text
stringlengths 245
34.4k
| id
int64 0
1.27M
|
|---|---|
me throughout the programme, intimating that I was unqualified to comment on his country’s political system. Deane also endorsed a tweet likening me to the “bigot Alibi Nazi” – a reference to Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, another journalist who, like myself and Ayesha Hazarika, is a Muslim.
Despite my non-affiliated approach to politics, the online mob followed Deane’s lead in falsely caricaturing me as left-wing. This was particularly alarming, according to the investigators who looked at the threats, because it evoked the murder of Jo Cox – the Labour MP who was gunned down and knifed repeatedly by an online obsessive three years ago because he considered her a “traitor” to white people.
Words – and especially vindictive online postings – have consequences, but the new breed of Conservative extremists remain unconcerned. Their focus is currently on crushing ideological enemies using methods honed by far-right strategists such as Steve Bannon.
Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events
Online hate can easily be intensified by the kind of anonymous accounts that assisted Deane in his attacks on me. Their interactions with him accused me of numerous monstrosities, such as support for terrorism – appalling allegations which Deane condoned by liking a series of them on Twitter and engaging with some of their authors.
These accounts, most likely “bots”, swell support for cruel messages like Deane’s and push ideas into people’s social feeds. It is this messaging that can warp elections when deployed at scale.
There are Tories who powerfully object to the kind of language that Deane felt able to endorse. Johnson has been told by numerous critics, not least Amber Rudd, his own former work and pensions secretary, that his own language “does incite violence”, but he could, apparently, not care less.
Tory grandees are evidently as disturbed about such developments as the rest of us. Ex-Conservative Party chairman Lord Patten said the brutal expulsion of his colleagues in favour of die-hard Brexit fanatics said everything about the coarse nature of the reconstituted Tories.
“It’s an English nationalist government which, as Ken Clarke said, is the most extreme far-right cabinet in the history of the Conservative Party. It’s absolutely outrageous,” Lord Patten told Sky News.
Boris Johnson and Alex Deane are textbook examples of what the new Tory Party represents. Every one of us should be worried about the rapidly changing nature of British politics and must be extremely wary about this shift towards wickedness, and the immense harm it is doing to public life.
| 6,000 |
The former neuroscience graduate student accused of killing 12 people in the Colorado movie theatre shooting sent a package to his university before the attack describing a violent assault, multiple news outlets reported Wednesday.
Citing unnamed law enforcement sources, the Fox News website reported that shooting suspect James Holmes sent a notebook to the University of Colorado, Denver.
Fox said the notebook contained drawings of stick figures being shot and a written description of an upcoming attack. The package containing it was addressed to a psychiatrist at the school, the website reported.
It was unclear if Holmes, 24, had had any previous contact with the person. The neuroscience program that he withdrew from on June 10 included professors of psychiatry.
Holmes is accused of opening fire on a theatre showing the new Batman movie, killing 12 people and injuring 58. He is due to hear the charges against him at a court hearing scheduled Monday.
James Holmes (left) sits with public defender Tamara Brady during his first court appearance in Aurora, Colo., on Monday. (RJ Sangosti/Reuters)
NBC News, also citing unnamed sources, reported that Holmes told investigators to look for the package and that it described killing people.
The FBI and other law enforcement agencies refused to confirm the reports to The Associated Press.
The University of Colorado, Denver, issued a statement saying it could not confirm the reports or discuss any aspects of the investigation, citing a gag order placed on the case by a judge. It said that packages to the main mailroom of the Anschutz Medical Campus, where Holmes studied, are not tracked unless the U.S. Postal Service requires a signature upon delivery.
Before the gag order was issued, police said Holmes received more than 50 packages at the school and his home that apparently contained ammunition, combat gear and explosive materials that he used in the attack and to booby trap his Aurora apartment.
Holmes's apartment building remained closed on Wednesday, although his defence team stopped by for a brief visit. They left without answering reporters' questions.
Holmes was allegedly stockpiling for the attack while he studied at the school's neuroscience program. He bought a shotgun and pistol in May, authorities say. On June 7, the date he took a year-end oral exam, he bought an assault rifle. He filed paperwork to leave the program three days later and did not provide a reason, the university has said.
On June 25, he filed an application to join a private gun range in eastern Colorado, but the club's owner, hearing what he described as a "bizarre" outgoing voice mail on Holmes' cellphone recorded in a low voice with heavy-breathing, told his staff to watch out for the man. Holmes never came to the range.
| 6,001 |
SINGAPORE - Apple's second store in Singapore at Jewel Changi Airport opens on Saturday (July 13) at 10am and shoppers can expect to be greeted by staff who, between them, can speak 11 languages.
The tech giant's new two-storey store on the second level of Jewel employs more than 100 staff and some will even be able to converse with customers in sign language, Apple told media during a sneak preview of the outlet on Thursday.
Besides Jewel, Apple is also planning to set up another store in Marina Bay Sands, The Straits Times reported in March, following the opening of its Orchard outlet in 2017.
The Jewel store will be Apple's first outlet inside an airport complex and will have over 200 products, including Apple iPhones and iMacs as well as third-party accessories, that customers can get their hands on.
During the media preview, Mr Denny Tuza, Apple's senior market director, said the response at Apple's first store in Orchard Road has been tremendous.
"In the little two years we have been open, we have welcomed more than four million customers through our doors," he said.
[[nid:451744]]
"Now, we are excited at opening our doors to even more people in this wonderful city and around the globe as people travel through this bustling airport," said Mr Tuza.
At Apple stores, customers can get technical advice and support about Apple products as well as take part in learning programmes through Today at Apple sessions, which range from photography to coding.
"We also know that people in Singapore love to learn. We saw this with our Today at Apple sessions in Apple Orchard Road," said Mr Tuza.
"We wanted to create something really special here at Changi, something really unique, something different. So we created our own Today at Apple session," he said.
Called The Magic of Jewel Changi Airport Photo Walk, this one-hour session allows visitors to learn new photography techniques using iPhones and iPads as they capture and explore architectural highlights of Jewel - such as its modern architecture, indoor gardens and its 40m waterfall.
Customers can sign up for this and other sessions via the Today at Apple website.
And for the first customers attending the grand opening of the Apple Store at Jewel Changi Airport, they will each receive an exclusive Apple commemorative T-shirt.
Apple did not specify the number of T-shirts to be given out, but The Straits Times understands that the T-shirts should be available during the first two hours of the store's opening on Saturday.
This article was first published in The Straits Times. Permission required for republication.
| 6,002 |
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo Michael (Mike) Richard PompeoTreasury sanctions individuals, groups tied to Russian malign influence activities Navalny released from hospital after suspected poisoning Overnight Defense: Pentagon redirects pandemic funding to defense contractors | US planning for full Afghanistan withdrawal by May | Anti-Trump GOP group puts ads in military papers MORE will travel to North Korea on Thursday as the U.S. continues its push for the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula.
Pompeo will meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and other officials, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said during Monday’s press briefing.
The State Department said in a press release that Pompeo will visit Pyongyang as part of a week-long trip to Asia and Europe.
ADVERTISEMENT
He will remain in North Korea until Saturday to “continue consultations and implement the forward progress made by President Trump Donald John TrumpBiden on Trump's refusal to commit to peaceful transfer of power: 'What country are we in?' Romney: 'Unthinkable and unacceptable' to not commit to peaceful transition of power Two Louisville police officers shot amid Breonna Taylor grand jury protests MORE and Chairman Kim in Singapore,” the State Department said.
He will then travel to Tokyo for two days, followed by two day stops in Vietnam, Abu Dhabi and Brussels, respectively. Pompeo will be in Brussels for the NATO Summit, which President Trump will also attend.
Pompeo’s visit to North Korea comes amid multiple news reports that cite U.S. officials who believe North Korea is misleading the U.S. and continuing to develop its nuclear arsenal.
Sanders would not comment Monday on intelligence reports about North Korea's nuclear program, but said the administration is "continuing to make progress" in talks with North Korea.
"We see progress and momentum in the process, and we've had good conversations as recently as yesterday, and we're going to continue those conversations later this week and push forward," Sanders said.
President Trump met with Kim in Singapore last month, where the two leaders signed an agreement that said North Korea would abandon its nuclear program. The document but did not specify a timeline or method for doing so.
Trump touted the agreement as a significant step toward peace in the world, and declared North Korea is "no longer a nuclear threat."
Recently released satellite images have cast doubt on that statement, as have reports that North Korea has increased fuel production for nuclear missiles at several secret research facilities.
National security adviser John Bolton acknowledged on Sunday that North Korea has a history of going back on its promises. He added that U.S. officials have developed a plan that would dismantle North Korea's nuclear program within a year.
| 6,003 |
ATLANTA — Georgia’s attorney general is asking a judge to dismiss a federal lawsuit filed by a gay rights group challenging the state’s constitutional ban on same-sex marriages.
Lambda Legal filed the lawsuit in April on behalf of seven people. Republican Attorney General Sam Olens, representing the state registrar, said in a filing Monday that the suit takes away Georgia residents’ right to define marriage.
Olens’ brief acknowledges a movement in some states to recognize same-sex marriage and public opinion polls that support those changes.
“But judicially imposing such a result now would merely wrest a potentially unifying popular victory from the hands of supporters and replace it instead with the stale conformity of compulsion,” the brief says. “This Court should reject Plaintiffs’ invitation to disregard controlling precedent, decline to anticipate a future ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court, and dismiss Plaintiffs’ claims in their entirety.”
Beth Littrell, a senior attorney for Lambda Legal and co-counsel on the Georgia case said Olens’ arguments are “dead wrong” and have been rejected in other challenges to state bans on same-sex marriage.
“This is a strong indication the attorney general plans on defending the marriage ban regardless of the precedent lining up against him that the federal Constitution provides to all citizens the right to marry the person they love,” Littrell said.
Georgia voters overwhelmingly approved a constitutional ban on gay marriage in 2004. It was challenged in courts over wording of the ballot question, but the state Supreme Court ruled in 2006 that the vote was valid.
The current lawsuit filed in federal court challenges the ban itself, rather than the ballot wording.
Article continues below
The state constitution prohibits same-sex marriage and says such marriages performed in other states aren’t legally recognized in Georgia.
The Supreme Court last year found that the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, which forbade the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriage, improperly deprived gay couples of due process. Lower-court judges have cited that decision when striking down bans in other states.
Olens’ brief says that should not apply to Georgia because the state’s marriage laws do not imply a right to marry someone of the same sex.
Same-sex marriage is legal in 19 states and the District of Columbia. Bans that have been overturned in some other states continue to make their way through the courts.
Follow this case: Inniss v. Aderhold.
© 2014, Associated Press, All Rights Reserved.
This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
| 6,004 |
I'd honestly never thought I would make a thread like this, on a site I respected, yet here we are...A few hours ago on SegaNerds.com, a distasteful April Fools joke was posted. I don't want to miss anything, or make anything seem like something it is not, so below is an unedited copy of it. I made a screenshot of the whole thing myself on my phone, so apologize for the vertical length. It's all there though...As you can see, this April Fools joke was made in incredibly poor taste. Now, I'm not saying outrageous, offensive content shouldn't exist, but most do agree that this was completely out of line for a Sega Nerds April Fools story, and again, just done in very poor taste all things considered (Seems to have also been a nod to the whole Retro Tweaker fiasco, but I'm not the best versed on that situation so I can't say for sure). So what happened? Well, it got wiped. No apology issued, no mention of anything, basically a "shit, we done fucked up, so let's ignore it and it will go away" sort of deal.But it didn't go away. People on Twitter have taken notice and have called out the one responsible for this "story", @UnboundRequiem of Sega Nerds. The Sega Nerds Twitter account has made no notice of the pulled story, and has offered no comment on the matter, and even Donnie from TSSZ News has come out to publicly call this out. Here is his tweet, un-embedded because the whole thread is relevant. As for @UnboundRequiem themselevs? The only thing he has posted is this, screenshotted of course incase it gets pulled...Wow...I think we all can make mistakes, or errors in judgement, or mis the mark (I think honestly we're all guilty of it a little bit at one point or another), but I can't say that this, in good consciousness, is the way to go about it, specially from a fairly well-known and respected Sega news and editorial resource. I tried to reach out to Requiem, but they never got back to me. This is unfortunately another sad occurrence in the Sega fan community. :( Do you expect, not Requiem themselves, but rather Sega Nerds to say anything tomorrow?Note: fixed grammatical errors.Note 2: Thread title was originally “LULZ #METOO, Rape's funny, & Sexual Harassment is APRIL FOOLZ aka Sega Nerds, I'm Calling You Out”, updated for clarity.Update: The Sega Nerds Twitter, not the site itself, has posted the following public statement.
| 6,005 |
Butcher, baker, candlestick maker? Who were you in a past life? Although most us weren’t rich or famous, we’ve all had interesting lives regardless. So how can you find out who you might have been?
DREAMS AND DÉJÀ VU
Like anomalien.com on Facebook To stay in touch & get our latest news
Have you ever had vivid dreams about living in different times and places? Perhaps you can describe them in extreme detail, from the type of clothing you wore to the food you ate. Maybe you can identify the scenery of a particular country or town. These specifics often indicate a past life you’ve experienced.
Déjà vu is another clue to who you were in a past life. If a place feels familiar, despite you never having been there before, you were likely a resident there during another lifetime.
With dreams and déjà vu, follow your intuition to find out who you were. Pay attention to your feelings and the initial thoughts that pop into your head. For example, you may get “teacher,” “soldier” or “merchant.” Don’t doubt yourself—chances are you’re right on the money.
HISTORICAL AND PERSONAL PREFERENCES
You can also find out who you were by examining historical and personal references. Do you have a particular affinity for a certain period of history? Is the Old West a favorite? Maybe you love the Middle Ages, castles and cathedrals. Or perhaps ancient Egypt fascinates you. These are all clues about your past life identities.
Personal preferences and idiosyncrasies can also tell you a thing or two. For example, if you love sailing, chances are you were a sailor in a past life.
HYPNOSIS AND PSYCHIC READINGS
Although dreams and personal likes can give you some great clues, to get more specific details about your past lives, there’s nothing like hypnosis or a psychic reading.
Hypnotists who specialize in past life regression can actually take you back to those past lives where you can re-experience them. Not only can it be fascinating, it can also help you understand your present life better. You may discover issues that need to be healed or strengths that you can tap into.
Psychic readings can also tell you who you were. Most readers can access the Akashic Records, which house information about every soul and its many journeys.
Finding out who you were in a past life is exciting, but more importantly, it can help you discover who you want to be.
| 6,006 |
The hellfire bow is a powerful bow that players can wield at level 90 Ranged and does not require ammo. One Hellfire bow per world appears somewhere on the ground in the Wilderness, including the portion of the Edgeville Dungeon that is in the Wilderness, visible to all players and with a large golden loot beam on top of it. The beam's appearance is not affected by the player's loot beam settings. If the bow is taken a smaller loot beam may persist in its original location.
Whilst in the Wilderness, players can operate any of the Wilderness swords to locate the bow. This produces a message indicating the general area it has spawned in, for example: The sword pulls towards the north-east area of the Wilderness! (The northern Wilderness is considered to be level 25 or greater.)
When a player is holding the bow, using the locate function will only say that a player has the bow. Instead a message will periodically be broadcast to players on the same world who are also in the Wilderness. For instance, the following message could be a broadcast: Player has the Hellfire bow in level 47 north-east Wilderness! A red marker is also shown under the player carrying the bow. The person carrying it sees the message: Carrying the Hellfire bow has informed other players of your current Wilderness level!
As well as alerting all players who are on the same world and in the Wilderness to the player's location, carrying the bow will also override normal multi-combat and level restriction mechanics. Players of all levels will be able to attack the wielder of the bow without restriction based on Wilderness level and on top of this the wielder can be attacked by any number of players simultaneously, regardless of whether they are in a multi-combat area or not. These mechanics make the bow relatively dangerous to wield.
It disappears if you leave the Wilderness (it will disappear if you go into the safe strip just north of the Wilderness wall), and cannot be keepsaked. Imp-in-a-box would refuse to bank it, and Telekinetic Grab cannot be cast on it.
It cannot be obtained on a Bounty Hunter world.
As it is freely obtained, does not require ammo, and has extremely high stats, it is popular for combat within the Wilderness, such as player killing, Slayer assignments, killing the Chaos Elemental or the WildyWyrm.
Locations
Logging out or entering the lobby will force the player to drop the bow. Leaving the Wilderness makes the bow appear in one of the following locations. Note that players may also drop the bow, so it can also be found in other locations.
Gallery
Concept art of the Hellfire bow
Click an image to enlarge
Trivia
| 6,007 |
Iran's intelligence ministry said Monday it had thwarted a major jihadist plot to carry out bomb attacks in the capital Tehran and other parts of the country, state media reported.
"One of the biggest takfiri-Wahhabi terrorist plots was discovered and foiled," the official IRNA news agency quoted the ministry as saying, using terms applied by Iran to Sunni extremist groups.
"A series of bomb attacks prepared in various areas deep inside the country and especially in Tehran and some other provinces... were foiled, the terrorists were arrested and a number of ready-made bombs were recovered," it said.
No more details were provided. The ministry said they were interrogating the suspects and more information would come following investigations "both inside and outside the country."
The secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, Ali Shamkhani, told the ISNA news agency the plot included plans for "suicide attacks in Tehran."
Iran, the predominant Shiite power, has been helping both the governments of Iraq and President Bashar Assad's regime in Syria to battle the Sunni extremist Islamic State group.
Iranian cities have not however faced any serious threat of jihadist attack, with the country's powerful security forces prioritizing the protection of the country's borders.
In November, Iran's army conducted exercises close to its border with Afghanistan designed to simulate how it would respond if "terrorist groups" such as IS mounted an attack.
Before the drills in the northeastern province of Khorasan, General Ahmad Reza Pourdastan, the army's head of ground forces, announced a 40 kilometer (25 mile) limit on the borders with Iraq and Afghanistan, which if breached would trigger action.
"Before the enemy reaches borders, its actions will be neutralized," he said.
An increased police presence in Tehran in November and December -- with armed security forces guarding subway stations and other public areas in Tehran -- raised concerns that an attack was possible.
But the capital's police chief, Hossein Sajedinia, said the presence was only part of "counter-terrorism drills."
Iranian forces clashed with militants last week on the country's northwestern and southeastern borders, leaving several dead.
The elite Revolutionary Guards killed 12 Kurdish rebels in fighting near the Iraqi border on Wednesday that also left three members of the Guards dead.
Police said the rebels were members of the Party of Free Life of Kurdistan (PJAK), an Iranian Kurdish group with close links to Turkey's outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).
The same day, state television reported that a police officer and five members of Sunni militant group Jaish-ul Adl had been killed in clashes in the southeastern Sistan-Baluchistan province.
| 6,008 |
After Sweden officially recognized Palestine last month, other European countries seem eager to follow suit.
French lawmakers are preparing to vote on Nov. 28 on a proposal urging the government to recognize Palestine.
Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said Paris would do so only if this would help achieve peace, not as a symbolic gesture.
Some experts say the initiative would help revive peace talks that broke down in April.
“Recognition of the state of Palestine by France and other countries would be a reaffirmation of international support for peace,” Samir Saul, a Middle East expert and professor at the University of Montreal, told Al Arabiya News.
Recognition “would contribute in reviving the so-called peace process,” he added.
In France, an online survey recently conducted by Le Point magazine showed that among the 127,120 voters, 99,035 (78 percent) support recognition of Palestine.
French politician Pouria Amirshahi said recognition would give Palestine more weight at the negotiating table.
“It’s the right time to recognize the Palestinian state,” Amirshahi said, adding that a “smart peace process” requires equality between the two parties.
“In this conflict… it’s unequal combat between a recognized state that has all its legal capacities, and a state that’s not totally recognized and can’t take any legal action,” Amirshahi added.
Recognition of Palestine by European countries could politically isolate the rightwing government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Israel has slammed moves to recognize Palestine, saying independence could only be achieved through negotiations, which would be undermined.
Facts on the ground
Some analysts say recognizing Palestine will not change anything on the ground.
“There are fewer chances to see the creation of a Palestinian state as long as the 40-year-long [Israeli] colonization doesn’t come to an end,” Sébastien Boussois, Middle East specialist and scientific director of the MEDEA Institute, told Al Arabiya News.
Israel has occupied the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, since 1967.
It officially annexed East Jerusalem in 1980 and declared the whole city its capital, a move not recognized by the international community.
“Recognizing Palestine may lead to a series of protests across France,” Boussois who wrote many books on the topic said adding that the move may damage Paris’s fragile relations with Israel and the United States.
Last Update: Wednesday, 20 May 2020 KSA 13:54 - GMT 10:54
| 6,009 |
A Republican senator from Wyoming said Tuesday he regrets his poor choice of words after telling students a man who wears a tutu to a bar and gets into fights "kind of asks for it."
Sen. Mike Enzi said in a statement that his comments at Greybull High School and Middle School last week were about respect, tolerance and the dangers of bullying.
"I regret a poor choice of words during part of my presentation," Enzi said. "None of us is infallible and I apologize to anyone who has taken offense. No offense was intended. Quite the opposite in fact, and so I ask for your understanding as well."
The Morning Rundown Get a head start on the morning's top stories. This site is protected by recaptcha
U.S. Sen. Michael Enzi (R-WY) on March 24, 2015 at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. Alex Wong / Getty Images
The Huffington Post reported the comments Tuesday, quoting Greybull Standard editor Mathew Burciaga, who attended the event. In an audio recording Burciaga provided to The Associated Press, a high school student asks Enzi what work he's doing to improve the life of the LGBTQ community in Wyoming.
"We always say that in Wyoming you can be just about anything you want to be, as long as you don't push it in somebody's face," Enzi says. "I know a guy that wears a tutu and goes to bars on Friday night and is always surprised that he gets in fights. Well, he kind of asks for it a little bit. But that's the way that he winds up with that kind of problem."
Enzi adds that "the biggest thing that we need is civility" and that laws aren't always the answer.
Enzi spokesman Max D'Onofrio pointed out that Enzi also spoke to the students about "the importance of respecting other people and how it is incumbent on those in the communities we live in to treat others as you would want to be treated."
Asked about the comments, Enzi's office originally released a statement from the senator saying all people should be treated with respect and condemning bullying and hatred. Shortly after, the office released the second statement from Enzi saying he regretted his poor choice of words.
"No person, including LGBT individuals, should feel unsafe in their community," Enzi said in the second statement.
In 1998, gay University of Wyoming student Matthew Shepard was killed after being beaten, tied to a fence and left for dead. His slaying became a rallying cry in the gay rights movement and a federal hate crimes law now bears his name.
Follow NBC Out on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram
| 6,010 |
* Top palm oil boss asks why NGOs allowed in
* Says industry has become more sustainable
* Government officials say willing to work with NGOs
KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 4 (Reuters) - Malaysian palm oil industry officials on Tuesday urged the government to take action against environmental groups critical of the commodity, with one executive calling them “toxic entities”.
The cultivation of palm oil, which is used in everything from ice cream to lipstick, is blamed for large scale deforestation in Southeast Asia and for endangering wildlife, such as orangutans and pygmy elephants. Indonesia and Malaysia are the top two producers of palm oil.
Environmental groups, especially in Europe, have called on growers to be more sustainable and the European Union last year legislated to phase out palm oil use in renewable fuel by 2030 because of concerns about deforestation.
Franki Anthony Dass, chief advisor and value officer at Sime Darby Plantation - the world’s biggest palm oil company by land size - said non-governmental organisations (NGOs) were orchestrating attacks on palm oil.
“If they are so unfriendly, why allow them to be in our countries Malaysia and Indonesia,” he said at an industry forum in Kuala Lumpur. “We have the right to control this and do something drastic for once.”
Franki said the industry has made great strides in meeting sustainability standards, but the NGOs often changed their demands.
His comments followed a question from Yusof Basiron, executive director of the Council of Palm Oil Producing Countries, who asked Malaysian government officials on a panel if they would take any action against the NGOs. He called the NGOs “toxic entities” for their stance on palm oil.
Shamsul Iskandar Mohd Akin, the deputy minister in charge of the palm oil portfolio, said his ministry will promote the message of sustainability in the industry.
Another ministry official said the government was not looking to sideline NGOs and would work with them to address their concerns.
Malaysia and Indonesia have hit back against the criticism and have vowed to set up a joint fund to counter critics.
Last week, Indonesia’s environment and forestry ministry said it had ended a 25-year conservation agreement with the WWF conservation body because the group allowed a forest where it operated to burn. A ministry official also criticised a WWF social media campaign that criticised the government over forest fires.
A U.S. journalist, who has written stories about environmental destruction in Indonesia, was deported last week after being arrested over alleged visa violations. (Reporting by A. Ananthalakshmi and Mei Mei Chu; editing by Barbara Lewis)
| 6,011 |
Western black rhino has been declared extinct By By Nancy Houser Nov 7, 2013 in Environment Johannesburg - The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the world’s largest conservation network, has declared the western black rhino subspecies as extinct. From 2007 to 2012, rhino poaching has increased 5000%. Meanwhile, other rhino species remain on the brink of extinction. Last seen in 2006 in western Africa, the western black rhino is a subspecies of the African black rhino. According to What will cause further extinction of the remaining species of rhinos are the lack of conservation practices and removal of are their horns, a poached product that is popular in Asia as a powdered rhino horn medicine and in the Middle East as a decoration. Conservation has paid off with the In 1960, about 70,000 black rhinos existed, with only 4,000 remaining today. Six days ago, the "Dallas Safari Club" stated they would be auctioning off a permit for hunting an endangered black rhino, expected to bring in over $1 million. This attracted criticism from conservation groups, but the club said the money was a fundraiser to help protect the species. According to Jan Eliasson, United Nations Deputy Secretary-General, the proceeds of illegal poaching goes toward terror organizations and transnational organized crime. It is linked to drug smugglers, gun runners and human trafficking.Meanwhile, other rhino species remain on the brink of extinction. Last seen in 2006 in western Africa, the western black rhino is a subspecies of the African black rhino. According to CNN, the black rhino is listed as “critically endangered” by the IUCN, also warning that the Asia’s Javan rhino are “teetering on the brink of extinction.”What will cause further extinction of the remaining species of rhinos are the lack of conservation practices and removal of are their horns, a poached product that is popular in Asia as a powdered rhino horn medicine and in the Middle East as a decoration.Conservation has paid off with the white rhino, with populations rising from less than 100 at the end of the 19th century to an estimated wild population of 20,000 today. Yet, they are considered to be on the brink of extinction.In 1960, about 70,000 black rhinos existed, with only 4,000 remaining today. Six days ago, the "Dallas Safari Club" stated they would be auctioning off a permit for hunting an endangered black rhino, expected to bring in over $1 million. This attracted criticism from conservation groups, but the club said the money was a fundraiser to help protect the species. More about Africa, western black rhino, Extinct Africa western black rhino Extinct
| 6,012 |
A video is doing rounds on social media with claims that the Mumbai police caught terrorists who were planning to plant a bomb in Virar DMart, Mumbai.
Caught by Mumbai police planing bomb in Dmart virar… Posted by Prithviraj Ujwalrani Prakash Patil on Thursday, 14 February 2019
Several individual users on Facebook have shared the clip where policemen can be seen escorting a man, whose face is covered with a black cloth, into a police jeep.
From what it seems, the video is circulating on WhatsApp as well.
A mock drill, NOT a counter-terrorism operation
If one Googles ‘Virar DMart Mumbai’, the search results throw up a bunch of media reports which say that a mock drill was conducted at the hypermarket on January 14.
A Times of India article reported the incident as – “A counter-terror mock drill was conducted at a hypermarket in Virar on Thursday evening.” The news media organisation further added, “The half-an-hour drill caught shoppers and public by surprise. The drill was conducted by the Palghar district police along with Riot Control Police ( RCP) and Quick Response Team ( QRT) at 5 pm at the Dmart hypermarket at Virar.”
The report also includes a video of the mock drill, which is the same as the one circulating on social media.
Boomlive earlier debunked the video and spoke to Jayant Bajbale, Sub-Divisional Officer, Virar who confirmed that the incident represents a routine counter-terrorism mock drill. “It was an exercise of 30 minutes. There were 25 people from the QRT, and 15 from RCP and some from the local police station,” Bajbale told Boom.
This wasn’t the first time that a video of a mock drill was viral as terrorists caught by police. In the past, Alt News had found a similar case related to Telangana. A Jharkhand police mock drill was also viral with two different narratives – 1, 2.
Donate to Alt News!
Independent journalism that speaks truth to power and is free of corporate and political control is possible only when people start contributing towards the same. Please consider donating towards this endeavour to fight fake news and misinformation.
Donate Now To make an instant donation, click on the "Donate Now" button above. For information regarding donation via Bank Transfer/Cheque/DD, click here.
You could follow Alt News posts either via our Facebook page or by following us on Twitter or by subscribing to our E-mail updates.
| 6,013 |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Pentagon said on Friday there had been no effort to play down or delay the release of information on concussive injuries from Iran’s Jan. 8 attack on a base hosting U.S. forces in Iraq, saying the public learned just hours after the defense secretary.
U.S. soldiers are seen at the site where an Iranian missile hit at Ain al-Asad air base in Anbar province, Iraq. REUTERS/John Davison
U.S. President Donald Trump, Defense Secretary Mark Esper and others throughout the U.S. government for a week had said that Iran’s attack on bases in Iraq, in retaliation for the killing of a Iranian general, had not killed or injured any U.S. servicemembers.
That is no longer true, the Pentagon now acknowledges. But U.S. military leadership in Washington only became aware on Thursday that 11 U.S. service members were flown out of Iraq due to concussive symptoms, Pentagon spokesman Jonathan Hoffman said.
“This idea that there was an effort to de-emphasize injuries for some sort of amorphous political agenda doesn’t hold water,” Hoffman said.
But the disclosure of the concussive symptoms late on Thursday, more than a week after the attack itself, is likely at a minimum to open a debate about the Pentagon’s longstanding treatment of brain injury as a different class of wounds that it says do not require immediate reporting up the chain of command.
U.S. military has to immediately report incidents threatening life, limb or eyesight. But suspected brain injury, which can take time to manifest and diagnose, does not have that urgent requirement.
Esper was only informed on Thursday that the service members were flown out of Iraq to receive additional screening and treatment in bases in Kuwait and Germany, the Pentagon said.
The first U.S. service member was flown out of Iraq on Jan. 10 for further evaluation, while others were flown out on Jan. 15.
“They were under their own power, on aircraft and on their way,” Hoffman said.
He noted that top Pentagon officials have not sought to minimize Iran’s attack and instead repeatedly said Iran tried to kill U.S. troops when it fired 16 short-range ballistic missiles at two Iraqi bases from at least three locations inside Iran.
In his first Friday prayers sermon in eight years, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, told worshippers chanting “Death to America” that the elite Guards could take their fight beyond Iran’s borders after the U.S. killing of a top Iranian commander.
| 6,014 |
My building shook as American Airlines Flight 11 impacts the north side of the North Tower (1 World Trade Center) of the WTC between the 94th and 98th floors.
American Airlines Flight 11 was flying at a speed of 490 miles per hour.
I am still haunted by the spectre of the twin towers every time I see the NYC skyline.
I have been using artwork as a catharsis to process the event ever since witnessing the attack.
I create artwork that challenges the authorized scripture of 9-11.
My hope is that my imagery exposes people to new ideas and evidence.
My illustration “Questions”, originally commissioned by the Village Voice is now part of the permanent collection of the September 11th Memorial and Museum in NYC.
I have been attacked for daring to challenge the discredited official narrative that was scripted by the same people who lied us into war with Iraq and told us no one was spying on us.
I can only go where logic and conscience takes me. It is a curious world where the term “Truther” is used as a pejorative.
Isn’t the opposite of a truther a liar?
I met Governor Jessie Ventura recently and he said that 9-11 Truth ruined his life. I have to agree with the governor.
I’m not in this for fun or profit, and promoting a disturbing and unpopular truth is not an easy path to take.
I volunteer most of my services and work for free for many alt media outlets.
I was an eye witness to the horrors of that day and yet the truths revealed to me after the event are the stuff of my nightmares.
I resisted embracing the term truther for many years, because I hate to be labeled and pre-judged.
The truth does not bring comfort, it brings pain. This is why most people prefer lies.
To my detractors, I do not hate you. I have only tried to help you understand the world you live in on a deeper and more historically accurate level.
My only regret is that my work and talents have not been adequate.
I am a failure, yet I must proceed.
To my supporters, you can acquire a print of “Questions” here:
A portion of proceeds to go to Veterans for Peace.
http://www.anthonyfreda.com/shop.html
Lee Ann McAdoo interviews me about the story here:
Thank you.
Anthony Freda
www.AnthonyFreda.com
The Emergency Election Sale is now live! Get 30% to 60% off our most popular products today!
| 6,015 |
San Diego, CA (January 13, 2016) — Yesterday, Representative Richard Hudson (R-NC) joined by Reps. G.K. Butterfield (D-NC), Steve Cohen (D-TN), Blake Farenthold (R-TX), Joe Heck, M.D. (R-NV), Raul Ruiz, M.D. (D-CA) and Bruce Westerman (R-AR) introduced legislation that ensures the continued ability of emergency medical services (EMS) practitioners to administer controlled substances to countless individuals who are sick or injured enough to need them.
NAEMSP President Jane H. Brice, MD, MPH stated, “NAEMSP strongly supports Rep. Hudson’s legislation and applauds the Congressman’s leadership on this vital legislation. The legislation ensures that life-saving EMS professionals are able to deliver emergency medication to the patients that so desperately need them.”
According to Congressman Hudson, “Without this solution, we risk sacrificing quality emergency care and endangering patients simply because law and regulation have not kept up with the evolution of modern medicine. My legislation is an important clarification of law that allows our first responders to continue administering life-saving medications to patients when they need them most.”
The unique nature of EMS is unlike other health care services governed by the Controlled Substances Act (CSA). There is a demonstrated clinical need for administering controlled substance medications, such as to treat active seizures or administer pain medicine. Updating the CSA to recognize the existing delivery model of EMS is essential to protect patients. It will provide the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) a firm statutory foundation from which to oversee the use of controlled substances in field EMS and prevent drug diversion while ensuring essential medicines are provided to patients in need.
NAEMSP looks forward to working with Rep. Hudson to enact the “Protecting Patient Access to Emergency Act of 2016.”
The following organizations support passage of H.R. 4365:
American Ambulance Association (AAA)
Association of Air Medical Services (AAMS)
Association of Critical Care Transport (ACCT)
American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP)
International Association of Fire Chiefs (IAFC)
International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF)
National Association of Emergency Medical Technicians (NAEMT)
National Association of Emergency Medical Physicians® (NAEMSP®)
The National Association of State EMS Officials (NASEMSO)
About NAEMSP
The National Association of EMS Physicians (NAEMSP) is an organization of physicians and other professionals partnering to provide leadership and foster excellence in the subspecialty of EMS medicine.
| 6,016 |
Congress must struggle to function in these inquiries with the necessary secrecy, professional resources and time. It must do all this while containing internal partisan political conflicts and pressures. And it must act while mindful of the sensitivity of a legislative probe into an executive’s motivations when performing otherwise constitutionally authorized acts.
Impeachment is not a substitute for the criminal justice system. In cases like this, it requires the support of that system — the results of professional investigation and judgment.
The attacks on Mr. Mueller, together with Mr. Trump’s lawyers’ embrace of an aggressive legal theory, put in question whether the Department of Justice will be permitted to complete its investigation. Should the president next take the step of firing Mr. Mueller, he would end professionally conducted fact-finding on this crucial question of motive. Congress is then left to respond by trying to complete the department’s job or to proceed to impeachment and a showdown over which branch can claim primacy for its constitutional functions. It faces major challenges in accomplishing the first task, and the second course may lead to constitutional conflict in which, upon impeachment and conviction, the president refuses to vacate his office and the Supreme Court is called on to settle the dispute. Call it Bush v. Gore, the Sequel, another make-or-break case deciding who will be — or, in this instance, remain — president.
The preservation of presidential accountability to the rule of law requires the protection of the department’s role. If the professional prosecutors conclude that they will not bring a charge of obstruction, Congress will have the benefit of the evidence accumulated in the investigation in making its own judgment about impeachment.
Or the special counsel may determine that indictment is justified and proceed to prosecute, which will also force the issue of whether the president can be indicted while in office. The president is highly likely to argue the case for his immunity, but he should have no confidence that he will succeed. Beginning with United States v. Nixon, through later decisions in the Clinton years against presidential claims of privilege or of immunity from civil suit, the courts have stood firmly behind the proposition that the president is not above the law.
Whether or not an investigation concludes with an indictment, Congress will gain the tested evidence that it needs to assess the basis for impeachment for obstruction. Congress and the department would each be able to do what they are cut out to do. Nothing prevents criminal investigations and impeachment processes from running concurrently, as they have in the past.
Mr. Trump and his lawyers should not prevail on a position that puts him beyond the reach of criminal investigation while seriously undermining Congress’s capacity for evaluating the grounds for impeachment. These are the stakes in the battle over the future of the special counsel’s investigation.
| 6,017 |
Texas state parks limiting operations due to coronavirus concerns
Beginning at noon on Thursday, March 19, TPWD will be limiting park programming and closing public access to park headquarters, visitor centers and park stores. >>>Check out 16 wonderful state parks every Texan should visit. less Beginning at noon on Thursday, March 19, TPWD will be limiting park programming and closing public access to park headquarters, visitor centers and park stores. >>>Check out 16 wonderful state parks... more Photo: Texas Parks & Wildlife Website Photo: Texas Parks & Wildlife Website Image 1 of / 125 Caption Close Texas state parks limiting operations due to coronavirus concerns 1 / 125 Back to Gallery
Be prepared to rough it if you are headed for a state park. The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department announced that it will limiting operations at its recreational facilities.
Beginning at noon on Thursday, March 19, TPWD will be limiting park programming and closing public access to park headquarters, visitor centers and park stores.
ROUGHING IT: National parks are open — with some changes — amid virus
“While we have worked hard to provide access to state parks through much of Spring Break, we have now reached a point where changes are imperative for safety reasons," said Carter Smith, Executive Director of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, according to a news release.
As part of these operational changes, parks will be suspending all cash transactions where feasible. Visitors are encouraged to utilize the self-pay stations, the online reservation system and credit card transactions at this time.
HoustonChronicle.com: Coronavirus live updates
Other reduced services include the suspension of equipment rentals and interpretive programs.
Park visitors should check the Texas State Parks Alert Map regularly for the latest information about the status of parks.
In addition to the operational changes at Texas State Parks, TPWD law enforcement and boat registration offices, including the license and boat registration counter at TPWD’s Austin headquarters, will be closed to public visitation.
Texans needing to purchase hunting and fishing licenses, boat and motor owner transfers, and boat registration renewals are encouraged to visit tpwd.texas.gov or call the department at (512) 389-4800.
These changes will remain in effect for the foreseeable future. TPWD will continue to monitor the evolving health situation with local and state officials and will adjust operations at department sites and facilities as necessary.
Danny Hermosillo is the Sr. Digital News Editor for Chron.com | Read him on our breaking news site, Chron.com, and our subscriber site, HoustonChronicle.com | Follow him on Twitter at @Dannyherm1| Email him at [email protected]
| 6,018 |
ES THAT ARE CURIOUS
This needs to be decoded further to make any kind of sense.We accomplished this using the following key.This gives us a slightly more readable message.From here we eyeballed it and performed changes to transform them into proper words.At face value this appeared to be a reference to the egyptian name of the moon.Attempting this at curious.codes gave us the following URL.However, in the source of this page we can see that it is fact a 404 message. 404 Curious.Codes Either we have the wrong name or we are looking in the wrong place.It turns out we were wrong on both counts.The riddle is referring to the show Fraiser.This is further backed up by the name of the Ogham message “ScrambledEggs.jpg” which was a line from the shows opening song.The wife of Niles Crane is Daphne Moon and the actress who plays her is Jane Leeves.We can then take her name and, much like our previous “pussycatdolls” riddle, send it to @[email protected] our email sent and a response inbound we can now move to Step 6.
Step_6
Writing the email from Step_5 we get the following response.
+++
Well done!
Find 1o57, and hand him a note- written on blue paper....
On the note must be your name(s) / team name - and this phrase:
perfer et obdura; dolor hic tibi proderit olim
Congratulations, you have earned a spot... but I've said too much...
Include an email :)
My heart skipped a beat, we had reached the finish line.After some frantic calls and a scramble to get a blue piece of paper, we turned in our submission and it was accepted.The line “perfer et obdura; dolor hic tibi proderit olim” translates to the following.“Be patient and tough; someday this pain will be useful to you.”Thank you 1o57, this was a grand adventure indeed.
Bonus Round
For those who enjoyed the challenge put forth by 1o57 I have a little something extra for you.
Stepping into the world of crypto can be a bit daunting at first.
But once you are On The right Path you can always look back at everything you accomplished.
| 6,019 |
In an exclusive discussion with the folks at Virtual Real Porn, the company has revealed to AR Porn Tube that it is embracing augmented reality in addition to its network of successful VR websites.
Speaking with the Virtual Real Porn team, here is what they have to say:
For the moment, we are focused on our VR productions and VRLove, the videogame. However, we consider AR as a main technology in the future of porn. And sure we start some project, but we cannot give you any date at the moment.
The Studio’s Current Sites
The company based in Spain was the first studio to develop VR content which can be traced as far back as 2013. This early entry to market gave it a huge lead in the VR space. As a result, the company became one of the biggest and the best in the world, with the largest collection of VR videos to date.
Since its birth, the network has since expanded to include a more diverse portfolio of VR porn sites.
A long with Virtual Real Porn, the network includes:
Virtual Real Amateur, a site dedicated to average looking girls in a home-made setting.
Virtual Real Japan, the world’s biggest site for Japanese VR porn offering over 300 erotic movies.
Virtual Real Gay, with over 100 videos of the hottest man on man action.
Virtual Real Trans, consisting of 90+ shemale scenes for the LGBTQ+ fanatics.
Virtual Real Passion, a site dedicated to providing female VR enthusiasts with their fix of adult pleasures.
And finally, the company’s own brand game VR Love, which enables you to enter “story mode” and indulge in hot sex scenes with the 3D character of popular redhead pornstar Amarna Miller.
What to Expect With VRP’s AR Content
The company’s success in the virtual reality space offers high hopes for its entry in to the AR market. It’s ability to adapt to ever-evolving technology such as shooting scenes up to 5K in quality, offering content on all the major headsets including the new Oculus Quest, and featuring some of the most popular pornstars in the game such as Valentina Nappi,
Abella Danger and Anissa Kate gives promise that the company will deliver high quality and immersive AR porn in the future.
With headsets like nReal Light steadily progressing towards a consumer-friendly market, AR technology continuing to improve, plus Cardboard devices like Aryzon and Holokit offering quick and easy access to AR; the only question is, how long will it be before the company makes its debut in to the augmented reality market?
We’ll keep you posted.
| 6,020 |
Palestinians has led to the view that all Jews are to be blamed for actions of the state of Israel. “If you raise the memory of the Holocaust, they say Israel is doing the same thing to the Palestinians. They use the memory to criminalise Israel and all Jews who are automatically linked to Israel,” he said.
Play Video 1:28 Thousands march in France against rise in antisemitism – video report
Leading gilets jaunes have condemned the attack on Finkielkraut, insisting that the movement, which began last November as a grassroots protest against taxes and a political class seen as out of touch, is not antisemitic. Many gilets jaunes joined demonstrations across France under the slogan “Enough!” to protest against the recent spate of antisemitic attacks.
Others, including Jean-Luc Mélenchon, leader of the hard-left La France Insoumise, have sought to play down the attack on Finkielkraut, saying that linking it to antisemitism is an attempt to discredit the gilets jaunes movement.
It is undeniable, however, that over the past three months the movement has grown to take in wider grievances and, hardened by ultra-left and extreme-right agitators, now rails against the “elite”, the powerful, bankers and the media often with conspiracy theories that echo the antisemitic tropes about a powerful global Jewish cabal.
Finkielkraut, who has previously expressed support for the protests, does not believe that he was attacked by “ordinary” gilets jaunes, but he has not been reassured by the political response.
“The future looks dark for two reasons,” he said. “Immigration continues to spread and the more it does, the more assimilation becomes difficult. Plus the school system has collapsed in France and does not play its role in integration. Then we have an extremely worrying convergence of the extreme left and intellectuals.”
Finkielkraut says he is particularly concerned about Britain’s Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, who has the support of Mélenchon. Last year, the French politician was described by CRIF, the umbrella group of French Jewish communities, as “a danger to democracy”.
“Jeremy Corbyn is at the doors of power. If he gets into 10 Downing Street it will be the first time in post-Hitler Europe that a great nation would be led by a leader who quite clearly has antisemitic tendencies,” Finkielkraut said. “And that for me is a very great worry.”
| 6,021 |
TUEBINGEN, Germany, March 13 (Reuters) - Germany's CureVac, among the vaccine developers funded by the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), said it could mass-produce a coronavirus immunisation from its existing facilities if its low-dose approach proves successful in trials.
Privately held Curevac, which was granted up to $8.3 million by CEPI in January, is working to draw on its low-dose vaccine technology, which has showed promise in an early-stage rabies trial, for use against the coronavirus.
The Tuebingen, Germany, based company hopes to have an experimental vaccine ready by June or July to then seek the go-ahead from regulators for testing on humans.
Florian von der Muelbe, Chief Production Officer and co-founder, told Reuters a mode of action that allowed for a low dosage to trigger an immune reaction against rabies would also be applied in the coronavirus setting.
"These minimal dosages that we have achieved put us in a position here in Tuebingen to produce up to 10 million doses per (production) campaign," said von der Muelbe of a potential coronavirus vaccine.
A campaign, or production cycle, typically lasts several weeks, a spokesman specified. More than one dose may be required to immunise a person but one campaign would still serve several million people, he added.
"We started with a multitude of (coronavirus vaccine) candidates and we're now selecting the two best out of them. Those will go into clinical trials," said von der Muelbe.
CureVac specialises in so-called messenger RNA (mRNA) molecules that instruct human cells to produce therapeutic proteins that trigger an immune response against cancer or infectious diseases.
In that field, it competes with U.S. biotech firm Moderna MRNA.O, which is also receiving CEPI funding, and German rival BioNTech 22UAy.F, which Pfizer PFE.N has identified as a potential collaboration partner.
Top U.S. health officials have said that it would take up to 18 months to develop any vaccine against the pathogen.
(Reporting by Tilman Blasshoefer Writing by Ludwig Burger)
(([email protected]; +49 69 7565 1311; Reuters Messaging: [email protected]))
The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.
| 6,022 |
I want to talk about handbags, but I’m starting with shoes. Bear with me. I’ve pretty much kicked the wear heels, carry flats shoe habit – it’s a bit noughties, frankly, and that’s no good in the new Roaring Twenties. Also, the degree to which wearing heels makes you look smarter is cancelled out by the lumpy tote bag with your trainers in, bumping against the other hip.
The shoes are relevant, because they are one of the key questions in determining your bag size. Along with other size issues including, but not limited to, where you sit on hardback fiction versus podcasts, Apple Pay against receipt-stuffed wallet, 20/20 vision or essential spare glasses.
Really, bags should come sized, like clothes do. One size does not fit all. The one for you has to be exactly the right size, and everybody’s list of carry-everywhere items is different. The adorable peanut-sized cuties in shop windows everywhere are completely pointless on me – I might as well buy a doll-sized dress. And an enormous bag doesn’t work, either. If the bag is too big, I just put more stuff in, which means forgotten pens blotting the lining, and my phone chirping unanswered while I frantically scrabble.
Size matters but shape matters, too. I find a structured, framed bag, like this one, makes me less likely to throw in pointless last-minute additions; I know exactly how much I can carry, with no licence for just-in-case lob-ins. One that has compartments or pockets, so that I know where everything is. (One’s best self does not scrabble.)
The framed bag has been largely out of vogue for the last decade. Instead we’ve had a lot of squishy holdalls, posh baskets, deconstructed doctors’ bags, and holdalls. But it is making a comeback – inspired, ironically, by the success of those teeny-tiny, doll-sized cuties, which are now coming sized up.
There is something bracingly grown-up about a framed handbag. It dresses up your outfit the way an extra piece of jewellery would. Holding this one, I feel I’m halfway to a brooch and cloche hat. But what’s wrong with that? After all, it is the Roaring Twenties, now.
• Bag, £29, topshop.com. Dress, Jess’s own. Styling: Melanie Wilkinson. Hair and makeup: Lucy Ridley using Maria Nila and Nars.
| 6,023 |
When you spend a significant amount of time camping, you learn to appreciate different features of individual tents. There is a wide variety of tents on the market, including those designed specifically for car camping, backpacking, and those that fit somewhere in the between. Now, a company on Indiegogo has a launched a campaign revealing the world’s first line of smart tents dubbed Cinch — equipped with features never before seen in tent technology.
The Cinch line includes two-, three-, and four-person size options and an additional space dubbed “the hub” with extra room for lounging or storing gear. The Cinch pops up in seconds and can be packed back down in minutes. The design allows for multi-tent connectivity and its large size is remarkable — providing enough room for a person to stand up, stretch, and move easily around the space. This is the fourth generation of Cinch pop-up tents and serves to revolutionize camping, making it smarter, cooler, and hassle-free.
The physical features include panoramic inner doors and a completely enclosed groundsheet to keep out the bugs. The tent has two entrances and there are dual screen doors throughout. The material provides for 100 percent waterproofing with double-taped seams and a 4000HH fabric outer layer. The product includes super flex fiber glass poles, door mats, and extra pegs and guys for total wind resistance.
Previous Next 1 of 5
What makes the Cinch so smart? LED lights line the ceiling of the tent, serving to illuminate your living area at the touch of a button on your smartphone. The setup sparkles, glints, and provides for 365 colors. The Cinch also provides for solar power mounting and climate control — say goodbye to those sticky mornings. The solar panels pull in 21 watts of power and are strong enough to charge your USB gadgets straight from the sun, including innovative technology that allows the panel to manage environmental conditions and deliver the best charge. The rooftop ports store the solar power inside the tent, keeping it dry and easily accessible. The portable power pack offers 13,000mAh with fast-charging, two regular USB ports, and even a USB type-C port. The climate control canopy stretches over the tent, serving for a cooler and darker interior.
While the delivery of crowdfunding products is not guaranteed, the campaign has been funded more than 70 percent beyond its fixed goal. Learn more about crowdfunding products. The four-man Cinch is listed for $350 on the company’s campaign page, the three-man is listed for $325, and the two-man for $300. You can also select extra perks including the footprint, climate control canopy, and solar power pack.
Editors' Recommendations
| 6,024 |
However, in a follow-up briefing to four members of Concacaf's executive committee - also obtained by BBC Sport - John Collins warns that existing precedent in New York case law "will be problematic for Concacaf" in winning any potential action involving Blazer.
The advice is put forward on the belief that Blazer may potentially argue that, after the expiration of the original contract, a new contract was created based solely on the conduct of both parties. Such deals are known as "implied in fact" contracts under New York law.
According to the Collins memo, Blazer is seeking compensation for three deals he negotiated. He has yet to launch any formal legal action over the unpaid commissions.
Specifically, Collins alleges in the memo that Blazer is trying to claim $7.15m in separate commissions. This is made up of $5.2m relating to the broadcast rights for the 2013 to 2021 Concacaf Gold Cup, $700,000 for the expected net ticket revenues for the 2013 Gold Cup and $1.25m for authorising "teams from the Concacaf region to participate in the Copa Libertadores", South America's premier club cup competition.
The legal memos graphically demonstrate the internecine war at the top of the confederation as the fall-out from the corruption scandal that tainted last year's Fifa presidential election, which was eventually won by Sepp Blatter, continues.
Blazer reported Warner and former Fifa presidential candidate Mohamed Bin Hammam to Fifa's ethics committee in May last year, following allegations that financial incentives were offered to members of the Caribbean Football Union at a meeting in Trinidad.
Warner subsequently resigned from all his positions in international football last June after being suspended by Fifa pending the outcome of the inquiry.
Following Warner's resignation, Fifa said the ethics committee case against him was closed and the "presumption of innocence is maintained".
Bin Hammam, who continues to deny the allegations, was then banned from football for life by Fifa in August. His case is currently under appeal at the Court for Arbitration in Sport.
In a separate development BBC Sport has also learned that two apartments, worth $800,000, located in Miami's exclusive South Beach district were purchased under Blazer's guidance in May 2010.
It is understood Concacaf's executive committee did not discuss their purchase. The apartments were bought - and registered - through Concacaf Marketing & Television - a wholly owned, Florida-based subsidiary of Concacaf.
Concacaf delegates last week voted to have Blazer removed from Fifa's executive committee but failed to get their motion added to the Fifa Congress agenda in sufficient time to gain its required approval.
| 6,025 |
is an infectious disease specialist with CMC, said precautions were put into place when patient was brought in Tuesday night. The patient was traveling from Africa and arrived at the hospital around 11:30 p.m. Around 3 a.m. the security precautions were put into place at the hospital, Passaretti said. Passaretti said they determined the patient did not have Ebola. The patient has been discharged home.
It is not too hard to imagine forced quarantines and people being rounded up and shipped off to Ebola detention facilities.
In fact, if Ebola were to start spreading like wildfire in this country, many people would actually start demanding such measures.
For example, one member of Congress is already proposing that citizens of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone (and any foreigner that has recently visited those nations) be kept out of the United States...
In a letter addressed to Secretary of State John Kerry and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, Alan Grayson, a Florida Democrat, proposed that citizens of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, as well as "any foreign person who has visited one of these nations 90 days prior to arriving in the United States" be kept out of the country. He urged the secretaries to "consider the enhanced risk Ebola now presents to the American public".
* * *
If you think that is all a little far-fetched since we have been reassured that there is no risk to the US... it's already here...
As NBC News reports, Emory University Hospital in Atlanta said Thursday it was preparing a special isolation unit to receive a patient with Ebola disease within the next several days.
“We do not know at this time when the patient will arrive,” Emory said in a statement. The university also did not say whether the patient was one of two Americans battling Ebola infection in Liberia – charity workers Nancy Writebol and Dr. Kent Brantly. “Emory University Hospital has a specially built isolation unit set up in collaboration with the CDC to treat patients who are exposed to certain serious infectious diseases,” the hospital said. “It is physically separate from other patient areas and has unique equipment and infrastructure that provide an extraordinarily high level of clinical isolation. It is one of only four such facilities in the country."... Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director Dr. Thomas Frieden said he doubted Ebola could spread in the United States. "That is not in the cards," he told reporters Thursday. "If and when that happens...every precaution will be taken to move the patients safety and securely to provide critical care en route and to maintain strict isolation upon arrival in the United States," she added.
* * *
What do you believe will happen if Ebola comes to America?
| 6,026 |
Jason Bridge-US PRESSWIRE
When Stanford's All-American standout guard David DeCastro fell to them last spring, the Pittsburgh Steelers practically ran to the table to get the selection in. Steeler fans jumped with elation at the sound of the commissioner's voice, a first for sure, at the announcement of the pick. All seemed perfect for the second coming of Alan Faneca. Then, on a fateful day in Buffalo, it all came crashing down with a knee injury that left the rookie sidelined and put on injured reserve, with the designation to return.
That was more than three months ago, though, and the hour of return is upon the Steeler Nation. Normally, under these circumstances, the team's offensive line history, and the skill of the player, it would be a no-brainer to return DeCastro to the field as soon as possible, but the situation isn't so simple. The Steelers' paper-thin offensive line has played surprisingly well the last few weeks,and it seems that cohesion has left DeCastro as the odd man out of the group, even if he does return. With Ramon Foster playing very well, it doesn't make much sense to bench him just to rush DeCastro back into the lineup. Willie Colon, on the other side, makes too much money to bench, despite the penalties he regularly incurs. Plus DeCastro was playing right guard rather than Colon's left spot. That leaves no room for the promising first-round pick.
That doesn't close the door, though.
With DeCastro eligible to practice any day now, he could in theory be suited up and ready to play by next week's game against the Ravens. This doesn't seem incredibly likely, though, as offensive line coach Sean Kugler says, “It is all on his timetable...He had a pretty significant knee injury." This isn't exactly the sign that fans eagerly awaiting the return of David want to hear.
That begs the question, though: Should the Steelers activate him if he isn't needed? I believe so, as DeCastro provides the Steelers with possibly the best depth at guard of any team in the NFL, an insurance policy that could be a wise investment if injuries start popping up. In the early games this season when the offensive line had someone limping to the sidelines every other play it seemed, there was a very real possibility of a tight end playing tackle.
While rushing DeCastro to the starting lineup might not be the wisest idea, bringing him back for depth and a chance to play, instead of completely forgoing his rookie season, would be a smart move for the Steelers. It would also make fans very happy. Only time will tell, though.
| 6,027 |
Tennessee offensive lineman Mack Crowder during Senior Day activities before the game with Vanderbilt at Neyland Stadium in Knoxville on Saturday, Nov. 28, 2015. (MICHAEL PATRICK/NEWS SENTINEL)
By Dustin Dopirak of the Knoxville News Sentinel
Former Tennessee offensive lineman Mack Crowder was arrested in a child sex sting operation Tuesday night in Florida, where he was working out in hopes of reaching the NFL.
Crowder was booked on five third-degree felony charges — four counts of sending material harmful to a minor and one count of using a computer for a prohibited purpose.
Crowder's last game for Tennessee was the Outback Bowl on Jan. 1 in Tampa, Fla. Tennessee spokesman Ryan Robinson said Wednesday that Crowder was working out in Tampa.
In a release on the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office website, detectives said that Crowder was arrested "after he sought out and engaged in an online sexual conversation with whom he thought was a 14-year-old female."
The release says the arrest was made through the office's "Operation Wayfarer" which targets adult males seeking underage females online for the purpose of engaging in sexual activity. According to a previous release, Operation Wayfarer was initially a five-day operation run from Jan. 20-24 in which investigators went into various online classified pages, social media sites and chatrooms and posed as minors.
Detectives allege that Crowder began conversations with a person he believed to be a 14-year-old girl on Jan. 21, and through the course of various conversations sent four photographs of his "sexual organ." Police allege that on several occasions Crowder "enticed or solicited the minor to engage in sexual acts with him."
Police allege that Crowder made arrangements to meet the minor "at an undisclosed Pinellas location" on Tuesday, at which point he was arrested. Police alleged that Crowder admitted in an interview to sending the photos and to believing he was communicating with a 14-year-old.
Jailing information on the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office website says that Crowder, 23, was booked at 8:58 p.m. on Tuesday and that he was released on $50,000 bond. No hearing information is listed for Crowder.
Pinellas County includes St. Petersburg and Clearwater.
Crowder, a Bristol native and former Tennessee High School star, played five seasons at Tennessee. He started 11 games at center in 2014 and started three games at center and guard in 2015. He made the SEC Academic Honor Roll each of the last two years. He earned his bachelors degree in the summer of 2015 according to Robinson.
| 6,028 |
PEARLAND, TX (KTRK) -- Pearland has nearly quadrupled in population over the past 15 years and keeping up with the traffic flow around this town has kept their Public Works Department very busy.There's one intersection, however, that's on the naughty list for causing complete gridlock, and it's FM-518 and Business Center Drive. It's an intersection just west of the hectic freeway with shopping centers and traffic galore."I swear from 2 in the afternoon to 7 o'clock, it would be blocked," says commuter Joshua Davis.He experiences these tie-ups daily."And I would think to myself, either three things are going to happen, someone is going to hit someone, kill someone, or get out and have a fist fight because you are blocking multiple waves of traffic," adds Davis.It's an issue the Assistant Director of Public Works Department in Pearland Mike Leech knows too well."In cases, people do block the intersection completely. It's a matter of not enough lanes and too many cars," he explains.FM-518 and Business Center Drive is a top priority for Leech and his team."During the PM peak and on the weekends, it gets really congested in that area. So, what we've done is come up with creative solutions to help mobility in that area," said Leech.Today, Pearland launched the catchy, "Don't Block the Box" campaign."Don't Block the Box is a campaign we're introducing to the public if you're going through the intersection with a green light, please make sure you can make it through the intersection and that you don't block the box," explains Leech.The intersection is now clearly marked with "Don't Block the Box" signs. You can see them up on above on traffic signals, painted on the streets, and currently, there's even a blinking black and gold sign, so you won't miss the message.For those who do ignore the sign and block the intersection of FM-518 and Business Center Drive, a $200 fine could be the penalty.But, Leech says, that isn't the goal. "Though the ability to implement a $200 fine is available to us, that's not the point of this program. What we want to do is enhance mobility and improve driver behavior out there."This is just one step to help the traffic congestion in Pearland."The improvements will include additional lanes in that area, but that's a little ways off. We're making steps in the interim to make improvements. We're adding an additional left hand turn lane from 518 onto 288 northbound," said Leech.Improvements that commuters like Davis are happy to see coming."I would like to feel a lot safer just going across the street," said Davis.
| 6,029 |
Celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain was a culinary rebel — a storytelling pioneer who managed to capture the beautiful relationship between food and everyday people.
Bourdain took risks, and connected to people of all kinds. He fell in love with Beirut, and was not afraid to visit again — despite experiencing the worst of Lebanon’s 2006 war.
The visionary chef was found dead in a hotel room Friday while visiting France. He was working on an episode for his award-winning CNN series, “Parts Unknown.”
Bourdain was 61, and he took his own life.
In 2006, Bourdain and his crew were caught in the crossfire of the 2006 Lebanon war. The crew was planning to shoot an episode of his “No Reservations” show when the war broke out.
They had to leave Lebanon, but it didn’t stop them from coming back.
“From the first day that I ever arrived in Beirut, it smelled like a place I was going to love,” Bourdain said. “(The war) didn’t change my opinion about the place. If anything, it hardened it.”
In 2015, Bourdain and his crew re-visited Beirut to document the city’s culinary culture and resilience.
His episodes always told stories beyond just food.
Bourdain was best at documenting the human condition, and he posed thoughtful questions that made him more of a journalist at times, than a celebrity chef.
“He was embraced by the Lebanese and they embraced him back, and that was something that really got to him at that time,” said Ramsay Short, who appeared in three of his Beirut shows.
In fact, Bourdain loved Beirut so much, he once considered naming his daughter after the city, CNN wrote.
“It’s something of a miracle that (Beirut) works,” Bourdain said in his 2015 episode. “Sunni, Shii’te, Christians can all live in one city and through some kind of tacit understanding maintain what is one of the most liberal environments in that part of the world.”
WATCH: When visiting Beirut, Anthony Bourdain asks himself: “Am I wrong to love this place?”
He fell in love with Beirut, and his viewers fell in love with him.
Rest in Peace, Anthony Bourdain.
If you or someone you love might be at risk of suicide, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK.
RELATED: Anthony Bourdain: “I fell in love with Beirut”
| 6,030 |
Judge finds in favour of 6,800 residents who sued over management of Wivenhoe and Somerset dams
This article is more than 9 months old
This article is more than 9 months old
Almost 7,000 Queenslanders have won a class action over the state’s devastating 2011 floods, with a judge finding they were victims of negligence.
New South Wales supreme court Justice Robert Beech-Jones found in favour of 6,800 claimants who sued the Queensland government, Seqwater and Sunwater over the scale of the disaster.
Beech-Jones accepted that engineers whose job was to manage Wivenhoe and Somerset dams before and during a “biblical” deluge in January 2011 had failed in their duty of care.
About 23,000 homes and businesses went under in Brisbane and Ipswich when authorities released huge amounts of water to protect the dams’ structural integrity.
Nine and Nick Cater ordered to pay Wagner family $3.6m in 60 Minutes defamation case Read more
There were tears from some victims as the ruling was delivered.
Goodna retiree Frank Beaumont, 77, was emotional as he celebrated the victory and mulled over the years of distress he suffered after his home went under.
“The mental stress has been horrendous,” Beaumont said from Ipswich.
“We’ve had so many trodden-down moments where the insurance didn’t pay, being kicked out of a rental home and then having to rebuild an absolutely devastated house.”
Beech-Jones agreed with victims’ claims that engineers negligently managed the dams and that they did not factor in extraordinary rainfall forecasts in deciding how best to respond to the flood.
That was despite them being obliged to do so according to the dam manual.
He found that during days of heavy rain, before the peak of the flood on 11 January, dam engineers prioritised keeping downstream bridges open over trying to limit flooding in urban areas.
The engineers had “failed to follow the very manual they drafted 18 months earlier”.
Law firm Maurice Blackburn brought the class action and said victims had finally been vindicated after long claiming the operation of the dams grossly exacerbated the scale of the flooding.
Outside the court, principal lawyer Rebecca Gilsenan said the focus must now be on securing timely compensation, and on making sure Queenslanders were never again at the mercy of mismanaged dams meant to mitigate flooding.
No cost decision was made. The case will return to court in February.
The ruling was years in the making and was heard in NSW because at the time it was lodged class actions were not possible in Queensland.
| 6,031 |
lower levels of positive emotional tone in contrast to visits with white patients. The researchers suggest that although longer visits with slower-paced dialogue might be seen as positive, the African-American patients responded to these visits negatively, reporting lower levels of trust and confidence in the physician and lower perceptions of being involved in treatment decisions. Thus, the researchers suggest that patients may interpret this pattern of communication as conveying an authoritarian and critical tone that creates an overall negative impression - regardless of longer visit duration. White patients also rated doctors who had this stereotype negatively; they reported being less involved in treatment decisions and were less likely to recommend these doctors to others.
Cooper, director of the Johns Hopkins Center to Eliminate Cardiovascular Health Disparities, says she and her team found no overt racial bias among the physicians. "Over time, in our society, people have become more open to different races and ethnicities and for the most part, it's not considered socially acceptable to be negative against other racial or ethnic groups," she says. "But we have subconscious bias that we develop from our earliest experiences and are less subject to social pressures."
Although Cooper's study delved into established primary care relationships, the communications problems her team identified have implications for many other medical settings - such as emergency rooms or intensive-care units - where the situations are more urgent and the consequences more directly life-threatening. Research is needed into whether implicit bias plays a negative role in those situations as well, she says.
Notably, Cooper says, the study group consisted of patients and physicians who knew each other well, had agreed to participate in studies to improve care for African- Americans, and were willing to have their visits recorded. And yet researchers still found that biases had a negative impact. "If we are more aware of how our attitudes are affecting our behaviors," she says, "only then can we change what we do and ensure that all of our patients get the best care."
The research was supported, in part, by grants from the Fetzer Foundation Relationship-Centered Care Research Network, the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, and the Implicit and Unconscious Cognition Research Fund at University of Washington.
Other Johns Hopkins researchers involved in the study include Debra L. Roter, Dr.P.H.; Kathryn A. Carson, Sc. and Mary Catherine Beach, M.D., M.P.H.
For more information:
http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/gim/faculty/cooper.html
http://www.jhsph.edu/welchcenter/news/News_2007/9-25-07.html
| 6,032 |
'—map, in which you add missing blocks to a central statue. In Diversity, those blocks are coloured wool, and each is found at the end of a self-contained level.
Those levels are fully realised challenges, and each takes the form of a different style of custom map. You'll find a "Dropper" challenge, a parkour course, a survival puzzle, and more besides. While none are as detailed as a good map tuned for a single style, the sheer breadth and variety is staggering. Not only that, but it's a great sampler of the different map types favoured by the Minecraft community. Download Diversity here.
Zelda Adventure
Zelda Adventure uses the AdventureCraft mod, allowing the creators to utilise cutscenes, music, custom UI elements and brand new weapons. As such, it's probably one of the most detailed and unique adventure maps available, completely overhauling the game while still taking place in a world that is recognisably Minecraftian.
Your quest (as always) is to rescue Princess Zelda by fighting through six dungeons pulled from Link to the Past and Ocarina of Time. It's a fantastic piece of mapmaking, both as an homage and as an example of the flexibility of Minecraft as a launching pad for custom projects. Download Zelda Adventure and Adventurecraft here.
Hunger Games V2
When it comes to Minecraft multiplayer, it's hard to ignore the phenomenon that is Hunger Games. The blocky battle royale manages to take the best aspects of survival, exploration and hacking each other up with swords. Spawning in the centre of a glass dome, players are set loose to fight, run and scavenge from the chests hidden around the arena.
If you just want to play Hunger Games, you'll need to find an existing server running the map. If you'd rather host your own version, Wasted49's Hunger Games V2 map is one of the best. It supports up to 24 players, and contains booby-trapped chests, hidden puzzles and an automated countdown timer. Download Hunger Games V2 here.
Kingdom of the Sky
An absolutely beautifully crafted map, both in terms of the sculpting of the floating world you're adventuring across and the effort put into creating an interesting story to experience along the way. Instead of the usual sign heavy text dump, map creator Blame The Controller has created a series of YouTube videos to play in the background, narrating along to you as you play.
It's also one of the tougher maps available. You'll face plenty of mobs as you're dungeoneering, and exploration is encouraged because the secrets hidden around the map actually help to keep you alive. Download Kingdom of the Sky here.
| 6,033 |
If you're an aging comic book fan, say in your late 40s or early 50s, Comic Book Fever will scratch the hell out of any nostalgic itch you've ever felt about the hobby. George Khoury's picture-heavy examination of comics and comics culture from the mid 1970s to the mid 1980s triggers a flood memories.
There are the comics themselves: Landmark runs of the X-Men, Teen Titans and Daredevil. And the artists: Frank Miller, George Perez and John Byrne. Not to mention all the ads, toys and snacks.
Remember ROM Space Knight, Big Jim and Micronauts? And all those superhero ads for Hostess Twinkies? Or the classic Jack Davis-illustrated ad for Spalding basketballs featuring Rick Barry and Dr. J?
Heck, this book even includes a feature on Grit, the family newspaper that lured generations of comic fans into selling its tabloid door to door with the promise of cash and prizes.
There are also features on such classic stand-alone comics as Captain America's Bicentennial Battles by Jack Kirby; the first-ever DC-Marvel match-up, Superman Vs. Spider-Man, and the Neal Adams-illustrated Superman Vs. Muhammad Ali. They don't make 'em like that anymore. And that's the point.
Comic Book Fever celebrates the mass-market popularity of comics even as this popularity was starting to fade. By the end of the period covered, comics were no longer something that every kid grew up on, but a hobbyist product available only in specialist comic book shops. The industry's move to direct marketing and emerging competition from other pastimes, such as video games, spelled the end of an era. The bright side was the emergence of the independent press and creator-owned series such as Elfquest, Love and Rocket and, ahem, the Teen-Age Mutant Ninja Turtles, all also covered here.
Now, of course, superheroes are again hugely popular thanks to the movies. And comics, in the form of collected editions and graphic novels, are widely available in bookstores. But the days of sipping a Slurpee at 7-11 and plucking comic books from the spinner rack are, sadly, gone forever. With the help of this book, at least, we've still got the memories.
– John Firehammer
See sample pages from this book at Wink.
Comic Book Fever: A Celebration of Comics: 1976-1986
by George Khoury
TwoMorrows Publishing
2016, 240 pages, 8.5 x 0.7 x 10.9 inches, Paperback
$27 Buy one on Amazon
| 6,034 |
"We want to give filmmakers and independent film lovers an opportunity to connect and make it easier for more, different kinds of stories to find their audiences,” said Emily Best, Founder and CEO, Seed&Spark. Past News Releases RSS Seed&Spark Partners With...
Seed&Spark Extends Distribution...
Acclaimed Filmmaker to Chronicle...
Seed&Spark - the first end-to-end solution for independent films to fund, produce, and distribute their films using the power of the crowd - is calling independent film, doc, and series makers to submit their work to become a Seed&Spark Founding Filmmaker. The selected group of Founding Filmmakers will be part of the official Seed&Spark site launch on December 1, 2012.
Founding Filmmakers will benefit from fee-free movie distribution as well as publicity campaigns to worldwide audiences through the Seed&Spark platform. They will receive hands-on assistance by the Seed&Spark team to better build and expand their community. They will be part of the vibrant Seed&Spark network that includes partners like Atlantic Pictures which will be distributing films through the site. The trailers of the Founding Filmmakers will be screened at the Seed&Spark Early Adopters Holiday Party in New York City.
“Only 1% of the roughly 15,000 indie movies made every year receive distribution through traditional avenues. That means there are great indie films out there that no one has ever heard of! We want to give filmmakers and independent film lovers an opportunity to connect and make it easier for more, different kinds of stories to find their audiences,” said Emily Best, Founder and CEO, Seed&Spark.
The Founding Filmmakers are the first cohort of artists whose work will be featured on the Seed&Spark site.
Submissions are due by November 20, 2012 and can be submitted via the Seed&Spark site at http://www.seedandspark.com/.
About Seed&Spark
Seed&Spark is building a truly independent filmmaking community where filmmakers and audiences come together for crowd-funding, production, and streaming distribution. Every time an audience member supports the making of a moving picture project (funding, following, sharing) they earn “Sparks” which can be redeemed to watch movies on the streaming platform.
Supporting films lets you watch more films: It’s the new ecosystem for filmmakers & audiences, and…that’s it! For more information, go to http://www.seedandspark.com and http://www.facebook.com/seedandspark, or follow us on Twitter at @seedandspark.
| 6,035 |
Un-American
James Joyner · · 57 comments
T he Outrage of the Day, apparently, is a USA Today op-ed by Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer in which they assert “Drowning out opposing views is simply un-American.”
Weekly Standard, Gateway Pundit, The Huffington Post, Top of the Ticket, Moe_Lane’s blog, The Moderate Voice, JammieWearingFool, JustOneMinute, The Atlantic Politics Channel, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion, The Jawa Report, Boston Globe, Los Angeles Times, The Swamp, Townhall.com, QandO, Sense of Events, Flopping Aces, American Power, Daily Dose, Confederate Yankee, Hot Air, Riehl World View, Patterico’s Pontifications, Political Byline, Below The Beltway, Politics Daily, Balloon Juice, YID With LID, Donklephant, Blue Crab Boulevard, Macsmind, Founding Bloggers, Scared Monkeys, Right Wing News, Think Progress, The Plum Line, Taylor Marsh, Atlas Shrugs, Don Surber, Raw Story, Perfunction, Pundit & Pundette, Dennis the Peasant, The Strata-Sphere, Michelle Malkin, Neptunus Lex, AmSpecBlog, Sister Toldjah, Cato @ Liberty, The Next Right, TPMDC, GayPatriot, Freedom’s Lighthouse, Arkansas News, Shot in the Dark, The Campaign Spot, Sam Adams Alliance, LewRockwell.com Blog, The Caucus, Politics Nation, The Page, Instapundit, msnbc.com, Weasel Zippers, Firedoglake, NewsBusters.org, Cold Fury, No More Mister Nice Blog, Weekly Standard, The Huffington Post, Dr. Melissa Clouthier, The Swamp, JammieWearingFool, Gateway Pundit, Pat Dollard Power Line, and Newsalert are among those weighing in, as aggregated by the good robots at Memeorandum.
Now, Congressmen probably shouldn’t go around calling their fellow countrymen “un-American.” It’s unhelpful in persuading opponents and not particularly shrewd politically. But, considering that I both disagree with Pelosi and Hoyer on the direction we should take our national health care policy and preceded them by three days in asserting that “we should be able to agree that shutting down public debate on the matter in the guise of ‘being heard’ is not only unproductive but un-American,” I’m hard pressed to muster much outrage over this one.
| 6,036 |
A Megalithic passage tomb dating back some 5,500 years has been discovered at the 18th century Dowth Hall in Co Meath.
The discovery, described by archaeologists as "the find of a lifetime" is within the Brú na Bóinne World Heritage Site.
It was made during an excavation carried out by the agri-technology company Devenish in partnership with University College Dublin School of Archaeology.
To date, two burial chambers have been discovered within the western part of the main passage tomb, over which a large stone cairn (c.40m diameter) was raised.
The six kerbstones that have been identified so far would have formed part of a ring of stones that followed the cairn perimeter.
One kerbstone is heavily decorated with Neolithic carvings and represents one of the most impressive discoveries of megalithic art in Ireland for decades.
During the course of this project, a further two possible satellite tombs were also found.
Dr Clíodhna Ní Lionáin, Devenish's lead archaeologist for the project said: "For the archaeologists involved in this discovery, it is truly the find of a lifetime."
"The find of a lifetime" - archaeologist Dr Clíodhna Ní Lionáin on the discovery of a Megalithic passage tomb dating back some 5,500 years at the 18th century Dowth Hall in County Meath. pic.twitter.com/MhkAAoCTxp — Philip Bromwell (@philipbromwell) July 16, 2018
Dr Stephen Davis of the UCD School of Archaeology said today: "This is the most significant megalithic find in Ireland in the last 50 years, since the excavation of Knowth.
"The spate of archaeological discoveries in Brú na Bóinne in recent weeks highlights what a globally significant place this is."
Speaking about the company's presence at Dowth and the importance of its heritage, Owen Brennan, Executive Chairman of Devenish said: "Devenish invested in this farm at Dowth because of its fertile soil, its location beside the Boyne and its beautiful landscape.
"From our archaeological research, it seems we made the same decision for the same reasons as a long line of our farming colleagues from the Neolithic, the Bronze Age, medieval and more recent times.
"The monuments here, created by some of Ireland's first farmers, capture our imaginations and those of our visitors to the Devenish Lands of Dowth. It is an inspirational landscape to showcase Devenish's work on sustainable agriculture and promoting human health through nutrition."
| 6,037 |
Gardiner Harris writes for the New York Times that State Department personnel are being dismissed wholesale as Secretary of State Tillerson pursues “efficiency.”
In a letter to Mr. Tillerson last week, Democratic members of the House Foreign Relations Committee, citing what they said was “the exodus of more than 100 senior Foreign Service officers from the State Department since January,” expressed concern about “what appears to be the intentional hollowing-out of our senior diplomatic ranks.” Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, and Senator Jeanne Shaheen, Democrat of New Hampshire, sent a similar letter, telling Mr. Tillerson that “America’s diplomatic power is being weakened internally as complex global crises are growing externally.”
Some of this is petty stuff:
Mr. Tillerson, a former chief executive of Exxon Mobil, has made no secret of his belief that the State Department is a bloated bureaucracy and that he regards much of the day-to-day diplomacy that lower-level officials conduct as unproductive. Even before Mr. Tillerson was confirmed, his staff fired six of the State Department’s top career diplomats, including Patrick Kennedy, who had been appointed to his position by President George W. Bush. Kristie Kenney, the department’s counselor and one of just five career ambassadors, was summarily fired a few weeks later. None were given any reason for their dismissals, although Mr. Kennedy and Ms. Kenney had been reprimanded by Trump transition officials for answering basic logistical questions from Nikki R. Haley, President Trump’s pick as United Nations ambassador. Mr. Tillerson is widely believed to dislike Ms. Haley, who has been seen as a possible successor if Mr. Tillerson steps down.
And this:
His small cadre of aides have fired some diplomats and gotten others to resign by refusing them the assignments they wanted or taking away their duties altogether. Among those fired or sidelined were most of the top African-American and Latino diplomats, as well as many women, difficult losses in a department that has long struggled with diversity.
The article says that the State Department is being stripped of expertise in many volatile areas of the world. Apparently our new foreign policy strategy is to stumble around blind.
So many top level diplomatics are being forced out that the damage to the State Department could take many years to fix. Tillerson’s objective seems to be to cut the State Department budget by a third and make it more “efficient,” because you know foreign policy is all about … efficiency? But junior staffers who don’t know that much about the world can be paid less, so that much is efficient.
Share Tweet Share
Like this: Like Loading...
| 6,038 |
Two members of the Travelling community have been jailed for taking part in a violent attack on gardai in a halting site.
Owen McDonagh Jnr (23) and Thomas McDonagh (22) were part of a group of men who threw missiles at gardai, including a small motor and a rock and who threatened to kill gardai.
The pair with an address at St Margarets Park, Ballymun, Dublin pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to violent disorder at St Margarets Park on May 12, 2013.
Judge Martin Nolan imposed two year sentences on both men but suspended one year of Owen McDonagh's sentence.
The judge suspended in full a two year prison term on a third man, John McDonagh (18) of Carton Road, Ballymun.
He was aged 16 at the time of his involvement.
Garda Ronan McMorrow told Fiona Murphy BL, prosecuting, that he and another garda followed Thomas McDonagh in car into his bay in the halting site and asked him to produce insurance documentation for the car.
Mark Lynam BL, defending, said Thomas McDonagh was taking his new born child out of the car at the time and thought there was a threat to the baby. He said his client lost control of himself.
He grabbed the garda’s official notebook as they tried to take details of the car down and told them or “fuck off or you’re dead”. He then grabbed a claw hammer and raised it over his head in a threatening manner, telling gardai: “If you don’t leave I will open your head”.
Around 20 to 30 Travellers had gathered around the gardai at this point and the two gardai decided to retreat for their safety. Thomas McDonagh threw a wheel brace after them and it hit the garda patrol car.
Owen McDonagh threw a small electric motor at the car, smashing the windscreen. When gardai went back to retrieve their notebook Thomas McDonagh swung a piece of wood at them and said he would kill them if they didn’t leave the bay.
The two others also took up a piece of wood and threatened gardai and the gardai retreated again. Thomas McDonagh threw a rock at them and narrowly missed hitting them.
The court heard Thomas McDonagh has 92 previous convictions including burglary and theft.
Last month (September 23 2014) he was disqualified from driving for 20 years for an offence of driving with no insurance.
Owen McDonagh has 27 previous convictions including burglary, theft and road traffic offences.
Online Editors
| 6,039 |
Star’s New Year’s Eve Midnight Cocktail & Fireworks Cruise: Aboard the casual island catamaran, guests will enjoy Hawaiian musical entertainment, party favors, fireworks views and Champagne toasts. Voyage departs 10:30 p.m. from Kewalo Basin, returns 12:15 a.m. $91 (kamaaina rates available); 21+. 983-7827, dolphin-star.com/special-events
Waikiki New Year’s Fireworks: The 8-10 minute show will include designs of palm trees, rings, strobes, sparkling fans, colorful falling leaves and more, with music choreogrpahed by Fireworks by Grucci to accompany the show. Sponsored by members of the Waikiki Improvement Association. 11:45 p.m.-12:15 a.m., visible all along Waikiki Beach. 923-1094
Hatsumode 2019: Embrace the spirit of the Japanese at this cultural event, where you can be blessed for the new year, get your head “bitten” by a Japanese Shishi lion for good luck and enjoy sake infused with 24-karat gold flakes and ozoni mochi soup. Midnight-4 p.m. Tuesday, Hawaii Kotohira Jinsha — Hawaii Dazaifu Tenmangu, 1239 Olomea St. (next to Honolulu Ford). Parking with free shuttle at Damien Memorial School. e-shrine.org
2019 Hatsumode: Traditional Japanese New Year’s blessings will be given at the Izumo Taishakyo Mission of Hawaii. Express gratitude for the blessings of the past and receive blessings for the new year for good health and well-being for families and businesses. Ofuda (talisman) and omamori (amulet) for the blessing and protection of businesses, homes and people are available. Midnight-5 p.m. Tuesday and 7 a.m.-5 p.m. Wednesday-Thursday at the shrine, 215 N. Kukui St. 538-7778, [email protected]
Lanikai’s 51st annual Woes Day Parade and Recovery Party: The Lanikai New Year’s Day tradition features a parade, themed “Get the Scoop as you Bike the Loop!” Plus a post-parade breakfast of eggs, Portuguese sausage, muffins, coffee and juice, with Dixieland Jazz band music, and more. Tuesday: 9 a.m. parade, 9:30 a.m. breakfast, Lanikai Park. $5 (for breakfast). 295-3856
| 6,040 |
“If anyone has not tried switching to SciFi as a language (my standard modus operandi in Scrivener now) I strongly urge them to for some fun. This English translation was the brain-child of our beloved ‘pigfender’ and it’s brilliant – sure to bring a wry smile to one’s lips.” (Lee Powell, lead-developer of Scrivener for Windows)
Writing a novel is a bit like being the Captain of a spaceship. Or at least it is if you write your novels using Scrivener for Windows and switch the interface from the default “English” to the “Science Fiction” translation:
To switch to Sci Fi mode:
Press <F12> to open the ‘Options’ dialogue
At the bottom of the ‘General’ tab, is a box where you can select the language. Scroll through the list and you’ll find one called ‘Science Fiction’. Select that.
A pop up will let you know you need to restart Scrivener before you see the changes. So… restart!
When you re-open Scrivener, you are faced with your new environment. I won’t go through everything and ruin the fun, but the basic principles are as follows:
The Scrivener program is the Bridge of your spaceship, consisting of a number of different consoles such as Navigation (Binder), Intelligence (Inspector), and Science (Scratch Pad) plus the main Helm (Editor) which has Operational (Scrivenings), Tactical (Corkboard) and Strategic (Outline) views. If you need to focus on piloting without distractions for a bit you can enter the Flight Deck (Full Screen).
Each writing project is a new Mission, and you can run a Holodeck simulation of (Compile) that Mission at any time to a number of formats.
The interface is sprinkled liberally with nods to classics of Sci Fi from movies, tv and of course literature for you to track down. Although, you are having a very bad day if you’ve seen them all. The text database for the Scrivener interface is huge, covering not just what you can see on screen, but all the different dialogue boxes and pop-ups as well, and you’ll need a lot to go wrong to catch all the references in the error messages!
Frankly, I don’t know why people would bother writing Science Fiction with anything else.
http://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener.php
| 6,041 |
AOC on Instagram live: “Young people are more informed and dynamic than their predecessors... they actually take time to read and understand our [world] history.” Um, what? pic.twitter.com/hk1ZHpUSOv
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) praised Millennials and people in Generation Z for being brave and willing "to go to the streets" in her latest video stream on Instagram. Ocasio-Cortez said the "new generation" is not delicate at all and in fact "badass" and "more informed" than previous generations.
"Is the new generation too delicate? No! I don't think they're too delicate at all. I think that they're badass. I think that young people are more informed and dynamic than their predecessors," Ocasio-Cortez said Monday night.
"I think this new generation is very profound and very strong and very brave because they are actually willing to go to the streets," she added. "How about that?"
REP. ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ (D-NY): Is the new generation too delicate? No! I don't think they're too delicate at all. I think that they're badass. I think that young people are more informed and dynamic than their predecessors. I think that they are more sensitive, in a positive way, in that they actually care about other peoples' experiences and lives. One thing that I love so much about mill -- this new generation is the radical acceptance that I see from so many and they actually take time to read and understand our history, the history of the labor movement, civil rights, history of racial struggles, history of economics, history of the United States, history of colonialism.
They're not afraid to have those conversations. If anything, like I think they're profoundly courageous because they're willing to puncture more taboos and have conversations that, frankly, older generations sometimes struggle to have. Not everyone, I don't want to paint everybody with a broad brush...
I think this new generation is very profound and very strong and very brave because they are actually willing to go to the streets. How about that?
Like, previous administrations had assumed that government's got it. Let me tell you something: you are the government! Like, as a democracy, we the people means you. You are as a voter you are the government too. And if we are not in the streets. If we are not in the streets, if we are not organizing, then what we are doing is abdicating ourselves from government and actually allowing someone else to take over.
| 6,042 |
Wednesday, January 12, 2011 | 10:53 AM
(Cross-posted on the Official Google Blog and Translate Blog.)
When we launched the first version of Google Translate for Android in January 2010, we were excited about the year ahead. For the first time, we were bringing the capabilities supported on Google Translate—like machine translation, romanization of non-Roman scripts and spoken translations—to the Android platform. We also offered voice input to let you speak the word or phrase you wanted to translate instead of typing it in, and SMS translation so you could translate SMS messages sent to you in foreign languages.
Today, we’re refreshing Translate for Android with several updates to make the app easier to interact with. Among other improvements, we’ve created better dropdown boxes to help select the languages you want to translate from and into, an improved input box, and cleaner icons and layout.
We also want to let you in on an experimental feature that’s still in its earliest stages—Conversation Mode. This is a new interface within Google Translate that’s optimized to allow you to communicate fluidly with a nearby person in another language. You may have seen an early demo a few months ago, and today you can try it yourself on your Android device.
Currently, you can only use Conversation Mode when translating between English and Spanish. In conversation mode, simply press the microphone for your language and start speaking. Google Translate will translate your speech and read the translation out loud. Your conversation partner can then respond in their language, and you’ll hear the translation spoken back to you. Because this technology is still in alpha, factors like regional accents, background noise or rapid speech may make it difficult to understand what you’re saying. Even with these caveats, we’re excited about the future promise of this technology to be able to help people connect across languages.
As Android devices have spread across the globe, we’ve seen Translate for Android used all over. The majority of our usage now comes from outside the United States, and we’ve seen daily usage from more than 150 countries, from Malaysia to Mexico to Mozambique. It’s really rewarding for us to see how this new platform is helping us break down language barriers the world over.
Translate supports 53 languages, from Afrikaans to Yiddish, and voice input for 15 languages. You can download the application, available for devices running Android 2.1 and above, by searching for “Google Translate” in Android Market or by scanning the QR Code below.
Posted by Awaneesh Verma, Product Manager
| 6,043 |
Robert Mueller’s testimony to Congress failed to live up to the expectations of many Russiagate-peddling pundits, with one notable exception being MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, who had glowing praise for the former special counsel.
Even among the news outlets that championed the Russiagate narrative, Mueller’s Q&A with the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday received less than stellar reviews.
CNN’s Chris Cillizza lamented that “Mueller was less than convincing or forceful,” and that in many instances his testimony had “made things muddier.”
Another CNN contributor argued that Mueller’s testimony has “provided Republicans good reason to argue that the investigation was a two-year, multimillion-dollar waste of time.”
Mueller didn’t fare much better over at MSNBC. One of the network’s national security analysts, Jeremy Bash, remarked that he had “kind of sucked the life out of the report,” describing Mueller’s performance as “boring” and “kind-of evasive.”
NBC’s Chuck Todd was similarly unimpressed, arguing that the testimony was a “disaster” in terms of optics for the Russiagate-promoting Democrats.
In contrast to these fickle party poopers, there was one celebrated talking head who stayed true to Russiagate’s unbending dogma.
Rachel Maddow, the MSNBC host who perfected the art of Russia-baiting, characterized the hearings as “landmark” and “historic.” (In fairness to Maddow, she also acknowledged that Mueller “definitely seemed older than his 74 years.”)
“All in all, just look at today as a whole, it was a remarkable day,” Maddow beamed. “I know the Trump White House and conservative media are trying to, like, chin up tonight, make it seem like they had a great day today... they did not have a great day today.”
Also on rt.com Crying for indictments? Maddow ‘holds backs tears’ as she discusses end of Mueller probe (VIDEO)
Commenting after Mueller finished his testimony, US President Donald Trump slammed media outlets which promoted the now-debunked theory that his presidential campaign had “colluded” with the Kremlin in 2016.
“This whole thing has been collusion – with the media, with other countries… This has been a disaster for the Democrats,” he said.
Like this story? Share it with a friend!
| 6,044 |
looks kind of like a miniature iPhone."
Yahoo's David Pogue says the Watch's software is hard to navigate. "The truth is, navigation is a big Watch weakness. There aren’t any visual clues that more options are waiting if you force-press, or that anything will happen when you turn the knob. You eventually learn, but only by trial and error. And every time you force-press or turn the knob and nothing happens, you feel like a dolt." "The truth is, navigation is a big Watch weakness. There aren’t any visual clues that more options are waiting if you force-press, or that anything will happen when you turn the knob. You eventually learn, but only by trial and error. And every time you force-press or turn the knob and nothing happens, you feel like a dolt."
The WSJ's Joanna Stern tells her friends to wait till next year to buy a Watch. "The body is bound to get thinner; the edges could stand to be less rounded. It isn’t just the aesthetics, either. Soon, we won’t have to charge the battery every night, the software won’t ever get stuttery and those health sensors will get even more accurate. When was the last time Apple didn’t improve first-gen hardware’s performance while making it sleeker?" "The body is bound to get thinner; the edges could stand to be less rounded. It isn’t just the aesthetics, either. Soon, we won’t have to charge the battery every night, the software won’t ever get stuttery and those health sensors will get even more accurate. When was the last time Apple didn’t improve first-gen hardware’s performance while making it sleeker?"
Patel says the Watch isn't a great fitness tracker. "Out of the box right now, the Apple Watch is a very expensive, barebones fitness tracker. It’s much nicer than its competitors — I used it with the white sport band and thought it was really quite striking — but it’s certainly not more full-featured."
Manjoo sums up all the negativity with a dig disguised as a compliment.
He says the most impressive thing about the Watch isn't what it can do, but what he imagines a product like it could do someday.
"The most exciting thing about the Apple Watch isn’t the device itself, but the new tech vistas that may be opened by the first mainstream wearable computer."
"For now, the dreams are hampered by the harsh realities of a new device. The Watch is not an iPhone on your wrist."
| 6,045 |
ARCHAEOLOGISTS have uncovered an ancient monastic settlement of "huge national importance" during project work for a church car park.
The treasure trove of discoveries in just 48 hours is set to put a boggy field beside an old parish church on the archaeological map of Ireland.
Expert Mick O'Droma compared the find in Co Donegal this week to the settlement at Clonmacnoise.
The field beside the Drumholm Church of Ireland graveyard, near the village of Ballintra, is set to be classified a national monument as a result of just two days of excavation work.
Archaeologist Mick moved onto the site on Monday after being commissioned by the Anglican parishoners to survey the one-acre plot as part of a planning application for a car park and cemetery extension.
REMAINS
"We had mapped the area from above ground, taking pictures and readings and I could see then that it could be exciting," said the expert from Wexford-based Wolfhound Archaeology.
"When we cut five exploratory trenches to take a closer look it became clear very quickly that we were standing on the remains of a early Christian settlement, probably from around the seventh century.
"The exterior walls of the site are clearly there and there is what could be the remains of a round tower on one part of it. I can't over-state the national importance of this, it is very very exciting."
Legend has it that St Ernan, nephew of the late 6th century saint Colmcille, was buried in the Drumholm area. "It is very likely we have found the monastic site where Ernan was based," Mick told the Herald.
A Neolithic axe was discovered two fields away in the 1920s close to an ancient cairn.
"This site beside the old church and graveyard dates back 1,300 years and we know from previous discoveries in the area that there has been human activity going back to at least 5,800BC," he said.
And yesterday he made another discovery in the church field which had this archaeologist even more excited.
He produced two pieces of pottery found in one excavated trench – one from the Gaelic tradition and one from the Anglo-Norman tradition.
"This whole site is like a time capsule of a period from the 7th century until the 16th or 17th century," he said.
A spokesman for the Church of Ireland said the parishoners had met yesterday to discuss the find and would now withdraw the car park planning application. "We will work now with the authorities to have the site protected," he added.
[email protected]
| 6,046 |
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has described the US policy toward Venezuela as "destructive," adding that Moscow considers Washington's open calls to insurrection in the Latin American country as "unacceptable."
"We know the position of the United States. We know the position of those seeking to toe the line of American politics. The fact that this policy is destructive, in relation to both Venezuela and a whole host of other countries, is something that doesn't need to be demonstrated. The open calls for a coup d'etat are obvious to everyone," Lavrov said, speaking to reporters in Morocco on Friday.
"We consider such behaviour unacceptable, and consider it to undermine the principles outlined in the UN Charter, as well as the norms of communication between states. And we will speak from these positions at the Security Council if a decision is made to hold a meeting on the situation in Venezuela at the Security Council," Lavrov stressed.
Venezuela's political crisis escalated this week following an abortive uprising in the capital by members of the national guard. Following the incident, Venezuela's Supreme Court dismissed opposition leader Juan Guaido from his post as National Assembly chairman. On Wednesday, Guaido declared himself the country's interim president, with the US, Canada, and allies in Latin America recognising the politician as such. Caracas responded by announcing that it would be breaking off relations with the United States.
Any 'Syrian Buffer Zone' Must Include Damascus's Participation
Turning to the Syrian matter, and US-Turkish negotiations surrounding a proposed 30 kilometre (18 mile) "buffer zone" in Syria between Turkish and Kurdish forces, Lavrov said that any agreement involving Syrian territory must include agreement from Damascus.
"As for discussions about the buffer zone, the security zone, this cannot be the subject of an agreement between Russia and Turkey. This should be the subject of an agreement with the participation of the Syrian government, because ultimately the need to restore the Syrian government's control over the country's whole territory, including the zone, is clear to everyone. I am convinced that this will be the best solution to the problems that persist in this region; there should be as little foreign interference as possible," the diplomat said.
Earlier, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said that Ankara would not exclude the US, Russia or other countries if they want to cooperate in the creation of a safe zone in Syria. Last week, following a phone conversation with President Trump, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced that the US had proposed the creation of a 30 km buffer zone in Syria to be controlled by the Turkish military. Damascus rejected the proposal, with a senior Syrian official telling Syrian media that Ankara had turned "a blind eye to the international resolutions which have always affirmed respect for Syrian territorial integrity."
| 6,047 |
illegals, because in-state tuition is available to all who qualify for it.
One might be inclined to think that illegal aliens getting in-state tuition at California colleges would have satisfied the activists. One would be wrong. Enter AB 130. Signed into law by newly-elected Gov. Jerry Brown on July 25, 2011, AB 130 made illegal alien college students eligible to receive privately-funded scholarships beginning in January 2012. As the Undocumented Students section of this website from the UC Santa Barbara Office of Financial Aid and Scholarships reveals, there are several private organizations willing to underwrite scholarships for such students.
Unsurprisingly, the activists remained unsatisfied. Equally unsurprisingly, Gov. Brown was more than willing to accommodate their dissatisfaction. On October 8th, he signed the second half of the California DREAM Act, companion bill AB 131: California becomes the first state in the nation where illegals can now access public funds for scholarships. Proponents estimate such scholarships will cost the taxpayers $14.5 million; opponents between $22 and $42 million dollars. A “non-estimated” reality? California has a current budget deficit of $25.4 billion.
Whether the law stays on the books remains to be seen. Opponents of the legislation have initiated a petition drive in Pasadena aimed at putting the the issue on the 2012 ballot. “All across the state, we can’t keep up with the demand, it is absolutely off the charts,” said Assemblyman Tim Donnelly (R-Hesperia) of the proposed initiative. He further noted, “The polling indicates that 80 to 90 percent of Californians are against this, and it crosses party lines.”
Such opposition is quite necessary: 505,000 signatures must be collected by January 6, 2012 to qualify for inclusion. Even so, such opposition may be quixotic: California courts are known for disregarding the will of the electorate, much as they did when voters passed affirmative action and gay marriage bans, both by substantial margins. The former ban was overturned, but the latter remains on appeal.
Aside from the financial costs involved in underwriting scholarships for illegals, petitioners make a compelling argument refuting Gov. Brown’s contention that taxpayer supported education will improve the workforce, noting that illegal aliens “Are Not LEGALLY Able to Work in the United States THEREFORE Paying for the Education of Illegal Aliens is a FRAUD and WASTEFUL THEFT of Taxpayers’ Money.”
Not illegal aliens. “Undocumented immigrants”–to those who incrementally undermine the integrity of the law and the sovereignty of the nation.
Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: Click here.
| 6,048 |
students the gap between girls’ and boys’ performance is greatly diminished.
Likewise, the success of black African boys compared with their under-performing African-Caribbean cousins proves that genetics play little part in this problem.
In truth, we know that much of the disadvantage for those left behind in the global competition is cultural, related to habit and behaviour. It’s not a coincidence that the most successful ethnic groups — the Chinese and some South Asians, who have strong family structures — do more homework than whites.
If Theresa May is looking for a legacy by which she will be remembered, this audit surely has to be her most significant achievement so far, writes Trevor Phillips
Nor should it come as a surprise that the least educationally successful households in the U.S. — African-Americans — watch almost two hours more television a week on average than the rest of the U.S. population. I suspect the figures would be similar here.
We can fix all this. It just needs leadership. But, as I have found over the years, it isn’t easy to get it on the agenda.
For a start there’s a problem with teachers, some of whom seem to want disadvantage to be blamed solely on lack of resources and government investment.
Challenge
For their part, too many politicians want it to be all about social class. They flaunt their liberal credentials by insisting that the poor will always under-perform unless given much more aid. Those high-flying Chinese and Indian pupils confound that view.
Two years ago, the Chief Inspector of Schools, Sir Michael Wilshaw, acknowledged this challenge of the ‘lost boys’ of the white working class left behind.
He called for better schools and school leaders — and for teachers to get tough with ‘feckless’ parents. He received just as lukewarm a hearing as I did all those years ago.
Oddly enough, the white men who currently dominate the Labour Party would probably cut off their right arms before they acknowledged that the Race Disparity Audit has uncovered a serious race-related problem — because the ‘victims’ are white.
If Labour had not been so totally captured by its sub-Marxist militant fringe, this should surely have been a major cause for the Left.
It may be ironic that it has taken a Tory Prime Minister, whose days, according to some, are numbered, to summon up the courage to tackle the single most important challenge facing young white men in our society.
If Theresa May is looking for a legacy by which she will be remembered, this audit surely has to be her most significant achievement so far.
| 6,049 |
the state.
KDOT said there will be no stoppage of construction projects now underway and reduced field crews will be available for traffic control needed to shut down roads in emergency situations such as flooding or traffic crashes.
State courts will remain open and fully operational, Kansas Chief Justice Lawton Nuss said in a statement Friday.
That’s because on Thursday, Gov. Sam Brownback signed a separate budget bill that funds the judicial branch of government for the next two fiscal years.
All alcohol enforcement agents, most counselors at state prisons and many social workers at the Department for Children and Families have been notified they would be furloughed, said Rebecca Proctor, executive director for the Kansas Organization of State Employees, the largest state employees union.
Department of Corrections spokesman Adam Pfannenstiel said prisons will remain operating, but parole offices would have some staffing reductions.
Employees prepare
Brendan Lynch, a Kansas University science writer, was among those who received a furlough notice Friday. The married father of two said he now has to take a close look at his finances for the near future.
“I have two grade-school-aged daughters that have a lot of expenses and I have a home in Lawrence with a mortgage. I have expenses that are not going to be furloughed,” he said. “My wife works downtown, so her job will continue. Although, I expect businesses downtown will be negatively affected because KU is such a large employer.”
Brandon Woodard, a recent KU graduate and full-time alumni relations specialist for the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences, said he also received a furlough notice.
“I’m not necessarily paycheck to paycheck, but knowing that I’m not going to have days of work that I’d normally be paid for, not having that income to look forward to is unnerving,” he said.
Lynch said he has to wait a week before applying for unemployment benefits. After that, depending on how much time passes, he said many university employees are likely to begin searching for new jobs.
The furloughs are especially frustrating to Woodard because he specifically chose to accept a job in Kansas, he said.
“I chose to stay here where I’m from in the state I got my education in and I had the whole idea of wanting to give back to my state,” he said. “This makes me wonder if that was the right decision. Should I have accepted employment somewhere else?”
— Journal-World reporters Sara Shepherd and Conrad Swanson and the Associated Press contributed to this story.
| 6,050 |
Roger Stone Attorneys Provide Evidence of Justice Department Special Counsel Leak Ahead Of Conservative Author and Activist’s Arrest
Just over a week after his televised arrest was carried exclusively by CNN, attorneys for the longtime Trump adviser Roger Stone have sent a letter to the House and Senate Judiciary Committees detailing how some reporters may have received an early draft copy of the indictment.
Documents obtained exclusively by The Gateway Pundit show a copy of the draft indictment without the PACER filing number or official stamps of the court, with metadata on the document identifying it as being authored by “AAW”, who is suspected to be lead Special Counsel prosecutor Andrew Weissmann.
TRENDING: Unhinged Quebec Woman Pascale Ferrier Identified as Suspect in Case of Ricin Letter Sent to Trump White House
CNN’s camera crew allegedly arrived at Stone’s residence a whole hour before the raid and CNN’s Sara Murray provided Stone’s attorney with a draft copy of the indictment in an early morning communique to confirm the FBI raid and arrest.
CNN was the only camera crew on the scene of the FBI raid on Roger Stone’s home.
While CNN has spent an entire week claiming their presence at the FBI raid on Stone’s South Florida home was a combination of luck and hard work, this evidence proves that their “source” was indeed the Office of the Special Counsel, who colluded with the notoriously anti-Trump news network to produce a propaganda broadcast of the arrest that is reminiscent of the Nazi era tactics of the Gestapo and propaganda ministry lead by Joseph Goebbels.
Stone’s attorneys are asking both the House and Senate Judiciary Committees to investigate these leaks and provide answers to the American people on how someone could have obtained sealed grand jury indictments.
VOTE: Should President Trump Pardon Roger Stone?
Here is a copy of the letter by Grant J. Smith.
Here is a copy of the Metadata that shows the copy CNN obtained came from the FBI and not the courts.
Metadata 2
The DC judge in Mr. Stone’s case has claimed that the New York Times bestselling author and political commentator’s vigorous public defense against the sham charges being leveled against him could “taint the jury”, though she has failed to address CNN’s role in Stone’s arrest, or the illegal nature of CNN obtaining a sealed draft indictment.
** Roger Stone spent the past few days in DC for two court appearances and a media blitz to defend his honor. To help Roger fight back against this rogue prosecutor, patriots can visit StoneDefenseFund.com.
More…
| 6,051 |
Do you use NativeScript to build mobile apps? Do you love developing with it? We often get asked: "How can I help NativeScript be even more successful?".
The best answer is by investing some of your time in the open source ecosystem! We know that your first public OSS contribution can be challenging – you might not know where to start, you might not have the technical skills (or at least you think you don’t!), or you might think it takes too much time (and to be frank, it is scary!).
That's why the NativeScript team and the community are here to help you go one step further and become part of the bigger NativeScript family by doing your first contribution to NativeScript - and get rewarded for your efforts 💰!
How to Get Involved
👉 Choose at least one issue marked as good first issue or help wanted from the following list (or any other issue from these repositories):
👉 Read the Contributors Guide in the corresponding repository and follow the steps to set up your environment for development
NOTE: For documentation updates, feel free to update the markdown directly
👉 Implement the issue requirements. For any questions, feel free to reply in the GitHub issue or in the Slack #contributor-squad channel.
👉 Create a pull request (PR) before Oct 31st and state in it that this is your first contribution!
The NativeScript team and our maintainers will review the PR and get back to you with comments (if applicable). Then you will work together to merge the code that YOU have written into the repository and to make it available to the whole NativeScript community.
For any issues you experience during setup and development, you can post your questions in our Slack channel #contributor-squad and get help on the spot!
TO OUR EXISTING COMMUNITY MEMBERS: Join the #contributor-squad channel in Slack and give NativeScript first-timers a hand!
Rewards!
We know that there is no bigger prize than being part of a community and the knowledge that your effort is appreciated by others. But still, we would like to give small tokens of gratitude on behalf of the whole community:
For jsMobileConf attendees we have prepared a swag package that you can receive at the NativeScript booth after showing your PR to the team.
For every non-trivial contribution, we will provide an Amazon Gift Card worth $25!
Before you start, we recommend taking a look at Pascal Precht's guidelines for contributors and maintainers.
Thanks for your help making NativeScript the best framework it can possibly be!
| 6,052 |
HoloLens is one of Microsoft’s most important new products, but it soon won’t be the only holographic experience around.
Microsoft is opening up its Windows 10 Holographic platform to other manufacturers. In other words, expect HoloLens clones to start showing up all over the place soon.
While the Holographic platform does supports standard Oculus-style virtual reality, Microsoft thinks the real draw for practical applications will be augmented reality (it prefers the term ‘mixed reality’).
Mixed reality lets virtual experiences interact with the real world. Moreover, Windows Holographic lets multiple devices interact with one another, sharing a common virtual space.
While current virtual reality platforms are highly isolated experiences, Microsoft’s approach wants to bring people, objects, devices and headsets together under single mixed reality platform. Perhaps that’s why Microsoft calls it ‘mixed’ reality; it’s not about simply supplement our current world with data or creating a completely artificial world – it’s about the seamless integration of the virtual and the real.
There’s a benefit for developers too: all Universal Windows Platform (UWP) apps can be made to run on holographic or virtual experiences. Imagine the same Facebook app you run on your desktop working on your VR headset; that’s what the UWP promises. Oculus and Google may have gotten a head start, but Microsoft has the breadth of an ever-growing Windows 10 ecosystem behind it.
Meanwhile, inviting other manufacturer to clone HoloLens hardware to other manufacturers might seem autocannibalistic, but Microsoft compares its new approach to the Surface line. In other words, HoloLens will set the standard for mixed reality experiences on Windows 10, but hardware partners can iterate on the design and features as they see fit.
It took a few years, but that approach seems to finally be paying off. Not only are Windows manufacturers like Samsung, Lenovo and HP embracing the tablet-with-a-keyboard form factor, but we’re seeing it from Apple and Android devices as well.
Opening up Windows Holographic will give consumers more choice, but as with Surface clones, the biggest benefit for consumers will likely be price. HoloLens currently costs $3,000, but third-party manufacturers will likely drive the price of Holographic technology down by a significant degree.
More competition will mean better VR and AR for everyone, bringing us closer to becoming a society living in the Matrix.
Opening Windows Holographic to Partners for a New Era of Mixed Reality on WIndows Blog
Read next: Google's self-driving car has learned how to honk, so stay in your lane
| 6,053 |
AL-DANA, Syria (Reuters) - Thousands of people flocked to the funeral on Sunday of a Syrian soccer star turned fighter who became an icon of the revolt against President Bashar al-Assad.
Slideshow ( 2 images )
Abdelbasset al-Sarout, 27, died on Saturday from wounds he sustained in northwest Syria, where an army offensive has pounded the last major rebel bastion for weeks.
Once a well-known goalkeeper from the city of Homs, Sarout gained a new kind of fame when the popular uprising against Assad’s rule erupted in 2011. He was dubbed the “singer of the revolution” for chanting ballads at rallies that eulogized slain activists and vilified the president.
After Assad’s iron-fisted crackdown on the protests, Sarout took up arms and became a wanted man. His path mirrored the uprising’s spiral into an armed fight to the death between Damascus and the myriad militias and guerrilla bands that the conflict spawned.
Sarout was moved from a hospital in Turkey, which backs the opposition, across the border on Sunday, with a convoy of cars and motorcycles following the coffin into Syria.
People chanted, honked and waved rebel flags on the way to the funeral in the border town of al-Dana, where one of Sarout’s brothers is buried.
Four of Sarout’s brothers and his father had already died fighting pro-government forces.
Crowds stood on the roofs to watch Sarout’s body, wrapped in white, being carried through the town. Rebels from his faction, Jaish al-Izza, fired into the air.
In the mosque, men including fighters in combat uniform kneeled in front of his body to pray, some of them weeping.
“We all know Sarout’s songs and golden vocals. Today is a big loss, a sad day for the Syrian revolution. We lost one of its icons,” said Ali al-Zajel, an activist at the funeral.
With Russian and Iranian help, Assad’s military has reclaimed much of Syria by crushing opposition enclaves in recent years.
Sarout was among hundreds of thousands of civilians and insurgents shuttled to the northwest under surrender deals as the army reconquered their hometowns.
Sarout, who fought government forces in his home city, left under such a deal in 2014 after a bitter two-year siege.
As rebel factions struggled with infighting and the growing influence of Muslim jihadists, Sarout was accused of switching his allegiance to Islamic State, which he denied in a video in 2015.
| 6,054 |
I can’t seem to go a day without hearing someone say, “Get to Cuba before all the Americans get there.” What exactly is it that Americans will change once they get to Cuba? Or is just that there will be so many more tourists? Either way, a lot will likely change, from big things like travel restrictions being loosened to little quirks like Netflix becoming available to Cubans, but one thing that comes to mind is that for which Cuba has become inextricably linked to (besides rum): classic old American automobiles.
The Caribbean region is getting a lot attention recently for its efforts towards energy security by decreasing fuel imports through increased renewable energy production. A recent focus of the newly merged Rocky Mountain Institute and Carbon War Room is just this, working with Caribbean nations to achieve sustainability, working with the islands as test cases for what is possible. But what about the biggest island of them all?
Because of sanctions put in place long before I was born (1961), all the American cars sold in Cuba, favored in some part because of its proximity to the U.S., have since been left there without any ability to get new parts or new models. But is Cuba really just filled with nothing but these classy cars? What do we know about Cuba’s transport landscape today?
The data is spotty to say the least, but here are two stunners:
Cuba sold 50 cars and four motorcycles in the first six months of 2014, according to Reuters. And even more surprising: that’s actually a record. Only in 2014 were dealers allowed to sell vehicles, and it was only in 2011 that Cubans were allowed to buy and sell cars to each other.
With these restrictions, it is perhaps no surprise that most cars are indeed American oldies, as well as Soviet-provided Ladas from before 1991.
As the (unfortunately dated) figure below shows, Cuba’s estimated car ownership is quite low, and no wonder given the restrictions. However, perhaps more surprising is that it’s not the lowest.
I know, it’s probably not a major priority in the realm of changes coming to Cuba, but I can’t help but wonder if we’ll see a “cash for classy clunkers” program come online once the blockade is lifted. In a prescient 2004 article for Transport Policy, researchers outlined what might happen to Cuba’s transport fleet should the blockade be lifted: they expect a double-to-tripling of tourism traffic, cruise ship congestion, and an urgent need for parking enforcement. In today's changing political context, it will be interesting to see how Cuba’s iconic fleet moves on.
| 6,055 |
MARONITE Catholics living in Brisbane made a pilgrimage to their homeland of Lebanon in the spiritual sense when they welcomed the first-class relics of their founding father St Maroun.
The Maronite community of St Maroun’s, Greenslopes, venerated the ex-ossibus relics of St Maroun, taken from his skull, at Evening Prayer on February 10.
St Maroun was a Christian hermit monk who was responsible for bringing Christianity to Syria and then later to Lebanon.
His work and teachings inspired his followers to start the Maronite Church after he died.
The relics that were in Brisbane are venerated at the Monastery of St John Maroun in Kfarhay, Lebanon.
They were transported to Brisbane in a reliquary designed by Syrian sculptor Nayef Alwan which shows the face of St Maroun on the cedar of Lebanon underneath a church bell and a cross.
It was the first time the relics of St Maroun have visited Australia, and the visit coincided with his feast day on February 9.
Maronite Bishop of Australia Bishop Antoine-Charbel Tarabay and Maronite Bishop of Batroun Bishop Mounir Khairallah travelled with the relics throughout Australia including in Brisbane.
The relics remained in the Greenslopes church until late on Sunday, February 11, when they were taken to St Charbel’s Church and College, Punchbowl, NSW.
St Maroun’s parish priest Fr Fadi Salame said about 400 people came to venerate the relics over the weekend, and he invited members of the Lebanese Orthodox church, Melkite rite, Ukrainian rite and Coptic Orthodox to pray before the saint’s bones.
Fr Salame said the relics of St Maroun represented 16 centuries of Maronites in the world.
“The relics are important because we still believe in the presence of a saint, and having our patron’s relics here is very significant,” he said.
Maronite Catholic Deborah Barakat said praying before the relics gave her “a greater spiritual link” between Australia and Lebanon, the homeland of the Maronites.
“To me it was really about the reconnection with Lebanon and with here,” Mrs Barakat said.
“Sometimes when we hear relics are coming, we think it’s just another event, but as an Australian Maronite it affected me emotionally and spiritually.
“It was a blessed event.”
Bishop Tarabay confirmed the relics would remain in Sydney at St Maroun’s Cathedral, Redfern, after the tour around Australia.
| 6,056 |
BALTIMORE -- A confederate memorial was removed from outside the Circuit Courthouse in Ellicott City overnight Monday, CBS Baltimore reports.
Howard County Executive Allan Kittleman said in a Facebook post that the memorials belong in a museum.
"It has become increasingly clear in recent weeks that memorials such as this are hurtful to many residents in our community and elsewhere," Kittleman said in the post. "Given these feelings and the tragedy in Charlottesville, I felt compelled to remove this memorial from public property."
Get Breaking News Delivered to Your Inbox
Kittleman ordered the removal of the memorial late Monday after completing the historic review process. He filed a request with the Historic Preservation Commission to take this step last Wednesday.
County officials say plans have been in the works for more than a year to remove the monument, but just hours after members of the Howard County NAACP vowed to be at the statue until it was gone, it was.
"Honestly, I didn't think it would happen the way it did," said Willie Flowers, with the Howard County NAACP.
It came just hours after members of the Howard County NAACP called for it to be removed.
"I do think more people are waking up and seeing Maryland, and seeing Howard County as part of the world, instead of just holding on to history that is basically dead," Flowers said.
Howard County is the latest jurisdiction to remove Confederate symbols, after just last week, Baltimore removed four statues.
A statue of former Chief Justice Roger Taney was removed near the Maryland State House in Annapolis.
The move comes after a deadly protest in Charlottesville, Virginia, earlier this month, when white nationalists protested the city's decision to remove a statue of Robert E. Lee.
Dirt is all that's left of the monument that honored 92 Howard County men who fought for the Confederacy during the Civil War, but we've learned the monument is now on the move.
It's moving just across the street, to the Museum of Howard County History, where it will be part of the museum's new Civil War exhibit.
"We historians and professionals who knew it was there, knew this day would come," said museum director Shawn Gladden.
Gladdens says while the monument tells a story of the county's past, he believes it was time for it to go.
"Every artifact tells a story," Gladden said. "And a lot of times, there's many stories behind it."
Gladden hopes that other statues and monuments brought down in recent weeks are not destroyed, but moved elsewhere.
It is not yet known when the statue will be moved over to the museum.
| 6,057 |
Aaron Rodgers could gain an understudy from the 2020 NFL draft.
Green Bay Packers general manager Brian Gutekunst disclosed to reporters Friday that he's not opposed to selecting a quarterback with the franchise's first-round pick come April.
"Everything I've been taught, that's where you start," Gutekunst said. "You start with the quarterback. So you evaluate them every year, and I think it's always on the table. It's a good crop this year. It's a good group of quarterbacks. I think it's a little deeper than it has been in the past. It will be interesting."
The Packers own the 30th overall pick.
Rodgers, who turned 36 on Dec. 2, is under contract with the Packers through the 2023 season.
The Athletic's Matt Schneidman evaluated the 2011 and 2014 NFL MVP's future earlier this week:
"I do think this is Rodgers' last contract with the Packers. Four more seasons would put him at age 40 after the 2023 season and while he wants to play slightly past that, I just don't see him taking a team-friendly two-year deal or something like that, especially after how well the Favre-to-Rodgers transition worked and the presumption that the Packers would rather a second- or third-year quarterback instead of a washed-up 41- or 42-year-old Rodgers clinging on for dear life.
Now, we may see a rejuvenated Rodgers next season if the Packers surround him with better weapons, but I don't think even that would change their plans at quarterback."
Green Bay could be following the same blueprint it used when Rodgers entered the league behind Brett Favre. The organization took Rodgers 24th overall in the 2005 draft, and he sat behind Favre until becoming the full-time starter in 2008.
The Packers won the Super Bowl two years later.
The 2020 quarterback class is led by Heisman Trophy winner Joe Burrow, who is presumably headed to the Cincinnati Bengals at No. 1 overall. Tua Tagovailoa, Justin Herbert, Jake Fromm, Jacob Eason and Jordan Love are emerging as the top prospects at the position behind Burrow prior to next week's NFL Scouting Combine in Indianapolis.
Despite Gutekunst's open-ended mindset regarding quarterbacks, Bleacher Report's Matt Miller projected the Packers to take Notre Dame tight end Cole Kmet in his latest mock draft.
Green Bay is heading into its second season under head coach Matt LaFleur, who revitalized the offense and led the team to its first playoff appearance since 2016, so it might make more sense in the immediate future to surround Rodgers with more weapons rather than drafting his predecessor.
| 6,058 |
Over the weekend, Knicks fans received bad news regarding Jeremy Lin.
The team revealed that what was originally thought to be a minor injury, would likely end the point guard's season.
Lin will require surgery to repair a torn meniscus in his left knee, and is expected to miss six weeks because of the operation. The Knicks released the news just one day after announcing that the phenom would be back on the court within a week.
That timetable does not give Lin enough time to return for the start of the postseason. The NBA Playoffs start on Apr. 28, two weeks before Lin is scheduled to return.
The point guard could return if the Knicks make it to the second round, but that is not likely to happen. If New Yorkdoesn't get out of the eighth or seventh spot in the Eastern Conference, they'll have to play the Heat or the Bulls.
The Knicks would be heavy underdogs in a seven-game series against Miami or Chicago with Lin in the lineup. With the point guard on the bench, and possibly Amare Stoudemire too, it would be extremely tough for New York to advance to the second round.
Now, it seems there may be a glimmer of hope for Lin to return in time for the beginning of the postseason.
Marc Berman of the New York Postreports that there's a chance Lin could come back in four weeks, not six. Orthopedic surgeon Dr. Wellington Hsu tells the Post that, depending on what the surgeon finds, Lin could return in two to four weeks.
"If they don't see anything else wrong in surgery, just see the tear, typically you can get back in the NFL in two to four weeks and I've seen NBA players get back within that period. That's assuming there are no surprises.''
Such a result would be a blessing for New York. Even if Lin were to miss four weeks, he'd be back in time to help the Knicks try to win their first playoff series in over a decade.
Don't expect Lin to be back much sooner than what was initially reported. Lin has a chronic tear in his knee, and it would be hard for him to make a speedy recovery.
However, nothing is set in stone. The Knicks said Lin will miss "approximately six weeks," but head coach Mike Woodson is hopeful the point guard will return sooner.
"I think it all depends on rehab and how quickly he responds to the surgery. That's something down the road that we just have to wait and see. Once they go in there and get it done, he could respond very quickly, at least I'm hoping, anyway."
Lin will have surgery sometime within the next two days.
| 6,059 |
the tit-for-tat “terrorist” designations.
“I feel things are changing for the worse … this doesn’t look good,” she told Al Jazeera.
Financial pressure
The US has already blacklisted dozens of entities and people for affiliations with the IRGC, but not the organisation as a whole.
Trump on Monday confirmed earlier reports that the US was planning the designation, saying it will continue to increase financial pressure and raise the costs on Iran “for its support of terrorist activity”.
Tehran has in the past threatened to disrupt oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz if the US tries to strangle Tehran’s economy by halting its oil exports.
Meanwhile, Iran’s regional rival, Saudi Arabia, welcomed the US decision on Tuesday.
Saudi Arabia, led by a Sunni Muslim royal family, has accused Iran of interfering in its and other Middle Eastern countries’ internal affairs.
Iran and Saudi Arabia have been fighting proxy wars for years, backing opposing sides in conflicts in Syria and Yemen.
“The US decision translates the kingdom’s repeated demands to the international community of the necessity of confronting terrorism supported by Iran,” the official SPA news agency said, citing a foreign ministry source.
The latest designation allows the US to deny entry to people found to have provided the IRGC with material support or prosecute them for sanctions violations. That could include European and Asian companies and businesspeople who deal with the IRGC’s many affiliates.
It also may complicate diplomacy. Without exclusions or waivers to the designation, US troops and diplomats could be barred from contact with Iraqi or Lebanese authorities who interact with IRGC officials or surrogates.
Al Monitor’s Shabani said Washington’s move was unlikely to pay off in the long-term as it was not in step with “how the region works”.
“Those behind the … designation appear to seek to put pressure Iran by going after its allies and partners in the region with an “either with us or against us” approach,” Shabani told Al Jazeera.
“Unlike those behind the IRGC’s FTO designation, Iranian leaders have one key advantage: consistency in leadership and the luxury of strategic patience; something that potential one-term White House residents can only dream of,” he added.
“If anyone is aware of Iran’s long game, it is indeed those in power in Beirut [Lebanon] and Baghdad [Iraq] today, many of whom have been in partnership with the Islamic Republic for almost 40 years.”
| 6,060 |
In an essay last month, Renee DiResta — one of the researchers involved in analyzing the social media data for the Senate committee — used the term “Information World War” to describe the battles being waged by nations and ideological factions on social media platforms. Ms. DiResta wrote:
The theatre opportunistically shifts as geopolitical events and cultural moments present themselves, but there is no sign of abatement — only tactical evolution as the digital platforms that serve as the battlespaces introduce small amounts of friction via new security checks and feature tweaks.
Indeed, in the pair of reports prepared for the Senate committee, we see that Russia’s attacks did not stop after Mr. Trump’s election, but they have continued to evolve and adapt. Russians appear to have shifted their focus away from Facebook, where a team of trained specialists now prowls for influence operations, and toward Instagram, another Facebook-owned app that has flown under the radar. The Internet Research Agency appears to have largely sat out the 2018 midterm elections, but it is likely already trying to influence the 2020 presidential election, in ways social media companies may not yet understand or be prepared for.
And Russia is just the beginning. Other countries, including Iran and China, have already demonstrated advanced capabilities for cyberwarfare, including influence operations waged over social media platforms.
Since 2016, tech companies have tried to demonstrate that they are up to the challenge, by bulking up their security teams and rolling out new transparency features. Some of their efforts have paid off, but others have seemed mostly cosmetic — like the “war room” set up at Facebook headquarters ahead of the 2018 midterm elections, a glorified conference room that was nevertheless heralded as the second coming of Stratcom. In the pair of independent reports presented to the Senate Intelligence Committee, researchers criticized these companies for providing incomplete or poorly formatted data sets for examination and for appearing to mislead Congress while answering questions about the extent of Russia’s operations.
There is also something uncomfortably America-centric about all of this investigation. Social media companies have, reluctantly and belatedly, disclosed details about the extent of their platforms’ misuse during the 2016 election in the United States. But they have not made similar disclosures in Italy, France, Brazil or any number of other countries where social media disinformation has played a major role in tectonic political shifts.
The researchers who analyzed data from the 2016 election have framed the continuing battle over disinformation and social media manipulation as a “high-stakes information war.” But if this is indeed a war, it isn’t a simple, bilateral one — with tech firms and American intelligence agencies on one side, and state-sponsored hackers and trolls on the other.
| 6,061 |
NATIONWIDE - Workers fighting for $15 an hour and union rights will protest alongside faith and community leaders at 28 state capitols across the country on Sept. 12, calling on politicians to support a moral policy agenda that includes living wages, union rights, and racial justice, among other issues. The protests are part of a “Higher Ground Moral Day of Action” spearheaded by the Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II, an architect of the Moral Mondays movement in North Carolina and founder of the social justice group Repairers of the Breach.
At each rally, workers, clergy, and community leaders will read and deliver a Moral Declaration signed by more than 10,000 people of faith and 2,500 faith leaders calling on elected officials and candidates for office to embrace morally just policies like a $15/hour wage and health care for all, and to stand against racism, sexism, discrimination and attacks on voting rights.
The national day of action will be dedicated to former Missouri McDonald’s worker Myrna De Los Santos, who died on Aug. 27 at the age of 49 due to complications from diabetes—a condition that went untreated because her $8 per hour wage wouldn’t cover basic health care. Myrna would have received health care through Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, but Republican state lawmakers blocked a proposed Medicaid expansion in 2013. Last year, the legislature also blockedthe $13 minimum wage increase Myrna and other Kansas City workers fought for and won with a state preemption bill.
Underpaid workers across the country voted to take part in the Higher Ground Moral Day of Action at the first-ever Fight for $15 National Convention in August.
WHO: Working people in the Fight for $15; faith leaders from diverse traditions; community leaders.
WHAT: Rallies, vigils, and revivals at state capitols calling on politicians to support a moral policy agenda that includes higher wages, union rights, a stronger safety net and more.
WHEN: 11 am ET, September 12, 2016
WHERE: State capitols participating in the Moral High Ground Day of Action include: Montgomery, AL, Little Rock, AR, Sacramento, CA, Denver, CO, Hartford, CT, Washington, DC, Tallahassee, FL, Atlanta, GA, Springfield, IL, Indianapolis, IN, Frankfort, KY, Baton Rouge, LA, Boston, MA, Saint Paul, MN, Jackson, MS, Jefferson City, MO, Concord, NH, Santa Fe, NM, Raleigh, NC, Carson City, NV, Albany, NY, Columbus, OH, Harrisburg, PA, Columbia, SC, Nashville, TN, Austin, TX, Richmond, VA, and Madison, WI.
###
| 6,062 |
A former spokesman for Hillary Clinton's campaign said he doesn't know if the failed presidential candidate knew her campaign was funding opposition research that resulted in the controversial Russian dossier about President Trump.
Brian Fallon told CNN he hadn't spoken to Clinton about the dossier and isn't sure if she knew exactly how involved her campaign and the Democratic National Committee were in funding Fusion GPS' work. That firm funded Christopher Steele, a former British spy, as he investigated Trump's business interests in Russia that ended up in a salacious document with many unconfirmed details.
"Oh I don't know, I don't know, I haven't spoken to her," Fallon said, when asked if Clinton knew about the research.
"She may have known, but the degree of exactly what she knew is beyond my knowledge. For instance, it could have been a decision was made to authorize to do some kind of commission, some kind of research, but then decisions about, you know, going out and finding Fusion GPS, finding Christopher Steele. I mean, she may or may not have been aware of that level of detail. I don't know."
Fallon said he never personally saw the dossier before the election and only became aware of it when reporters began calling and asking about it in the month leading up to the election.
Buzzfeed made the controversial decision to publish the dossier in full before Trump was sworn in as president, despite not being able to confirm much of the document.
Fallon said he thought the information in the document was just opposition research done by Trump's opponents in the GOP primary that had "gone dormant" and was resurrected when the intelligence community said Russia was trying to interfere in the election.
"It resurrected a lot of interest with trump's calls with Russian. So when those calls would come in, we found it interesting, we would trade information about what we were hearing from different sources," Fallon said. "But, we were powerless to help those reporters get over the hump and get over the finish line of reporting, because we didn't have any of the research or at least I didn't have it directly."
Fallon said it's not a big deal that Democrats and the Clinton campaign funded the research because it's standard practice in a campaign to get opposition research on an opponent — a line that's very close to what Trump supporters said after it was revealed Donald Trump, Jr. took a meeting with a Kremlin-linked attorney promising dirt on Clinton.
However, Fallon said the two cases were different.
"The Russians and Vladimir Putin were only trying to help one side in this election," he said. "And, you don't have to take my word for it on that. That is the conclusion of U.S. intelligence."
| 6,063 |
Just In Time
Apart from making balloons float and making you sound like a chipmunk, helium is essential to the superconductor industry, and is a crucial ingredient in MRI scans as well as other medical applications. Numerous other applications also require helium, such as quantum mechanics and space technology.
In recent years, experts have been worried about helium reserves being depleted. Ironically, it is the second most abundant element in space. Since helium is a lot lighter than air, a lot of the Earth’s helium supply quickly seeps out into space. While this means we can never really run out of helium in the universe, harvesting it would become increasingly costly.
The world relies on the US for 75% of its helium supply, and based on estimates, the American reserve can only produce enough to last until 2018, 2020 at best.
But fear not: a large helium reserve has just been found in Tanzania. Scientists from Durham and Oxford University, in collaboration with Helium One, used seismic imaging and geochemical sampling to find the new reserve, on the postulation that volcanic activity is critical in the production of helium. Durham University graduate student Diveena Danabalan presented the team’s findings at the Goldschmidt geochemistry conference in Japan.
Current extraction methods include natural gas processing, wherein helium as a by-product of radioactive decay of uranium and other heavy elements are extracted. The new exploration strategy predicts the location of helium reserves by mapping out volcanic activity that would produce enough intense heat as to extricate helium from ancient rocks. This helium would then try to escape upwards and end up in shallower gas deposits, such as the one recently found in the volcanically rich Rift Valley in Tanzania, which can supply an estimated 1.2 million scanners.
“We sampled helium gas (and nitrogen) just bubbling out of the ground in the Tanzanian East African Rift Valley,” Oxford University’s Chris Ballentine said. “This is a game changer for the future security of society’s helium needs, and similar finds in the future may not be far away.”
Finding the Sweet Spot
While this new method presents an effective way to find mother lodes of helium, the researchers still have to work on finding the spot where the helium reserve is not too close to a volcano—so it doesn’t mix with other volcanic gases, since the process to segregate them would be time-consuming and ultimately expensive.
“We are now working to identify the ‘goldilocks zone’ between the ancient crust and the modern volcanoes, where the balance between helium release and volcanic dilution is ‘just right,’” Danabalan said
| 6,064 |
DENVER (CBS4) – Pro-marijuana advocates on Monday gathered at Denver’s Lincoln Park across from the state Capitol for 4/20, the unofficial pot holiday.
CBS4 captured time lapse footage leading up to 4:20 p.m. In the video smoke can be seen rising from the crowd after the designated time.
The day is for pro-pot political action and the traditional smoke out. The 4/20 celebrations started over the weekend and continued through Monday, April 20.
There were several events over the weekend including a festival that’s become an annual tradition, the Cannabis Cup, where pot-based businesses set up booths to sell their products.
What was different this year at the Cannabis Cup at the Denver Mart was there were no samples or sales. But that didn’t seem to put a damper on the crowd.
PHOTO GALLERIES: 4/20 Rally & Smokeout In Downtown Denver | Denver Cannabis Cup On 4/20
“We have a lot of California companies here as well, and we have a lot of companies from Washington. If you go walk around, everybody is having a good time and there’s a lot of cannabis being smoked. It’s a celebration,” said Dan Skye, editor of High Times magazine.
RELATED STORIES: Marijuana Legalization Story Archive
Despite the smokeout at the park, it’s still illegal to use marijuana in public or drive high.
During the three days of the 4/20 events Denver police say they issued 243 citations, 196 were marijuana-related citations.
Denver Police also tweeted out a reminder to those partaking in the pot holiday.
🎶 We see you rollin, but we ain't hatin’ 🎶 HAHA… Seriously though, #Denver, please remember to #ConsumeResponsibly this 4/20 weekend. — Denver Police Dept. (@DenverPolice) April 20, 2015
RELATED: Safe Pot Use Is The Message During 4/20 Marijuana Holiday
The Colorado State Patrol also reminded drivers that driving high is illegal and will result in a DUI.
It's okay to roll with your buds at home. We don't want to blaze the message away so we will be blunt: DON'T DRIVE HIGH. #420 — CSP Public Affairs (@CSP_News) April 20, 2015
Dozens gathered in front of the state Capitol where Colorado’s ban on public consumption of pot was flaunted, as it is each year on April 20. It was actually billed as a political rally to free people in jail on marijuana charges from before legalization, among other topics.
| 6,065 |
, water, or solar power.
The 100% wind, water, solar studies have also been questioned for depending on some technologies such as underground heat storage in rocks, which exists only in a few places, and the proposed use of electric and hydrogen fuel cell aircraft, which exist only in small planes at this time. Jacobson counters that underground heat storage is not required but certainly a viable option since it is similar to district heating, which provides 60% of Denmark's heat. He also says that space shuttles and rockets have been propelled with hydrogen, and aircraft companies are now investing in electric airplanes. Wind, water, and solar can also face daily and seasonal fluctuation, making it possible that they could miss large demands for energy, but the new study refers to a new paper that suggests these stability concerns can be addressed in several ways.
These analyses have also been criticized for the massive investment it would take to move a country to the desired goal. Jacobson says that the overall cost to society (the energy, health, and climate cost) of the proposed system is one-fourth of that of the current fossil fuel system. In terms of upfront costs, most of these would be needed in any case to replace existing energy, and the rest is an investment that far more than pays itself off over time by nearly eliminating health and climate costs.
"It appears we can achieve the enormous social benefits of a zero-emission energy system at essentially no extra cost," says co-author Mark Delucchi, a research scientist at the Institute of Transportation Studies, University of California, Berkeley. "Our findings suggest that the benefits are so great that we should accelerate the transition to wind, water, and solar, as fast as possible, by retiring fossil-fuel systems early wherever we can."
"This paper helps push forward a conversation within and between the scientific, policy, and business communities about how to envision and plan for a decarbonized economy," writes Mark Dyson of Rocky Mountain Institute, in an accompanying preview of the paper. "The scientific community's growing body of work on global low-carbon energy transition pathways provides robust evidence that such a transition can be accomplished, and a growing understanding of the specific levers that need to be pulled to do so. Jacobson et al.'s present study provides sharper focus on one scenario, and refines a set of priorities for near-term action to enable it."
###
Joule, Jacobson et al.: "100% Clean and Renewable Wind, Water, and Sunlight (WWS) All-Sector Energy Roadmaps for 139 Countries of the World" http://www.cell.com/joule/fulltext/S2542-4351(17)30012-0
| 6,066 |
Dr. John
New Orleans music icon Dr. John has died at the age of 77.
According to a statement from his family, Dr. John passed away of a heart attack on Thursday (June 6th). “The family thanks all whom shared his unique musical journey & requests privacy at this time. Memorial arrangements will be announced in due course,” the statement reads.
Born on November 20th, 1941 in New Orleans, Louisiana, Malcolm John Rebennack grew up in the city’s Third Ward, where he discovered jazz artists in his father’s record shop and learned minstrel tunes from his extended family members. Although he had no proper musical education, per se, Rebennack had plenty of access to recording studios through his father’s connections in the local music scene.
By his teens, Rebennack became an active session musician as a guitarist and began working with a number of local Big Easy acts. In 1960, he suffered a gunshot wound during a gig that prompted him to focus on the piano, much like his idol and mentor Professor Longhair. Following a two-year sentence for selling narcotics and running a brothel, he moved to Los Angeles where he solidified his legend.
And what a legend it was! Among the many highlights in Rebennack’s storied career include being a part of the infamous Wrecking Crew; recording with The Rolling Stones, Van Morrison, Sonny & Cher, and Frank Zappa; performing with The Band in Martin Scorsese’s iconic documentary The Last Waltz; giving Bonnaroo its name with 1974’s Destively Bonnaroo; and inspiring Dr. Teeth of The Muppets.
He led an overwhelmingly influential life, so much so that his legend tends to precede any of his actual work, of which there are countless gems within his 20+ releases. A couple essentials include his 1968 album, Gris-Gris, which he recorded as “Dr. John, the Night Tripper”, and his 1973 hit single “Right Place Wrong Time”, which has more or less become synonymous with the entire decade itself.
A six-time Grammy Award winner and inductee of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Rebennack was also the recipient of an honorary doctorate of fine arts from New Orleans’ own Tulane University. His influence over the city and its surrounding areas will in no way be lost to history. His soul, his music, and his legacy is as much a part of the area as is the Spanish moss that hangs from its many trees.
Revisit a selection of Dr. John’s many other best known compositions:
| 6,067 |
This is alpha software and has not been tested for security or stability. Use at your own risk.
Overview
Doogie is a Chromium-based web browser with tree-style pages. It is built using CEF and Qt. The primary goal is to make a browser that functions more like an IDE. In an era where web browsers continually remove or hide UI, Doogie aims to make it more visible and allow easier cross-contextual browsing. Read the user guide or the FAQ.
Screenshot
Features
Page Tree
The page tree allows easy navigation of pages via a tree view. It has features for opening child pages (foreground or background), suspension, fast closing gestures, etc. In addition to trees, pages can be organized in workspaces and bubbles.
Read more about the Page Tree
Bubbles
A "bubble" is a context a page runs within. Bubbles can have their own settings, including cache path, which allows you to do things like create an "incognito" bubble, or create separate bubbles with complete separate cookie sets to login to the same site as two different users side-by-side. Bubbles are identified by customizable icons and pages can easily be switched from one bubble to another.
Read more about Bubbles
Workspaces
A "workspace" is a named hierarchy of pages. They can be created, closed, deleted, moved around, and more. A workspace is a good way to quickly reopen a set of pages in a preferred hierarchy.
Read more about Workspaces
Autocomplete and Search
The address bar offers autocomplete suggestions based on previously opened pages. Also, DuckDuckGo is integrated where it will always appear as an option to search. Want to search for Google instead? Use DuckDuckGo's!bang support, and type "!g something" or "something!g" and using the search will perform a Google search. In fact, DuckDuckGo is the default autocomplete option any time a bang-form of search is typed.
Read more about the Address Bar
Request Blocker
Page Suspension
Pages in the tree can be suspended. This frees the resources the page is using and marks it as disabled. This can be helpful when you have many pages in a hierarchy but do not want all of them open and using resources.
Read more about Page Suspension
Not Yet Implemented
Many features are either not yet implemented or will never be implemented. See the GitHub issues. Some of the major ones are:
... and much much more. Most of these have to be complete before "beta". Contributions welcome.
| 6,068 |
Nearly one in every two millennials in New York state owes student loan debt — and many are pulling pints while waging war on state plans that could lead to smaller salaries.
Thousands of these borrowers are working as bartenders and wait staff while paying off their loans and seeking more gainful employment in their chosen fields.
As they struggle to stay current with their repayments, many fear a reduction in their incomes if the state’s present “tip credit” — which permits bars, restaurants and other establishments to pay staff less than the minimum wage because of gratuities — is eliminated, as state legislators are considering.
Student debt is at a record high statewide. According to federal and state figures:
New York state’s outstanding student debt now totals $90.6 billion.
45 percent of adults 18 to 35 in New York state owe student loan debt.
20 percent of New York state consumers have outstanding student debt.
“Many young people in New York who work in local bars and restaurants are paying off student loans and paying for college — and they don’t want to see the tip credit eliminated,” Tezra Bryant, a veteran of the New York hospitality scene, told The Post. “They don’t want to see a decline in their incomes.”
While employers can hold back on base pay under the present arrangement, many workers say it’s a win-win because a lot of customers regularly compensate with generous tips of as much as 20 percent or more of the pretax bill.
Last week, a group of New York restaurant workers and owners gathered at Jing Fong Restaurant on Elizabeth Street in Chinatown to renew calls for Gov. Cuomo to preserve the tip credit.
Business owners present said their margins are already way too slim to absorb a tip credit purge — and warned that customers wouldn’t stand for higher menu prices to offset subsequent higher costs.
And if the tip credit goes, industry watchers say, many employers are likely to discontinue the tip tradition, instead paying workers a flat base such as the minimum wage.
For their part, many loan-burdened New York millennials — who on average pull down an estimated $25 hourly with salary and tips in independent New York City hospitality establishments — expect to see their wages plunge sharply if the tip credit disappears.
If jobs as bartenders and wait staff don’t already pay enough, it’ll be a lot worse if the tip credit disappears, critics said.
“The tip credit needs to stay,” said Bryant. “Many millennials have student debt — and just can’t take a reduction in their incomes.”
| 6,069 |
SNOWY WHITE: Mauriora, the second white kiwi chick to hatch at Pukaha Mount Bruce this year.
A white Christmas is being celebrated at a Wairarapa wildlife centre, after the birth of a second rare pure white kiwi.
The rare chick hatched last Sunday in Pukaha Mount Bruce's kiwi nursery, where Manukura – the world's first white kiwi hatched in captivity – arrived in May.
Centre manager Kathy Houkamau said staff were "gob-smacked" by the Christmas miracle.
"While every kiwi is precious, to have a second white chick is a delightful gift, especially at this time of year."
Local iwi Rangitane o Wairarapa has named the chick Mauriora, meaning "sustained life".
Rangitane chief executive and Pukaha board member Jason Kerehi said it was a powerful name.
"This new kiwi is seen as an assurance that we are blessed with more than one special creature and there is potential for more."
Conservation Department captive breeding ranger Darren Page said it was remarkable that two birds with the rare white gene had paired up in 940-hectare Pukaha forest to produce two white chicks over two seasons.
"Both white birds have the same father, who we have identified through his transmitter," Mr Page said.
"We can't identify the mother but assume she is the same because of the rarity of the white gene."
There is a one-in-four chance of such a pair producing a white chick.
Eleven kiwi have hatched at the centre so far this season and of the two kiwi eggs incubating in the nursery, one is from the same nest as Mauriora.
"We'll have to wait and see what that brings," Mr Page said.
A small number of North Island brown kiwi carry the recessive white gene, which both the male and female must have to produce a white chick.
The parents were among 30 kiwi transferred from Hauturu/Little Barrier Island in 2010. The white gene is thought to have found its way into the kiwi population on Little Barrier Island after a white kiwi was put on the island early last century.
Holidaymakers can now see Manukura and brown kiwi in the nocturnal house, and view the new chick being hand-reared in the nursery from Boxing Day, where it will be for about 10 days.
In October Manukura swallowed two large stones and underwent ground-breaking surgery at Wellington Zoo.
| 6,070 |
Tucker Carlson: Mexico has become a ‘hostile power’ that the U.S. must deal with (Video)
By Jon Dougherty
On his Friday program, Fox News host Tucker Carlson labeled Mexico a “hostile power” during a tense interview with a guest because the country is either exacerbating the illegal immigrant crush at the U.S. border or is doing nothing to stop it.
Carlson, in an interview with Juan Hernandez, secretary of migrant and foreign affairs for the Mexican state of Guanajuato, said it was hypocritical for his government to resist any move by the United States to close its southwestern border to stop illegal immigration because Mexico’s laws forbid Central American illegal migrants from remaining in the country for long.
As the debate began, Hernandez used a typical Left-wing talking point to argue that most migrants are really just “good people” who are “looking for a better life” — rather than, you know, remaining in their own countries and changing political and social conditions there.
“Why not let them stay forever? But remain Guatemalan and Hondurans … Why would that be bad? Why are you kicking them out after a year?” Carlson noted.
As the interview progressed, Carlson took on an increasingly frustrated tone regarding Hernandez’s claims about Mexico’s enforcement policies towards illegal immigrants. He also cited a 15-year-old comment from his guest that Mexican citizens living in their own country, as well as those living illegally in the U.S., represent a “united nation.”
He also grew frustrated that Hernandez wouldn’t directly answer why his country kicked Central American migrants out after a year if they were ‘mostly good people.
And that’s when Carlson let him have it.
You Might Like
“Mexico is a hostile power that is seeking to undermine our country and sovereignty,” Carlson said.
Hernandez countered that his country deports more Central American migrants than does the U.S., which again prompted Carlson to inquire that if they were such good folk, why kick them out at all?
Eventually, Carlson got fed up and cut the interview short.
“It’s nauseating, you’re not doing the right thing, now I’m getting mad, I’m going to stop this,” Carlson said.
Watch:
Follow Jon Dougherty on Twitter at @JonDougherty10
Be the first to receive our latest video reports: Subscribe to our YouTube Channel by clicking here and pro-liberty video platform Brighteon by clicking here
| 6,071 |
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told her fellow Democrats on Tuesday that she's not yet ready to send the articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump to the Senate — but she suggested that she could be soon.
In a letter to colleagues, Pelosi, D-Calif., maintained that she wants to immediately see the Senate resolution laying out the process for Trump's trial before she transmits the articles charging Trump with abuse of power and obstruction of Congress to the Senate. That move would start the trial process in the Senate.
"Soon, the Senate will have the opportunity to honor its oath to 'do impartial justice according to the Constitution and laws,'" Pelosi wrote before arguing that the process proposed by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., is unfair.
Let our news meet your inbox. The news and stories that matters, delivered weekday mornings. This site is protected by recaptcha
McConnell has said he plans to use the same process that was laid out in Bill Clinton's impeachment trial in 1999 — allow the House to lay out the charges and the White House to lay out its defense before having both sides answer senators' questions. When the questions have concluded, senators could then vote on whether to dismiss the case or hear testimony from witnesses.
In Clinton's impeachment trial, senators heard videotaped testimony from three witnesses.
Download the NBC News app for breaking news and politics
Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., have called on McConnell to include witness testimony in the trial rules from the outset, noting that unlike the Clinton administration, the Trump administration blocked several key witnesses from testifying before the House. McConnell has refused, and he said Tuesday that he has the votes to pass a resolution following the Clinton playbook.
"In addition, this morning, Leader McConnell said, 'We'll be glad to show [the resolution] to you when we unveil it,'" Pelosi wrote. "It is important that he immediately publish this resolution, so that, as I have said before, we can see the arena in which we will be participating, appoint managers and transmit the articles to the Senate."
The House Democratic leadership met Tuesday as members returned to the Capitol. While most Democratic lawmakers were mum on Pelosi's next moves, many said they supported her stance with the Senate and would not question her tactics.
"I'm not going to second-guess her. So far she's been pretty, pretty damn good," said Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn.
Rep. Peter Welch, D-Vt., said he was confident that Pelosi would send the articles to the Senate at some point, adding that Pelosi would "figure it out" with McConnell because "that's the game that she brings, she'll figure out."
| 6,072 |
” to their campaign agendas. Anger is something that I believe in. Forget, “Yes we can!” How about “Yes we rage?”
We must refuse to bottle up our emotions for everyone else’s comfort and convenience anymore.
We must no longer swallow, eat and internalize our oppression, causing epidemics of hypertension, obesity, heart disease, stroke and diabetes, all of which are the consequences of dealing with racism, including the demand not to be angry … EVER.
We must lay down the burden of always needing to perform a lie, turning our anger inward so it eats away at our bodies, our minds and our psyches and we end up unleashing it on our children, loved ones, and ourselves.
We must reject White folks’ propaganda that has us believing that we are bad, unrespectable people for expressing the anger, irritation, disappointment and frustration that any sane human would feel in our circumstances. We must be unapologetic about defending ourselves against racists who dehumanize us and our daughters by publicly calling us “black bitches,” “whores,” “cunts,” “sluts,” “gorillas,” and other vile slurs.
We must rebuke the contempt that is thrown at us for our perceived inability to regulate our emotions. Hell, if White America knew the depth and breadth of our simmering rage, they would bow down in awe at our self-control. But far too many White people, who are immune from such attacks, have the privilege to sit back and judge our responses to racist vitriol while pretending not to see or hear what provoked us in the first place.
Why does everyone want Black women to stop challenging and rejecting that stereotype? Because our anger is the path to change. America needs to see our anger, hear it, and most importantly feel it. The anger of Rosa Parks and Ella Baker helped drive a movement that changed our nation. The anger of Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth helped to end slavery. Our anger, our rage—once we embrace, articulate and direct it—is the most potent and powerful weapon we possess.
Anyone who is not angry about the growing list of injustices and terrorism aimed at Black Americans is either a psychopath or complicit in our murders.
To feel our anger at injustice is to be wholly alive. Our ability and willingness to express that anger, is to be committed to progress. To wield our anger strategically is the key to the justice and freedom. And to fully embrace our anger is the most healthy, sane, self-loving, nurturing thing that we can possibly do.
Photo credit: Ashley Sakuma for MSNBC
| 6,073 |
Taklimakan Network is a business platform for newcomers and crypto enthusiasts from all over the world that allows you to make acquaintances, build your own business, monetize your skills, increase knowledge in the blockchain sphere, attract investment in your own project, get investment advice and much more.
Simplicity, ease of use, modern design and user-friendly functionality make the platform an indispensable tool for exploring the crypto industry, investing and building your own business of any category.
Taklimakan Network is a place where a beginner can gain the necessary knowledge and an expert can share their experience on a paid or free basis.
The platform contains more than 10 directions including social, educational and investment prospects. For instance,
- News feed from financial and crypto media sources,
- Cryptocurrency statistics,
- Tools for trading, analytics and portfolio management,
- Investments in startups and asset management,
- Cryptocurrency shop
- Freelancers Exchange,
- The knowledge base on blockchain technologies, projects and crypto companies from around the world, as well as a decentralized exchange for cryptocurrency trading
The main payment instrument on the platform’s ecosystem would be TAN token, created using Ethereum blockchain solution.
The audience at the platform is very diverse. Everyone will be able to find his interest and the information he needs, no matter what language he speaks and what country he lives in.
- Users of the platform can communicate with each other, send tokens, create, like and comment on publications, subscribe to other users or content, create groups, branded pages and broadcast video.
- Newcomers to the crypto market can subscribe to content experts for free or by purchasing paid subscriptions, increasing knowledge and investment skills, interact with experts and get professional analysis of blockchain startups, as well as increase their capital using asset management solutions.
- Sellers can create store pages, lay out goods on a common marketplace, sell and buy, as well as conduct auctions.
- Freelancers Exchange allows you to create profiles and upload portfolio. Customers can set tasks and specify the conditions.
- Any startup or project can receive investments for an idea or an existing business. And investors can find a suitable project for themselves and get analytics on it from experts.
- Novice traders can buy trading recommendations from professional traders, thereby increasing their capital in the cryptocurrency market
Taklimakan Network is a global project aimed for promotion and development of blockchain industry, as well as introducing cryptocurrency to the masses!
Taklimakan Network is your compass in the cryptocurrency world!
Watch the video — https://youtu.be/5GOd_hUipdI
| 6,074 |
GOP voters respond positively to idea of universal health care David Edwards and Muriel Kane
Published: Monday August 6, 2007
Print This Email This When Fox News asked on Monday "Who came out ahead?" at the GOP debate in Des Moines, Republican pollster and consultant Frank Luntz answered that the participant who "surprised voters the most" was second-tier candidate Mike Huckabee. Luntz monitored the responses of 29 Republican voters on a moment-by-moment basis throughout the debate and found that "Mike Huckabee in his communication, in the language that he used, took voters who for the most part had never even heard of him and turned them into Huckabee supporters." Luntz highlighted in particular how his electronic graphs "climb when Mike Huckabee talks about the changes that are needed to American health care." "If you want to know how to fix it, I've got a solution," Huckabee said at the debate. "Either give every American the same kind of healthcare that Congress has or make Congress have the same kind of health care that every American has." As he spoke, the electronic graphs rose dramatically for both moderate and conservative Republicans, from a neutral reading of 50 into the 80's. "Health care is an issue that transcends politics and transcends ideology," commented Luntz. "Democrats are more willing to support universal care. Republicans are still focused on the free market system. But when Huckabee talked about giving health care, the same benefits, to the average American that Congress has, that really scores." Last May, Huckabee criticized Michael Moore's Sicko and even took a cheap shot at Moore's weight, saying, "Frankly, Michael Moore is an example of why the health care system costs so much in this country. He clearly is one of the reasons that we have a very expensive system." However, a week ago, Huckabee wrote to Moore, suggesting they meet to find "common ground" and saying, "The two of us may have something in common: a passion for reforming the health care system in America... While I respect your efforts to call attention the health care crisis in this country in your movie 'Sicko,' I feel that your view that all would be improved with free universal and government provided health care is simplistic." The system enjoyed by Congress under the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program, which Huckabee invoked at the debate, involves the government negotiating contracts with private health plans and covering up to 75% of the premiums for those enrolled. Luntz concluded the segment by showing the members of his focus group describing Huckabee as "honest" and "refreshing" and said that he has a real chance to break out of the second tier. The following video is from Fox's Fox & Friends, broadcast on August 6.
| 6,075 |
Even as national unemployment has fallen, counties with persistently high unemployment also have more disability.
In 2009, 7.8 million workers, or 3.9 percent of the working-age population, received Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI). By 2015, that number had grown to 8.9 million, or 4.4 percent of the working-age population. To put these figures in context, consider the SSDI rate1 was 1.7 percent in 1985. This growth, however, has varied geographically. At the county level, there is a strong, positive relationship between the unemployment rate and the SSDI rate. This relationship, however, cannot explain the increase in the national SSDI rate between 2009 and 2015, when the unemployment rate fell on average and in most counties. Instead, SSDI receipt2 is becoming more concentrated and is highest in places with the worst economic prospects.
Figure 1 shows the strong, positive correlation between county-level SSDI receipt and county-level unemployment rates. We plot data from both 2009 and 2015 to compare current conditions with those at the height of the Great Recession. The regression lines show that the relationship between the unemployment and SSDI rates has only become stronger. From 2009 to 2015 when the national unemployment rate was falling, the unemployment rate also fell in most counties. This is reflected in the figure as a general leftward shift. However, the association between unemployment and disability changed. There were fewer counties with high unemployment rates in 2015, but those with high unemployment had even more SSDI recipients.
As the national unemployment rate has fallen, high unemployment has corresponded to even higher rates of SSDI receipt. So, the rise in SSDI over this period is a phenomenon associated with increased geographic inequality and an increased concentration of SSDI across counties. Figure 2 shows the distribution of county-level SSDI rates in 2009 and 2015. Visually, the peak has shrunk, which means there are fewer counties with low SSDI levels that resemble the nation as a whole. Instead, that mass has shifted to the tails, and counties with very high rates of disability now have even higher rates.
The two figures suggest that SSDI is associated with economic hardship, but its rise is not a result of increased hardship on average. Instead, the counties that are doing poorly along one economic indicator—unemployment—now fare even worse along another—receipt of SSDI. It is not unreasonable that SSDI should respond to economic conditions: SSDI is actually designed with a set of job-related criteria, and these vocational considerations have been growing as a share of new benefit recipients.3 The set of shocks and conditions driving Figure 1, however, is still a puzzle.
Notes
| 6,076 |
Mexico's public health system has mounted an investigation after two babies died and 29 were sickened in an impoverished community in southern Mexico.
Six of the 29 babies are in grave condition after receiving vaccinations for tuberculosis, rotovirus and Hepatitis B, which are generally administered between 0 and 6 months, according to a national schedule.
The cause of the adverse reactions is not known, the Mexican Institute for Social Security said Sunday.
The 23 other babies are in stable condition, according to the institute.
Officials: José Antonio González Anaya, the general director of the Mexican Institute for Social Security (far right), and Manuel Velasco Coello, the governor of Chiapas, were photographed meeting with affected families
Concerns: Six of the 29 babies are in grave condition after receiving vaccinations for tuberculosis, rotovirus and Hepatitis B, which are generally administered between 0 and 6 months, according to a national schedule
The institute said it stopped vaccines nationwide on Saturday as a precaution.
On Sunday, the Mexican Institute for Social Security said that just Hepatitis B vaccine lots have been stopped in Simojovel, Chiapas.
CNN has reported that officials are looking into whether bacteria or a virus are culprits, along with needles.
The Rev. Marcelo Perez, a Roman Catholic priest, told The Associated Press that families of the babies said they became sick within hours.
The adverse reactions started Friday and the babies were being treated in a hospital in Simojovel, Chiapas, where 93 percent of the people live in poverty, 69 percent in extreme poverty, according to government statistics
The institute said Saturday that 52 children received the vaccines on Friday.
The hospital 'doesn't have adequate personnel or equipment,' Perez said. 'The real problem is the terrible conditions we have... so that when a baby comes in with convulsions, he leaves dead.'
The institute in a news release said that both José Antonio González Anaya, its general director, and Manuel Velasco Coello, the governor of Chiapas, have met with the affected families.
Officials have said the children are being treated in Tuxtla Gutiérrez, Chiapas.
The federal and state government, in a statement Sunday, promised the best medical care for the babies and to stay in contact with the parents to answer all their questions.
Perez said he was helping the families collect all the information that could help officials discover the cause of the adverse reactions.
The federal and state government, in a statement Sunday, promised the best medical care for the babies and to stay in contact with the parents to answer all their questions
| 6,077 |
Published: 9:46 AM March 1, 2019 Updated: 6:05 PM September 17, 2020
Eurotunnel has withdrawn its legal claim against Chris Grayling's Transport department over post-Brexit ferry contracts after reaching an agreement worth up to £33 million, the government has said.
I see ferries!!! Illustration by Martin Ronson - Credit: Archant
The firm, which operates the Channel Tunnel, was challenging the department's decision to award contracts worth £108 million to three ferry companies at the High Court.
But the government announced a deal with Eurotunnel to 'deliver improvements which will ensure the Channel Tunnel is ready to continue to keep passengers and freight moving post-Brexit' such as better security and traffic flow at the border.
This will protect the 'vital freight capacity' purchased from ferry operators to help ensure the continued supply of 'crucial medicines, medical supplies and veterinary medicines in a no-deal scenario', the government statement said.
MP Wes Streeting, speaking on behalf of the People's Vote campaign, said the settlement showed Brexit was 'descending into a colossal waste of time and money.'
You may also want to watch:
He said: 'Another £33 million of taxpayers' money is now being thrown away thanks to the shambolic mismanagement of leading Brexiter Chris Grayling and his inexplicable, secretive decision to hand a lucrative contract to a ferry company with no ferries.
'The amount of money already wasted on Brexit won't be recovered, meaning less money for vital areas like the NHS, education and defence. This debate is no longer about wild claims, theories or predictions and now that there are new facts about the real cost of Brexit, there should be a new vote that gives people a real say.
'With more and more money already wasted on Brexit, and with the cost set to spiral even further, it is vital that the public are given the final say over this process. That's why huge numbers will be marching through London on March 23 demanding that Brexit is put to the people.'
Transport Secretary Chris Grayling said: 'The agreement with Eurotunnel secures the Government's additional freight capacity, helping ensure that the NHS has essential medicines in the event of a no-deal Brexit.
'While it is disappointing that Eurotunnel chose to take legal action on contracts in place to ensure the smooth supply of vital medicines, I am pleased that this agreement will ensure the Channel Tunnel is ready for a post-Brexit world.'
Last month the government terminated a £14 million ferry contract with a company that owned no ships after Irish company Arklow Shipping, which had backed Seaborne Freight, stepped away from the deal.
| 6,078 |
, and executed. Many more were allowed to go to Argentina instead because the Allies were reluctant to hand them over to their new communist rivals where the outcome of their war trials would inevitably result in their executions.
The Catholic Church also lobbied heavily in favor of these individuals not being repatriated. The allies did not want to try these men themselves (only 22 defendants were tried at the first of the infamous Nuremberg Trials and all told, 199 defendants were tried of which 161 were convicted and 37 were sentenced to death), nor did they want to send them to the communist nations that were requesting them, so they turned a blind eye to the ratlines carrying them by the boatload to Argentina.
Legacy of Argentina's Nazis
In the end, these Nazis had little lasting impact on Argentina. Argentina was not the only place in South America that accepted Nazis and collaborators as many eventually found their way to Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, and other parts of the continent. Many Nazis scattered after Peron's government fell in 1955, fearing that the new administration, hostile as it was to Peron and all of his policies, might send them back to Europe.
Most of the Nazis who went to Argentina lived out their lives quietly, fearing repercussions if they were too vocal or visible. This was particularly true after 1960, when Adolf Eichmann, architect of the program of Jewish genocide, was snatched off a street in Buenos Aires by a team of Mossad agents and whisked off to Israel where he was tried and executed. Other wanted war criminals were too cautious to be found: Josef Mengele drowned in Brazil in 1979 after having been the object of a massive manhunt for decades.
Nazi war criminal Adolph Eichmann stands in a protective glass booth flanked by Israeli police during his trial June 22, 1961 in Jerusalem. Handout/Getty Images
Over time, the presence of so many World War II criminals became something of an embarrassment for Argentina. By the 1990s, most of these aging men were living openly under their own names. A handful of them was eventually tracked down and sent back to Europe for trials, such as Josef Schwammberger and Franz Stangl. Others, such as Dinko Sakic and Erich Priebke, gave ill-advised interviews, which brought them to the attention of the public. Both were extradited (to Croatia and Italy respectively), tried, and convicted.
As for the rest of the Argentine Nazis, most assimilated into Argentina's sizable German community and were smart enough to never talk about their past. Some of these men were even quite successful financially, such as Herbert Kuhlmann, a former commander of the Hitler youth who became a prominent businessman.
| 6,079 |
ail:
I spent a lot of time (many hours) doing research on how to enable Email Authentication. I had an idea of what to do, but I was not very confident. I was afraid to make a change that could negatively affect our emails. After all, if I break our email, it would have a huge impact on our business. Simply put, I did not feel confident in my expertise.
I turned to a company that could help us with Email Authentication, Valimail. Valimail is basically Email-Authentication-as-a-Service SaaS solution. Valimail ties into your DNS to handle SPF and DKIM making Email Authentication easy for their customers. Valimail’s offering will also work around some of the nuances, for example the aforementioned SPF ten lookup limitations. An important thing to know is Valimail ties into your email delivery infrastructure; they cannot see email contents.
Valimail was a big help in that they have existing relationships with many vendors that will be sending email on your company’s behalf. Valimail was able to click a few buttons to set up DKIM and SPF setup on our domain.
As it turn out, some of our SaaS providers use the same email sending providers. For example, you may not use SendGrid directly, but two of your service providers may use them under the hood. This means those two service providers will conflict with one another. If I was doing the setup myself, I doubt I would have been able to realize what was going on, let alone fix it. Valimail was able to resolve these conflicts or create workarounds quickly since they have relationships with many vendors and email sending providers (SendGrid, Mailgun, etc.)
My experience with Valimail has been great. Their team is a group of subject matter experts on email authentication (it’s their business!), very quick to respond to any of my (many) questions, and pro-actively check in with me on a regular basis. After working with Valimail, I was able to move our organization’s Email Authentication policy from “Do Nothing” to “Quarantine” within a quarter.
In closing:
I strongly recommend you set up Email Authentication for your domain(s). If you have the confidence and resources to do this internally, make it your goal to move into quarantine or blocking mode in 2017. If you don’t have the resources or knowhow to accomplish this on your own, check out some experts who can help you.
More on Security at VTS
Building VTS Blog
How to think about Security: Year 1 Retro
My Blog
| 6,080 |
A 31-year-old Navy SEAL from New Hampshire who played baseball at Stonehill College died Saturday in a parachute accident during training in DeLand, Fla., the Navy said.
“The entire Naval Special Warfare community extends its sincerest condolences to the family and friends of our teammate, Blake,” said Lieutenant David Lloyd, a US Navy spokesman. “He will be missed by all who knew him. An investigation into this incident is underway.”
Marston, who was assigned to an East Coast-based SEAL team, had been in the Navy for six years and completed SEAL training in 2009, Lloyd said in an e-mail.
Lloyd said he was unable to provide details of the accident while an investigation was underway. But police said Marston was found on the ground unconscious and with a broken leg. He was taken to a local hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
A witness told police that something flew off Marston’s parachute as he was in free fall between 40 to 60 feet above ground.
Marston, of Concord, “always demonstrated an incredible commitment to his fellow service members,” US Senator Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire said in a statement.
New Hampshire’s junior senator, Kelly Ayotte, said in a statement that Marston died while “training to conduct dangerous missions that keep Americans safe. We owe our freedom and security to men like Blake.”
Marston graduated from the Derryfield School in Manchester, N.H., in 2001. A decorated member of the high school’s baseball team, he pitched eight no-hitters, served as captain, and was a three-time all-state player, school officials said.
He went on to study criminology at Stonehill College in Easton, graduating in 2007, college officials said.
He played on the college’s baseball team for three years, most often as a second baseman. Stonehill College baseball coach Patrick Boen said Monday in a telephone interview that Marston was a gifted athlete and the hardest worker on the team.
“He was a terrific teammate and a leader who led by example,” Boen said. “Other players on the team looked up to him because of how hard he worked.”
During Marston’s senior year, several pitchers on the team were injured. Marston was the first one to volunteer to step in and pitch, Boen recalled.
Material from the Associated Press was used in this report. Aneri Pattani can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @apattani95.
| 6,081 |
Enigma codebreaker Alan Turing's papers fail to sell Published duration 23 November 2010
image caption Alan Turing killed himself after being prosecuted for having a sexual relationship with a man
Papers published by World War II codebreaker Alan Turing have failed to sell at auction - raising hopes they could be kept in the UK.
The Manchester University scientist, who killed himself in 1954, created a machine at Bletchley Park to crack messages in the German Enigma code.
His research papers failed to reach a reserve price at Christie's on Tuesday.
It means a campaign to raise funds to buy them for the Bletchley Park trust for public display will continue.
Turing, who has been called the "father of the computer", published only 18 papers in his short career.
The collection, which contains his first published paper, his pioneering work on artificial intelligence and the foundations of the digital computer, had a guide price of between £300,000 and £500,000.
But the BBC's Technology Correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones, who attended the auction in London, said bidding stalled at £240,000.
He said this gave campaigners - who failed to raise enough money to match the guide price - another chance to secure the papers.
"In a way it was the best result they could hope for this afternoon," he added.
Donation hope
Since it was announced that the papers were going to be sold, IT journalist Gareth Halfacree has been trying to raise the cash to buy them and donate them to Bletchley Park Trust in Milton Keynes.
image caption Turing's Bombe machine is viewed by many as the ancestor of the modern computer
So far he has raised £85,000 having just received a $100,000 (£62,784) donation from Google.
He told the BBC there was disappointment that they could not afford to buy the collection, but added: "The fact they haven't sold and the fact we might now have a second crack of the whip is brilliant news.
"We can try and raise more money and try to get the amount we've got to bid with up, and keep them at Bletchley Park."
Mr Halfacree added that he still hoped technology giants such as Microsoft, Apple or Yahoo might also come forward with donations.
Turing, described by the BBC's correspondent as a "hero for geeks", was prosecuted for having a sexual relationship with a man and later committed suicide by biting into an apple which he had laced with cyanide.
He was found dead at his home in Wilmslow, Cheshire, where a plaque has been erected to pay tribute to him.
| 6,082 |
Rasmussen polls were, once again, significantly biased in favor of Republicans.
An analysis of polling from 13 of the most important swing states in the 2012 presidential election found that Rasmussen Polls overestimated Republican Mitt Romney’s standing by 3.25%.
None of the 13 Rasmussen polls overestimated support for Democrat Barack Obama.
This 2010 piece by fivethirtyeight.com’s Nate Silver about the performance of Rassmussen polls during the 2010 midterm elections found they too were biased:
Rasmussen’s polls were quite biased, overestimating the standing of the Republican candidate by almost 4 points on average.
Rasmussen didn’t do much better this year. Considered the lynchpin to the presidency for both candidates, Rasmussen’s final poll (11/4) from Ohio was off by nearly 2% in favor of Romney. In Michigan, the 11/1 poll overestimated Romney’s support by 2.9%. In New Hampshire (11/4), it was 3.4%. And in Iowa, Rasmussen’s 10/30 poll predicted a 1-point Romney victory: Obama carried the state by 5.6%.
Silver’s 2010 analysis suggests a few reasons why Rasmussen polls were statistically biased in favor of Republicans: the exclusive use of landlines when contacting respondents, and the failure to call back phone numbers if a caller doesn’t pick up (instead moving to a new number) were among them.
Silver also offered this:
Rasmussen also weights their surveys based on preordained assumptions about the party identification of voters in each state, a relatively unusual practice that many polling firms consider dubious
In 2012’s election cycle, the first concern should have been alleviated: Rasmussen uses Pulse Opinion Research LLC for their polls, and their methodology page offers this:
To reach those who have abandoned traditional landline telephones, Rasmussen Reports uses an online survey tool to interview randomly selected participants from a demographically diverse panel.
During the entirety of 2012 campaign (not just near the end), Rasmussen polls often overstated Republican strength in comparison to other polls. Those less Republican-leaning polls often came under fire for a supposed Democratic bias, notably by Romney's campaign itself.
Rasmussen polls have now significantly overstated Republican strength in two consecutive election cycles.
The 13 swing states analyzed, using Rasmussen’s last polls in those states ranging from Oct. 21 to Nov. 4, were Ohio, Florida, Virginia, Iowa, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Colorado, Nevada, Michigan, North Carolina, Indiana, and Missouri.
All polling data can be found at RealClearPolitics.com.
| 6,083 |
oriented game today.
"He's got some skill, no doubt about that. And he's figured out pretty quickly how to play at that level. As a small player, you have to understand how to get room on the ice. And he has.
"The new rules dictate that a guy like Johnny Gaudreau should (score points). Because he has that much more ability than the guys he's playing against.”
The trajectory is inarguably pointed upwards, towards the heavens. The question is: How high can he fly?
“I'm not quite sure where his ceiling is in comparison with, say, a Connor McDavid, a bigger guy,’’ hedges Nieuwendyk, the former Flames’ captain and a Calder Trophy recipient back in the day.
“But he’s obviously a special player, an unbelievable player. Can he dominate? He’s already dominating in some ways. He’s got a little bit of (Patrick) Kane in him. A little quicker than Kane.
“If he has the right team, the right players, around him, he could probably do what Kane is doing in any given season, I’d suspect.
“He’s kind of the face of Flames right now, probably the single biggest people pay money to see the games. They went through a couple of tough years there, but now they’ve got some pizzazz back. They’re a fun team to watch.
“Because of Johnny.”
McDonald. Nieuwendyk. Fleury. MacInnis. Gilmour. Iginla. A glittering lot. Names that continue to shine, to shimmer and sparkle, like the whirling disco ball above a late ‘70s dance floor.
At the very summit of the list of the best that there’s ever been in this town. Men who understand the nuances of skill and mindset required to reach the very gates of Olympus.
Might The Latest one day join The Greatest?
Terry Crisp holds out hope.
“Hell, yeah,’’ he replies. “No reason he shouldn’t be a top player in the league for a lot of years. Johnny Gaudreau’s one of those guys that he does something on a shift, you go ‘Wow!’ Next shift, ‘Double Wow!’
“And he’s just getting started, remember.
“There’s a lot of ‘Wow!’ left.”
| 6,084 |
We Eliminate the Three Major Complaints Associated with Traditional Carpet Cleaning
According to the Institute of Inspection, Cleaning and Restoration (IIRC), carpets should be professionally cleaned every 12 to 18 months. Doing so offers a myriad of benefits including; improving the look and feel of your home, prolonging the life of your carpet, reducing molds and allergens, controlling dust mites, and eliminating trapped pollutants. So why is it that with so many benefits associated with regular cleaning that many homeowners choose not to follow these guidelines? When asked, consumers sited three major complaints…. wet floors with long dry times, returning spots, and fast re-soiling.
At Greenworks, our dry extraction method eliminates these three issues, while still producing magnificent, long lasting, and superior results.
1. We Eliminate Long Dry Times.
Without question the leading advantage of using our dry extraction method is the fast dry time. With most traditional methods it can take several days for your carpet and pad to become completely dry. In comparison, the Greenworks dry extraction carpet cleaning method will leave your carpet dry in 60 minutes or less. To put it in perspective, on a standard job we will only use 2-3 gallons of water in your whole home! A traditional carpet cleaner typically uses 90 gallons or more while only extracting about 80% of it.
2. No Returning Spots or Wick-back
Traditional methods will usually get your spots out, but often times these spots magically reappear a few days later. Why? Spots return because of a phoneme known as wicking. All of the remaining dirty water that the technician did not completely extract sits in the carpet backing and pad then dries from the bottom up. While drying the carpet fibers can act as a wick pulling up the dirty water left behind causing the stains to reappear. Because we use almost no water, our process eliminates this problem making wick-back all but impossible!
3. Fast Re-soiling Is No Longer An Issue
Traditional cleaners use hot water and harsh detergents. After the cleaning, as much water and detergent is extracted out of the carpet as possible. The problem with this method is that some of the water is left behind along with a sticky detergent residue. This residue acts as a sponge and attracts dirt, grease, and grime which can quickly re-soil your carpets. At Greenworks, we only use green certified, detergent free solutions that encapsulate the dirt before being extracted.
Give Greenworks a try. We’re all-natural, clean, green, dry, and exceptionally effective carpet cleaners. You’ll Love Our Carpet Cleaning Service… We guarantee it!
| 6,085 |
Dan Wolken
USA TODAY Sports
RIO DE JANEIRO — Antipathy over the Russian doping scandal has been pervasive at the Olympics, from some Russians drawing negative crowd reactions to 19-year old American swimmer Lilly King trash-talking her competitor before beating her for a gold medal.
But when Travis Stevens lost his bid Tuesday to become the first American man to win a gold medal in judo to Russian Khasan Khalmurzaev, there was a genuine, warm embrace. At this level of Judo, they are competitors for sure. But they are also offseason training partners and consider themselves brothers, regardless of country. Stevens has even traveled to Russia several times, he said, to train with their national team.
“Judo is a different sport,” Stevens said. “The Russian team has been kind to me. We bleed together. It’s more of a brotherhood. We want to make sure we’re in the best shape we can be, so who better to train against than the best in the world? Whether he won or I won, I’m happy for him.”
Lilly King: Justin Gatlin, Tyson Gay, other U.S. dopers don't belong in Olympics
As Stevens accepted his silver medal after being defeated by ippon, a decisive move that ended the match with 2:42 remaining, the emotion showed on his face. Twice he was nearly derailed from making these Olympics, first by a concussion that took him out of training for two months and then by a severe infection in his knee a little more than a year ago.
Despite a swollen leg that doctors overseas could not properly diagnose, he tried to compete anyway at the world championships in Kazakhstan before coming home to learn he had MRSA, cellulitis and staph in his right knee and was probably two days away from having to endure a leg amputation.
Stevens contemplated retiring from the sport right then. Instead, he recovered and trained for his third trip to the Olympics in the 81 kg weight class. In the semifinals — the round he lost in London — he beat world No. 1 ranked Avtandil Tchrikishvili of Georgia to give himself a shot at the gold.
While he came up short, it was the first medal in men’s judo for the U.S. of any kind since 2004.
“It’s hard not to just break down in tears after everything I’ve been through,” he said. “You question, what is this moment worth? It was everything.”
BEST IMAGES FROM AUG. 9 AT THE OLYMPICS
| 6,086 |
This is part one to a five part series. Stay tuned while we debunk the top 5 Myths regarding the Translation Service Industry.
Myth 1: Translation Service is a small market. Translation service is a global market. According to the Common Sense Advisory, the market for outsourced language services was worth US$33.523 billion in 2012, and it is continuously growing! More specifically, the language service market is growing at an annual rate of 12.17%. As the world continues to become more globalized, the demand for translation services will continue to grow. Globalization affects most, if not, ALL industries. Quite often the companies that fail to expand into a global market fall behind in any industry.
Developing into an international market can be greatly beneficial towards the growth of a company’s customer base and for improving sales and revenue. Also, by becoming globalized, companies can reduce the risk of falling alongside a specific country’s financial instability.
The world of translation services helps to bridge the communication gaps that often exist between businesses and clients. Many companies find themselves with a need to expand on a global scale in an early stage. These are the companies that prove to be the most successful, and by becoming global, they often increase their revenue exponentially.
thebigword first launched in 1980 with the intention to offer the highest quality customer service across both recruitment and language services. In 1996 the decision was made to sell the recruitment division and focus on language services. This allowed us to be able to advance as one of the world’s leading global providers. As technology was advancing, we did as well. We developed international teams and were considered a pioneer within the industry. In just 30 years we were able to develop into a multinational corporation with a global network of around 8,000 linguists in 77 different countries worldwide across 53 industries.
COMING SOON: Myth 2 Debunked: Interpreters and Translators are one in the same.
Related Links:
5 Steps You Need to Take to Increase Your Productivity as a Freelancer
Is CrowdSourcing The Next Big Thing?
There is Always Something Lost in Translation
Networking Tips for Translators
The rest of the “Debunking 5 Myths of the Transltion Service Industry” Series
Debunking 5 Myths about the Translation Service Industry (part 1)
Debunking 5 Myths about the Translation Service Industry (part 2)
Debunking 5 Myths about the Translation Service Industry (part 3)
Debunking 5 Myths about the Translation Service Industry (part 4)
Debunking 5 Myths about the Translation Service Industry (part 5)
| 6,087 |
Hungary's Orban hails Erdoğan while railing against ’undemocratic’ Western Europe
BUCHAREST
Hungary’s right-wing nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban railed against what he called "undemocratic" Western European states in a speech on July 28, while praising Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan for bringing "good stability" to Turkey, which he counted among countries that "can stop" the migrant influx into the EU.
"You can criticise Erdoğan’s system but good stability in Turkey is good for us.. Today, the whole safety of the Carpathian Basin and Europe lies on the stability of Turkey, Israel and Egypt, who can stop the influx of Muslims," Agence France-Presse quoted Orban as saying while speaking to a gathering of ethnic Hungarians in neighbouring Romania.
While sketching out his vision for the continent’s future, Orban also said that "there is liberalism in the West, there is no democracy."
He claimed that in Western European countries, "restrictions on freedom of expression and censorship have become common place."
Orban also sharpened his criticisms of Brussels institutions, branding the European Commission a "symbol of failure."
"The European Commission is going, we are coming," he said.
In the latest of a series of disputes with Hungary over its migration policy and rule of law, last week the Commission referred Hungary to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) over controversial laws penalising aid to migrants.
The Commission has also referred Hungary to the ECJ for failing to resolve complaints made in December 2015 that it held asylum seekers for too long in transit centres and did not treat them properly.
Orban also used the speech to outline his own definition of "Christian democracy".
"If you like, it’s illiberal," Orban said, emphasising that it was "anti-immigrant, anti-multicultural and stands for the Christian family model".
He said he would make immigration a key theme in next year’s European Parliament elections.
"Europe’s leaders are inadequate, they are unable to defend Europe from immigration," he went on.
Referring to the ethnically Hungarian area of Romania where he was speaking, Orban said it would "still exist when all of Europe has been invaded by Islam".
In contrast to the criticisms of Western Europe and of immigration, Orban struck a more emollient tone when referring to other states on the EU’s borders criticised by Brussels.
He slammed the EU’s policy of sanctions against Russia and called the bloc’s policy towards Moscow "primitive".
| 6,088 |
Military veterans group says man whose plane was shot down wants to return to Russia
A Russian pilot who was missing presumed dead after his plane was shot down three decades ago during the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan has been found alive and wants to come home, according to a military veterans group.
“He is still alive. It’s very astonishing. Now he needs help,” the head of the Russian paratroopers’ union, Valery Vostrotin, told RIA Novosti state news agency on Friday.
Soviet soldier presumed dead found living in Afghanistan Read more
Vostrotin, who heads the Russian side of a Russian-US joint commission on prisoners of war and soldiers missing in action, declined to name the pilot for reasons of confidentiality.
The man was shot down in 1987 and was likely now to be over 60, the deputy head of veteran’s organisation Battle Brotherhood, Vyacheslav Kalinin, told the news agency.
He suggested the pilot could be in Pakistan, where Afghanistan had camps for prisoners of war, and said he wanted to return home.
RIA Novosti reported that 125 Soviet planes were shot down in Afghanistan during the course of the war between 1979 and 1989. When Soviet troops pulled out in 1989, about 300 soldiers were listed as missing. Since then, 30 have been found and most returned to their home countries.
The Kommersant business daily reported that only one Soviet pilot was shot down in 1987, naming him as Sergei Pantelyuk from the southern Russian Rostov region, who went missing along with his plane after taking off from Bagram airfield, now a US air base, north of Kabul.
The head of a local veterans’ organisation said his mother and sister were both alive and the Komsomolskaya Pravda tabloid traced Pantelyuk’s 31-year-old daughter who was born months before her father went missing.
Afghan village built on a Soviet dream collapsing into deadly power vacuum Read more
Senator Frants Klintsevich told RIA Novosti that this was far from the only such case. He said he had met a former Soviet soldier on a trip to Afghanistan a few years ago who refused to give his name and spoke Russian with difficulty and said it was too late for him to go back.
Former Soviet soldier Bakhretdin Khakimov, who was interviewed by AFP in 2015, was one of those who opted to remain in Afghanistan. He was seriously wounded and was nursed back to health by local people and then converted to Islam. He told AFP: “I stayed in Afghanistan because Afghans are very kind and hospitable people.”
| 6,089 |
Speed-runners inhabit a unique segment of video game culture. They take something that most people think of as a leisure activity and turn it into an adrenaline-fueled, flop-sweat-inducing test of physical and mental abilities. They push themselves to the brink of insanity all in the name of shaving a few seconds off of their Super Metroid or Legend Of Zelda time. But who exactly are these people? How fast can they really go? And how did they get to be so damn good at video games?
Recent Video This browser does not support the video element. Jen and Brad were cute, but Shia LaBeouf's Spicoli was the star of the charity Fast Times reading
Speed-run aficionado Summoning Salt attempts to answer these questions in his ongoing World Record Progression series on YouTube. Beginning in January of this year with the fastest TKO in the final round of Mike Tyson’s Punchout (a record that Summoning Salt himself currently holds), each successive video takes on a new video game and goes into incredibly granular detail on the speed-running history associated with it. Using a combination of archival footage, screenshots from early-2000s message boards, and more recent Twitch streams, Summoning Salt provides an impressive amount of detail on these records, especially considering the pace at which he’s producing videos.
As Summoning Salt explains, achieving a world record usually comes down to traditional skills, speed, and knowing how to manipulate some sort of glitch, like the “prop climbing” technique seen in his recent Half Life 2 video. This Super Mario 64 video details the history of the “backwards long jump” technique that first appeared in grainy footage someone filmed by pointing a camera at their television back in 2003.
One of the more enjoyable aspects of this series is seeing the various reactions the professional speed-runners have when they’re fortunate enough to break a world record. Some erupt in joyous, uncontrollable laughter, some shake their heads in disbelief, and some simply stare at their screen with the dead-eyed look of a man who’s played the same 15 seconds of a video game over and over for the past month. It really runs the gamut.
But the prevailing thesis of the World Record Progression series is clear: However unbeatable a record might seem, someone will eventually beat it. This only adds to the suspense of what, in less capable hands, could be just a boring rundown of gaming statistics. Instead, you find yourself sitting on the edge of your seat hoping some guy in a dank basement somewhere can get a World 7 Wrong Warp in Super Mario Bros 3. It shouldn’t be, but it’s thrilling.
Advertisement
| 6,090 |
What happened to Larry Passariello and Jenny Torres from 90 Day Fiancé? Fans were first introduced to the couple during Season 1 of TLC’s 90 Day Fiancé spin-off, 90 Day Fiancé: Before the 90 Days and since the couple did end up getting engaged, fans thought they would for sure return for another season. But Larry and Jenny did not rejoin the cast of 90 Day Fiancé: Before the 90 Days Season 2, and it might have something to do with their visa process.
Back in May, Larry took to his Facebook page to share a cute photo of him with Jenny, and he dropped a major clue in the comments. When a fan said that they missed him on the show, Larry replied, “We will be on 90 Day Fiancé if Jenny gets here in time.”
Larry and Jenny would not fit in with the rest of the couples on 90 Day Fiancé: Before the 90 Days because all of those couples are documenting the stage in their relationship before they apply for the K-1 visa. Since Larry and Jenny are already engaged, it seems like they will be better suited for the 90 Day Fiancé series, which documents the 90 days leading up to a couple’s marriage.
But it’s unclear when Jenny will be arriving in the states. Last month, Larry shared a selfie on his Facebook page and shared an update in the caption where he revealed that he got a second job and currently works 70 to 80 hours a week. In the shot, Larry wore a uniform for the Edison Mall in Fort Myers, FL — which is a clue that he is currently still in the states and Jenny might not be with him.
Back in November, Larry took to his YouTube channel to announce that he would be quitting his job as a manager of a McDonald’s and booked a trip to the Philippines to visit Jenny for a couple of months. He planned to create a web series based on his trip, and once he and Jenny returned to the United States, he would buy an RV so he could travel in America with Jenny and produce more content for his channel.
It seems like Larry did accomplish two of those goals — and there are videos on his YouTube channel from his trip and also clips of him giving fans a tour of the RV. But Larry hasn’t uploaded a new video in about a month, and there was no sign of Jenny in the clip in his most recent post. In another video posted two months ago, Larry explained that when Jenny finally arrives in the states and they tie the knot, he will rename his YouTube channel to “The Larry and Jenny Channel” — but he hasn’t made the change yet.
| 6,091 |
Michelle Pfeiffer is returning to Hollywood.
After a temporary hiatus, the 58-year-old actress is lined up to debut “Mother!” opposite Jennifer Lawrence and Javier Bardem, as well as “Murder on the Orient Express” with Johnny Depp, Penelope Cruz and Daisy Ridley this fall. However, there’s another reason why Pfeiffer is appearing on the big screen again.
MICHELLE PFEIFFER SAYS SHE WAS IN A CULT
“Well, the first thing that comes to mind is I’m an empty nester now,” explained Pfeiffer to Interview Magazine. “I’ve never lost my love for acting. I feel really at home on the movie set. I’m a more balanced person honestly when I’m working. But I was pretty careful about where I shot, how long I was away, whether or not it worked out with the kids’ schedule. And I got so picky that I was unhirable. And then… I don’t know, time just went on.”
Pfeiffer has two children, Claudia Rose and John Henry, whom she’s kept out of the public eye throughout her career. But now that they’re grown up, Pfeiffer has extra free time to embrace more roles again.
“I’m more open now, my frame of mind, because I really want to work now, because I can,” she said.
FOLLOW US ON FACEBOOK FOR MORE ENTERTAINMENT NEWS
Despite her successful career, Pfeiffer admit to missing out on one recognizable role, but quickly made up for it with the help of a fellow actress.
“[And] I have this weird synchronicity with Annette Bening,” she explained. “I was supposed to do ‘Bugsy’ [1991]. I fell out of that. She did it, so she met Warren [Beatty]. That wouldn’t have happened. And then she was supposed to do ‘Batman Returns’ [1992]. She fell out of that. I replaced her. So, we’re always kind of tag-teaming.”
These days, Pfeiffer isn’t wasting any time getting in front of the camera again. In addition to her upcoming film roles, she’s set to star as Bernie Madoff’s wife Ruth opposite Robert De Niro in the HBO docudrama, “The Wizard of Lies.” The movie will debut Saturday, May 20.
| 6,092 |
High school sophomore Yukina Shirahane witnesses a mecha attack on her mother's research institute and is rescued by a boy who acts like a samurai.
1. A Rain of Ogres from the Sky 24m Yukina, a sophomore at Tateyama High, visits Kurobe Laboratory when it is suddenly attacked. While escaping, she touches a mysterious cube.
2. The Black Shell Awakens 24m Kennosuke Tokisada Ouma appears from the cube. He tries to save Yukina but is knocked unconscious. A new large scale geoframe emerges from Toyama Bay.
3. The Silent Walls of a Castle Ruins 24m Kennosuke, with Yukina along for the ride, is victorious, but the enemy geoframe gets away. He is captured once again but escapes and finds Koharu.
4. A Strange, New World 24m After realizing the extent of his slumber, Kennosuke is invited by Yukina's uncle to live with the family. The modern world continues to confound him.
5. The Samurai Goes to School 24m Yukina returns to school, hoping life is finally going back to normal -- only to be horrified when she catches a glimpse of the new transfer student.
6. Face-Off at Jinzu River 24m Ken and Yukina resume their battle with the Yellow Crab mecha. Classmates Akagi and Kayahara defy the authorities and head closer to the battle zone.
7. Vanishing into the Dawn 24m After the Yellow Crab's pilot takes his own life, Yukina loses her will to fight. At school, she hears that Akagi and Kayahara are still missing.
8. Memories of Regret 24m As the invaders’ demands cause friction, Yukina leaves home to avoid battle. Kennosuke goes to search for her but realizes he knows nothing about her.
9. The Ogre's Message 24m An enormous enemy geoframe appears, but with Yukina missing, the center lacks the power to oppose it. Ken, Akagi and Kayahara continue the search.
10. The Arrogant Captive 24m The captured pilot is taken back to the research center and questioned. He says that he came to find a certain object. Ken appears to recognize him.
11. Truth Shrouded in Darkness 24m The enemy pilot unexpectedly escapes and is able to restore his geoframe. Yukina is ordered to deploy in the Kuromukuro, but runs into him on the way.
12. Summer Hell Camp in Kurobe 24m Summer vacation has come, and that means more training for Ken and Yukina, who is improving more than she expected. Akagi hopes to become a pilot.
| 6,093 |
Billionaire Silicon Valley investor Peter Thiel says there is one Democratic presidential candidate who makes him most concerned ahead of the 2020 elections.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., is the only Democratic candidate campaigning on the economy, while others are mired in discussions about identity politics, Thiel said Monday on "Tucker Carlson Tonight."
"I'm most scared by Elizabeth Warren," he said.
"I think she’s the one who’s actually talking about the economy, which is the only thing that I think matters by far the most."
Thiel, who addressed the 2016 Republican National Convention as its first openly gay speaker, also said he found the other nearly two dozen Democratic primary contenders uninspiring.
PETER THIEL SAYS FBI, CIA SHOULD INVESTIGATE IF CHINESE INTELLIGENCE INFILTRATED GOOGLE: REPORT
"I think almost all the others are equally unimpressive in the sense that it’s all identity politics of one flavor or another," he said.
"I wouldn’t want to rank how unimpressive they are, since that would be forcing me to rank the different identities and which one’s more privileged and more special, and that would be a dangerous thing to get into."
Earlier in the interview, Thiel discussed how he called Sunday for the FBI and CIA to investigate whether Chinese intelligence had infiltrated Google.
Thiel made the comments during a speech at the National Conservatism Conference in Washington. He said the FBI and CIA needed to ask Google three questions to determine if the tech giant had been compromised by Chinese intelligence.
BILLIONAIRE PETER THIEL TO GOOGLE CEO SUNDAR PICHAI: 3 QUESTIONS ON CHINA THAT NEED ANSWERS
Speaking to Carlson, Thiel said artificial intelligence is something, "people talk about nonstop in Silicon Valley."
"But they almost never talk about its dual use," he said.
"If it’s real, if this is a real thing, it obviously can also be used by the military, it’ll be weaponized in all sorts of ways, and it’s an important national security question as to who has it.
CLICK TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
"There’s this very peculiar background where Google is working with the Chinese on Communist government and not with the U.S. military; so the Project Maven decision was a decision not to work with A.I., with the U.S. military -- but they’re working with the Communist Chinese."
Fox News' Bradford Betz contributed to this report.
| 6,094 |
Britain is sending a minister to Iran to "raise UK and international concerns about Iran's regional conduct".
Dr Andrew Murrison, minister of state for the Middle East, will head to the country on Sunday and demand a de-escalation of tension in the Middle East.
He will also discuss worries over Iran's threat to stop complying with the nuclear deal.
The Foreign Office said the visit was an "opportunity for further open, frank and constructive engagement".
Donald Trump has revealed he called off military action against three Iranian targets with just minutes to spare.
The US president said he decided not to retaliate for the shooting down of a surveillance drone because too many people would die.
Meanwhile, Iran's civil aviation organisation said on Saturday that the country's airspace was safe for airlines to fly through.
The US Federal Aviation Administration issued an emergency order on Thursday prohibiting US operators from flying in over sea areas of Tehran-controlled airspace.
Some international airlines are taking related precautions, with Etihad Airways suspending operations over the Strait of Hormuz and the Gulf of Oman.
In a statement, the airline said it would use alternative flight paths on a number of routes to and from Abu Dhabi "until further notice".
It added: "These changes will cause delays on some departures from Abu Dhabi, due to increased congestion in available airspace, and will increase journey times on some routes.
"The safety of our passengers and staff is the highest priority for Etihad Airways, and we are continually engaging with regulatory authorities and conducting our own risk assessments to ensure that our standards are not compromised."
:: Listen to the Daily podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Spreaker
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has said there has to be a solution on Iran and that the issue would be discussed, at least bilaterally, at the G20 summit later this month.
American-Lebanese academic Fawaz Gerges claims "you might see a diplomatic opening" - if Mr Trump was to relax some of the sanctions against Iran.
He added that Britain, France and Germany were trying to prevent war.
He said: "Make no doubt about it - a war with Iran will not be limited to Iran. It will spread near and wide. It will spread to Saudi Arabia, it will spread to Israel, it will spread to Iraq, it will spread to Lebanon, and it will spread to Yemen.
"War with Iran will be more catastrophic than the war with Iraq in 2003.
"This is an area that floats on an ocean of gas and oil. Think about it, thousands of long range missiles flying around oil and gas facilities in the Gulf - imagine the devastation."
| 6,095 |
President Trump on Friday said he wants to meet with NFL players – whom he has slammed for kneeling during the playing of the national anthem — so they can suggest people he can pardon.
“I’m going to ask all of those people to recommend to me — because that’s what they’re protesting — people that they think were unfairly treated by the justice system,” Trump said at the White House before heading to the G7 summit in Canada.
“I’m gonna take a look at those applications, and if I find — and my committee finds — that they’ve been unfairly treated, then we’ll pardon them. Or at least let them out,” he said.
After rescinding an invitation to the Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles to visit the White House, Trump taunted NFL players this week by saying there would be no “escaping to locker rooms.”
He was referring to a new NFL policy that calls for players to stand on the field during the playing of the anthem or remain in the locker room.
The president has accused players of disrespecting the American flag in their protests over what they believe is systemic abuse by police against people of color
Meanwhile, Trump on Friday also said he will not invite either NBA Finals team to the White House.
The Golden State Warriors were poised to capture their second straight championship Friday with a commanding 3-0 lead over the Cleveland Cavaliers.
“I didn’t invite [Cavaliers forward] LeBron James and I didn’t invite [Warriors point guard] Steph Curry. We’re not going to invite either team,” Trump said.
“But we have other teams that are coming. If you look, we had Alabama — national champion. We had Clemson, national champion. We had the New England Patriots. We had the Pittsburgh Penguins last year.”
The president also said he believed the Washington Capitals — who clinched their first Stanley Cup title with a 4-3 win over the Vegas Golden Knights on Thursday night – will visit the White House.
“I think we’ll have the Caps. We’ll see,” Trump told reporters Friday. “You know, my attitude is if they want to be here, the greatest place on Earth, I’m here. If they don’t want to be here, I don’t want them.”
On Friday, the president also said he is considering pardoning some 3,000 people, including boxing great Muhammad Ali, whose conviction for refusing to be drafted during the Vietnam War was later thrown out by the Supreme Court.
| 6,096 |
TRENTO, Italy (Reuters) - Excessive capital requirements can backfire, Italy’s economy minister said on Saturday, defending a joint French-Italian proposal to cap the amount of reserves that euro zone banks should have to wipe out before they can be rescued.
Italian Economy Minister Pier Carlo Padoan speaks during a meeting with his British counterpart George Osborne (unseen) in Rome, Italy, February 3, 2016. REUTERS/Alessandro Bianchi
Rules in force since the beginning of this year require euro zone banks to respect a minimum requirement for their own funds and eligible liabilities (MREL) in order to qualify for access to a bank-financed rescue fund in case of failure, and avoid full liquidation.
In a joint paper, seen by Reuters, Paris and Rome raised doubts on the rationale of introducing a floor for MREL and urged instead a cap that should not exceed 8 percent of banks’ debt.
Italian Economy Minister Pier Carlo Padoan told an economic conference on Saturday there was a risk banks could be asked to raise too much capital too quickly, which would leave them vulnerable if tough markets made it hard to raise funds.
“Instead of stronger banks we end up with weaker ones,” he said.
“The French-Italian initiative at this very delicate stage of the creation of a banking union is a voice calling for caution. We’re all going in the same direction, a stronger banking system, let’s do so at the right pace, let’s not exaggerate please.”
Following the euro zone debt and banking crisis, EU countries have designed a banking union meant to strengthen lenders’ financial stability, but have not yet brought the plan to completion.
Germany, the dominant power in the euro zone, is dragging its feet on a European bank deposit guarantee scheme, widely regarded as a missing link in the project.
“If we don’t accept risk-sharing why are we wasting our time with the euro?,” Padoan said.
Bank of Italy Governor Ignazio Visco on Tuesday warned that incomplete progress in establishing a banking union risked making the euro zone more vulnerable because authorities may be unable to stop contagion in a crisis.
Padoan also saw potential contagion risks from ‘bail in’ rules hitting bank investors and large depositors before public money can be tapped to rescue a bank.
“We’re building a banking union, let’s try not to get hurt in the process. This, I think, was the message from the (Bank of Italy) governor whom I tend to agree with,” Padoan said.
| 6,097 |
A year after Qualcomm Ventures launched a $100 million AI fund, the San Diego-based company is launching a new fund of double the size.
Qualcomm launched a $200 million 5G Ecosystem Fund on Oct. 24, in an effort to help accelerate the adoption of 5G technology beyond smartphones.
5G, the newest wireless technology standard, is expected to improve network capacity, boost speeds, and reduce lag. Of course, those changes will apply to cellphones, but 5G also has interesting uses with gaming, manufacturing and transportation.
Core Parts of Strategy
“Both 5G and AI are very core parts of our strategy and we see key opportunities on both sides,” Quinn Li, senior vice president and head of Qualcomm Ventures, told the San Diego Business Journal. “The reason we’re announcing the 5G fund now is that the network is just being rolled out.”
Li said he plans to make investments from the new fund over the next four to five years. Qualcomm Ventures will still follow its traditional model of investing between $1 million and $10 million for startups in the fund.
In general, Li is looking to invest in companies that fall under one of three categories: companies that are creating new use cases for 5G, such as cloud gaming or augmented reality; companies that are developing key wireless technologies for 5G networks; and end-to-end solutions where 5G is used, such as connected factories.
Two examples of related companies that Qualcomm Ventures previously invested in include Affirmed Networks and Altiostar, both of which are developing core technologies for 5G.
'Uniquely Positioned'
“We’re uniquely positioned to be able to find these startups, provide capital to these startups, and get them to work with us to help grow the 5G ecosystem,” Li said.
In total, Qualcomm Ventures has made more than 350 investments since it started in 2000. Some of its notable investments include Zoom, Fitbit, Waze and Xiaomi.
Building out 5G use cases is important to Qualcomm’s core business, as the fabless semiconductor company looks to bring its newest chips into more and more devices.
“5G will transform industries and should be viewed as a business strategy for all,” Qualcomm CEO Steve Mollenkopf said in a news release. “The intent of this fund is to fuel innovative 5G businesses that will be poised to take advantage of the $13.2 (trillion) economic benefit that 5G will enable by 2035.”
Additional stories from the San Diego Business Journal are available here. Sign up for their free daily email newsletter.
| 6,098 |
Drought and habitat fragmentation over the past 30 years have caused a sudden and severe loss in genetic diversity for a rare species called the Coachella Valley fringe-toed lizard (Uma inornata), according to new research.
This small, burrowing lizard evolved among the windblown desert dunes of Riverside County in southern California. It’s uniquely adapted for this habitat, with specialized nostrils that allow it to breathe through the sand while digging for plants and insects to eat. Unfortunately most of the lizard’s previous habitats have long-since been lost to development or agriculture and the species is now mostly restricted to the Coachella Valley National Wildlife Refuge, which was founded in 1985 to protect the species.
Researchers from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and other institutions took at a look at some of the last lizards living within the refuge and compared their genetics of specimens collected in 1996 and 2008. They found that one population, living in a portion of the refuge called the Whitewater Preserve, had experienced a 7.5 percent drop in allelic richness, a measure of genetic diversity. This means they have a lower genetic diversity than other species in their genus, not to mention other lizard species.
“It’s statistically significant, but whether it’s biologically significant will require further investigation,” says Amy Vandergast, a USGS research geneticist and the lead author of a paper in the journal Diversity and Distributions. Other species with similarly low genetic diversity have experienced birth defects, increased susceptibility to disease, low birth rates and similar threatening side effects.
Vandergast says the lizards probably had a history of population booms and busts, where environmental factors have caused certain sub-populations to disappear for a time. Extirpated habitats would then be recolonized by new lizards when populations grew again. That dispersal is no longer possible because populations are now so low and geographically isolated from each other.
Development has done more than just isolate the lizards. It also limits the amount of new sand that can contribute to the dunes each year. Conservation efforts in the refuge often focus on replenishing the dunes, as well as other attempts to protect the habitat.
It may be time to add long-term genetic testing into those existing conservation and management efforts. “Given the instability and fluctuations these populations experience, repeated genetic sampling may be useful in determining whether they’ll continue on a trajectory of further differentiation and loss of diversity over time,” Vandergast says. “Assessing to the extent possible whether there are links between loss of diversity and inbreeding effects, and ultimately to population viability, are important next steps.”
| 6,099 |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.