)
She has trouble walking, and spends most of her time in her apartment, seated at a dining room table covered in jewels and deer antlers and potions and other bits and bobs that she and her daughter, Penny, use to make potions and broomsticks and other tools that are sold at a store just around the corner called Enchanted. Witches from near and far make daily pilgrimages to visit her — one, earlier this week, arrived carrying a gift of a crystal that was nearly two feet long — and she is now at work on her eighth book, a memoir.
But with Halloween just around the corner, and the streets below a chaos of tourists, there is a lot of talk of all it has become.
“It’s not my fault that people practice such silliness. I didn’t set out to make Halloween such a big deal in Salem.”
No, that all started with a black cat.
Majick Spell Candles made by Laurie Cabot are for sale in Enchanted, an authentic witch shop. Jessica Rinaldi/Globe Staff
Billy Baker can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @billy_baker.
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Imagine using the same technology to locate a lone bomber before he carries out his terrorist act and to identify a troubled veteran or first responder ground down by tragedies and violence.
Stop imagining.
Some 120 local first responders from law enforcement and other agencies, the military and mental health professionals gathered Friday to hear firsthand about an advanced computer program that can accomplish those two seemingly different tasks.
The presentation was part of the International First Responder-Military Symposium held at Hilbert College in the Town of Hamburg.
A Swiss professor working with a Massachusetts Institute of Technology scientist who heads the Mind Machine Project there outlined how this program operates through computerized scanning of phone calls and electronic messages sent through e-mail and social networking mechanisms.
“Suppose you know there’s a threat to the president when he is visiting, say, Texas. Through information obtained by the National Security Agency, we have the tools to go through huge quantities of data obtained from that area,” said professor Mathieu Guidere of the University of Geneva.
How? “The computer system detects resentment in conversations through measurements in decibels and other voice biometrics,” he said. “It detects obsessiveness with the individual going back to the same topic over and over, measuring crescendos.”
As for written transmissions scrutinized by the computer program, it can detect the same patterns of fixation on specified subjects, said Guidere, who has worked for years screening mass data that involves radicalization and ideological indoctrination.
Using character traits that have been identified through psychological profiles conducted on lone bombers following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Guidere said he and his colleagues developed programs that isolate signs pointing to a potential terrorist.
He said lone bombers, in particular, are not mentally deranged but harbor hatred and deep resentment toward government. Their emotional spikes, Guidere explained, can be identified by the computer program.
The practical side is that once the individual has been identified, the information can be passed along to authorities so surveillance can begin, he said.
Currently, the computer program can review 10,000 voice or other electronic transmissions in an hour. The goal, the professor said, is to increase the capacity to 100,000 per hour.
On the civilian side, the program can be used by psychologists and other mental health providers working with war veterans, law enforcement officials and others to measure their progress in recovery.
“By recording the voice of the patient, the program can rate negativity and positivity with depression and other emotional disorders,” said Guidere, who is working with Dr. Newton Howard, director of MIT’s Mind Machine Project.
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strategy as being the mass-production of the self-driving car modules, or the "fully self-driving sensors, software and computing platform" as the Honda announcement puts it. The module is the secret sauce—the decision-making brain of the new driverless paradigm. Honda and FCA now have prime access to the secret sauce, and if it's delicious, expect them to commit to a much fuller partnership deal in the near future. Therefore, it is now every automaker for themself. Those who have spent huge sums on research and development face a very hard decision—stick with their programs, or consider ditching them for Waymo's module.
The Honda Deal Is a Watershed Moment The big difference between Honda's and FCA's work with Google is the fact that FCA had not even dipped their toes into autonomous driving research—or any demonstrated autonomous driving capability, as far as we know. FCA directors could look investors in the face and say that they had not spent millions on something that a startup company could do better. Honda, with one of the world's leading robotic groups, said in October 2015 that they wanted to have a fully self-driving car on the road by 2020, and has been testing their driverless cars at the Gomentum Station facility in California since last June. Honda has invested money into this technology, although nowhere near as much money as automakers like Daimler, Volvo, and Tesla who have longer-running and larger programs. Honda directors can probably justify a possible future partnership with Google without spending too much time justifying their own prior research expenditure in the area. The Honda collaboration is a watershed moment. An automaker with its own research and development team on self-driving technology has effectively broken ranks and declared the possibility that its own technology might not be good enough or that the project might take a lot longer than expected. To understand the magnitude of this announcement, then an appreciation of the wider automotive and self-driving context is of value. Some have almost nothing to lose and will be happy to be fast followers of Honda and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles. Expect the unspoken automakers cartel to splinter from this point. We'll likely hear more announcements from major automakers and self-driving startups at CES 2017, so stay tuned. Don't Miss: Driverless Vehicles Are Really Coming—If You're Getting a New Car, Read This First
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The first study on manta rays to use satellite telemetry has just been released. The study tracks the long journeys of the giant, up-to-25-feet-wide manta ray.
The manta ray, which is currently listed as ‘Vulnerable’ by the International Union for Conservation of Nature(IUCN), is increasingly threatened by fishing and accidental capture.
“Almost nothing is known about the movements and ecological needs of the manta ray, one of the ocean’s largest and least-known species,” said Dr. Rachel Graham, lead author on the study and director of WCS’s Gulf and Caribbean Sharks and Rays Program. “Our real-time data illuminate the previously unseen world of this mythic fish and will help to shape management and conservation strategies for this species.”
The research was done by attaching satellite trackers to manta rays off the coast of the Yucatan Peninsula. Specifically, onto six individuals, of which four are adult females, one is an adult male, and one is juvenile.
“The satellite tag data revealed that some of the rays traveled more than 1,100 kilometers during the study period,” said Dr. Matthew Witt of the University of Exeter’s Environment and Sustainability Institute. “The rays spent most of their time traversing coastal areas plentiful in zooplankton and fish eggs from spawning events.”
Manta rays are filter feeders, like whale sharks, and baleen whales. Eating by swimming through clouds of plankton and fish eggs with their mouths open, and filtering them from the water.
The research found that while they spent almost all their time in the coastal waters, they were only in marine-protected areas 11.5 percent of the time. The majority of their time was spent in areas used as major shipping routes, leaving them open to ship strikes.
“Studies such as this one are critical in developing effective management of manta rays, which appear to be declining worldwide,” said Dr. Howard Rosenbaum, Director of WCS’s Ocean Giant Program.
Regardless of how they look, they are harmless to humans. They also possess the highest brain-to-body ratio of all sharks and rays. And they give birth to live young, at a slow pace, one or two to a litter, every two years or so.
Their numbers have been decreasing around the world, largely because of being caught for shark bait and demand for their filters, used in traditional Chinese medicine.
Source: Wildlife Conservation Society
Image Credits: Manta Rays and Manta Ray Madive via Shutterstock
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Image 1 of 2 Stage winner and race leader Magnus Cort Nielsen (Team Cult Energi) (Image credit: Bettini Photo) Image 2 of 2 Nikola Aistrup, Magnus Cort and Lars Bak (Image credit: Bettini Photo)
The Orica-GreenEdge team announced today that it has signed neo-pro Magnus Cort to a three-year contract starting in 2015. Cort is a 21-year-old Danish winner of two Tour of Denmark stages and a "classy all-rounder", according to direceur sportif Matt White.
Cort moves to the WorldTour team from Cult Energy Vital Water, and recently won the overall Ronde de l'Oise, and was second overall at the Tour des Fjords, winning a stage there and leading for two days. He's racked up 10 wins so far this season to add to last year's success in the Post Denmark Tour, where he won two stages and came ninth overall.
White sees a promising future for Cort, and the team will give him what he needs to develop, as it has done for the rest of its young riders.
"The young guys we have are the best of the best – and they've shown us that by winning," White said. "We want them to keep that quality. We want to extend Magnus the support he needs to continue to win bike races while at the same time helping him develop as an athlete and a person. We know we want Mangus to win next year, and we know he has the talent do that. We'll work out with him the where, when and how."
"Most people probably perceive Magnus as a sprinter, but I wouldn't call him that," said White. "Uphill sprints are certainly his thing, but he's a pretty classy all-rounder. You only need to look at his results to see that he is multi-dimensional. We see him developing in our Classics group. He thrives in the crosswinds and can handle the style of racing we see in the spring very well. "
Cort will move to Girona next season to integrate himself with his new teammates, and is looking forward to learning the WorldTour ropes.
"I'm really happy to turn pro with ORICA-GreenEdge," said Cort. "It's a team that will give me some great opportunities to develop and allow me to be part of a really good group of people. I have been really impressed with all the contact we have had to date. I actually haven't been a bike rider for that long, but since I was a kid, I've been watching the big races. It's a dream to be on my way to racing them."
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arians. Calls went out to discontinue the grass roots initiative altogether and to merge the “March of Independence” with the official patriotic procession.
The youthful Christian nationalist organizers would have none of this. They thrive on spontaneity and bottom up enthusiasm. Any official involvement would taint that, they argue. Thus, the nationalist radicals vow to march on. They continue to sneer at their leftist and liberal detractors as unpatriotic, even traitors.
But they routinely fail to get themselves elected. As a matter of fact, unlike their predecessors, the modern day nationalist radicals are perfectly helpless and inept in democratic politics. They lack a representation in the national parliament. And they hardly register at the local level in town councils and provincial assemblies. Their command of Polish nationalist symbols and skill in pursuing extracurricular activities, including sports and self-improvement activities attracts kids on the fringe.
Thus, to a great extent, they are not a serious political movement; instead, they are enthusiastic reenactors. They can be compared to US Civil War buffs who observe the anniversary of the carnage by dressing in their Union or Confederate uniforms and reenacting marches or battles. In fact, the historical reenactors are a powerful contingent in Poland’s March of Independence. Naturally, the Christian radical nationalists of today like to take credit for the success of the mass commemorations of sovereignty. They brag that all that takes place under their auspices. To a certain extent it is true. But let us stress: They neither control the march nor the participants.
The event attracts mostly regular patriots who will continue to attend as long as they understand the march to be a grass-roots phenomenon. Any attempt at formalizing it will destroy the bottom up civic spirit and will turn the festivities into a soulless exercise of meaningless repetition. America’s spirit of July 4th can remain joyous while it reflects the authenticity of the zeal of the participating citizens. The same applies to Poland’s spirit of November 11. Let us remember about this when the Poles march next year.
As to history repeating itself, French perfidy endures. In 1683 Louis XIV moved some of his troops up to the border of the Hapsburg Empire to threaten it and thus reduce the number of Hapsburg troops that could be sent to the relief of Vienna. A French-Ottoman alliance from the 1530s, essentially against the other Christian countries in Europe, endured up to Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt in 1798.
Marek Jan Chodakiewicz is Professor of History, The Kościuszko Chair in Polish Studies, at the Institute of World Politics in Washington, DC
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every police shooting is not unjustifiable. Often, law officers are heedless, brutal, indifferent, and even sadistic. That is now rightfully grist for new media, and as a result it is an issue being highlighted for address by old media. Sometimes, the police are in a fight not of their choosing, in which case it is not police brutality if the cops win the fight. In Baltimore, we just went through that pregnant social media pause when city police, who have all kinds of deserved credibility issues, said they shot someone who was shooting at them. The rumor mill began to churn a bit until the department released the video. And yes, this time the police were returning fire in a running gun battle with one of the pursuing officers wounded.
Point being that no one sentient doesn’t see the value in all of this first-generation video content now being delivered. And social media is the delivery platform, to be sure. But what comes behind the delivery of that material still matters as much as it ever did: Particularly when you become aware of how even video content can be manipulated, edited, deconstructed by interested parties. I am as exhilarated as anyone by the digital revolution and what it allows ordinary people to acquire of the world and deliver with immediacy. But I am also intent on what an impartial, professional journalist acquires when he corroborates the video and contextualizes the video.
I like the idea that users themselves can be, and are, more empowered to answer false facts and raise questions about fake news—supplementing or complementing the traditional press. But Twitter and Facebook in particular are feeling pressured to “do something.” Often by governments. Many conservatives are absolutely certain that the platforms are biased against them and are censoring them. Progressive activists are equally certain that they’re the targets of censorship. After Brexit and the election of President Trump, the governments around the world are looking for someone easy to blame for the weird political moment we’re in. Internet platforms are new, so they’re an easy target. The way TV used to be. And movies and radio before that.
OK. I don’t dispute that Twitter and other such platforms are being bashed from all points of the political compass. Same for old media for all of its history. That goes with the job.
I’m saying they have responded by doing the wrong fucking something. They are responding in such a way that they are, in effect, normalizing the worst kind of organized disinformation and hate speech. They have set up a both-sides construct that is disturbingly reminiscent of the Trumpian reaction to Charlottesville.
It’s a kind of abdication.
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_KEY ). subscribe ( user, LIST_ID )
Where do you get the API_KEY and LIST_ID from? It doesn’t really matter, as long as it’s not in the Subscription or User classes that fetch it. Every class should have a single reason to change, and if you need to change your User model because you changed the way you store your email marketing API key, you’re doing it wrong.
Where do you put this class? Again, it doesn’t really matter. Maybe something like lib/email_marketing/subscription might make sense. When you later decide to add lib/email_marketing/campaign, it won’t look as stupid as having all that code in the models.
Why isn’t subscribe a class method? There are many reasons why you should use instance methods and save yourself some trouble.
Because of the problems mentioned earlier, the only way to solve this issue correctly is to use a background queue such as Sidekiq or Resque. There is one thing that’s always true for interacting with 3rd party services, they will fail occasionally. It’s not a question of if, it’s a question of when, and you have to be ready for it.
It’s completely normal that a service goes down for a few seconds or even minutes every now and then. If you have the subscription logic in your controller when the user is signing up, he might end up registering an account but because the request to Mailchimp fails he actually won’t get added to the mailing list.
This is why you have to use a background service that will try to add the user to the list, and if that fails it will automatically re-schedule a retry.
class UsersController < ApplicationController def create @user = User. new ( user_params ) if @user. save EmailSubscriptionWorker. perform_async ( @user. id ) redirect_to root_path, notice: "Welcome!" else render :new end end end class EmailSubscriptionWorker include Sidekiq :: Worker def perform ( user_id ) api_key, list_id = # read this from some config user = User. find ( user_id ) EmailMarketing :: Subscription. new ( api_key ). subscribe ( user. email, list_id ) end end
You could also have a cron job that periodically checks if all users are signed up for the service, as an alternative to the background worker, but using a queue is a far superior solution.
Written by Jakub Arnold of sensible.io
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ESPN Films today announced a new 30 for 30 film that will debut in 2015 as part of the award-winning and critically-acclaimed documentary series. “I Hate Christian Laettner,” directed by Rory Karpf (“The Book of Manning,” “Tim Richmond: To The Limit”), will premiere Sunday, March 15, at 9 p.m. ET after Bracketology on ESPN. Through interviews with former teammates and rivals as well as Laettner himself, the film explores why the polarizing basketball player was—and still is—so disliked.
“I Hate Christian Laettner;” Sunday, March 15, at 9 p.m. ET on ESPN
He made perhaps the most dramatic shot in the history of the NCAA basketball tournament. He’s the only player to start in four consecutive Final Fours, and was instrumental in Duke winning two national championships. He had looks, smarts and game. So why has Christian Laettner been disliked so intensely by so many for so long? Maybe it was the time he stomped on the chest of a downed player, or the battles he had with his teammates, or a perceived sense of entitlement. But sometimes, perception isn’t reality.
“I Hate Christian Laettner” will go beyond the polarizing persona to reveal the complete story behind this lightning rod of college basketball. Featuring extensive access to Laettner, previously unseen footage and perspectives from all sides, this film will be a “gloves-off” examination of the man who has been seen by many as the “Blue Devil Himself.”
Additional information including film clips and director statements and bios will be available on the 30 for 30 website espn.com/30for30; Follow 30 for 30 on Facebook (facebook.com/espn30for30) and Twitter (@30for30).
About ESPN Films
Created in March 2008, ESPN Films produces high-quality films showcasing some of the most compelling stories in sports. In October 2009, ESPN Films launched the Peabody Award-winning, Producer’s Guild Award-winning and Emmy-nominated 30 for 30 film series. Inspired by ESPN’s 30th Anniversary, the films that made up the series were a thoughtful and innovative reflection on the past three decades told through the lens of diverse and interesting sports fans and social commentators. The strong reaction from both critics and fans led to the launch of 30 for 30 Volume II, which is currently underway. Additional projects from ESPN Films include the critically acclaimed Nine for IX series, SEC Storied and the webby award winning 30 for 30 Shorts.
-30-
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The Chief Executive of Booking Holdings, the company behind Booking, Priceline, Kayak, Cheapflights, and Rentalcares, believes cryptocurrencies will be ‘widely accepted’ someday. Glenn Fogel told Skift that he believes blockchain will continue to grow across the globe.
If you’ve ever traveled, you’ve inevitably stumbled across one of the many firms owned by Booking Holdings. From Booking to Priceline to Cheapflights, the firm has a large sway over the tourism industry globally. Now, its Chief Executive, Glenn Fogel, has come out to support cryptocurrencies in a big way — he’s definitely bullish on the industry and blockchain technology long-term.
Booking CEO A Crypto-Believer
In an interview with Skift, Fogel told the media outlet that there is “potential for a new form of global currency which is protected and secure.” Although this could possibly still be Bitcoin (BTC), many still question its legitimacy. Ultimately, Fogel is of the opinion that the ‘blockchain base’ will continue to expand and be more widely accepted. Interestingly, Fogel also believes that cryptocurrencies will find significant traction outside of the U.S. due to it having “a well-accepted credit card payment system.”
Fogel believes that, ultimately, the future will be wholly digital. He envisions a future where most payments will be done via your smartphone — cash “will become rare” as the digital economy becomes ever more important. Of course, blockchain and cryptocurrencies will be central to this evolution which is already happening right in front of our eyes.
What to Expect for the Future
Despite his optimism about the cryptocurrency industry in the long-term, none of Booking Holdings’ firms currently accept cryptocurrencies. Perhaps we can expect them to be added in the near future, given that this is the first time Fogel has publicly supported the industry.
Booking Holdings, however, has still been looking closely at jumping into the cryptocurrency space nonetheless. Recently, the conglomerate announced its intent to be a partner in Facebook’s Libra Association which would mean it would run a node for the network.
A global currency like the Libra could potentially solve the “travel payments dilemma” and help to better streamline the world economy. Being a major player in this sector, Booking Holdings is clearly looking at this development very closely.
Do you agree that the travel industry has much to gain from the cryptocurrency industry? Let us know your thoughts below in the comments.
Buy and trade cryptocurrencies with a 100x multiplier on our partner exchange, StormGain.
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Black Rock City, NV – The WikiLeaks drama has come home to roost in Black Rock City. Among the many documents to be published by the infamous whistle blower site is a trove of tens of pages relating to secrets that have been jealously guarded by the BORG. Many of them not only reveal clandestine plans and motivations of the BORG, but also how the BORG really feels about some of the more prominent camps that make their home on the Playa. The documents were spirited out of BORG headquarters by a DMV Hottie known as Flounder, using only a dubstep CD and a naked lady flash drive. It would seem a use for dubsteb has finally been found.
Among the revelations:
The café in center camp is a fully functioning creature of Starbucks. Starbucks not only siphons off profits from Burners who patronize the café, but they do so using volunteer labor of attendees who are unaware that they’re in fact unpaid Starbucks baristas.
Another leaked cable will show how the BORG offered free Burning Man tickets to the organizers of the Lollapalooza and Coachella festivals if they’d each agree to take the Dubstep DJs and Steampunk population over to their events.
Documents will illustrate BORG officials conspiring with NASA to keep Mercury permanently in Retrograde.
They will also expose Larry Harvey’s plan to use the Burning Man phenomenon to launch the world’s newest organized religion in much the same way that L. Ron Hubbard did.
We will also learn that 2009’s rumor about Daft Punk performing on the 3 o’clock side of town was perpetrated by First Camp. The purpose was to draw thousands of Burners to that side of town so that the REAL Daft Punk could play a show on the opposite side of town where only “the cool kids” would be in attendance.
Perhaps most embarrassing were the internal memos in which high ranking BORG members expressed their honest opinions about several of the more prominent camps and events at Burning Man.
One BORG member called Death Guild “feckless, vain and unoriginal…for a tribe of cannibals”. Another took a dim view of the Root Society saying their music was “trash”. Still others complained that Opulent Temple had jumped the shark and needed to have new placement somewhere less embarrassing than the Esplanade.
But the biggest bombshell was an internal memo from Larry to key BORG personnel that not only outlines his master plan to increase commercialness, but it reveals that Burning Man will officially become “Too Commercial” in 2012.
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Morgan Schneiderlin has signed a four-and-a-half year deal at Everton for a fee rising to £24m.
The Frenchman departs Manchester United after 18 months at the club and will be reunited with former boss Ronald Koeman.
Schneiderlin moved to Old Trafford for £25m in the summer of 2015 but after one season under Louis van Gaal he fell out of favour when Jose Mourinho took over for the current campaign,
The 27-year-old has made just eight appearances under the Portuguese, and only three in the Premier League as a substitute, and Koeman is hopeful the move to Goodison Park will bring out the best in the midfielder as he puts his Mourinho nightmare behind him.
"Morgan is really hungry to show his qualities and to play because that is the best thing for a football player," said the Dutchman.
"You are born as a football player to play games, not to sit on the bench or not be part of the team.
"But this is a new step, it's a new future and he will show his qualities. I am convinced of that."
Schneiderlin said he wanted to move to "a club with big ambition and great expectations" and insisted he is "hungry as ever and (ready) to eat football again".
"There is a manager in place here that I know, I know he can get the best out of me, I know his style and how he likes to play football," he said.
"He was very good with me from the start and I enjoyed playing football under him.
"He was very good for me and, obviously, he was a massive player in his playing days and you can only learn from the best.
"At Southampton he gave me some great advice to keep improving every day and it was a pleasure to work with him.
"We spoke since the time I knew Everton would be interested. I know his ambition and why he came here.
"He believes in this and I do, too. We are trying to achieve something here and this is what I am here for.
Schneiderlin in training with Memphis Depay (Getty Images)
"I just want to play football. I want to put my print on this club and do everything to get Everton where it belongs.
"I know the fans have big expectations and we'll do everything to make them come true."
The Toffees have already signed 19-year-old forward Ademola Lookman from Charlton for £11m and agreed a £10.4m fee with Standard Liege for Algeria forward Ishak Belfodil.
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One in three Americans would 'fail citizenship test'
In contrast, 97 per cent of immigrants pass
Many are unsure how power is shared out between federal and state governments
A survey has found that around one third of U.S. citizens would fail the country's citizenship test for immigrants.
The study, conducted by the Center for the Study of the American Dream at Xavier University, in Cincinnati, Ohio, found that one in three respondents would fail the civics portion of the test given to those applying for U.S. citizenship.
More than 1,000 Americans over the age of 18 were asked 10 random questions from the civics test, which asks about US history and government topics.
Of those questioned, 35 per cent were unable to answer the pass mark of five correctly.
Nationality: 97 per cent of immigrants pass the U.S. citizenship test
TEN SAMPLE QUESTIONS
The House of Representatives has how many voting members?
We elect a President for how many years?
What is the name of the President of the United States now?
If the President can no longer serve, who becomes President?
What is the highest court in the United States?
What do we show loyalty to when we say the Pledge of Allegiance?
Who lived in America before the Europeans arrived?
When was the Declaration of Independence adopted?
There were 13 original states. Name three.
What territory did the United States buy from France in 1803?
The most common questions people got wrong revolved around the different functions of government, and how power was distributed between the federal and state governments.
Seventy-five per cent of respondents didn’t know what the judicial branch does, while 71 per cent could not name the U.S. constitution as the 'law of the land.'
Furthermore, 57 per cent could not define what an amendment was.
Most of those surveyed did the best on history and geography-related questions.
Despite this, another study found that 60 per cent of Americans believe that being able to pass the government portion of the naturalization exam is a prerequisite for a high school diploma.
There are two parts to the citizenship exam, namely the English test and the civics test.
In the English test, an applicant's ability to speak, read and write using the language are all assessed.
In the civics portion, the applicant is quizzed on US history and government topics.
According to U.S. News and World Report, 97 per cent of immigrants applying for U.S. citizenship pass the test.
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The House of Representatives will vote next week on a landmark marijuana banking bill with broad bipartisan support, Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer announced Friday.
“We will consider several bills under suspension of the rules, including H.R. 1595, the SAFE Banking Act of 2019, as amended,” Mr. Hoyer, Maryland Democrat, said on the House floor.
Formally titled the Secure and Fair Enforcement Banking Act, the bill would effectively establish legal protections for banks that service legitimate marijuana businesses in the face of federal prohibition.
Thirty-three states have legalized the medicinal use of marijuana, including 10 that also permit recreational use among adults. Marijuana is federally outlawed, however, creating obstacles for growers, sellers and other stakeholders hoping to do business with licensed banks.
“The SAFE Banking Act is focused solely on taking cash off the streets and making our communities safer,” Rep. Ed Perlmutter, Colorado Democrat and the bill’s main sponsor, said when he introduced it in March. “Only Congress can provide the certainty financial institutions need to start banking legitimate marijuana businesses — just like any other legal business — and reduce risks for employees, businesses and communities across the country.”
The bill has since garnered the support of 206 co-sponsors in the House, including 26 Republicans, while companion legislation pending in the GOP-controlled Senate currently lists 33 co-sponsors, mostly Democrats.
Skeptics on in both chambers of Congress have been recently vocal about the effort, however, including notably progressives seeking broader reform. A staffer for Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, New York Democrat, indicated that the congresswoman may vote against the bill because it lacks provisions addressing social equity, saying she “feels strongly that addressing racial justice should be the first priority,” the Marijuana Moment news site reported.
“As I said earlier this year, any marijuana legislation moving through Congress must include restorative justice for those most harmed by the War on Drugs in order to get my vote,” Sen. Cory Booker, New Jersey Democrat, echoed Friday.
Mr. Hoyer said the House bill will be considered under a process known as suspension of the rules, meaning it will require approval from two-thirds of the chamber, or 290 members, in order to pass.
Mr. Perlmutter, its main sponsor, plans to make changes ahead of the upcoming vote to broaden the bill’s appeal among Republicans, Marijuana Moment reported.
No vote has been scheduled for the Senate bill.
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Mount Lanayru, circles the mountaintop for a while, and then travels west heading to Lanayru road. She disappears into the water near the end of it.
Wait until morning, anywhere. If you've just done Dinraal the timing should be ideal to come here second. Teleport to Jitan Sa'Mi Shrine. Exit shrine, climb to the top of the mountain. From the mountaintop, jump off and glide to the west. See this image. The blue route is for the dragon, the yellow route is what you are trying to do. You should arrive quite a bit before Naydra (she won't spawn while you're on the mountain) and she approximately follows the blue route. After landing at the yellow circle you should be able to look up at Mount Lanayru and see Naydra. For me this caused her to spawn 100% of the time before about 7:30 AM. Just north of the yellow circle is where you want to intercept her. Note that she travels quite a bit faster than it appears so you want to jump ahead of her to catch her.
Farosh [ edit ]
Farosh is the biggest pain for a lot of reasons. He has multiple places he can spawn that are far away from each other, making him inconsistent. When he does spawn he likes to dive in and out of water making it hard to time when to hit him. When you do get close, he throws out lightning that will drop you right out of the sky, rubber armor be damned. Wear Thunder Helm does help if you have completed its quest.
Farosh is easiest to find at 5:00am (morning) at Riola Spring. The lake is closest to Shoda Sah Shrine which is closest to Faron Tower. It will spawn from the center of the lake. If you try mining it will not show up the next morning, but after normal gameplay he spawns there the next morning. The Shard of Farosh's Horn is easy to get from this location as when the dragon spawns it creates an updraft and its horn is pointing straight up. If a fire is created under one of the big trees around the lake you can sleep there even if it is raining.
Additionally, he likes to sometimes spawn in Lake Hylia and circle around that diving in and out of the water. You should be able to see him from the Lake Tower if that is the case, but I find this one to be much more obnoxious to hit him at and prefer Floria Bridge.
Conclusion [ edit ]
Like most things in breath of the wild, conquering the spirits of Power, Wisdom, and Courage requires more in prep work and figuring out what to do than actually doing it.
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cnxps.cmd.push(function () { cnxps({ playerId: '36af7c51-0caf-4741-9824-2c941fc6c17b' }).render('4c4d856e0e6f4e3d808bbc1715e132f6'); });
The IDF has removed an officer from his position after investigations found that he had acted wrongly when a force under his commander broke the cameras of foreign journalists in the West Bank last week.On September 25, Givati Brigade soldiers at Bet Furik smashed the cameras of two Agence France-Presse reporters who had arrived to film a Palestinian demonstration.In a story it wrote about the incident, AFP said the IDF threw Italian video journalist Andrea Bernardi to the ground, jabbed him with a weapon and held him down until he produced a press card and that soldiers took away the camera of Palestinian photographer Abbas Momani.Following that incident “in which a force commander behaved in a manner that is incompatible with expectations of an IDF commander, an operational investigation was launched by the head of the sector, and an additional investigation was launched by the commander of the Givati Brigade, Col. Yaron Finkelman,” the IDF said.On Thursday, the Southern Command Headquarters chief, Brig.-Gen. Udi Ben Mohad, accepted Finkelman’s position that the officer had failed in his duties, and should be ejected from his position.“We will examine the continuation of the officer’s service,” the military source added.Last week, MK Nachman Shai wrote a letter to Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon demanding that he instruct the IDF to investigate the incident and make it clear that such behavior must change.“It cannot be that IDF soldiers harm and attack members of the press,” Shai said. “The job of the press is to be everywhere all the time. It is an inseparable part of reality. Breaking cameras and exercising violence teaches the journalists that the soldiers and their commanders do not understand the basic values of democracy – first and foremost, freedom of expression.”In edited video from the incident, two men are wearing helmets and flak jackets marked “Press,” and a soldier can be seen throwing one of their cameras to the ground, breaking it.The two photographers then walk away, but a soldier runs after them. A jeep pulls up and other soldiers come out. Again, the soldiers take one of their cameras and break it.The Foreign Press Association issued a statement denouncing the conduct of the soldiers.Tovah Lazaroff and Jerusalem Post staff contributed to this report.
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Richard Ojeda (Credit: Richard Ojeda) West Virginia state senate candidate brutally beaten with brass knuckles at campaign event The Democratic Army veteran assured followers on Facebook that he wouldn't let this attack intimidate him
Two days ahead of the West Virginia state senate primary, a Democratic candidate attending a campaign event was brutally beaten with brass knuckles in what police -- but not the candidate -- are calling a politically motivated attack, The Herald-Dispatch reports.
Richard Ojeda was attending a cookout at the home of a supporter when a man, later identified as Jonathan Porter, asked the candidate to help him affix a bumper sticker to his car. When the former Army officer bent over to place the sticker on the bumper, however, Porter knocked him unconscious by beating him about the head with brass knuckles.
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Porter continued to punch and kick Ojeda until neighbors noticed. They called 911 and attempted to prevent Porter from running over an unconscious Ojeda or escaping, parking all-terrain vehicles to block his path, but he barreled through them.
He did, however, turn himself into police six hours later. Porter is currently being held on three charges of assault.
Ojeda's opponent is fellow Democrat Art Kirkendoll, who upon learning of the attack claimed no foreknowledge of it. In a statement, he said that "I do not now, nor have I ever, condoned violence. It has no place in our political campaigns or in our communities. My and my family’s thoughts and prayers are with my opponent and his family and we wish him a speedy recovery."
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For his part, Ojeda posted a picture of himself on Facebook along with a statement and an apology. "Sorry for the pic but make no mistake, I am now even more dedicated to the cause," he said. "This doesn’t scare me and I don’t quit! This was premeditated and there was a reason the guy did this. Regardless, if anyone thinks that this will get me to march in line you obviously don’t know me very well."
Ojeda later acknowledged that he knows both his assailant and his assailant's family, writing on Facebook that "I haven't spoken to that Jonathan idiot in years which tells me that there was more to this. I do know that he is an embarrassment to his brother and I do not hold any of this against Harold. I would like to give a huge 'Thank You' to Kendall Dingess and a few others for keeping the knucklehead from running my unconscious body over with his truck."
Watch a report on the beating via WSAZ-TV below.
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Rural municipalities in BC affected by Greyhound’s upcoming service cancellations across BC and Alberta are scrambling to find alternatives to ensure their communities remain connected.
The District of Lillooet, located two hours northeast of Whistler on Highway 99, wants the Union of BC Municipalities (UBCM) to consider a resolution at its upcoming conference next month to lobby the provincial government to study the feasibility of a passenger rail service between North Vancouver and Prince George.
Such a service would essentially reactivate a long-cancelled BC Rail passenger service between North Vancouver and Lillooet, as well as communities further north.
The resolution proposes the provincial government to “work in partnership with VIA Rail to fund and conduct a feasibility study” as “public rail transportation will improve public safety, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and enhance development opportunities throughout the former BC Rail corridor.”
According to the District, the provincial government’s sale of BC Rail to CN Rail in 2002 was “economically devastating to many communities in the BC Interior” and the planned withdrawal by Greyhound in BC will only serve to reduce transportation options to these rural communities even further.
Currently, the only passenger service that operates on the tracks that run parallel to the Highway 99 corridor from North Vancouver is by the Rocky Mountaineer, which runs an upscale, vacation train service that stops at Whistler and Quesnel. Prices for this seasonal excursion start at around $3,000.
The company previously had Vancouver to Whistler-only itineraries, but they were discontinued in 2015.
On the road in good conditions, it takes roughly nine hours to drive from North Vancouver to Prince George. The alternative of a flight is only 70 minutes long, but one-way tickets can cost as much as $500, especially during peak seasons.
This is not the first time the UBCM considered such a motion to reinstitute passenger rail service between North Vancouver and Prince George. It approved a similar resolution in 2003 after the loss of BC Rail’s passenger service, and the call was made again in 2016.
There are already serious discussions behind a potential public transit express bus service that will link Vancouver, Squamish, Whistler and Pemberton, based on a BC Transit study conducted last year that recommended such a service.
And just ahead of last year’s provincial election, then-Premier Christy Clark teased the idea of studying high-speed rail between Vancouver, Squamish and Whistler.
Municipal officials across BC will descend on Whistler in mid-September for the UBCM conference.
See also
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This is an archived article and the information in the article may be outdated. Please look at the time stamp on the story to see when it was last updated.
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THORNTON, Colo. -- Construction crews working on Thornton’s new public safety facility uncovered a rare dinosaur fossil.
Crews working at the site at 132nd Avenue and Quebec Street uncovered what appeared to be a triceratops skull and skeleton on Friday.
Scientists from the Denver Museum of Nature and Science went to the site and confirmed the find.
“My heart was racing,” museum curator of dinosaurs Joe Sertich said. “I realized it was a pretty important dinosaur find.
“This is probably one of only three skulls of triceratops found along the Front Range area."
Most fossil finds along the Front Range are from the ice age, just 10,000 to 12,000 years old, but this fossil is much older, and much rarer, Sertich said.
“This dinosaur has been laying here for at least 66 million years,” Sertich said. “I’m over the moon right now about this dinosaur fossil.”
Construction crews uncovered a rare dinosaur fossil in Thornton on Friday, Aug. 25, 2017. (Photo: City of Thornton)
Construction crews uncovered a rare dinosaur fossil in Thornton on Friday, Aug. 25, 2017. (Photo: City of Thornton)
Construction crews uncovered a rare dinosaur fossil in Thornton on Friday, Aug. 25, 2017. (Photo: City of Thornton)
Construction crews uncovered a rare dinosaur fossil in Thornton on Friday, Aug. 25, 2017. (Photo: City of Thornton)
Construction crews uncovered a rare dinosaur fossil in Thornton on Friday, Aug. 25, 2017. (Photo: City of Thornton)
Construction crews uncovered a rare dinosaur fossil in Thornton on Friday, Aug. 25, 2017. (Photo: City of Thornton)
Sertich said officials were "really lucky" the bones were recognized as fossils.
“A lot of times these will be plowed up and they won’t be recognized,” Sertich said.
Construction crews have stopped work in the area of the fossil find, officials with the city of Thornton said.
"The DMNS scientists will stabilize the area, carefully expose the fossil, look for any other bones that remain uncovered, and safely extract them," city officials stated.
Scientists hope to eventually house the fossil at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science.
39.93582 -104.903017
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This article was first published on RNZ.co.nz and is republished with permission.
GPs are planning to do most of their consultations online or over the phone from tomorrow.
SUPPLIED Patients who need to be physically seen by a GP will still have talk to their doctor over the phone first.
Many clinics were preparing for the shift this weekend.
It is part of a plan to limit the number of people sitting together in a waiting room as the government warns that people should limit their contact with each other.
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The College of GPs confirmed the move this afternoon.
Those who need to be physically seen by a GP will still be able to go to their clinic but in many cases will talk to their doctor over the phone first.
"In view of the government's suggested restrictions announced yesterday, we believe it is important to keep vulnerable patients safe by reducing the number of people in GP waiting rooms," said college president Dr Samantha Murton.
"We have not taken this decision lightly, but we have spoken with many of our health sector colleagues and Māori partners, and we are confident this is the right action to take at this time.
"We want patients to be assured that continuity of care will continue. Many of our elderly patients will continue to need care if they are in their homes and this is a way that we can look after them as well."
Morton said family doctors in Italy had shared their experience with their New Zealand colleagues "and reducing non-essential in person consults is a key message that we can, and must, take onboard".
She said medical centres had been advised to communicate the changed approach to their patients.
"These are extraordinary times and require extraordinary measures. We are at a crossroads. If we do not act immediately, we will lose an important opportunity to help control this virus."
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced a four-level alert system to manage the risks and response to coronavirus yesterday.
Under Level 3 of the coronavirus alert system, primary care consultations would need to be virtual.
The country is still at alert Level 2 but many companies and organisations are already stepping up before tougher restrictions are mandatory.
This article was first published on RNZ.co.nz and is republished with permission.
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Image copyright Lilly Singh Image caption Lilly Singh has gone from videos of tying turbans to global stardom on YouTube in a few years
YouTuber Lilly Singh, also known as Superwoman, has announced she is taking a break from the video platform.
The Canadian-born content creator is stepping away from YouTube after eight years for her mental health.
She promised fans she will "be back happier and healthier" after her time off.
A prolific and popular YouTuber, Ms Singh has over 14 million subscribers on her channels and is among the platform's highest earning stars.
"I am mentally, physically, emotionally and spiritually exhausted," she said in a video posted on Monday night.
The comedian and actress said she was struggling with burnout after posting nonstop videos since 2010.
Ms Singh said she is not "particularly proud" with some of recent content and needs time to reflect the kinds of videos she wants to create.
"The thing about YouTube is, in all of its glory, it kind of is a machine and it makes creators believe that we have to pump out content consistently even at the cost of our health and our life and our mental happiness," she said.
Ms Singh said she is not permanently leaving the platform and is not sure of how long she will be away.
"I'm not making any rules. This might be a one week break, this might be a one month break - I have no idea," she said.
The 30-year-old comedian and actress began her YouTube channel in 2010. Much of her content early on focused on her Indian heritage and her ethnic background but she soon expanded her subject matter, including filming daily behind-the-scenes vlogs.
By 2013, her character had built a solid fan base predominantly among South Asian teenage girls living in the US, Canada, UK and Australia.
In 2016, Ms Singh earned £5.7m ($7.4m) making her the third highest paid YouTuber in the world, according to Forbes magazine.
Her career has since grown beyond YouTube. She released a self-help book last year, made a movie, and has done philanthropic work.
On social media, fans supported her decision to take a hiatus.
Ms Singh is not the first YouTuber to take a break from the platform. A number of online content stars have recently announced they were putting their channels on hold, including Spanish YouTuber Rubén Doblas Gundersen, known as El Rubius.
One of the world's most popular YouTubers, in May he decided to take time off, saying he felt he was headed for a breakdown.
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The Brexit Party says it has received “milkshake threats” ahead of a meeting planned for Margate.
The meeting, from 7pm tomorrow (October 25), will see six Brexit Party candidates from across east Kent speak about what they would campaign for in a general election.
In response, Rob Yates, Labour councillor for Margate Central, has organised a “singing protest” outside the hotel to showcase everyone is welcome in the town.
But one of Thanet’s Brexit Party candidates says they should be welcomed too.
Brexit deal: Is Boris Johnson trying to rush through withdrawal agreement?
John Fitzpatrick, the North Thanet candidate, has called for unity amongst the Brexit Party and protesters.
In an open letter to Cllr Yates, he said: “It seems odd that those who profess to welcome everybody to Margate should not want to welcome prospective parliamentary candidates not only from Margate itself, but from Herne Bay, Canterbury, Sittingbourne and Sheppey, Gillingham and Rainham, and Ashford.
“Are we too foreign or too unfashionable for your idea of Margate?
“One of the candidates has, in connection with the meeting, received ‘milkshake’ threats. Other opponents have expressly suggested the meeting be cancelled.
KentLive WhatsApp breaking news alerts To receive KentLive breaking news and top stories alerts via WhatsApp, text NEWS to 07880 442229. Please then add 07880 442229 to your phone contacts as 'KentLive' in order to receive the alerts. You cannot receive the alerts if you do not add the number to your contacts. Your phone number will not be shared with other members of the group.
“Many of those attending the meeting have spent their lives fighting for social justice, and providing legal advice and representation to immigrants and refugees.
“As trade unionists or in political parties they have opposed unjust immigration and asylum laws, organised anti-deportation campaigns, and have fought actual racism and many other forms of unlawful discrimination.
“I understand the choir welcomes all comers - I know many people at the Brexit Party meeting would gladly join in a singing welcome to people from all over the world.
“You do not care more about these matters than we do. I will assume you care just as much.
“Let us proceed on that basis, and show together that Margate can provide a good example to this increasingly fractured country as to how political differences might be conducted.”
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The University of Tennessee released documents last night which showed texts and emails from now former AD John Currie during the tumultuous coaching search. These documents have confirmed some suspicions that we’ve had, but they have also given us new information about what the initial plan was to find Tennessee’s next football coach.
According to the documents, Dan Mullen was the first person to be contacted by John Currie.
Currie’s first contact was with Mullen. Clint Dowdle, who works for agency CAA Sports, told Currie on the night of Nov. 22 that Mullen wanted to set a time to talk to Currie two days later, the Friday morning after Mississippi State’s regular-season finale against Ole Miss on Thanksgiving night. (Via GoVols247)
Consider the timeline here. Florida was reportedly in pursuit of Chip Kelly, who decided to turn them down and head out west to UCLA on that Saturday, the 25th. On November 19th, we speculated that the UCLA job opening could change things in a big way for Currie. It certainly seems like it did just that as Florida quickly pivoted to Mullen.
Just before noon on Saturday, Nov. 25, Mullen messaged Currie: “Good luck today. Talked with Peyton last night. Look forward to seeing you tomorrow.” According to the messages, Currie told Dowdle to sent Mullen a memorandum of understanding, and the two appeared to have contact scheduled for 11 a.m. on Sunday, Nov. 26, but his last message to Mullen on the night of Nov. 25 -- “So tomorrow work?” -- went unanswered. Mullen was hired on Florida’s coach that Sunday. (Via GoVols247)
With Mullen off the table, Currie went to his backup plan in Greg Schiano. We all know how that turned out.
Interestingly enough, the documents revealed that Georgia Tech’s Paul Johnson had his representatives reach out to Currie to express interest in the job. Les Miles, the former head coach of LSU, had a friend reach out to Currie to express interest.
Even Brady Hoke took one last shot at landing the job, sending an all-caps text to Currie.
“JOHN I HOPE YOU DO KNOW I WOULD LIKE TO BE YOUR HEAD FOOTBALL COACH I DO KNOW THE ENVIRONMENT WE LIVE IN AND WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE AT TENNESSEE!”
Read the full details of the release at GoVols247. It’s absolutely fascinating stuff that every Tennessee fan needs to sift through.
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Merry Christmas everybody! Today we have another banner analysis by AetherRose, hoping to help you decide whether or not to pull! If you want more information or you'd just like to drop in and chat, you can at our discord! This might come off as a little biased, but I really think we're a pretty merry bunch, so I can't wait to see you there! Anyways, I hope the holidays have been treating you all well and I am so excited to finally have a look at this banner, especially after I've already personally dropped 15,000 Haro Chips into it. The odds on this banner are absolutely stellar, just like the Parts on it! I think this is a wonderful Christmas Present! I've been good this year, Bamco, so I'll take my full set now please and thank you!
Before actually getting into the banner, I'd like to lay down some ground rules like I usually do. First up, this is all my opinion. While it is my opinion, it's a very well informed one, and one that's steeped in the end objective, ultimately, of "Should You Pull". What that means is that I take into account how the Parts compare with existing Parts and how easily they could synergize with a wide variety of builds. This doesn't mean my ratings are perfect for you, however, because at the end of the day, the only way you're really going to reach the top of your game is by analyzing these Parts yourself in the context of what you already own and have going.
Secondly, and more importantly, do not pull on this or any banner hoping for a single Part, unless you are whaling! The odds will always be abysmal, and we get so many people that complain about doing EXACTLY this and not getting what they want, when the odds of that happening was something like 0.2%. Just don't waste your Haro Chips. Pull for banners, not Parts.
Third, SS is considered meta defining, S is meta, A is great, B is average, C is below average, D is considered well below average, and F is awful. Parts are compared to all other Parts as a whole and on how well they synergize with other Parts. This means a 4* and a 3* would be compared to everything as low as a 1* to as high as other 4*s.
Last but not least, an EX Skill with D/B at 21/6 CD means it has a D in Piercing, B in Power, a 21 second cooldown, and it’s available for use 6 seconds after the match starts. All Part Traits and EX Skills are listed as they are at MAX LEVEL.
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Page Content
Division of Highways Officials Give Update on Progress
CHARLESTON, WV-
Following this morning’s emergency closure of the eastbound lanes on the I-64 St. Albans/Nitro Bridge, to make repairs to a failing expansion joint, the West Virginia Division of Highways held a press conference to explain what happened and the plan to make repairs.
During the event, DOH officials provided an update on the timeframe for the project, announcing that they are aiming to have the bridge repaired and reopened within the next 48 hours. Friday morning commuters are strongly encouraged to adjust their travel times accordingly.
In addition to the previous release, the WVDOH offers the following updates:
•Law enforcement is currently on-site at multiple intersections to assist our crews. We coordinated with them to provide flaggers at intersections between 6:30 – 9:00 a.m. tomorrow morning so that our maintenance crews can focus on snow removal and ice control.
•DOH contracting partners Brayman Construction and Span One assisting DOH crews.
•Our signal crew is currently extending green times at key intersections.
•Kentucky and Ohio DOT have been notified and will use appropriate message boards and social media to support us.
•WAZE has been notified so that the incident is verified, and they know this is an emergency repair which may last 24-48 hours.
•Message boards along I-64 and US 35 have messaging regarding project and detour.
•Coordinating, internally, with DOH Districts 1 and 2 on the placement of portable message signs to support detour routes.
•All counties impacted by detours have been contacted.
•DOH has contacted Kanawha County Sheriff and Putnam County Sheriff to assist with detour monitoring/traffic flagging as needed.
•Incident information has been populated and is being updated on DOT and WV511Facebook and Twitter.
DOH officials advise that westbound traffic may also be affected by slowdowns as the detoured traffic makes its way through the system. Motorists traveling on I-64 West are asked to slow down and be alert.
The West Virginia Department of Transportation asks you to please use caution when driving in work zones — Just. Slow. Down. It’s everybody’s responsibility. Drivers should download the WV 511 app for regular traffic and road work updates or go to the website at www.WV511.org. For information about the project, visit Drive Forward WV or the WVDOT Facebook.
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【7月28日 AFP】国際動物福祉基金（IFAW）は27日、アイスランドがミンククジラ漁から撤退したと明らかにした。捕獲頭数の激減で収益が落ち込み、地元の捕鯨会社が閉鎖に追い込まれたためだ。
アイスランドのミンククジラ捕獲枠は262頭だが、6月の捕獲数は6頭、通常なら捕獲数が最大となる7月は1頭も捕れず、今期はアイスランドが2003年に捕鯨を再開して以来、最も捕獲数の少ないシーズンとなった。昨年の捕鯨シーズンの捕獲数は17頭、2016年は46頭だった。
アイスランドの捕鯨会社「IP-Utgerd」のグンナル・ヨンソン（Gunnar Jonsson）社長もAFPに対し、同社が専門とするミンククジラ漁からの撤退を認めた。
ヨンソン社長はアイスランド紙「モルゲンブラディット（Morgunbladid）」に、「クジラを追ってこれまでより遠方まで船を出さなければならなくなった。それにはより多くの人員が必要となり、コスト負担が大きい」と語っている。(c)AFP
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ostics.FileVersionInfo]::GetVersionInfo($SourceNTDLL).FileVersion) $script:ProgressPoint = 652 $SourceProductName = ([System.Diagnostics.FileVersionInfo]::GetVersionInfo($SourceNTDLL).ProductName) $SourceOSVersionParts = $SourceOSVersion.split(".") #Cast the OS version parts to an integer $OSVersionPart1 =[INT]$SourceOSVersionParts[0] $OSVersionPart2 =[INT]$SourceOSVersionParts[1] If ($OSVersionPart1 -lt 6) { Write-Host -ForegroundColor Green "Source OS must be version 6.2 (Windows 8/Windows Server 2012) or later." } if (($OSVersionPart1 -eq 6) -and ($OSVersionPart2 -lt 2)) { Write-Host "Source OS must be version 6.2 (Windows 8/Windows Server 2012) or later." }
Do this and it evaluates correctly now so your script will run. That’s the only adaption we had to make in the script to make it run with a Windows Server 2016 guest OS. Note that the snippet is for demo purposes. The real script needs to fixed using this logic.
Situation 3
My virtual machine is already a version 8 VM but still a generation 1 virtual machine. That’s not a problem at all. As long as you deal with situation 1 and 2, it will convert correctly.
Conclusion
If you’re prepping legacy virtual machines that need to be moved into a modern private cloud or on premises deployment you might need to convert them to generation 2 in order to take full advantage of the capabilities of the current Hyper-V platform (i.e. Shielded VMs). To do so you’ll be fine as long as they are running Windows Server 2012 (R2) as a guest OS on a Windows 2012 R2 host. If not, some creativity is all you need to get things going. Upgrade the guest OS if needed and fix the script if you encounter the situations as we described above. Sure, we have to herd virtual machines as cattle and avoiding holy cows VMs is important. But they do still exist and if they provide valuable services and we can’t let this hold us back from moving ahead. By proceeding like we did we prevented just that and avoided upsetting too many processes and people in the existing situation, let alone hindering them in the execution of their job. We still arrived at a situation where the virtual machines can be hosted as shielded virtual machines. Good luck!
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Image-sharing app Pinterest said that it has proven so difficult to identify and remove all the anti-vax disinformation that has been posted to the service that it’s had to find an unusual solution to the problem …
The WSJ reports that, instead of relying on removing the disinformation itself, it has instead blocked searches for it.
Pinterest has stopped returning results for searches related to vaccinations, a drastic step the social-media company said is aimed at curbing the spread of misinformation but one that demonstrates the power of tech companies to censor discussion of hot-button issues. Most shared images on Pinterest relating to vaccination cautioned against it, contradicting established medical guidelines and research showing that vaccines are safe, Pinterest said. The image-searching platform tried to remove the antivaccination content, a Pinterest spokeswoman said, but has been unable to remove it completely.
The company earlier took the same action to block searches for claimed cancer therapies.
In both cases, the company took the view that the risk of harm from false claims was sufficient that it justified the step.
Most anti-vax posts stem from a fraudulent paper back in 1998 which claimed to have found a link between the MMR vaccine – for measles, mumps, and rubella – and autism. The paper was written by Andrew Wakefield, who was later revealed to have written the paper in the hope of generating demand for an alternative vaccination product in which he had a financial interest. Ill-informed people continue to point to the study in their anti-vax disinformation despite the fact that Wakefield was struck off the medical register after being found guilty of both dishonesty and abuse of children.
The WSJ piece points to the difficult tightrope social media companies have to walk at times.
The aggressive move by Pinterest marks another change in the way large tech companies are trying to handle the responsibility of monitoring the flow of information. “Until recently, social-media companies have drawn a line in the sand saying they’re not arbiters of truth; that they are passive purveyors of information,” said Samuel Woolley, a researcher who studies social-media disinformation at the Institute for the Future think tank. “There’s been pressure on them for a long time to respond to this because the reality of this is the spread of misinformation—especially around vaccines—leads to extremely bad consequences, including death,” he said.
Google, Facebook and YouTube are among the other companies which have had to tackle the issue, adjusting their algorithms to make health-related disinformation less prominent.
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india
Updated: Dec 07, 2018 20:09 IST
The Supreme Court Friday declined urgent hearing on a fresh plea of the Kerala government challenging the high court decision to set up a panel to oversee pilgrimage at Sabarimala, which has witnessed protests after women of all age groups were allowed entry into the temple.
The Kerala High Court, on November 28, ordered setting up of a three member committee, comprising retired judges P R Raman, S Sirijagan and senior IPS officer A Hemachandran, and gave them the power to oversee law and order and other problems faced by pilgrims.
A bench comprising Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justice S K Kaul refused to accord urgent hearing on the plea of the state government and said that it would come up for hearing in due regular course. “Order of constituting a team of observers, particularly when there is already a Special Commissioner (who is a District Judge), a Devaswom ombudsman exercising powers, inter alia, over Sabarimala Temple, and a High Power Committee is unsustainable in law and such constitution of Team of Observers is arbitrary, illegal and violative of the basic constitutional structure of separation of powers,” the state government said in its plea.
The government has assailed the high court order and submitted that the police has “effectively streamlined the protestors and has worked out a security system for the Temple, particularly on the basis of intelligence inputs” and the High Court-appointed panel would take over the powers of the duly authorised security agency.
“There were no materials, whatsoever, before the (High) Court to conclude that there was any excess or, much less, any possibility for excess at the instance of any Government official, whomsoever, or any Government instrumentality, whatsoever,” it said, adding that the high court had not pointed out a single instance of police excess on devotees.
Earlier, the state government had moved the top court seeking transfer of pending pleas relating to the Sabarimala Temple from the High Court to the apex court, alleging that members of “right wing outfits” are obstructing the implementation of its verdict allowing all women inside the shrine.
On September 28, a five-judge Constitution bench, headed by the then Chief Justice Dipak Misra, in a 4:1 verdict had paved the way for entry of women of all ages into the temple, saying the ban amounted to gender discrimination.
The temple has been witnessing violent protests in recent times.
The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear on January 22 in open court the petitions seeking a review of its judgement allowing all women inside the historic hill-top temple.
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of 3D profits over time. In the chart below I’ve studied the return on production budgets – the amount earned worldwide divided by the amount spent in production. (Note the logarithmic scale, to fit in huge outliers such as Paranormal Activity and Super Size Me):
This final chart shows that 3D films are continuing to offer as much profit as ever; and their returns to production budget have actually remained remarkably constant (averaging less than a 0.1 cent change per year). In addition, you can see that all the 3D films have been much more predictable than 2D films. Where 2D films vary all over the map, 3D films (largely due to their big budgets) always give about the same return on investment, making them less risky, and even more desirable.
In the end, The Polar Express wasn’t the latest Jazz Singer. 3D isn’t the natural progression from 2D that only took time and technology to overcome. I believe it’s best considered a nearly different medium altogether, requiring a whole new set of tools to create well, and a new set of rules to evaluate and appreciate. In fact, I think the most apt comparison is that 3D, as it is now, is like the Silver Age of Disney: animation after The Lion King. We’ve seen the wonders of the new format (as well as some horrors), and the novelty is just now wearing off. But at the same time, even if each film is no longer quite as special, and there are as many misses as hits, the format is still in its newfound infancy – with a long way to mature.
Notes: The revenue from 3D was calculated by multiplying a film’s total revenue by that film’s share of revenue from 3D. However, the 3D share data are spotty – so when the data were unavailable, I assumed an average share for each film in 2010 so that the resulting weighted average of all films matched the reported 2010 average of 62.22%. In years previous to 2010, I assumed 62.22% where data were missing.
Statistical significance of 3D vs. 2D ROI based on a t-test of ROIs by dimension; the p-value is 0.22. ROI calculations were averages of ROI weighted by world gross, which is equivalent to dividing the sum of world gross by the sum of production budgets, for each dimension.
Revenues and production budgets from the-numbers.com. List of 3D films from boxofficemojo.com. Other sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7,8, 9, 10.
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Abhishek Singh graduated from NYU’s ITP program and clearly he learned a lot about the future of computing. During his tenure there he quickly fell in love with hardware startups and, with a little grit and programming work, he created Peeqo, a robot that responds only in GIFs. That’s right: this is a robot that replies only in animated video clips.
God help us.
“I’ve always been fascinated by robots and I built this as part of my thesis at ITP. One of the reasons I wanted to build this bot was because I feel a lot of the conversation on social robotics today centers around their inability to express emotion or to be relatable,” he said. “I love GIFs as much as every other person and they’ve become a universal language of sorts on the internet and beyond, capable of depicting almost anything from emotion to information. Often a GIF just says it better.”
Like R2-D2’s cheeps and chirps, Peeqo has a limited human vocabulary but is a surprisingly rich communicator. He does standard Google/Alexa stuff – loading up Spotify, turning off your lights – but almost every interaction is followed by a clever GIF. You can play music on him and even start his camera so he can record your existential howl as you realize GIFs are now a form of rich communication.
“Peeqo sits at the intersection of three things I really love – building things, animated movies and GIFs. I definitely drew a lot of inspiration from Disney and Pixar during the design process to reach his final form,” said Singh.
Singh is the founder of Svrround, a 360-degree video startup. He is open sourcing Peeqo and he built the robot after integrating the engineering, software, and hardware education he received in school. He calls Peeqo the “love child of Amazon Echo and a Disney character.”
It’s clear that as we wander further into the uncanny valley robots like Peeqo will become commonplace. While I can’t imagine Alexa responding with a Whiplash GIF it’s easy to imagine a world in which your desk robot yells at you to get back to work when it senses you’re back on Reddit. You can see the DIY build here and check him out here. He’s completely open source so you’ll be able to cry about the death of the 21st century mind in the comfort of your own home after you assemble your own Peeqo out of grief, horror, and 3D printed plastic.
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Adam Schefter reports Carson Wentz is unlikely to play in Week 15 due to a fractured vertebra, but is expected to fully heal with rest. (0:55)
A recent CT scan on Carson Wentz's back revealed a fractured vertebra that, if allowed time for rest, would fully heal so that there would be no further expected issues, sources told ESPN.
There will be a continued evaluation of his back to determine whether continuing to play this season would worsen the injury for the Philadelphia Eagles' starting quarterback.
"Carson, he's going to handle it like a champ. He's one of the best quarterbacks in the league and he's the best young quarterback in the league. He was even playing at a high level with what he was dealing with. And I don't know if you know, going through reads, it helps to have a healthy back," wide receiver Jordan Matthews said Thursday.
"He was still going out there and producing at a high level with the injury. With this situation right now, sitting down, I don't think it has affected his confidence at all. He knows who he is, he knows what he brings to the table and he knows what he means to this team. It just sucks that he can't play right now."
"With this situation right now, sitting down, I don't think it has affected his confidence at all. He knows who he is, he knows what he brings to the table and he knows what he means to this team. It just sucks that he can't play right now."
Eagles coach Doug Pederson said Wednesday that Wentz was experiencing "soreness" and "tightness" in his back and wouldn't practice.
This isn't the first time this season that Wentz has appeared on the team's injury report because of his back. He was a limited participant on consecutive Wednesdays in late October, but this Wednesday's absence marked the first time he missed a practice this season. Wentz missed practice again Thursday.
It was one year ago this past Monday that Wentz tore the ACL and LCL in his left knee against the Los Angeles Rams. The main storyline heading into this week was Wentz's return to Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum for the first time since the injury for a rematch against Jared Goff, who went first overall in the 2016 NFL draft, one slot ahead of Wentz.
Super Bowl MVP Nick Foles will take the reins as the 6-7 Eagles try to keep their playoff hopes alive against the 11-2 Rams.
"Nick is the Super Bowl MVP. He'll be all right," safety Malcolm Jenkins said Thursday.
ESPN's Tim McManus contributed to this report.
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ST. PAUL, Minn. (WCCO/AP) — An investigation is underway as to how the body of a stillborn baby boy ended up at a laundry service.
Workers at a Red Wing laundry service discovered the 22-week-old baby’s body Tuesday afternoon, while they were getting ready to wash linens. Inside the pile of laundry was the body of a boy. He was in a diaper and had an ID bracelet on his ankle.
Regions Hospital says the baby came from their St. Paul morgue, and they apologized for the mistake on Wednesday.
“On behalf of Regions Hospital, we are really sorry and saddened that this event happened,” Regions’ chief nursing officer Chris Boese said.
Boese said the baby was stillborn on April 4, and then placed in the hospital’s morgue.
She said it’s not uncommon for a stillborn baby to be in the morgue that long, but how it got caught in the linens is unclear.
“This has never happened before that I’m aware of,” Boese said.
According to the Associated Press, there have been a dozen similar incidents that occurred between 1996 and 2009 at hospitals in the U.S. and Canada.
In some cases the body went through the wash before it was found.
Boese said there are 20 to 25 stillborn births a year at Regions, and they are trying to reach out to the family of this one.
“That’s our number one concern is our patients and our family,” Boese said. “So we are deeply troubled that this happened and want to make sure it never happens again.”
In the meantime they are offering counseling to both laundry workers and hospital workers who were affected.
“Very unusual — I just feel bad for employees that made this discovery,” Red Wing Police Department Capt. Darold Glander said.
Glander said there is no foul play involved, just a tragic mistake.
Regions said they are investigating and it’s too early to say if anyone will be punished.
WCCO did talk with an attorney who handles these kinds of cases, and the attorney said the hospital could face a lawsuit based on emotional distress that the family has endured.
(TM and © Copyright 2013 CBS Radio Inc. and its relevant subsidiaries. CBS RADIO and EYE Logo TM and Copyright 2013 CBS Broadcasting Inc. Used under license. All Rights Reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
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'll be going over some of the same numbers. This is particularly true with the display. We'll reiterate again: it measures four inches across diagonally, with a WVGA (800 x 480) resolution and a density of 233 ppi. Samsung's sticking to its Super AMOLED PenTile guns whether you like it or not, but if you're the kind of person who finds that a turn-off, you likely already lost interest somewhere in the last section. In reality, the display is adequate, and still delivers a pleasant enough experience. What it lacks in pixel density, it makes up for in brightness and color representation. It might not be quite as brilliant as some of the laminated screens we've seen recently (HTC's Desire X, or Acer's CloudMobile for example), but images display faithfully, with no glaring contrast issues, and if you're into watching lots of video, again, we found it perfectly acceptable for the casual viewing that we performed during our time with it.
Camera
While it's no longer 2010, the iPhone 4 showed what you can do with five megapixels pretty well. Its time in the sun may has since passed, but it might start to give you a better sense of where the Galaxy S III mini sits in terms of intended market (hint: not at the top). So, five megapixels it is (plus aperture of f/2.6, focal length of 3.54mm), but it's what it does with them that really counts, and we're happy to say that it actually does a pretty good job. Colors look solid and clear, even if the great British autumn made finding bright examples worth shooting a little more difficult. Low-light performance varies, with dimly lit rooms being the camera's particular nemesis, producing much more washed-out colors. But even then, with a steady hand and use of the built-in low-light modes you can still eke out some decent nocturnal pictures.
With a steady hand and use of the built-in low-light modes you can still eke out some decent nocturnal pictures.
As we're not on stock Android, the camera has a few extra options that you don't get with Google's unskinned OS. If you've used any other recent TouchWiz phones from Samsung, you'll know you get a decent spread of additional camera modes, including Panorama, Burst and HDR. There are, of course, the other regular tricks, such as tap-to-focus, face detection and geotagging. All of these work just as well as they did on the original Galaxy S III, which is to say they're useful tools that succeed in enhancing the experience.
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Sir David Attenborough has spoken of the "heartbreaking" experience of seeing an albatross trying to feed her chicks with plastic.
Sir David was speaking about the filming of his highly successful wildlife documentary Blue Planet.
He said: "The albatross are such marvellous birds.
"They form partnerships for 50 years, they circle the Antarctic collecting food, they come back to their mates at the same place, but they also feed their young.
"And there's a shot of the young being fed and what comes out of the mouth, of the beak of the adult?
"Not sand eels and not fish and not squid, which is what they mostly eat.
"Plastic.
"And it's heartbreaking. Heartbreaking."
The albatross is just one species caught up in the terrible effect that plastic is having on the world's oceans.
Image: The Laysan albatross us particularly at risk of accidentally eating plastic
Every minute, the equivalent of a rubbish-truck load of plastic goes into the oceans but it does not decompose and will remain forever.
According to the US Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, one type of albatross in particular - the Laysan - suffers especially badly.
The Laysan albatross catches fish by skimming the surface of the water with its beak, inadvertently picking up floating plastic, which they then feed to chicks.
While the adults can regurgitate their food, the chicks cannot and so it remains in their stomachs.
If people continue to dispose of plastic at the same rate as today, then by 2050 the ocean's plastic could weigh more than the fish.
Image: Prince Charles met a Northern Royal Albatross and its chick in New Zealand in 2005
The plastic can kill sea animals by strangling them or the plastic in an animal's stomach can make it feel full and stop eating, even though it is actually starving.
The plastic also impacts the wider ecosystem: marine life get caught in it, eat it and live in it. It also has a direct impact on our health, acting as a sponge for toxins which can end up in our food.
The interview with Sir David is being released by Greenpeace to mark the launch of Unearthed, the organisation's investigative and environmental news site formerly known as Energydesk.
:: Sky has been running a campaign to make people more aware of the effect plastic has on the world's oceans and to share ways of tackling the problem. To get involved in Sky Ocean Rescue, visit the campaign website here. You can also watch our documentary, A Plastic Tide.
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Whitney Tipton on March 27, 2019
Republican Reps. Jim Jordan of Ohio and Mark Meadows of North Carolina asked the chairman of the House Oversight Committee to reconsider his demand to scrutinize the editorial practices of Fox News.
The committee’s chair, Democratic Maryland Rep. Elijah Cummings, sent a letter to former Fox News reporter Diana Falzone requesting she provide documents and testimony related to a civil lawsuit she filed against Fox in 2017, including “stories about women alleging extramarital affairs with Donald Trump, payments by the President or anyone on his behalf to silence them, or any action taken against you in connection with attempts to report on such stories.”
At issue is Falzone’s claim that she wrote a story about Stormy Daniels’ alleged affair with then-candidate Donald Trump, which editors did not move forward in publishing — a move some called a protective measure by the network.
Former Fox editor Ken LaCorte disputed her account, saying he killed the story because it lacked any corroborating evidence and was not publishable, according an article he wrote for Mediaite.
Falzone’s attorney, Nancy Erika Smith, appeared March 11 on MSNBC, suggesting Congress subpoena her client if it wanted to see why the story was pulled. Cummings sent the letter March 14.
Jordan and Meadows said they believe seeking documents about Fox News’ decision not to run a story falls outside the purview of the committee’s mission and has First Amendment implications.
“Your inquiry to Ms. Falzone about the editorial decisions of Fox News appears to depart from responsible and legitimate oversight,” the letter stated. “It appears instead that you seek material from Ms. Falzone solely to embarrass Fox News and to discern improper motives for its editorial decisions.”
Jordan and Meadows also cautioned Cummings to exercise better discretion.
” … we rely on you to exercise your authority as Chairman with good judgment so that the Committee’s work focuses on improving the overall economy, efficiency and effectiveness of the federal government or bettering the lives of the American people.”
Falzone’s lawsuit alleged discrimination against her gender and her “fight against a chronic disease,” according to The New York Times. The reporter was not allowed to appear on air after posting a column disclosing her battle with endometriosis, according to the lawsuit. The network settled with her in exchange for a non-disclosure agreement (NDA).
Jordan’s and Meadows’ objections to Democratic overreach might signal that Republicans are capitalizing on recent public support in the wake of the favorable Mueller report findings.
Follow Whitney on Twitter
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Ted Bezat writes to comment on John’s post “Hasta La Vista, Socialism!” celebrating the election results in Venezuela earlier this week:
I just finished reading your post and thought you might be interested in the documentation from 10 years ago when they really started to cripple their own oil industry. The primary reason that Venezuela’s “economy” has disintegrated is the drop-off in petroleum revenues. I’ve been tracking this ever since the Chavistas nationalized the multinationals’ oil fields via PdVSA. In the first couple of years not much happened, but eventually they accused the petroleum engineers of taking advantage (they were actually getting paid), and the vast majority of them simply left the country.
It’s very difficult to retain highly-trained personnel when you simultaneously demonize them, and thousands of engineers and technicians left the country to go to other oil patches, including the Canadian tar sands. With their expertise in secondary and tertiary recovery methods (the Venezuelan oil fields are getting very old, having first been heavily exploited in the ’50s’) they had no trouble finding employment around the world.
In 2005 PdVSA and the oil ministry literally forced all of the multinational oil companies to hand over their oil fields, forcing them into “joint ventures.” BP, Petrobras, and Chevron all caved in; Exxon and Repsol initially refused (WSJ, 12/20/2005). Then Chavez raised the tax rate on heavy oil by a factor of 16x (WSJ, 12/22/2005) essentially killing any profit on those fields. After the first of the year they simply confiscated them (WSJ, 1/6/2006). In February Exxon was removed from a petrochemical project (WSJ, 2/8/2006). By April the country simply stole everybody’s oil projects (WSJ, 4/4/2006). “Oil minister Rafael Ramirez said Venezuela has no plans to compensate Total and ENI for the lost fields” (WSJ, 4/24/2006).
In a shocking, unexpected development [sarcasm] the fall-off in oil production started very shortly thereafter. When their decreased volume of production met the drop in oil prices due to fracking technology from the US, their total petroleum-based revenue fell like a rock. That oil money could no longer prop up the fake socialist “economy” of giving people something for nothing, and the bottom fell out. The concept of “running out of other people’s money” also applies to running your own country’s available natural resource back into the ground.
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The decision by Mr. Boehner will probably stiffen Democratic resistance to significant cuts in entitlement spending on programs like Medicare. While Democrats were rattled by Mr. Obama’s push for a deficit-reduction plan that would trade cuts in social spending for new revenues, party leaders seemed willing to entertain the idea as part of an agreement that would resolve spending disputes for years to come. But many Democrats saw agreeing to Medicare cuts as undermining their political case against the House Republican plan to turn over the program to private insurers and provide subsidies for older Americans.
As late as in his Saturday radio and Internet address, Mr. Obama was urging lawmakers to take advantage of an “extraordinarily rare opportunity” to agree on a major budget plan and he urged them to “rise to the moment, and seize this opportunity, on behalf of all Americans, and the future we hold in common.”
Mr. Boehner was not specific about what particular tax issues led to the impasse, but a Republican familiar with the negotiations said an exchange of proposals between the speaker and the White House in recent days was unable to resolve disagreements over the “core elements” of the Republican proposal on tax reform.. The Republican said differences also remained over the extent of changes in the social programs.
Democrats have made clear that they will not back a budget deal built solely on spending cuts and are demanding a “balanced approach” that extracts some new revenues from corporate American and affluent taxpayers.
In his talks with the White House, Mr. Boehner indicated willingness to consider $1 trillion in new revenue, with most of the new money to be generated through an overhaul of the tax code that would be pushed through Congress next year. Both Republicans and Democrats expressed unease that a deal cut now could guarantee that lawmakers would follow through on tax reform.
In addition, there were hints that the budget deal could be tied to the Bush-era tax cuts due to expire next year, a prospect that made House Republicans nervous since many of them had campaigned and been elected on the promise that allowing those tax cuts to run out would amount to raising taxes.
Republicans said that Mr. Boehner decided to disclose his new position Saturday night to give the White House and Congressional leaders who are to meet Sunday evening sufficient time to make adjustments in their thinking.
The narrower package negotiated by Mr. Biden in a series of meetings with House and Senate Democrats was still considered large enough to allow for a debt hike through most of 2012. It combined a series of spending cuts that both Republicans and Democrats had identified in a range of federal agencies and programs, with some new revenue generated through options such as requiring federal employees to contribute more to their pensions, cuts in agriculture subsidies and the sale of federal assets.
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(WWJ) Reports have the meteor that streaked across southeast Michigan Tuesday night re-entering the atmosphere somewhere in Macomb County, with some pinpointing it to the area near 25 Mile Road and Card.
Phones at police stations and in newsrooms — including WWJ’s — lit up with questions and concerns. Some joked that it was an extraterrestrial visitor, others worried a bomb had exploded.
Wolverine Lake Police Chief John Ellsworth was so shaken by the electricity he felt in the air followed by a blinding flash that he told WWJ he thought it was the ‘beginning of the end.’
It was a meteor, one that NASA found was traveling at about 28,000 miles per hour. NASA data shows “that the object penetrated deep into the atmosphere before it broke apart (which produced the sounds heard by many observers).”
NASA scientists also found it “likely that there are meteorites on the ground,” noting that a staffer at Johnson Space Center found a “Doppler weather radar signature characteristic of meteoritic material falling to earth.”
How likely would it be to find a chunk of it on the ground somewhere?
Michael Narlock, the head of astronomy at the Cranbrook Institute of Science says it is possible there might be pieces on the ground of the meteor that caused a 2.0 magnitude earthquake across metro Detroit.
“It’s possible that there was this cataclysmic event that the entire object blew apart and everything just sort of disintegrated or became so fine as to become indistinguishable from anything else you may find lying on the ground.”
If you’re trying to distinguish meteor from regular rocks, look for rock that has a dark crust and appears to have been burned.
Would they be worth anything if you did happen to find a meteor chunk?
“It depends on how many of them there are,” Narlock said. “These types of incidents happen with some frequency, the last big one was in 2013 in Russia and you could buy pieces of that relatively inexpensively.”
Tuesday’s meteor lit up the night sky across metro Detroit, most of Michigan and surrounding states. The bright light was followed by a loud boom that residents said shook their homes and gave their pets a scare. Narlock was among those who were amazed at the display that shook up a random Tuesday night.
“It certainly was incredibly bright, it almost felt like daytime there for just a brief second,” Narlock said of his experience with the meteor.
The Department of Homeland Security and National Weather Service confirmed the meteor had entered the atmosphere.
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AppCoins News Update, or ANU for short, is a regular bi-weekly update by the AppCoins team. As usual, we are going to cover dev updates, market reports, team members and upcoming events. This week’s focus is on the new onboarding and checkout flow of the AppCoins Wallet, as well as the APK Migrator and how its used to migrate with Unity’s verification tool.
Quicklinks
Dev Update
APPC Markets Report
Featured Team Member
Upcoming Events
It’s that time again, where we update you on the developments made by the AppCoins team! In the last two weeks, we have been working on the AppCoins Wallet and the APK Migrator.
New wallet onboarding
As we mentioned in ANU#34, we’ve been working on our wallet onboarding. We will have it ready for the next release!
Our main goal with this new onboarding is to make new user’s lives as easy as possible. To do so, we have removed the blockchain reference so users don’t get confused with it. We also explain what can the user do with the AppCoins Wallet app and, because we like to maintain our users informed, we have added this information to our Terms and Conditions.
Wallet checkout flow
The most important flow for the AppCoins Wallet is where users make the actual purchase; the checkout flow.
In the current version of the AppCoins wallet, the wallet setup needs to run before the purchase starts. In the past two weeks we have been working on making this setup under the hood so users can make the purchase without the extra effort of opening the AppCoins Wallet, going through the setup, returning to the app to make the purchase and then restarting the purchase flow.
We believe that with these enhancements we are able to reduce the friction in the first payment conducted by a user. For that reason, the checkout flow is one of our goals for this quarter.
Migrator support for Mono
The APK Migrator has been around for some months now, and it has been a very good tool to convince developers to come onboard the AppCoins project.
In the Unity ecosystem, there are two scripting backends available to build an APK,.NET (using Mono) and IL2CPP. Both these backends allow you to implement receipt validation obfuscation. Last week, we put in motion a new development that will enable us to migrate Unity games, using this purchase verification, with the Mono scripting backend. We are 100% compliant with this type of verification.
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People often miss meals because they get busy or are trying to lose weight. But how you skip meals, and the amount you eat at your next meal, can affect your overall health.
The scientific data on skipping meals has been confusing. In some studies, fasting has resulted in measurable metabolic benefits for obese people, and in animal studies, intermittent feeding and fasting reduces the incidence of diabetes and improves certain indicators of cardiovascular health. Even so, several observational studies and short-term experiments have suggested an association between meal skipping and poor health.
In recent months, two new studies may help explain how skipping meals affects health.
The most recent study, published this month in the medical journal Metabolism, looked at what happens when people skip meals but end up eating just as much as they would in a normal day when they finally do sit down to a meal. The study, conducted by diabetes researchers at the National Institute on Aging, involved healthy, normal-weight men and women in their 40s. For two months, the study subjects ate three meals a day. For another eight-week period, they skipped two meals but ate the same number of calories in one evening meal, consumed between 4 p.m. and 8 p.m.
The researchers found that skipping meals during the day and eating one large meal in the evening resulted in potentially risky metabolic changes. The meal skippers had elevated fasting glucose levels and a delayed insulin response — conditions that, if they persisted long term, could lead to diabetes.
The study was notable because it followed another study earlier this year that found that skipping meals every other day could actually improve a patient’s health. In that study, published in March in Free Radical Biology & Medicine, overweight adults with mild asthma ate normal meals one day. This was followed by a day of severely restricted eating, when they ate less than 20 percent of their normal caloric intake, or about 400 or 500 calories a day — the equivalent of about one meal. Nine out of 10 study participants were able to stick to the eating plan.
After following the alternate-day dieting pattern for two months, the dieters lost an average of 8 percent of their body weight, and their asthma-related symptoms also improved. They had lower cholesterol and triglycerides, “striking” reductions in markers of oxidative stress and increased levels of the antioxidant uric acid. Markers of inflammation were also significantly lower.
The conclusion, say the authors of the more recent meal-skipping study, is that skipping meals as part of a controlled eating plan that results in lower calorie intake can result in better health. However, skipping meals during the day and then overeating at the evening meal results in harmful metabolic changes in the body.
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Fran Trembley was speaking and writing on the dangers of technology long before the subject became popular with the general public. In 1951 he had his title changed to professor of ecology. Students flocked to his classes. In order that they might have a nearby spot in which to study ecosystems, he asked that the slope above Williams Hall be left in a wild state – a tangled bank, he called it, using a term coined by Darwin. The administration complied with the request and put up a sign, “Tangle Bank,” to identify the place.”
The “tangled bank” today
Today, the “tangled bank” is a small, diverse woodlot, with an overstory that includes tulip poplar (Liriodendron tulipifera), American beech (Fagus grandifolia), black cherry (Prunus serotina), several species of maples (Acer spp.), as well as several other deciduous species. Various shrub species occur throughout, particularly along the margins, and poison ivy (Toxicodendron radicans) and Virginia creeper (Parthenocissus quinquefolia) are common. It is a very different place than it was in 1968. A few more photographs are below (click on one to view as slides).
What can students learn from the tangled bank?
This fall, students in general ecology (EES-152) at Lehigh University, will revisit Trembley’s “tangled bank.” Forty-seven years of ecological succession have passed since the mowing was stopped, and because of David Mazsa’s collections we know many of the pioneer species that grew on slope after just one year.
Students in the ecology class will complete a botanical inventory of the slope, and the data will be used to introduce and explore the topic of secondary succession. Furthermore, the students will use modern databases to research and compare information on the functional traits (e.g., seeds per plant, energy content per seed, growth habit, mode of dispersal) of plants in early succession versus mid-succession (i.e., today). We will report our results on this blog later in the fall semester!
Trembley’s last lesson.
Unfortunately, this will probably be the last lesson taught by Trembley’s “Tangled Bank.” A renovation of Williams Hall is planned to begin later this year, and as part of this effort the area will be relandscaped…removing the “tangle” from the bank.
Perhaps only this ecologist would be saddened by such a thing.
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5.42pm BST
Here's a summary of the main events today:
Syria
• Syrian rebels say they captured an air defence base with a cache of missiles outside Damascus. Videos posted on the internet purport to show a government helicopter being shot down in the same area.
• The central city of Homs has been subjected to its most severe bombardment in five months, the BBC reports citing activists. Aircraft and artillery targeted the neighbourhood of Khaldiya, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
• A UN security council statement has condemned Syria's mortar attack in Turkey, urged restraint, but on Russia's insistence, removed a reference to the incident being a "threat to international peace and security." A second statement has condemned the bombings in Aleppo that reportedly killed 48 people earlier this week.
• The Syrian regime has ordered its military to stay 10km away from the Turkish border, according to Turkish news website.
• Rebels have again threatened to execute Iran hostages in a bid to stop government shelling, according to an update from Ausama Monajed a leading member of the opposition Syrian National Council. Video from the al-Baraa brigade gave the Syrian regime a 48-hour deadline to end the shelling and release all detainees before they execute 45 Iranians who were captured in Damascus in August.
• Human Rights Watch has called for the release of a prominent human rights lawyer who was abducted on Tuesday while driving to his office. Khalil Maatouk, executive director of the Syrian Center for Legal Studies and Research, and his friend Mohamed Zaza, haven't been seen since then.
Jordan
• Thousands of people have gathered in the capital Amman for a pro-reform rally. The demonstration signalled the failure of King Abdullah's attempt to quell public anger ahead of the rally by dissolving parliament.
Iran
• Iran will defeat an enemy "conspiracy" against its foreign currency and gold markets, an adviser to the country's supreme leader said on Friday, following violent protests that closed Tehran's grand bazaar. "Iran is overcoming the psychological war and conspiracy that the enemy has brought to the currency and gold market and this war is constantly fluctuating," Gholam Ali Haddad Adel, an adviser, was quoted by the semi-official Fars news agency as saying.
Libya
• Tension continues around Bani Walid in Libya, with reports of a militia attack overnight. The Libyan army is reported to be poised to attack the town.
Morocco
• Morocco has withdrawn accreditation from a journalist working for the French news agency, AFP, after he wrote an article linking the palace to a political party competing in by-elections.
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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 18/8/2013 (2587 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
DARRYL DYCK / THE CANADIAN PRESS ARCHIVES Winnipeg Blue Bombers' offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach Gary Crowton was let go Sunday.
WINNIPEG -- In the wake of their fifth straight loss on Friday night, the Winnipeg Blue Bombers announced this morning they have dismissed offensive co-ordinator Gary Crowton.
The team said newly appointed coach Marcel Bellefeuille will take over responsibility for the offence for the rest of the season.
The Bombers are 1-6 through seven games of the CFL season.
"No one in our organization is happy with the way we have performed so far this season," head coach Tim Burke said in the team’s statement today. "Our offence has not played up to their standards and we need to make this change in order to give us a chance at remaining in the hunt for the post season. I wish Gary all the best in his future endeavors."
MELISSA TAIT / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS The faces of two young Bombers fans Friday seem to sum up the season so far.
Bellefeuille’s promotion means the Bombers will be working with their third offensive co-ordinator in less than three years.
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Crowton was hired less than 19 months ago to replace Jamie Baressi, who was not retained at the end of the 2011 season, when the Bombers lost the Grey Cup game. Crowton had previously never worked in Canada.
After last year’s 6-12 record when the Bombers were the lowest-scoring team in the CFL, Winnipeg is again last or near-least in multiple offensive categories this season, including points scored, an average of 21.8 per game, touchdown passes, five, pass completion, 59.4 per cent, and turnovers, 25.
Bellefeuille, the former head coach of the Hamilton Tiger-Cats, was brought in a week ago to help the offence, not long after the Bombers dismissed their CEO and general manager.
His offensive roles in the CFL and Canadian college football are extensive, including with Hamilton, Saskatchewan and Montreal.
The Bombers had no other comment today but Burke and Bellefeuille plan to meet reporters on Monday.
Winnipeg visits Hamilton this Saturday.
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You’d think Ilhan Omar would know we’re not a Democracy.
Then again, she is all in for Bernie Sanders so maybe not.
Seems she is a tad concerned about Bernie getting skunked by the DNC again this year like he was in 2016.
The person who wins the most votes should be the Democratic nominee. Period. If we want to restore our democracy, we need to lead by example. — Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) February 28, 2020
Restore our Democracy?
Huh?
*constitutional republic — Viva La Vida! (@Libertarian_Clt) February 28, 2020
We’re not now, nor have been a “democracy.” We’re a Republic. — SeldenGADawgs (@SeldenGADawgs) February 28, 2020
We’re not a Democracy you doorknob…we’re a Republic. The founding fathers saw you coming and made sure we would have fair elections that every vote mattered, not just NYC & LA — Space Woman Spiff??? (@BellaPelosi) February 28, 2020
Yeah, doorknob.
Bernie Sanders isn't a Democrat. He's a Communist. The @dccc should make it clear that unless he joins with the Democrat Party, he will not be their nominee. — 'Cuse Me While I Scream (@FeistyMonk) February 28, 2020
Fair point. If he’s not really a Democrat why is he running as one?
Hrm.
Your party is notorious for changing the rules. Suddenly, when it’s YOUR socialist, it’s a problem.???? — William (@miserable99) February 28, 2020
It's a Republic. If you want to change the rules do it BEFORE the contest starts. PERIOD. — Richard Robinson (@richrobby) February 28, 2020
She just doesn’t get it.
But then again, neither does Bernie so it works out nicely?
***
Related:
No SHAME: Brit Hume makes Dem candidates look even WORSE for pushing false claims about coronavirus for political benefit
‘Helium-voiced little b*tch’: James Woods DROPS Brian Stelter like a sack of ‘taters’ for using a possible catastrophe to attack Trump
‘FOO’ for thought: Sam Janney went to CPAC and all you get is this awesome t-shirt (ok, it’s actually a blog)
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Welcome to the 17th Issue of the NLP Newsletter! Here is this week’s notable NLP news: Deep contextualized representations (ELMo), new IDE for deep learning, AI Talent Report 2018, Google’s AI principles, graph-based representations for transfer learning, boosting Python-based, NLP modules, and much more…
On People…
Global AI talent report for 2018 describes how the AI talent pool is distributed across the world — Link
Great podcast episode by Microsoft Research on how to make simple models more accurate and accurate models more intelligible or interpretable — Link
NAACL’s best paper award goes to ELMo (deep contextualized word representations) — Link
Very nice talks about RNNs and beyond — Link
On Education and Research…
OpenAI proposes a transformer-based language model that is useful for a wide variety of NLP tasks (inspired by ELMo and CoVE) — Link
A list of some of the most influential papers in deep learning (summaries included) — Link
Training 10,000-layer vanilla CNNs (Paper) — Link
Transcribing music through reinforcement learning — Link
Learn more about why batch normalization works (Paper) — Link
Analyzing behavior of visual questions answering models to identify strengths and weakness — Link
On Code and Data…
TorchFold a tool for PyTorch that makes it easy to batch anything regardless of the complexity of your dynamic architectures — Link
NCRF++, an open-source neural sequence labeling toolkit — Link
HuggingFace introduces NeuralCoref — coreference resolution done via neural networks and SpaCy — Link
Here is a nice dataset which contains short jokes scraped from various websites — Link
Learn how to speed up your Python NLP modules by 50–100 times faster — Link
On Industry…
Google proposes its new AI principles and practices — Link
Introducing FloydHub Workspaces — a new cloud IDE for deep learning — Link
Leveraging latent relational graph-based representation (GLoMo) for enabling transfer learning to many NLP tasks (by Facebook AI Research) — Link
A reinforcement learning environment for self-driving cars built on the browser using Tensorflow.js — Link
Worthy Mentions…
Slides by Adrej Karpathy, on building the software 2.0 stack and what a machine learning IDE should contain — Link
A comprehensive review of deep learning for objection detection — Link
A nice summary of ULMFiT, a transfer learning methods that can be applied to several NLP tasks — Link
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iarini and his biometric party pack – the above claims and the many others like them stretched even their extremely flexible credulity to breaking point. Chiarini didn’t do himself any favors with this target audience by treating many of their heroes to a DallasGoldBug mash-up, suggesting that…
JFK “is” Jimmy Carter
Bill Hicks “is” Alex Jones
and
William Cooper “is” Jordon Maxwell (I can actually see where he’s coming from here).
The predictable result of these was that Chiarini was accused of being a shill sent by the secret government to make conspiracy theorists look like a pack of dickheads. In other words, they accused him of being an actor! Excluding a small hardcore of followers who’d probably believe him if he said Jon Bon Jovi was Albert Einstein, the sense was that Chiarini had gone rogue, madly folding his folded world while hollering “sue me” at anyone who objected to reading that they weren’t real.
Personally – and I’m quite possibly on my own here – regardless of whether he’s a nut-job, a spy, or a prophet in the wilderness, I find something oddly sublime in Chiarini’s claims, and the concept they throw up of an entirely artificial world in which the heroes and villains that constitute history, from Churchill (Lionel Barrymore) to Hitler (Kermit Roosevelt – who also played Walt Disney), are theatrical inventions seducing us from precipice to precipice in a daze of bogus love and loathing.
My imagination enjoys itself in Chiarini’s parallel universe, too. Take, for example, the aesthetic logic in Obama “being” Osama. What I love about this one is how experimental the latter’s assassination becomes – one character cannibalizing the other to enhance their essence, while their real consanguinity is hidden in plain sight by the near – and extraordinarily improbable – correspondence of their names. This showbiz Illuminati, it would appear, are not immune to a touch of l’art pour l’art.
There are, also, times when Chiarini’s parallel universe impinges upon this one. His commentary (see below) over that famous flick known as The Lonesome Death of Lee Harvey Oswald (starring Jim Reeves as Oswald and David Rockefeller as Jack Ruby) is a case in point, and leaves it looking – well, for a glorious moment or two – laughably, transcendentally phoney…
Thanks to Mark Reeve at ORB Editions
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On his FNC program Hannity, Sean Hannity was doing his best to sell the oil spill in the Gulf as Obama’s Katrina, when he flat out lied to his audience and said, “The fact is they sat back for nine days and did absolutely nothing.” If by doing nothing Hannity meant deploying the Coast Guard within hours of the explosion, first for search and rescue then to contain the spill, then Obama did nothing.
Here is the video courtesy of Media Matters:
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Hannity said, “The sole responsibility in this case when it’s an oil spill that gonna impact our fishing industry, our beaches, our shores would be the federal government. The fact is they sat back for nine days and they did absolutely nothing. The very same people that were so fast to criticize George W. Bush in the other two instances.”
I know Hannity is just mouthing the right wing talking point, but let’s put this one to bed, right now. Media Matters put together a great timeline of Obama administration action on this. The Coast Guard was on the scene after the explosion. On April 21 BP put out a statement that said the Coast Guard was there, “BP, which operates the licence on which Transocean’s rig was drilling an exploration well, said it was working closely with Transocean and the U.S. Coast Guard, which is leading the emergency response, and had been offering its help – including logistical support.”
On April 23, the Coast Guard released a statement about their efforts to mitigate the impact of the spill, “Although the oil appears to have stopped flowing from the well head, Coast Guard, BP, Transocean, and MMS remain focused on mitigating the impact of the product currently in the water and preparing for a worst-case scenario in the event the seal does not hold. Visual feed from deployed remotely operated vehicles with sonar capability is continually monitored in an effort to look for any crude oil which still has the potential to emanate from the subsurface well.”
On April 25 and 26th federal response crews were trying to skim the oil off of the water’s surface. Hannity was not only inaccurate about the Obama the administration’s response to the spill. He lied. I know how desperate the right is to bring Obama down, but an oil spill is not the same thing as a class 5 hurricane that the federal government had plenty of notice about, but chose to sit back and watch as American citizens died in their own homes. Obama’s response in this situation has been the anti-Bush, but for Sean Hannity the truth is simply not an option.
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Karzai says he hopes the president shows better judgment in his plans for Afghanistan. Karzai takes swipe at Obama
Afghan President Hamid Karzai took a shot at President Barack Obama on Sunday, saying he hopes the president shows better judgment in his plans for Afghanistan once his administration has "put itself together."
In his first major interview since Obama assumed the presidency, Karzai was asked by CNN host Fareed Zakaria on his show "GPS" to respond to charges made by Obama that the Afghan president has demonstrated a "bunker mentality."
"I was surprised to see that statement," Karzai said. "Perhaps it's because the administration has not yet put itself together. Perhaps they have not been given the information yet. And I hope as they settle down, and as they learn more, we will see better judgment."
Asked if he thought Obama understands the struggles facing Afghanistan, Karzai backtracked a bit, saying Obama "surely" understands the country.
"Surely he's a very intelligent person as well. And given the right reporting by his administration, given the right figures by this administration, he'll figure out very quickly as to how things are in Afghanistan," the Afghan president said.
Despite the rift, Karzai said he expects to be able to work with Obama. "I can certainly engage with him very, very, very positively," he said. "It's part of what has been said by him during his election campaign. It's part of the things that's been said recently."
Karzai added, though, that Obama has a tough act to follow, calling former President George W. Bush "a great person."
"I have a lot of respect for him," Karzai added.
But while Karzai praised Bush, he also accused the United States of repeatedly trying to exert international political pressure on him by leaking information to The New York Times and others that he his brother has profited from the Afghan drug trade.
“There were charges in The New York Times in 2004, just about a month and a half before the presidential elections in Afghanistan, that my brother was involved in drugs — or rumored to be involved in drugs,” he said. “Now, incidentally, Mr. Zakaria, this happened after I had a serious dispute with the U.S. and British ambassadors on a spraying from air on a poppy field in the Nangarhar Province of Afghanistan.”
Asked to confirm that he was accusing elements within the United States government of trying to manipulate press coverage to place pressure on him, Karzai responded: “My conclusion is that, yes, this was part of a political pressure tactic, unfortunately.”
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the one being pursued by the administration.”
Kahl continues: “A second, and far more likely, path to containment is to rush into war before all other options have been exhausted. A near-term US or Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear program would knock it back, at most, a few years. Meanwhile it would motivate Iran’s hardliners to kick out International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors, incentivize the regime to rapidly rebuild a clandestine nuclear program, and rally the Iranian people around that cause to deter future attacks…. The result would be the worst of all worlds: an Iran emboldened to go for a bomb and a requirement for post-war containment without the international cooperation required to actually implement such a policy.”
The obvious question is: What if “tightening the noose” does not work? What if Iran does not halt its uranium enrichment or accept extraordinary controls on same? What if, in fact, the sanctions and US-Israeli threats push Iran to step up its nuclear efforts, as Martin Indyk predicts? (Indyk, of course, is an author of the “dual containment” plan that he delineated in 1993 at his former place of employment, WINEP, and that helped to bring matters to this juncture.) From the arguments of Obama and Kahl, it appears that, in that case, it would be fine to contemplate war down the road because “international cooperation,” and hence the distinction from Bush that liberals crave, would be secured.
The Obama-is-innocent meme is, in fact, an index of how far the hawks have already bent the stick in their general direction (with an assist from the Iranian hardliners). Liberals once defended the idea of Obama reaching out to Iran; now their line is that his approach is tougher on Iran than the GOP or Israel.
The clock is probably not ticking as fast as Indyk posits. In the long view, though, what is happening is that liberals (and maybe Europeans as well) are being softened up for a future scenario in which their man, because he has “exhausted all other options,” emulates his detested predecessor in ordering a “preventive” military strike of dubious legality and tenuous relation to Americans’ security (as opposed to “national security”). This scenario is far from inevitable, but it would really help if liberals stopped deluding themselves about what is at stake. And it would help even more if the Obama administration, instead of just trying to thread the multiple needles of the ambient war talk, and thus “leading from behind” in threatening Iran, pursued a genuinely alternative Iran policy.
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A Hong Kong university team looking for protesters still hiding after a 10-day siege by police only found one person after six hours.
[HONG KONG] A Hong Kong university team looking for protesters still hiding after a 10-day siege by police only found one person after six hours.
Alexander Wai, vice president of Hong Kong Polytechnic University, said Tuesday the 50-person team comprised of counselors, medical staff, social workers and security personnel found a woman older than 18 who wasn't a student at the school. A counselor was persuading her to leave the premises, Mr Wai said.
Mr Wai said there was no deadline for the teams to clear the campus before police enter in order to defuse explosives and clear other dangerous items. They will continue the search Wednesday morning and may add more people.
At a morning briefing, Chief Executive Carrie Lam said that a "relatively small number of people" remained on campus and called for them to leave as soon as possible, without giving a concrete figure.
Police are setting up a work panel whose aim will be to persuade the last protesters to go and they will only enter PolyU's campus "at appropriate times," she added. "Police have adopted a humanity-oriented approach with flexibility to deal with PolyU issue so far. Our goal is to solve the problem in a peaceful way," she said.
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Hong Kong police said Tuesday that they are in close communication with the university and would stick to the principles of "peaceful method" and "flexible approach" to solve the situation. Police won't arrest those with medical needs immediately but will take down their personal details, photograph them and follow up later.
"For those who leave the campus and do not have medical needs, the Police will enforce the law following existing mechanism and re-emphasise that they are guaranteed fair treatment," the police force said in a tweet.
University President Teng Jin-guang told reporters last Wednesday that some 100 protesters remained on the campus, 20 of whom were PolyU students.
The siege at the Kowloon university initially raised fears of a crackdown on the scores of protesters trapped inside. Jarring images from the school showed fires, clouds of tear gas and flaming vehicles amid running battles between police and protesters.
It came amid chaos that paralyzed parts of the city as protesters disrupted morning commutes and police fired tear gas in the central financial district.
BLOOMBERG
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The American Health Care Act is a misnamed, regressive tax-cut bill meant to fool you into thinking its primary purpose is improving the health care system. But the incredible cruelty of the Republican legislation didn’t become clear until Monday, when the Congressional Budget Office—led by a conservative economist whom House Speaker Paul Ryan personally selected—estimated it would undo nearly all of the coverage gains we’ve seen under the Affordable Care Act, creating human tragedy on a scale far greater than even pessimistic analysts imagined.
Republicans claim that Trumpcare is a simple matter of keeping their promise to repeal Obamacare. But if keeping promises were their guiding principle, they wouldn’t be ignoring the other ones they and President Donald Trump made: to preserve coverage gains and lower costs, and in doing so take care of people on the flip side of repeal. They are instead attempting to break those promises as swiftly and completely as possible, and at the expense not mainly of liberal Obamacare supporters, but of the very voters most inclined to have believed the lies. The swindle is greater than even we imagined.
Amid all the deception, Republicans have been fairly forthright about why they’ve made Obamacare repeal their first priority: It is so that they can ultimately reform the tax code on a permanent basis. Congressional budget rules exempt certain tax and spending bills from filibusters, but only if they don’t incur long-term deficits. It is very hard to cut taxes regressively and permanently without either building a partisan supermajority or figuring out a way to pay for the tax cuts. As George W. Bush–era Republicans learned, if you use the budget rules to pass a large deficit-financed tax cut, the tax cut will eventually expire.
Repealing Obamacare offers Republicans a way out of that trap, because it pairs eliminating (or indefinitely delaying) all of the ACA’s progressive tax increases with gutting the financial assistance the law provides to help millions of people afford care. It’s spoken of as “Obamacare repeal,” but it’s equivalently a large tax cut for the rich paid for by taking insurance away from the working class and poor. This filibuster-proof tax cut, in other words, would be permanent. And by reducing the revenue baseline, Republicans could make separate, deficit-neutral reforms to the tax code without having to sacrifice their goal of reducing the top marginal rate: all of the iniquity of the Bush tax cuts, without the automatic sunset.
This strategic imperative revealed something important about GOP priorities: that tax cuts outrank health policy in the Republican policy schema. But using Monday’s CBO report, we can sketch these priorities with greater precision, and the picture that emerges is vicious.
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James is editor in chief of TechForge Media, with a passion for how technologies influence business and several Mobile World Congress events under his belt. James has interviewed a variety of leading figures in his career, from former Mafia boss Michael Franzese, to Steve Wozniak, and Jean Michel Jarre. James can be found tweeting at @James_T_Bourne.
Experienced lawyers in the US have been left behind by AI when it came to reviewing legal documents according to a new report – with the lawyers exhibiting 85% average accuracy compared to 94% average accuracy rate achieved by AI software.
This revelation is based on a study carried out by professors at Duke Law, University of Southern California, and Stanford Law School. Metaphorically, the study was a race between LawGeex, an AI contract review platform provider, and a team of 20 top corporate lawyers with notable experience particularly in reviewing Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDAs).
For the study, the lawyers and the LawGeex AI had to analyse five previously unseen contracts with 153 paragraphs of technical legal language, under controlled conditions precisely prepared the way lawyers review and approve everyday contracts. The highest performing lawyer stood in line with LawGeex AI by achieving 94% accuracy but the average accuracy achieved by the least performing lawyer stood at just 67%. The most notable difference in the test between machines and humans lies in the time factor: while it took LawGeex AI only 26 seconds to complete the task, the lawyers took average of 92 minutes.
The longest time spent by the humans to accomplish the test was 156 minutes and the shortest time recorded was 51 minutes.
Commenting on the study, Gillian K. Hadfield, Professor of Law and Economics at the University of Southern California said: “This research shows technology can help solve two problems – both making contract management faster and more reliable, and freeing up resources so legal departments can focus on building the quality of their human legal teams.”
Earlier this year, China-based cloud-based big-data analytics and AI solutions provider Gridsum Holding and Peking University Law School came together to set up the Peking University Legal AI Lab and Research Institute (the Legal AI Lab). The partnership aims to benefit the development and application of AI across the judicial ecosystem of China as it transitions towards a Smart Court initiative.
Interested in hearing industry leaders discuss subjects like this and sharing their use-cases? Attend the co-located AI & Big Data Expo events with upcoming shows in Silicon Valley, London and Amsterdam to learn more. Co-located with the IoT Tech Expo, Blockchain Expo and Cyber Security & Cloud Expo so you can explore the future of enterprise technology in one place.
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Angola.
That’s the model we use, and the President’s efforts to make sure that we get our travel situation right – we set out clear rules and say here’s the things you need to comply with in order to travel to the United States – passport control, simple things – and we work alongside to provide technological help so that these countries can achieve those objectives. And when we do, those people will be permitted to travel to the United States and succeed and come participate in our economy in the United States of America in a way that every other country can as well.
We’re committed. I came here, I wanted to make this trip to Angola for a very special reason at a very special time. There’s enormous opportunity here. America wants to be a big part of trying to assist in that because we think it will improve not only Angola’s prosperity, security, and peace, but it will be good for the United States as well.
QUESTION: (Via interpretation) Thank you, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. My question is the following: Angola has been asking collaboration from countries with the name of (inaudible) the money that – the – money that was taken out of the country illicitly. And two questions: So I would like to know if the U.S. administration is available to collaborate in this effort, and I would like to know if this year we’d witness a meeting between President Donald Trump and President Joao Lourenco. Thank you very much for attention.
SECRETARY POMPEO: Thank you. Your second question’s a good one; I don’t know the answer to that. I appreciate that you all would welcome a visit from President Trump. He’d very much like to get here as well, I know that. When that will happen, goodness knows. It’s a busy year; it’s an election year. So I can’t answer that today. But the president extended an invitation to President Trump to come visit to me, and I’ll make sure and convey that back directly to President Trump as well.
Your first question was about our efforts to help Angola right some – hold some individuals accountable who engaged in corrupt activities here. The answer is yes. We’re committed; we do this all across the world. We want financial transactions all across the world to be clean and transparent, and when we find that those aren’t the case, you can see that the United States will put its resources to bear to try and correct those wrongs. And so we’ll certainly do that to assist Angola as well.
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Diyarbakir, Turkey
Everyday, gun fights and explosions rattle Turkey’s Kurdish capital Diyarbakir, as government forces battle separatist militias just miles away. But that didn’t keep locals from gathering today, March 21, to celebrate the Kurdish new year: Newroz.
In celebration of the first day of spring, Newroz festivities usually attract more than one million visitors to the city in peaceful times, but today’s crowd ranged between 200,000 and 300,000. Hotel owners in the city center complain their rooms have been sitting empty since fighting began here in Dec. 2015.
Diego Cupolo Diyarbakir residents survey damage in a commercial alleyway that recently reopened to the public, after being designated off-limits for more than three months.
Following a recent string of bombings in Istanbul and Ankara, security was extra tight at this year’s event, with multiple pat-downs and bag searches, as well as army snipers positioned along rooftops. But by the day’s end, people danced, sang, and police fired just a few gas canisters at protesters—a relief for a nation wracked by ever-growing violence and instability.
Banned in the rest of the country, Newroz has a deep political meaning for Turkish Kurds, who see the holiday as a way to promote and preserve an identity whose existence was only formally recognized by the government in the 1990s. With a population of 30 million split between Iraq, Syria, Iran and Turkey, Kurds remain the largest group of stateless people in the world.
Diego Cupolo Fire plays a central role in Newroz festivities as a symbol of freedom from oppression.
A man patches up the bullet holes in his bakery, which was used as a hideout by PKK-militants.
Diego Cupolo Recording the event to share on social media.
Diego Cupolo A crater left by a bomb blast in Diyarbakir. Fighting began shortly after a curfew was imposed on the city on Dec. 2, 2015.
Diego Cupolo A girl poses with Abdullah Ocalan earrings. Ocalan founded the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a militant group formed in the late 1970s to begin an armed struggle for a Kurdish autonomous state.
Diego Cupolo Children pose with flags baring Ocalan’s face. Until the 2000, it was illegal to teach the Kurdish language in Turkish schools.
Diego Cupolo A woman watches police run away from clouds of tear gas after a brief clash between security forces and attendees at the end of the Newroz celebration.
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DA seeks to limit Bheki Cele’s powers in appointing IPID head
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CAPE TOWN - The Democratic Alliance intends to table a private member's bill (PMB) in Parliament to amend the Independent Police Investigative Directorate (IPID) Act to limit the powers of the police minister to appoint the executive director of the police watchdog, the party said on Sunday. "IPID is in a state of complete chaos due to a lack of leadership and political interference," DA shadow minister of police Andrew Whitfield said in a statement. In the past two weeks IPID’s acting executive director Victor Senna had been replaced, head of investigations Mathew Sesoko had been suspended, and IPID investigator Mandlakayise Mahlangu was murdered while investigating former South African Police Service (SAPS) head Khomotso Phahlane, he said. In 2019, Parliament amended the IPID Act to limit the powers of the minister to remove an executive director of IPID. The DA believed that this amendment did not go far enough and that there was an urgent need to further limit the minister’s powers to appoint an executive director. Currently, the IPID Act gave the police minister the power to “nominate a suitably qualified person” which Parliament’s police committee had to either confirm or reject.
The DA believed this process was problematic, because it gave too much power to the minister and reduced the role of the committee to a mere tick-box exercise while opening the directorate to undue political influence.
The DA proposed amendments to section 6 of the IPID Act to allow for an independent panel to shortlist candidates. The committee would then interview the candidates and recommend a preferred candidate to the minister. The process would also allow for public comments on the shortlisted candidates.
"We also trust that these amendments will speed up the process of appointing a permanent IPID head. The institution has had an acting head for the past year and despite continued assurances, [Police] Minister Bheki Cele continues to drag his feet."
The DA’s proposed amendments to the IPID Act would allow for greater parliamentary oversight in the appointment of an IPID head; reduce the chance of a political appointment; and ensure public participation in the appointment process.
These amendments were critical to ensure that stability was restored at IPID and to ensure that IPID achieved its mandate, which was to "provide significant investigative breakthroughs in detecting systematic corruption and procurement irregularities" in the SAPS.
"An honest and professional police service cannot be achieved without a capable oversight body," Whitfield said.
African News Agency (ANA)
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Defense minister Sergey Shoygu confirmed that two of Russia’s new Su-57 stealth fighters were recently in Syria, where they completed a program of trials.
“Indeed, they were there for a while. Two days. During that time, they completed a program of trials, including combat ones,” Tass reported Shoygu as saying. “I can say that the trials were success and the planes returned home a week ago.”
“There were two planes escorted by flying laboratories and test beds monitoring the parameters of weapons work,” Shoygu said.
There was much speculation about the presence of Su-57s in Syria after video emerged on February 21 that appeared to show two aircraft in the country.
One Twitter user published imagery analysis for the video adding credence to the theory, but Shoygu’s comments on Thursday were the first official confirmation.
On February 26, Russian newspaper Kommersant reported unnamed sources as saying that the aircraft were in Syria for testing in a “semi-combat environment.” The sources said the trials were focused the jet’s radar and electronic warfare capabilities.
On February 8, Russia’s deputy defense minister Yuri Borisov said the military would order 12 of the fifth generation Sukhoi Su-57 stealth fighter aircraft this year “for test combat use,” adding that the first stage of trials was over. The first two aircraft may enter service in 2019, Borisov said.
Shoygu dismisses satellite imagery
Shoygu also questioned satellite imagery shared online by Israel’s ImageSat International which it said showed two Su-57s at Russia’s Hmeimim air base in Latakia.
First satellite images show two Russian 5th generation Sukhoi Su-57 at Khmeimim air base in Latakia, Syria. Via @imagesatint pic.twitter.com/JqAAx5K44Q — monitoring (@warsmonitoring) February 24, 2018
“As for various satellite photos, I can state that now is not the year of 1995 and such planes are never located side by side,” Shoygu said. “I am unaware where the released images were taken as the jets were kept in hangars throughout [the mission].”
The Su-57 – otherwise known as T-50 and PAK-FA – which first flew in 2010, features radar and infrared stealth technology, along with internal weapons bays and active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar, and is intended to replace Russia’s MiG-29s and Su-27s.
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Thinking about selling your house? Aside from figuring out your finances and picking an estate agent there’s one thing that could help shift it quickly and even get you a higher offer.
Property stylists Coco Republic know a thing or two about peddling properties and according to them, it’s all about preparing your home for viewers, Daily Mail Australia reports.
Otherwise known as “staging”, the way you style your house will not only ensure your property is sold faster but can potentially add thousands of pounds to its value.
So what should you be doing?
Most buyers form their first impressions within seconds of approaching a home so make sure the windows are clean, the driveway is fresh and the garden is properly preened.
Similarly, it’s important to stick to a neutral palette on the interior walls and floors, as this will create a sense of pristineness and space.
Home interiors: Be brave and do it yourself Show all 6 1 /6 Home interiors: Be brave and do it yourself Home interiors: Be brave and do it yourself In the shade: Abigail Ahern gave her living room a new lease of life by painting the walls, floor and doors Home interiors: Be brave and do it yourself Mirror customised by Naomi Cleaver Home interiors: Be brave and do it yourself Abigail Ahern made the handles of her bedroom wardrobe herself out of strips of oak Home interiors: Be brave and do it yourself RUNNER FROM £49: Give your stairs some carpeted class Kersaintcobb.co.uk Home interiors: Be brave and do it yourself DECOUPAGE TABLE £225: Too lazy to cut and stick? Visit Notonthehighstreet.com Home interiors: Be brave and do it yourself PICTURE FRAME £55: Fake the look of lots of pictures with this set of frames. Purves.co.uk
The most effective way to sell your home though is to make buyers feel at home so it’s worthwhile assessing what objects are in view.
This is achieved best by de-cluttering and removing any personal photos to create a minimalist space.
But there are some objects that can actually improve the environment. As such, adding finishing touches like scented candles, plants and fruit bowls help to add interest and balance to the space.
Try thinking of selling your home as more than just that - really it’s about promoting an entire lifestyle, so anything you can do to brighten or inject a little life into each room will help.
The stylists even suggest adding items like cookbooks in the kitchen or paintings of horses throughout the house.
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Ask anybody who wasn’t cool in high school: getting excluded from a party blows.
B.C. filmmaker Paul Manly, son of former MP Jim Manly, has had his 2015 candidacy for MP of Nanaimo-Ladysmith blocked by the NDP, proving that, no matter where a party lands on the political spectrum, it’s tow the line or go home.
Paul Manly’s transgression? Writing an open letter in October 2012 demanding that the Canadian government stand up for his father who was, at the time, detained by the Israeli Defence Force. The elder Manly was arrested in international waters aboard a European boat on its way to Gaza to deliver food and supplies (and not weapons, we hope) during an Israeli naval blockade of the area. After five days, he was released and deported back home to Canada.
Paul Manly claims that, although the local riding executive of Nanaimo-Ladysmith approved his candidacy, the federal NDP executive stepped in to have him denied. Without giving specifics, the federal NDP told Manly over the phone that his candidacy was blocked because of “what [Paul] said and did when [his] father was in Israel.” We can’t really blame Paul for wanting his father back. If your dad wandered onto a boat and ended up detained in a foreign country, you would probably ask the Canadian government to bring him back too.
This political interference comes less than three months after the NDP’s national director Anne McGrath promised open nominations for the 2015 election. She told the Postmedia News that her party wouldn’t make the same errors in judgment as the Liberals and Conservatives who have been interfering with local nominations. Oops.
As hypocritical as this all sounds, maybe we’re misunderstanding what an “open nomination” means. Perhaps the NDP’s usage of the term didn’t mean that anybody could run. Maybe they meant that certain, specific platform-friendly people—at least one of whom wasn’t directly hand picked by the federal NDP executive—are maybe “open” to maybe running. Maybe.
Over two dozen candidates have been rejected by the NDP so far. Not exactly the 7-11 of open candidacy.
Israel is clearly a very touchy subject. We’ve learned the hard way that broaching the subject can be dinner party-suicide. That being said, we live in Canada, thousands of miles from the Middle East. Whether you believe in a one state, two state, red state, or blue state, hopefully we can agree that our country shouldn’t be limited to a one viewpoint solution.
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TAIPEI (Taiwan News) -- Foxconn founder and prospective presidential Kuomintang (KMT) candidate Terry Gou (郭台銘) on Thursday (May 2) told reporters that Taiwan is a "part of China" and said that the "gods 100 percent agree with me."
While aboard a flight from Washington to Wisconsin on Thursday, a day after meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump in the Whitehouse, Gou told reporters that the gods were in agreement with him that "Taiwan is an inseparable part of China." He then called on Beijing to give Taiwan more space in the international arena.
With a statue of the sea goddess Matsu (媽祖) in his lap, Gou said, "From the perspective of the gods, we agree 100 percent that Taiwan is an inseparable part of China; but it is a nation of Chinese. That's why we should say that under the Chinese people there are two," reported Liberty Times.
Gou did not elaborate on what he meant by "two," but he said that Beijing should not suppress Taiwan's "living space on the international stage." Gou said that "without international space, Taiwan's leaders will not be able to conduct overseas visits, which will eventually lead to the destruction of the foundation of peace between Taiwan and China and impact stability," according to the report.
Gou with statue of sea goddess Matsu in his lap. (CNA photo)
He said that China should allow Taiwan to participate in international activities, otherwise, "such a hard line would have adverse effects."
He said that the issue was not limited to "whether Taiwan could wear a cap with a [Taiwan] flag on it," but also that Taiwan should join the World Health Organization and Interpol. Gou said that if Beijing does not find a solution to the problem with Taiwan, Taiwanese will not agree with the People's Republic of China.
In response, Minister of the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Chen Ming-tong (陳明通) at the Legislative Yuan this morning admonished the Foxconn founder to not confuse the global community. Prior to a meeting over the budget, Chen told reporters that "The Republic of China (Taiwan) is a sovereign and independent country and Taiwan has never been part of the People's Republic of China. Chairman Gou, please don't send the wrong message to the international community," reported Liberty Times.
When reporters asked Chen about Gou's taking of deities to the U.S. and his claim that the gods agree with him on the status quo across the Taiwan Strait, Chen said, "I cannot answer the question about the gods."
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President Donald Trump is standing by his man. Sort of.
Trump was asked Friday about New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, who faces a pair of charges for soliciting prostitution as part of a sex sting operation in Jupiter, Fla. Trump called the news “sad” and said he was “very surprised” to see it, but noted the 77-year-old Kraft has “proclaimed his innocence totally.”
NEW: Pres. Trump on charges against Patriots owner Robert Kraft: "Well, it's very sad. I was very surprised to see it. He's proclaimed his innocence totally, but I'm very surprised to see it." https://t.co/bHHgDtBTng pic.twitter.com/ZUqrwLMHXj — ABC News (@ABC) February 22, 2019
Police say they have video evidence of Kraft being serviced at Orchids of Asia Day Spa in Jupiter and that the solicitations took place about a month ago.
A spokesperson says Kraft denies the allegations.
“We categorically deny that Mr. Kraft engaged in any illegal activity. Because it is a judicial matter, we will not be commenting further.”
ESPN reports the charges Kraft faces are “punishable with up to 60 days in jail, six months of probation and $500 in fines, according to Florida law.”
According to ESPN’s Adam Schefter, the NFL “is aware of the ongoing law enforcement matter and will continue to monitor developments.”
Kraft has been a frequent visitor in the past to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort. In fact, Kraft met the Japanese prime minister while dining with Trump at Mar-a-Lago in 2017.
Mar-a-Lago is about a 30-minute drive from the massage parlor Kraft is accused of visiting.
Kraft also visited Trump at the White House in 2017, following the Patriots’ 34-28 overtime victory against the Atlanta Falcons in Super Bowl LI. Quarterback Tom Brady, also a friend of Trump, did not visit the White House in 2017, and never gave an official reason for skipping the trip.
The Philadelphia Eagles had their offer to visit the White House last year following Super Bowl LII rescinded when it became evident only a small contingent from the team would go to Washington.
The White House has not announced a visit for the Patriots this year, following their 13-3 win over the Los Angeles Rams in Super Bowl LIII.
But several Patriots, including Rutgers alums Duron Harmon and Devin McCourty, have said they will not visit Trump at the White House.
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For the northernmost herbivores on Earth, foraging for food has never been easy. Bound to the icy tundras of an Arctic archipelago, the wild Svalbard reindeers of Norway (Rangifer tarandus platyrhynchus) are accustomed to sparse vegetation.
But what they are dealing with now is far beyond that. With global warming causing more rain and less snow, their usual winter pastures have become trapped under ice. And to avoid starvation, many of these creatures have resorted to seaweed.
In one particularly bad winter, local researchers counted no less than a third of the archipelago's 20,000 reindeer feeding on the shore.
"It seems they can't sustain themselves on seaweed," says lead author Brage Bremset Hansen, a biologist from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology who has been studying this subspecies for decades.
"They do move back and forth between the shore and the few ice-free vegetation patches every day, so it is obvious that they have to combine it with normal food, whatever they can find."
Marooned on an island, without an ice corridor for escape (that, too, has melted), Hansen and his colleagues have watched the Svalbard reindeer grow ever more desperate.
Rather than trying to paw through an impenetrable wall of ice or dig through an exceptionally deep pile of snow, many reindeer are turning to seaweed.
This is a less-than-ideal supplement, and an absolute last resort. While the salty snack does provide a few extra calories, the researchers say it often gives the reindeer diarrhoea.
As such, it's a rarity that traditional Sami reindeer herders only report during poor winter feeding conditions. And recently, those are occurring at a much higher frequency.
The Arctic region is currently warming three times faster than the rest of the world, and as the northern skies dump rain instead of snow, the icy tundra becomes difficult, if not impossible for the reindeer to penetrate.
The good news is that these reindeer are adapting. The bad news is that the planet is moving faster.
A couple years ago, a study found that the average weight of adult reindeer on Svalbard had fallen from 55kg (121lb) to 48kg (106lb) in the 1990s, mostly as a consequence of global warming and charging Arctic landscapes. That's roughly 20kg less than they should ideally be.
What little these reindeer had then; how much less they must have now.
This study has been published in Ecosphere.
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The Supreme Court today declined to hear a case about discrimination against a gay couple at a bed and breakfast in Hawaii, leaving in place a state court ruling against the business owner.
The rejection highlights how narrowly the justices threaded the legal needle when they ruled in favor of Masterpiece Cakeshop in Colorado. In that case, the Supreme Court determed that Colorado had shown religious animus against the baker when they punished him for refusing to sell a wedding cake to a gay couple.
In the case rejected today, the operator of the Aloha Bed & Breakfast in Honolulu was found to be in violation of the state's antidiscrimination laws on public accommodations after refusing to rent a room to a lesbian couple in 2007. The owner resisted Hawaii's public accommodation laws on the basis of the free exercise of her religion under the First Amendment. The state ruled against her, and the Supreme Court is declining to intervene.
This should not surprise anybody who's closely followed these cases. Jack Phillips, the owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop, was clear that he wasn't refusing to sell cakes to gay people or to gay couples. He argued that his religious opposition to gay marriage recognition meant that he shouldn't have to make a cake that would be seen as celebrating same-sex marriage.
Reasonable people can debate whether baking a cake counts as a form of expression. Renting a room or a home is not seen by most as requiring a personal or moral approval of the renting party's romantic relationships.
When the Supreme Court ruled 7-2 in favor of Phillips' bakery last year, some people read the ruling as a broad win for religious freedom. It was not. The majority ruled that Colorado's Civil Rights Commission had not fairly or neutrally applied Colorado's discrimination laws, and that members had openly expressed clear animosity and contempt toward Phillips' religious beliefs in a case where they were obligated to be impartial.
Courts have regularly ruled that neutrally applied antidiscrimination laws can prohibit businesses from turning away people on the basis of being a member of a protected class, regardless of what their faith tells them. Even a Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) protection on the state or federal level has limits.
When the Supreme Court justices heard the Masterpiece Cakeshop arguments, they publicly debated what counted as speech or expression in the producing of a consumer good and whether forcing Phillips to bake a cake was compelling him to engage in speech, but they didn't ultimately decide the case on that issue.
All of that is to say, the court still hasn't decided whether a baker is expressing support for gay marriage by baking a gay couple a wedding cake. But a person running a bed and breakfast is not expressing support by renting them a room.
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One Nation has blamed "cyclonic weather" in Brisbane as the reason behind one of many breaches of Queensland electoral laws.
According to the Electoral Commission of Queensland (ECQ) the party's Queensland branch has failed to disclose some of its spending, lodge returns in time and notify donors of their disclosure requirements.
Documents obtained by the ABC under Right to Information detail investigations by the ECQ and the party's attempts to explain the breaches.
In the list of excuses given by One Nation staff to the ECQ, notable examples include computer problems and wild weather.
One Nation's Brisbane office manager Greg Smith wrote to the ECQ in March asking for an extension of the 2016 donation disclosures because of "computer system upgrades".
By the end of the week he blamed "cyclonic weather conditions" for still failing to meet the extended deadline, which was during the week of Tropical Cyclone Debbie.
"This is entirely due to the event of the closure of the office during the cyclonic weather conditions and ongoing disruption to relevant staff," the email reads.
On another matter, branch staff said they were not able to access receipts for gift disclosure because the former party secretary Rodney Evans left without providing passwords for accounting software.
A row of cardboard voting booths used in Queensland election from ECQ. ( ABC: Candice Marshall )
The ECQ also wrote to One Nation in May, summarising repeated compliance issues during 2014-15 including:
failure to lodge returns within the prescribed timeframe
failure to lodge returns within the prescribed timeframe failure to notify donors of their disclosure obligations
failure to notify donors of their disclosure obligations failure to disclose expenditure return
failure to disclose expenditure return debts not supported by documents
debts not supported by documents return expenditure not supported by documentation.
While more than 130 pages were released to the ABC, dozens more have been withheld as they relate to ongoing investigations and enquiries.
The Australian Electoral Commission is also investigating the ownership of a plane used by One Nation.
Last month it was revealed the Queensland Greens branch had its own compliance issues.
'I'm on top of things', Pauline Hanson says
Ms Hanson has since told the ABC the One Nation office was shut during Cyclone Debbie "like many other offices around Brisbane".
But she said the paperwork was submitted "within days of the time required".
"This is a witch hunt by the ABC — how many other political parties do they chase up [through the electoral commission]?" she said.
"We have actually complied with the rules and regulations — we have had difficulty getting passwords for bank accounts from previous people within this organisation who are still causing us problems.
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Washington (CNN) -- A U.S. lawmaker said he requested Friday a visit with the Army soldier accused of leaking classified documents to the WikiLeaks website.
"I am concerned about reports of his treatment while in custody that describe alarming abuses of his constitutional rights and his physical health," Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, said in a letter to Defense Secretary Robert Gates.
Kucinich, a member of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, said in a statement that he wants an "explanation of reports that the Army ignored evidence of mental health problems of Pfc. (Bradley) Manning, and that he is being held in conditions that could contribute (to) a violation of the his Eighth Amendment right of protection from 'cruel and unusual' punishment."
He asked for a visit, he said, because as a member of the House committee, "It is my duty to conduct effective oversight."
The allegations of abuse gained more attention on Tuesday after a friend visited Manning at the U.S. Marine Corps brig in Quantico, Virginia.
David House, one of the few people to see Manning, the prime suspect in the WikiLeaks case, since his confinement more than six months ago, said Manning "seems frazzled."
He is "sometimes simply catatonic, unable to have conversations about anything really," House told CNN.
House said Manning is physically deteriorating. "He hasn't exercised in seven or eight months since he was confined," he said.
The Pentagon disputes the idea that Manning is being mistreated. Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell told reporters during a news conference last week that reports "that he is being mistreated, or somehow treated differently than others, in isolation, are just not accurate."
Manning is held in his cell 23 hours a day. He is allowed out of his cell to exercise, for an hour a day.
"Just as though he is not being treated any worse than any other detainee, he is not being treated any better than any other detainee. He is not going to receive special privileges," Morrell said. "He is being treated exactly like everyone else in the brig is being treated. That's what's appropriate."
To those, like House, who say Manning should not be held in maximum security conditions, Morrell said it's not just for his own protection.
"He's being held behind bars because he is deemed a threat, that he has been alleged to have committed a very serious crime that potentially undermines our nation's security, and therefore he needs to be confined during the course of a trial," Morrell said.
CNN Pentagon Producer Larry Shaughnessy contributed to this report
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Takamoto Katsuta will tackle eight rounds of next year's World Rally Championship in a Toyota Yaris WRC, including his home event - the season-closing Rally Japan.
The 26-year-old drove a Yaris during his top-class WRC debut in Germany this year - where he took a top 10 finish - and also contested Spain in the same car.
He spent 2017-'19 building his speed in the WRC 2 category in a Ford Fiesta R5, and keeps the same co-driver for next season, Dan Barritt.
Katsuta starts his programme with next month's Monte Carlo Rally. Sweden, Portugal, Sardinia, Finland, Germany and Wales follow in Europe before he heads east for Japan.
Katsuta's fourth Yaris WRC will run alongside the factory cars of Sebastien Ogier, Elfyn Evans and Kalle Rovanpera, but it's likely to be serviced separately by Tommi Makinen Racing and run a different livery to the official cars.
"I have good experience of each event from this year, but to be able to compete at the top level in a World Rally Car is a big step up," said ex-Japanese Formula 3 racer Katsuta.
"Although my first events in the Yaris WRC this year were very positive, I know I still need to improve my driving and my pace-notes to reach a higher level.
"I'm really motivated to do that and I'm looking forward to seeing how much progress I can make next year.
"I hope I can show a good step between the beginning and the end of the season, and I'm really excited for it to start and I must say thank you very much to Toyota Gazoo Racing and Tommi Makinen Racing for giving me this amazing opportunity."
Toyota Gazoo Racing Rally Challenge Program supervisor Makinen added: "Takamoto has already gained some experience driving the Yaris WRC this year, and just this week he did the final day of our test to prepare for Monte Carlo.
"So he's becoming more knowledgeable about the car and gaining a better understanding of how a World Rally Car behaves, compared to what he's driven before.
Autosport Plus on Katsuta
The F3 convert carrying a nation's WRC hopes
"In Spain we had already seen him set some good stage times, especially on his second time through the stages.
"Now he just needs more experience, which will help him to improve his consistency.
"I'm very confident that he will show good things throughout his programme of events in 2020."
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Rob Tisinai
A mob — I mean, a horde — I mean, a coalition — of Christian-based anti-gay activists has taken a stand against any Supreme Court decision that favors marriage equality. They vow to…well, that part’s a little vague. Some excerpts:
As Christian citizens united together, we will not stand by while the destruction of the institution of marriage unfolds in this nation we love… We stand together in solidarity to defend marriage and the family and society founded upon them… We cannot and will not allow this to occur on our watch… But, make no mistake about our resolve. While there are many things we can endure, redefining marriage is so fundamental to the natural order and the true common good that this is the line we must draw and one we cannot and will not cross…
Not sure what they’re promising to do, but this echoes the Manhattan Declaration:
And so just as Christ was willing, out of love, to give Himself up for the church in a complete sacrifice, we are willing, lovingly, to make whatever sacrifices are required of us for the sake of the inestimable treasure that is marriage… [We will not] bend to any rule purporting to force us to bless immoral sexual partnerships, treat them as marriages or the equivalent…
Yes, they’re brave and resolute — and surprisingly reluctant to tell us what all this will look like in practice. Or perhaps not so surprising when you start imagining examples. Say, this one: Denying health care to children.
It’s easy to see how it could happen. It takes just one employer with the courage to say:
Whatever the law says, I refuse to grant spousal and family benefits to your same-sex “spouse,” to your “spouse’s” biological child, or (shudder!) to the child you have adopted together. Such arrangements are abhorrent to God, and recognizing them would violate my promise never to treat them as marriage or even the equivalent. I stand my ground, ready to accept any sacrifice or harm it does to me.
And suddenly those children lose access to anything but emergency health care. No more long-term care. No more preventive care, the sort that catches problems while they can still be treated. So I have to ask these brave and resolute Christians:
How brave will you feel when the first child dies?
If experience is any guide, somebody will read that and express their concern that it’s needlessly inflammatory. It’s inflammatory, to be sure, but needlessly so? Sometimes the truth is inflammatory all on its own.
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Black Friday shoppers spent more in stores, broke records online over the weekend
Dalvin Brown | USA TODAY
Show Caption Hide Caption Tips to avoid debt from holiday shopping USA TODAY personal finance reporter, Jessica Menton, delivers some tips for avoiding debt in order to deliver an enjoyable holiday gifting experience.
Americans spent more money Black Friday shopping in 2019 than ever before.
Both online and in-store sales figures increased over last year as consumers grow more comfortable with shopping on their smartphones and tablets.
Brick-and-mortar sales were up 4.2% over last year, according to an annual holiday spending report from First Data, now Fiserv.
The financial technology company also found that shoppers were willing to travel for a discount: A quarter of consumers traveled more than 25 miles to visit a physical store.
The report suggests that electronics, appliances, sporting goods and clothing were the must-have items. Electronics and appliances accounted for $214 per transaction on average, while shoppers spent $101 on sporting goods and $81 on shoes and clothing.
Fiserv says it drew its conclusion after analyzing sales data across more than 1 million brick-and-mortar merchant locations.
Spending via mobile wallets was up 82% compared with 2018, Fiserv found.
Is Black Friday only an American tradition? Not anymore
Cyber Monday streaming music deals: Amazon Music, Tidal for 99 cents, and SiriusXM for $1
“Despite the evolution in consumer shopping habits, Black Friday remains an important bellwether for the holiday season,” said Devin McGranahan, executive vice president and senior group president at Fiserv. “In 2019, consumers showed their willingness to travel for a good deal and blended their physical shopping with digital payments via mobile wallets.”
Online shopping pulled in a record $7.2 billion on Friday, according to Salesforce, which tracks online spending. That's a 14% growth over last year. On Thanksgiving, digital sales in the U.S. rose 17% to $4.1 billion; 65% of all digital orders came through a smartphone.
"This indicates that shoppers are ready to transition toward a mobile-only reality and that mobile is becoming the driver for multichannel and multitouchpoint engagements," Salesforce said in a news release.
The most buzzed-about brands on social media were PlayStation, Nintendo, Apple, Xbox and Google, Salesforce found.
The e-commerce behemoth Amazon was the most talked-about retailer online on Nov. 29, followed by Walmart and Target.
Follow Dalvin Brown on Twitter: @Dalvin_Brown.
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Thirty years ago, doctors were not sure if Sabina Checkett would survive because she was born so prematurely.
But the tiny baby girl fought for her life; and today, she is helping other premature babies to thrive as a medical specialist in London, England.
The Daily Mail reports Checkett was born weighing only 2 pounds, 10 ounces when she was born two and a half months early in 1986.
Doctors gave her a poor diagnosis, telling her parents that she had only a 50-percent chance of surviving, according to the report. If she did live, she likely would suffer from a number of health problems, the doctors said.
Because of concerns for her health, Checkett said her parents were only allowed to see her once a day and could not hold her. Initially, she said she used a ventilator to breathe.
“At two weeks old the tube became dislodged, causing her mother to panic when she began to ‘turn blue’, but nurses were quickly able to fix the problem,” according to the report.
Eventually, she grew well enough to go home.
That traumatic experience shaped Checkett’s future plans from an early age. She said she was only 6 years old when she decided that she wanted to become a doctor.
“My school did some fundraising for our local neonatal unit, and because the school knew I was born there prematurely, I went along to visit,” she remembered. “After walking on the ward and seeing all of the newborn babies in their cots, I came home and told my mum I wanted to be a doctor.”
Today, she works at Evelina London Children’s Hospital as a neonatal specialist, according to the report.
“I was just like them all those years ago and now I’m helping to look after them,” she said.
Modern medical advances are saving more premature babies than ever before. The earliest known premature baby to survive outside the womb was born at 21 weeks and four days of pregnancy. In 2017, the journal Pediatrics highlighted the girl’s survival story.
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The smallest recorded surviving baby weighed less than 9 ounces at birth. Born in California in December 2018, baby Saybie was deemed well enough to go home in May.
Recently, the British Association of Medicine issued new guidelines encouraging medical treatment for babies born at just 22 weeks of pregnancy, the BBC reports. Research published in 2015 in the New England Journal of Medicine found that 23 percent of premature infants are surviving as early as 22 weeks of pregnancy.
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By Roberta Rampton
RANCHO MIRAGE, Calif. (Reuters) - President Barack Obama blamed public apathy combined with the tight "grip" on Congress of the National Rifle Association, the powerful U.S. gun lobby, for blocking stricter gun laws.
Speaking during an interview recorded on Friday, just two days after the mass shooting at a black church in South Carolina, Obama said he did not foresee any quick changes to gun laws.
"Unfortunately, the grip of the NRA on Congress is extremely strong," Obama said in a clip of the interview with "WTF with Marc Maron" posted by the New York Times.
It was not the first time Obama has railed against the NRA. After the Newtown, Connecticut school massacre in 2012, a tragedy that Obama has called his toughest time in office, he pushed for changes to gun laws.
He proposed more background checks for gun sales and pushed to ban more types of military-style assault weapons and limit the capacity of ammunition magazines.
But he failed to convince enough lawmakers to support the restrictions.
"I don't foresee any legislative action being taken in this Congress. And I don't foresee any real action being taken until the American public feels a sufficient sense of urgency and they say to themselves, 'This is not normal, this is something that we can change, and we're going to change it,'" he said in the interview with Maron.
The interview marks the fifth time in two days that Obama spoke publicly about his frustrations with gun laws. He addressed the issue in Washington before traveling to California, where he brought it up at the U.S. Conference of Mayors, and at two fundraisers for the Democratic Party.
Obama, who is spending the weekend golfing in the Palm Springs area with friends, took to Twitter on Saturday to vent.
"Here are the stats: per population, we kill each other with guns at a rate 297x more than Japan, 49x more than France, 33x more than Israel," Obama said on Twitter.
The U.S. constitution protects the right to own guns. Obama acknowledged in the interview that guns are an important part of many Americans' heritage.
Story continues
"The question is just: is there a way of accommodating that legitimate set of traditions with some common-sense stuff that prevents a 21-year-old who is angry about something or confused about something or is racist or is deranged from going into a gun store," Obama said in the interview.
"That is not something that we have ever fully come to terms with," he said.
(Reporting by Roberta Rampton; Editing by David Gregorio)
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Nordic countries with strong social welfare structures fared best, as they have in previous years, on the United Nation's annual accounting of global happiness—while the United States finished in 18th place, down four spots from 2017.
Finland was ranked number one on the World Happiness Report, compiled by the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network. The country was joined by other Scandinavian nations—Norway, Denmark, and Iceland—in the top four, followed by Switzerland, the Netherlands, Canada, New Zealand, Sweden, and Australia.
"The trends are not good, and the comparative position of the U.S. relative to other high-income countries is nothing short of alarming." —Jeffrey D. Sachs, editor, World Happiness Report
"I think there really is a deep and very unsettling signal coming through that U.S. society is in many ways under profound stress, even though the economy by traditional measures is doing fine," Jeffrey D. Sachs, an editor of the report, told the New York Times. "The trends are not good, and the comparative position of the U.S. relative to other high-income countries is nothing short of alarming."
The drop followed President Donald Trump's first year in office, during which the majority of Americans reported disapproval of the country's top elected official, and hundreds of thousands protested his regressive policies on immigration, women's reproductive rights, and gun control—as well as widespread concerns that the president is blatantly profiting off his position in public office.
The past year also saw reports of America's widening wealth gap, with the average upper middle-class household holding 75 times more wealth than low-income families.
Trump's tax law, pushed through Congress despite the disapproval of 53 percent of Americans, only heightened the perception of many people that the government is intent on transferring wealth to the richest Americans while the majority live paycheck to paycheck.
The World Happiness Report ranks countries according to per capita GDP, social support, life expectancy, freedom to make life choices, generosity, and corruption levels.
Life expectancy in the U.S. dropped for the second year in a row in 2017, with researchers suggesting that the opioid addiction epidemic and inequality are related to the decline.
Reigning political ideologies in the highest-ranking nations contrast sharply with that of the U.S., noted the researchers.
The countries in the top 10 tend to "believe that what makes people happy is solid social support systems, good public services, and even paying a significant amount in taxes for that," said Sachs.
Every top-ranking country also ensures that every citizen has access to free or affordable healthcare, while millions of Americans remain uninsured despite the implementation of the Affordable Care Act.
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Indulging in a drink or two might sound like the perfect way to say goodbye to an especially long and stressful week, but as it turns out, there might be some unwanted side effects.
In a report published in the Journal of Neuroscience, a team of researchers at the Texas A&M University detail how, in a study on animal models, they found that alcohol can reshape the brain.
More precisely, the scientists say they discovered alcohol can act on both the structure and the function of neurons in a brain region known to be involved in goal-driven behaviors.
The team explains that this discovery offers new insights into alcoholism, maybe even other addictions. Interestingly, they also argue that their findings could lead to the creation of new drugs that address addictions.
“My ultimate goal is to understand how the addicted brain works, and once we do, one day, we’ll be able to suppress the craving for another round of drinks and ultimately, stop the cycle of alcoholism,” says researcher Jun Wang.
How alcohol affects the brain
To better understand how some people become addicted to alcohol, the research team used animal models to study how alcohol consumption transforms the brain.
They found that alcohol consumption transforms the anatomy and physiology of a brain region known as the dorsomedial striatum in that it makes neurons involved in cravings more excitable.
As these neurons become more sensitive, they require less stimulation to be activated. What this means is that just one sip of wine can trigger cravings for an entire bottle.
“This creates a cycle where drinking causes easier activation, and activation causes more drinking,” the scientists explain. In time, these changes in brain function are bound to lead to alcoholism.
The same experiments revealed that alcohol not only makes these neurons involved in cravings more excitable but it also alters their anatomy in that it makes protrusions coming off of them longer.
Treating alcoholism and other addictions
Since the end goal of this research project is to try and find a treatment for alcoholism and maybe even other addictions, the scientists tested what would happen when the activity of the craving neurons was blocked, be it only partially.
Sure enough, the animal models that were given a drug to control the activity of these neurons showed a reduced desire to drink, even though they had previously shown signs of alcoholism. The researchers are now hoping they might be able to recreate this result in people.
“If we suppress this activity, we’re able to suppress alcohol consumption. This is the major finding. Perhaps in the future, researchers can use these findings to develop a specific treatment targeting these neurons,” says Jun Wang.
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FRISCO — The Cowboys monitored Ezekiel Elliott’s snap count during the first two games this season, careful not to overload his plate following a 40-day contract holdout.
Moving forward, the counting stops.
Elliott’s training wheels appear ready for removal entering Sunday’s game against the Miami Dolphins. While his workload ultimately could be limited if the scoreboard compels the Cowboys to pull certain players in the second half, Elliott otherwise will be cleared for a customary role.
Last year, Elliott never played less than 80% of the offense’s snaps in a game. This season, he handled 54.4% and 76.8% in Weeks 1 and 2 with 37 and 53 offensive snaps, respectively.
“This is our third game,” offensive coordinator Kellen Moore said. “I think he’s at that point where we’re pretty much playing this thing out at this point. It was good those first two weeks just to be aware of it and then also trust Zeke’s response and how he feels and all those things and just balancing that stuff out.”
Twenty-six of Elliott’s 37 snaps in Week 1 against the New York Giants occurred in the first half. At halftime, Cowboys coaches saw that number and decided to ease off some. The score facilitated their plan; the running back’s only two snaps during the fourth quarter came in the victory formation of a 35-17 win.
In Week 2, 30 of his 53 snaps came in the first half. Again, coaches decided to dial him back. Rookie Tony Pollard, who played merely two snaps in the first half, handled 12 to Elliott’s seven in the third quarter. Dallas then leaned on Elliott in the four-minute offense, closing out the Washington Redskins with Elliott seeing 16 snaps to Pollard’s two in the fourth quarter.
Pollard will remain involved even as Elliott ramps up further. But Elliott’s return to football shape naturally will lead to fewer moments in which coaches keep Elliott on the sideline for prolonged periods.
“We still feel great about Zeke,” Moore said. “We were just making sure we don’t overdo it in the second game back. It was perfect. Tony got in there, started playing. Get Zeke back in there, kind of balancing back and forth. I think it ended up pretty balanced and pretty on point as far as play snaps that we would have loved to have.”
Locate a flathead screwdriver. Turn it lefty loosey. Pull apart the training-wheel bars.
Watch him go.
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Sen. Elizabeth Warren Elizabeth WarrenHarris joins women's voter mobilization event also featuring Pelosi, Gloria Steinem, Jane Fonda Judd Gregg: The Kamala threat — the Californiaization of America GOP set to release controversial Biden report MORE (D-Mass.) re-introduced legislation requiring the president, vice president and their family members to divest any financial interests that could create conflicts of interest.
The Presidential Conflicts of Interest Act, which Warren is set to introduce Wednesday, would also prohibit anyone appointed by the president from handling matters affecting the president’s financial interests and would require all major-party presidential nominees to release three years of tax returns.
Warren, a Democratic presidential candidate, made the last 10 years of her tax returns public. But Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand Kirsten GillibrandSunday shows preview: Justice Ginsburg dies, sparking partisan battle over vacancy before election Suburban moms are going to decide the 2020 election Jon Stewart urges Congress to help veterans exposed to burn pits MORE (D-N.Y.) is the only candidate thus far to release her 2018 returns.
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"Corruption has always been the central stain of this presidency," Warren said in a statement. "This bill would force 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 to fully divest from the same Trump properties and assets that special interests have spent two-plus years patronizing to try and curry favor with this administration - all while lining the President's pockets."
The bill would also “adopt a sense of the Congress” that violations of ethics requirements or conflicts of interest constitute a high crime or misdemeanor under the Constitution’s impeachment clause.
The bill is a re-introduction of a January 2017 measure and follows numerous concerns from critics of President Trump about potential conflicts of interest involving Trump, his family members and members of his administration.
Warren notes recent cases such as T-Mobile’s disclosure that it increased spending at Trump hotels while it sought approval for a merger with Sprint.
She was also one of 11 Democratic senators to sign a letter last October calling on Trump to disclose any financial ties to Saudi Arabia.
Last August, Warren also introduced the Anti-Corruption and Public Integrity Act, which would impose a lifetime ban on lobbying for presidents, vice presidents, members of Congress, federal judges and Cabinet secretaries, as well as requiring presidents and vice presidents to place all assets that could create conflicts of interest in a blind trust and requiring the IRS to release eight years of tax returns for all presidential and vice presidential candidates.
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DeFi-native Set Protocol, an automated investment platform, has finalized its rollout of social trading, allowing everyday users to benefit from the wisdom and expertise of financially-savvy traders.
Emotionless Trading with Experts
Automated investment services have grown into a sizable market for retail investors looking to gain an edge by delegating the hard work to a so-called Robo advisor.
According to Backend Benchmarking, Robo advisors currently manage close to $440 billion. Back in 2016, Deloitte was convinced that robots would manage upwards of a trillion dollars by 2020. In the latest, crypto enthusiasts now have an equivalent product to manage their digital assets via Set Protocol’s social trading offering.
It combines the use of Robo advisors as well as experienced human crypto traders to help users make more informed decisions.
The launch of Set’s social trading feature is the second product in the space after eToro’s Copy Trader announced in October 2019. Like eToro, it allows novice traders to copy the investment portfolio of participating experts.
Set’s offering is, however, the first permissionless variant of copy trading.
At the moment, there are 13 different traders that users can copy on the platform. Aaron Kruger, a swing trader, has attracted the most activity as a social trader thus far, with over $65,000 allocated across three strategies at the time of writing.
Other notable traders include Richard Burton, an early Ethereum employee and founder of Balance, and Anthony Sassano, Set’s product manager.
The notion of permissionless financial services is just dawning and the majority of DeFi investors are still those with high-risk appetites.
Investment Opportunities in DeFi
All of Set’s social trading strategies mainly focus on rebalancing between “wrapped” versions of volatile assets like ETH and BTC, called wETH and wBTC respectively, to stablecoins like DAI and USDC.
The main difference between traders is how and when the rebalancing is executed.
Aaron Kruger’s moonshot strategy, for instance, is a fully-automated bot that makes decisions based on statistical analysis. Conversely, David Hoffman’s strategy relies on his synthesis of information along with the confirmation of other experts he trusts.
Users should also be reminded that even established cryptocurrencies like BTC and ETH are hyper-volatile speculative investments. Due diligence of this sort shouldn’t be limited to just automated investments like Set Protocol, but to the broader crypto ecosystem as well.
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