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<p>Who is “Elizabeth Carlisle” and why are her Department of Justice emails signed “AG”?</p>
<p>The American Center for Law and Justice filed an Open Records request with the agency, seeking documents related to Attorney General Loretta Lynch’s mysterious airport tarmac meeting with Bill Clinton during the election.</p>
<p>The group <a href="https://aclj.org/government-corruption/doj-document-dump-to-aclj-on-clinton-lynch-meeting-comey-fbi-lied-media-collusion-spin-and-illegality?utm_source=Twitter&amp;utm_medium=Informational&amp;utm_content=Government%20Corruption&amp;sf61023562=1" type="external">reports</a>:</p>
<p>We have just obtained <a href="http://media.aclj.org/pdf/Clinton-Lynch-Documents-1.pdf" type="external">hundreds of pages</a> in our ongoing investigation and <a href="https://aclj.org/executive-power/acljs-files-lawsuit-over-ag-lynchs-secret-meeting-with-bill-clinton-will-hold-obamas-justice-department-accountable" type="external">federal lawsuit</a> on former Attorney General Loretta Lynch’s tarmac meeting with former President Bill Clinton while the Department of Justice (DOJ) and FBI had an ongoing criminal investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails. The results are shocking.</p>
<p>First, the Comey FBI lied to us. Last July, we sent FOIA requests to both the <a href="https://aclj.org/executive-power/aclj-takes-action-against-president-obamas-unethical-department-of-justice" type="external">Comey FBI and the Lynch DOJ</a> asking for any documents related to the Clinton Lynch plane meeting. The FBI, under the then directorship of James Comey, <a href="http://media.aclj.org/pdf/FBI-Letter-%28no-records-located%29-10.21.16_Redacted.pdf" type="external">replied</a> that “No records responsive to your request were located.”</p>
<p>The documents we received today from the Department of Justice include several emails from the FBI to DOJ officials concerning the meeting.&#160; One with the subject line <a href="http://media.aclj.org/pdf/Clinton-Lynch-Flag.pdf" type="external">“FLAG”</a> was correspondence between FBI officials (Richard Quinn, FBI Media/Investigative Publicity, and Michael Kortan) and DOJ officials concerning “flag[ing] a story . . . about a casual, unscheduled meeting between former president Bill Clinton and the AG.” The DOJ official instructs the FBI to “let me know if you get any questions about this” and provides “[o]ur talkers [DOJ talking points] on this”. The talking points, however are redacted.</p>
<p>But eagle-eyed readers, including hacker Kim Dot Com, noted some emails involving Lynch came from an email address for “Elizabeth Carlisle.”</p>
<p />
<p>One email, sent among DOJ employees, shows an email sent to “Elizabeth Carlisle,” but in the body of the email, it is addressed to “AG Lynch”:</p>
<p />
<p>In the response, the person sending from the “Elizabeth Carlisle” address signs the email “AG”, who wrote, “Thanks to all who worked on this,” referring to a statement that was issued regarding the tarmac meeting with the husband of the person being investigated by the FBI.</p>
<p>Observers note “Elizabeth” is Lynch’s middle name:</p>
<p />
<p>If Lynch did indeed use an alias, it wouldn’t be the first time such a thing was done among Obama appointees.</p>
<p>The Washington Times <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/jun/2/newly-released-emails-show-epa-directors-extensive/" type="external">reported</a> in 2013:</p>
<p>Richard Windsor never existed at the EPA, but the agency awarded the fictional staffer’s email account certificates proving he had mastered all of the agency’s technology training — including declaring him a “scholar of ethical behavior,” according to documents disclosed late last week.</p>
<p>[email protected] was the controversial email alias used by former Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson, who resigned earlier this year amid questions about whether her agency was complying with open-records laws.</p>
<p>The new records — the latest in a series that EPA critics have pried loose under open-records requests — suggests Ms. Jackson used the alias even more widely than known, including taking required agency computer training under the fake identity.</p>
<p>EPA officials say there’s nothing unusual in that, since Ms. Jackson used the alternate address regularly to conduct agency business.</p>
<p>The reportedly was no DOJ employee by the name of “Elizabeth Carlisle” during the Obama administration.</p> | MYSTERY: Did Loretta Lynch use alias for official AG email account? | true | http://theamericanmirror.com/mystery-loretta-lynch-use-alias-official-ag-email-account/ | 2017-08-05 | 0 |
<p>Glenn Akins has been named assistant executive director of the Virginia Baptist Mission Board, effective Jan. 2. His responsibilities will be to serve as the VBMB's staff coordinator and chief information officer and to provide field services to churches and district associations.</p>
<p>Before assuming this position, Akins served on the VBMB's courageous churches team as congregational transformation consultant, and also as the VBMB's chief information officer.</p>
<p>An Oklahoma native, Akins is a graduate of Missouri Baptist College and Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. In addition to serving churches in Missouri and Kentucky, Akins also served on the staffs of the Mecklenburg Baptist Association (currently the Metrolina Baptist Association) in Charlotte, N.C.; the South Carolina Baptist Convention; and the Illinois Baptist State Association, where he served as interim executive director for two years, before coming to the Virginia Baptist Mission Board in 2003. He also worked as a consultant for the SBC's North American Mission Board.</p> | Akins named assistant executive director at Mission Board | false | https://baptistnews.com/article/akinsnamedassistantexecutivedirectoratmissionboard/ | 3 |
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<p>NEW YORK — President Donald Trump has picked a fierce critic of the Obama-era “net neutrality” rules to be chief regulator of the nation’s airwaves and internet connections.</p>
<p>In a statement Monday, Ajit Pai said he was grateful to the president for choosing him as the next chairman of the Federal Communications Commission. Several reports last week had said he was the pick.</p>
<p>Pai had been one of the two Republican commissioners on a five-member panel that regulates the country’s communications infrastructure, including TV, phone and internet service.</p>
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<p>There are currently just three members on the panel. The Republicans’ new majority at the FCC, along with their control of Congress and the White House, is expected to help them roll back policies applauded by consumer advocates that upset many phone and cable industry groups, including net neutrality rules that bar internet service providers from favoring some websites and apps over others.</p>
<p>Pai, an active Twitter user, posted Monday that “there is so much we can do together to bring the benefits of the digital age to all Americans and to promote innovation and investment.”</p>
<p>AN INDUSTRY-FRIENDLY FCC</p>
<p>Pai has long maintained that the FCC under former Chairman Thomas Wheeler had overstepped its bounds, suggesting that he would steer the agency in a direction more favorable to big phone and cable companies. In a December speech, he expressed confidence that the 2015 net neutrality rules would be undone and said the FCC needed to take a “weed whacker” to what he considered unnecessary regulations that hold back investment and innovation.</p>
<p>Consumer advocates have been concerned that a deregulation-minded FCC could potentially allow more huge mergers, overturn new protections for internet users and lead to higher costs for media and technology companies that rely on the internet to reach consumers.</p>
<p>Pai opposed online privacy regulations that force broadband providers to ask consumers for permission before using their data, saying they are more onerous than the requirements for internet companies like Google and Facebook.</p>
<p>He voted against approving Charter Communication’s $67 billion takeover of Time Warner Cable and a smaller company, Bright House — not because he opposed the merger, but because he thought some of the conditions required by the FCC, like barring data caps on home internet service, amounted to government meddling in business.</p>
<p>The cable industry’s trade group, the NCTA, supported Pai in a statement Monday that said he has a “common-sense philosophy that consumers are best served by a robust marketplace that encourages investment, innovation and competition.” Public Knowledge, a consumer advocacy group, said Pai had a “history of attacking consumer protections” and urged him to keep the FCC’s recent initiatives intact.</p>
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<p>The Internet Association, a trade group that represents tech and video companies like Amazon, Facebook, Google and Netflix, had said last week that while Pai doesn’t always side with the internet industry, “he is both thoughtful and willing to listen.”</p>
<p>TO COME: PAI VS. THE ZERO RATING, MORE MERGERS?</p>
<p>Pai also criticized an FCC report on “zero rating” earlier this month, characterizing it as a meaningless document that won’t influence the FCC under Trump. The report, issued in the last days of the Obama administration, took issue with the way companies like AT&amp;T and Verizon exempted their own video services from wireless data caps, effectively making them cheaper to stream on phones and tablets than rival services such as Netflix.</p>
<p>Future big media and telecom mergers may get a friendlier review under a Pai-led FCC. Pai voted to approve AT&amp;T’s 2015 acquisition of DirecTV. And while he told The Wall Street Journal in December 2013 that the Obama administration was likely to oppose Comcast’s failed effort to acquire Time Warner Cable — he was right — he added that a Republican administration would be more likely to approve it.</p>
<p>The FCC currently has a 2-1 Republican majority and two empty seats, which will be filled by one Republican and one Democrat.</p>
<p>Pai, an Indian-American from Kansas, has been an FCC commissioner since 2012. During his roughly 15 years in government, he’s been a Senate staffer and worked at the FCC and the Justice Department. He was also a lawyer for Verizon and an attorney at the law firm Jenner &amp; Block.</p> | ‘Net neutrality’ foe Ajit Pai is new FCC head | false | https://abqjournal.com/934007/net-neutrality-foe-ajit-pai-is-new-fcc-head.html | 2017-01-23 | 2 |
<p>(RNS) — Travel along, if you dare, with Bilbo Baggins in The Hobbit — either in J.R.R.Tolkien’s beloved 1937 novel, or through the first installment of Peter Jackson’s film trilogy based on the book, which opened in theaters Dec. 14.</p>
<p>If you do, you will, essentially, be traveling in a world constructed on Christian principles, says Devin Brown, a professor of English at Asbury University, a Christian liberal arts college near Lexington, Ky.</p>
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<p>Martin Freeman as the Hobbit Bilbo Baggins with his sword, Sting, finds a small ring in Gollum’s cave in the fantasy adventure The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, a production of New Line Cinema and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures, released by Warner Bros. Pictures and MGM. (RNS photo courtesy The Hobbit)</p>
<p />
<p>But that doesn’t mean The Hobbit should be taken as a kind of subliminally evangelistic work. Brown, for one, will enjoy the film for its own sake as a terrific adventure. But, he said, understanding the work in the context of Tolkien’s deep Christian faith can give a deeper appreciation of the tale. “Tolkien once wrote a friend, ‘I am a Christian, and whatever I write will come from that essential viewpoint,’ ” Brown said.</p>
<p>The Hobbit centers around the diminutive Baggins, “an everyman who has no ability, a total dolt who has no skills,” as Jane Chance, professor emeritus of English at Rice University and editor of Tolkien and the Invention of Myth, put it.</p>
<p>At the beginning, it is not clear why the reluctant Baggins has been tapped to help lead the Hobbits’ grand adventure. Baggins “does not know his ability,” Chance said, “but he knows he has the character to develop into the kind of hero who can rescue a civilization.”</p>
<p>Brown, whose book, The Christian World of the Hobbit, was published in October by Abingdon Press, teaches a class at Asbury on the works of Tolkien and his close friend, Christian apologist C.S. Lewis. He was also one of the consultants on the third movie made in the Narnia franchise, Lewis’ Christian allegories aimed at children.</p>
<p>Tolkien, he said, was among the influences in Lewis’ life that helped the former atheist open his heart to God.</p>
<p>“There’s a famous walk they took,” Brown said from his home near Lexington. “Tolkien said to Lewis, ‘You like these stories, these myths that tell us who we are and why we are here from Icelandic and the Nordic countries — from everywhere but from the New Testament. Maybe you should think of the stories in the New Testament as myths that became true.’”</p>
<p>Tolkien was a Roman Catholic whose mother converted to the faith and raised him in it. His father died when he was 3 and his mother died when he was 12, leaving him an orphan. Yet he remained a devout Catholic throughout his life and it helped shape his literature, Chance said.</p>
<p>A blend of mythologies</p>
<p>“He blended Roman Catholic influence with Celtic, Anglo and Old Norse mythology,” Chance said. “He mixes all that together. You have to see him as a Medievalist and you have to see him as a Catholic.”</p>
<p>That's not to say that The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings are explicitly “Christian” tales. Chance says there are definite undertones of Christian theology throughout the two Tolkien books — both “deeply religious in their subtext.”</p>
<p>“You’re not going to find that on the surface.”</p>
<p>And that may be the point, said Christopher Bryan, emeritus professor of New Testament at the School of Theology at the University of the South at Sewanee in Tennessee. For Bryan, a story can and should be appreciated on its own terms.</p>
<p>“People tell stories because they would like you to enjoy the story. I don’t think you have to go looking for Christian meaning or Jewish meaning or anything of the sort,” said Bryan, who attended lectures by Tolkien and Lewis in the 1950s as a student at Oxford. “Of course, there are moments when you think, ‘Gosh — that’s what this is about,’ but I think it is absolutely wrong to read for them. And I think it’s disastrous to tell stories in order to teach meaning.”</p>
<p>Christian themes are more subtle in Tolkien’s works than in those of Lewis. In Lewis’s Narnia series, for example, the kingly lion Aslan is an overtly Christ-like figure, complete with sacrificial death and resurrection.</p>
<p>Tolkien, however, “did not feel you should be explicitly allegorical or Christian,” Chance said. “That doesn’t mean you can’t create a Christian subtext. That’s what he does throughout his writing.”</p>
<p>Kay Campbell writes for the Huntsville Times, and Greg Garrison writes for the Birmingham News. This article was distributed by Religion News Service.</p> | Is ‘The Hobbit’ a ‘Christian’ film? Yes and no. | false | https://baptistnews.com/article/isthehobbitachristianfilmyesandno/ | 3 |
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<p>Emergency crews respond to an explosion at the Noranda Aluminum plant near Marston, Mo., Tuesday, Aug. 4, 2015. A company spokesman, who called the blast a molten metal explosion, said about 20 people working in the area at the time and none were injured seriously. (Laura Simon/The Southeast Missourian via AP) LOCAL TV OUT; LOCAL RADIO OUT; LOCAL INTERNET OUT</p>
<p>MARSTON, Mo. - An explosion has rocked a southeast Missouri aluminum plant, leaving some workers with non-critical injuries.</p>
<p>No one was killed in Tuesday's explosion. The explosion and fire around 12:30 p.m. sent a large plume of smoke above the Noranda Aluminum plant near the town of Marston in New Madrid County, about 170 miles south of St. Louis.</p>
<p>Noranda spokesman John Parker says some people suffered what appeared to be non-critical abrasions, dust irritation or smoke inhalation.</p>
<p>Parker says one person was taken away by ambulance. That worker suffered from smoke inhalation and has since been released from medical care. Other workers were treated at the scene.</p>
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<p>Parker called the blast a molten metal explosion in the cast house of the plant. He says about 20 people were working in the area.</p>
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<p>This story has been corrected to reflect that plant is 170 miles south of St. Louis, instead of 140 miles.</p> | Large explosion rocks aluminum plant in southeast Missouri | false | https://abqjournal.com/623148/large-explosion-rocks-aluminum-plant-in-southeast-missouri.html | 2 |
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<p>As investors, you're told not get emotional about your stocks, but truth be told, we all have our favorites. In a pinch to raise capital in order to buy new stocks or just settle up with real-world expenditures, there are probably some stocks that you are just not interested in cutting loose.</p>
<p>I get it. I'm just like you. There are some stocks that I feel will be a part of my life for a long time. I've owned shares in one company for 32 years. Am I really going to let that one go? There are others that I have held for far less than that but they just feel right. Let's go over the three stocks that I am never going to sell off completely. Although there may be times that I'll sell some of my shares in the spirit of portfolio diversification, these are three stocks that I can't fathom not owning at least a piece of in the future.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Disney (NYSE: DIS)</p>
<p>It's been 32 years since my girlfriend gifted me a single share of the media giant. I eventually married the girlfriend -- and the stock, I guess. For most of the past three decades, I didn't add to that position, and even shared the wealth by transferring freshly minted shares after a stock split to my sisters. However, a few years ago, I began to appreciate what Disney was doing in snapping up franchise makers Pixar, Marvel, and Lucasfilm. I took a more sizable position in the first stock I ever owned.</p>
<p>Disney may not be at its best right now. Its media networks division has been struggling as cord-cutters kiss their fat cable bills goodbye. Even the once mighty ESPN is now seen by the market as a pressure point with revenue failing to keep up with the costs of escalating live sports programming contracts. However, there's no denying that Disney's portfolio of theatrical franchises is as strong as its ever been. Disney's theme parks division is the one segment that's been <a href="https://www.fool.com/investing/2018/02/07/theme-parks-keep-bailing-disney-out.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;referring_guid=42ce71a9-a90e-45b6-974c-fba5c42b6713&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">consistently growing Opens a New Window.</a> through the lull.</p>
<p>This is a well-oiled machine that can quickly turn around a hot movie or television property into consumer products, theme park attractions, and related content on other networks. Whether Disney's home-grown streaming service falls short in the coming months or it puts out a movie that bombs, the pipeline here always seems to be gushing with new opportunities for the House of Mouse to milk through its ecosystem.</p>
<p>Netflix (NASDAQ: NFLX)</p>
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<p>I don't need to think hard when you ask me about my most successful investment. I bought Netflix in late 2002 when it was a broken IPO. I regrettably sold 80% of my position shortly after that when the shares started to bounce back. I would go on to sell half of my remaining shares a few years later, also at a much lower price point than where Netflix is now.</p>
<p>The stock is now roughly a 700-bagger for me -- that is not a typo -- and the 90% of the shares that I sold too soon that I called an <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2016/10/25/my-802179-netflix-mistake.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;referring_guid=42ce71a9-a90e-45b6-974c-fba5c42b6713&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">$802,179 mistake in late 2016 Opens a New Window.</a> is now a nearly $1.8 million mistake. The stock appreciated to the point where I sold half of my stake again a few weeks ago. I don't regret that sale -- yet -- and the 5% of my original position remains my largest portfolio position by far.</p>
<p>Netflix has climbed the proverbial wall of worry. In an era when content is king, Netflix has proven that <a href="https://www.fool.com/investing/2018/03/27/netflix-scalability-pays-in-more-ways-than-one.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;referring_guid=42ce71a9-a90e-45b6-974c-fba5c42b6713&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">distribution and scalability Opens a New Window.</a> can be superior. Netflix began 2018 with 117.6 million subscribers worldwide, and it's only growing its lead over other premium platforms with every passing quarter.</p>
<p>Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL)</p>
<p>I wasn't always surrounded by Apple products. However, as I peck this story out on a MacBook, check my iPhone for notifications, stream videos on my iPad, and wonder why I don't wear my Apple Watch as often I should, it's clear that I've become a reluctant fanboy. I had my Android phase. It passed. I still have a Windows-fueled desktop, but it's gradually becoming Plan B for my computing needs.</p>
<p>I've written about Apple for more than two decades, but it wasn't until two years ago that I finally put a ring on it -- and bought the stock. It's fared well, nearly doubling in that time.</p>
<p>We live in a world of cheap laptops, smartphones, tablets, and smartwatches. Apple is the one company that can command a healthy premium. There is naturally a lot riding on Apple's iconic smartwatch. The halo effect can only shine so far. However, Apple is not going to be a one-trick pony -- or a one-trick stallion, to be fair -- forever. Innovation is in its DNA, and it will revolutionize another industry sooner rather than later.</p>
<p>10 stocks we like better than AppleWhen investing geniuses David and Tom Gardner have a stock tip, it can pay to listen. After all, the newsletter they have run for over a decade, Motley Fool Stock Advisor, has tripled the market.*</p>
<p>David and Tom just revealed what they believe are the <a href="http://infotron.fool.com/infotrack/click?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.fool.com%2Fmms%2Fmark%2Fe-foolcom-sa-bbn-static%3Faid%3D8867%26source%3Disaeditxt0010449%26ftm_cam%3Dsa-bbn-evergreen%26ftm_pit%3D6312%26ftm_veh%3Dbbn_article_pitch&amp;impression=5381f64b-d7fc-4d0f-9e6b-110b0b18fde3&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;referring_guid=42ce71a9-a90e-45b6-974c-fba5c42b6713&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">10 best stocks Opens a New Window.</a> for investors to buy right now... and Apple wasn't one of them! That's right -- they think these 10 stocks are even better buys.</p>
<p><a href="http://infotron.fool.com/infotrack/click?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.fool.com%2Fmms%2Fmark%2Fe-foolcom-sa-bbn-static%3Faid%3D8867%26source%3Disaeditxt0010449%26ftm_cam%3Dsa-bbn-evergreen%26ftm_pit%3D6312%26ftm_veh%3Dbbn_article_pitch&amp;impression=5381f64b-d7fc-4d0f-9e6b-110b0b18fde3&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;referring_guid=42ce71a9-a90e-45b6-974c-fba5c42b6713&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">Click here Opens a New Window.</a> to learn about these picks!</p>
<p>*Stock Advisor returns as of March 5, 2018</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFBreakerRick/info.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;referring_guid=42ce71a9-a90e-45b6-974c-fba5c42b6713&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">Rick Munarriz Opens a New Window.</a> owns shares of Apple, Netflix, and Walt Disney. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Apple, Netflix, and Walt Disney. The Motley Fool has the following options: long January 2020 $150 calls on Apple and short January 2020 $155 calls on Apple. The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/Legal/fool-disclosure-policy.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;referring_guid=42ce71a9-a90e-45b6-974c-fba5c42b6713&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p> | 3 Stocks I'm Never Selling | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/04/14/3-stocks-im-never-selling.html | 2018-03-29 | 0 |
<p>President Barack Obama’s official visit to Cuba in March 2016 has deluded a lot of people into believing that relations between the United States and Cuba are now normal. They do not realise that the severe US economic sanctions against Cuba are still in force.</p>
<p>Of course there have been slight improvements in the application of some of the procedures pertaining to sanctions. Some travel restrictions have been eased and Cuba is no longer in the US list of states allegedly sponsoring “international terrorism,”an allegation that was utterly ludicrous from the very outset given the number of occasions Cuba and Cubans were subjected to acts of terror since the Cuban Revolution of 1959.</p>
<p>Sanctions continue to impede imports of critical goods and equipment from the US just as Cuba is prevented from exporting products and services to the US. Cuba has no direct banking relations with the US. US corporations cannot invest in the Cuban economy, except in the telecommunications industry.</p>
<p>The transfer of funds to Cuba is still being blocked. Payments even in currencies other than the US dollar are often withheld. Foreign banks and other corporations with links to Cuba continue to be fined. In February 2016 for instance a fine was levied on CGG Services S.A. of France for violating the blockade on Cuba. In May 2016 “the Royal Bank of Canada refused to transfer payment in Canadian dollars corresponding to Cuba’s membership fee of the Association of Caribbean States.”&#160;&#160; In the same month, a bank in Spain closed the current accounts of a business group “due to the group’s operations with Cuba.”</p>
<p>It has been estimated that the sanctions have cost Cuba billions of dollars just in the course of the first six months of 2016. The impact upon the public health sector — the comprehensiveness and affordability of public health care being one of the greatest achievements of the Cuban Revolution — has been dire. Between April 2015 and April 2016, the accumulated monetary repercussions of the sanctions policy amounted to some 82.7 million dollars. Cuba is compelled to purchase medicines, “spare parts for diagnostic and treatment equipment, medical instruments and other supplies necessary for (the health) sector to function” from distant markets when it would have been so much cheaper to obtain them from the US itself.</p>
<p>It is not just the health sector that has suffered from sanctions. The food sector, education, sports and culture have all had to pay the price. Even biotechnology, a field in which Cuba has registered excellent progress, has had to bear the adverse consequences of the unjust and vicious US policy.</p>
<p>It is widely known that it is the US Congress more than the White House that is determined to perpetuate sanctions against Cuba. While some members of both the Senate and the House of Representatives feel that the sanctions should be lifted, the lobbies and special interests that want to continue to punish Cuba remain formidable. It is significant that Congress has received 51 legislative initiatives that seek to reinforce the sanctions. Obama cannot afford to ignore this. Nonetheless, he has executive powers that can circumvent some of the hurdles erected by the pro-sanctions groups.</p>
<p>This is why pro-justice citizens’ groups in the US and from around the world should intensify their efforts to persuade the powers-that-be in the US to eliminate the sanctions totally. Voices from within the US are critical; more human rights advocates, academics and representatives of the different religious communities should speak up. They should also counter the untruths, the half-truths and the outright lies about Cuba, the sanctions and the “security of the American people”.</p>
<p>People outside the US should also play their role. They should remind their governments to stick to their anti-sanctions position when the issue comes up again before the UN General Assembly on 26 October 2016. For the last 24 years, the vast majority of UN member states have voted to end the US sanctions regime. The last UN General Assembly vote on 27 October 2015 was the most convincing ever. 191 out of the 193 member states of the UN demanded that the sanctions be lifted. The only two states that voted against the resolution were the US and Israel.</p>
<p>Near unanimous support for Cuba from the nations of the world is not enough. Their vote should be translated into action. I had suggested last year that the General Assembly should form a multi-national panel comprising various governments from the different continents which as the representative voice of the world would seek a formal meeting with the Speaker of the US House of Representatives and the majority leader of the US Senate to convey to them the strong feelings of the people of the planet that sanctions against Cuba should be lifted at once. It is important for the UN to convey this message to the US leaders especially at this moment because there would be some changes in the US Congress and a new President in the White House after the 8 November 2016 election.</p>
<p>There is a larger meaning to this proposal. By telling US leaders how the peoples and the governments of the world feel about an arrogant punitive action that has caused so much pain and suffering to a small nation of 11 million citizens, we would be expressing our total rejection of global hegemony and a unipolar system where might is right. We would be asserting the right of nations and peoples to determine their own destiny. At a time when the hegemon is in decline and is doing all it can to perpetuate its dominance there is no message that is more important than this.</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | Cuba: Rejecting Sanctions, Sending a Message | true | https://counterpunch.org/2016/10/21/cuba-rejecting-sanctions-sending-a-message/ | 2016-10-21 | 4 |
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<p>Promotion: Christmas in June</p>
<p>Radio: 610 AM</p>
<p>Probable starters: Isotopes LHP Harrison Musgrave (2-1, 6.75) vs. Chihuahuas RHP Zach Lee (1-1, 5.32)</p>
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<p>Saturday: The El Paso Chihuahuas scored six runs in the 14th inning off two position players to bring a merciful 13-10 end to a record setting game at Isotopes Park.</p>
<p>The portion of the announced crowd of 10,071 who stayed through the 5 hour, 35 minute game were treated to a postgame fireworks show that started at 12:45 a.m.</p>
<p>It was the longest game played in Isotopes history. The previous record for longest game was 5:31 at Iowa on July 14, 2013.</p>
<p>RF Domonic Brown and LF Rosell Herrera pitched the final inning for the ‘Topes. Brown allowed five earned runs off four hits and a walk without getting an out and Herrera allowed one earned, including a homer.</p>
<p>Albuquerque 3B Cristhian Adames and 2B Ryan McMahon each had five hits for the ‘Topes.</p>
<p>In the 9th, with the game tied 6-6 and bases loaded for the ‘Topes, Derrik Gibson walked to the plate in an apparent pinch hit situation but was called back by manager Glenallen Hill, who sent up reliever Matt Carasiti, who struck out for the final out. Hill and Gibson had an animated shouting match in the dugout after the inning and Gibson was seen walking to the clubhouse after the inning.</p>
<p>Rockies pitcher Jon Gray, making his third minor league rehab assignment (one with single-A Lancaster and two with the ‘Topes) allowed one earned run off five hits and four walks in 5 innings. He struck out six and was pulled after 94 pitches, 57 for strikes.</p>
<p>After the game, the press box temporarily ran out of paper printing postgame box scores for the teams and media.</p>
<p>This and that: Albuquerque came into Saturday ranked second in the Pacific Coast League with 78 steals. Salt Lake had 87. Last year’s Isotopes stole 81 bases. Isotope Derrik Gibson came in 7-for-7 in steal attempts.</p>
<p>(Click <a href="http://www.milb.com/standings/index.jsp?lid=112&amp;sid=l112" type="external">here</a> for updated Pacific Coast League standings. Click <a href="https://d3el53au0d7w62.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/25/Box-Score-6.24.pdf" type="external">here</a>for Saturday night’s box score.)</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | Saturday, June 24: Longest game in ‘Topes history | false | https://abqjournal.com/1023341/topes-today-for-sunday-june-25.html | 2017-06-25 | 2 |
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<p>RIVERSIDE, Calif. (AP) — A man was arrested after police say he stole a van from a Southern California mortuary with a dead body inside, returned it and then stole a different van from the same business.</p>
<p>Riverside Police Officer Ryan Railsback says a mortuary employee was nearly run over as he tried to stop the man as he drove away the second time Sunday.</p>
<p>Railsback says an officer investigating the theft of the first van chased the second van for more than two miles. The suspect was arrested and could face charges including vehicle theft. Police didn't immediately release his name.</p>
<p>The Riverside Press-Enterprise newspaper reports Monday ( <a href="http://bit.ly/2lD0O1h" type="external">http://bit.ly/2lD0O1h</a> ) that stealing a dead body isn't included in his list of charges because police believe he didn't mean to steal it.</p>
<p><a href="#be73dbc2-69dd-46cd-8f7f-6887b97f9f1f" type="external">© 2017 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.</a> Learn more about our <a href="http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/privacy" type="external">Privacy Policy</a> and <a href="http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/terms" type="external">Terms of Use</a>.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | Suspect returns stolen mortuary van after finding body | false | https://abqjournal.com/949604/suspect-returns-stolen-mortuary-van-after-finding-body.html | 2017-02-13 | 2 |
<p>Japanese video-game maker Nintendo Co. has reversed into profit for the April-June quarter from losses the previous year, boosted by the popularity of its Switch hybrid game machine.</p>
<p>Kyoto-based Nintendo reported Wednesday a profit of 21.26 billion yen ($190 million) for the fiscal first quarter, improving from a 24.5 billion yen loss for the three months through June 30 last year.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Quarterly sales more than doubled to 154.1 billion yen ($1.4 billion) from 62 billion yen the previous year.</p>
<p>Nintendo, which makes Super Mario and Pokemon games, left unchanged its full year forecast through March 2018, for a 45 billion yen ($402 million) net profit on 750 billion yen ($6.7 billion) sales.</p>
<p>Nintendo sold 1.97 million Switch machines during the quarter, for cumulative sales of 4.7 million units since March. It left unchanged its estimate of selling 10 million Switch machines in the fiscal year through March 2018.</p>
<p>The Switch is a new kind of machine for Nintendo, which allows for playing both at home and on-the-go.</p>
<p>The challenge for Nintendo has been to keep the sales momentum going for new consoles, as they are snatched up in the initial years, but then interest tends to wane.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>Nintendo said its Switch game software sales have been solid, with demand strong for "Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, "ARMS" and "The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild."</p>
<p>Its Splatoon 2 has just gone on sale and "Super Mario Odyssey" for the Switch will launch in October.</p>
<p>Nintendo, which also makes the 3DS portable console, has also scored success in offering games for smartphones and other devices that aren't Nintendo machines — a move the company had resisted for years, but an area that appears to offer great growth potential.</p>
<p>The recent release on smart devices of "Super Mario Run" and "Fire Emblem Heroes" games has met with success, boosting quarterly income from content related to such devices by more than five-fold on-year to 9 billion yen ($80 million), according to Nintendo.</p>
<p>Interest in Nintendo games on smart devices soared with the wildly popular augmented reality game, "Pokemon Go." A U.S. company called Niantic, in which Nintendo is an investor, developed that game, using Pokemon characters. "Pokemon Go" was downloaded more than 750 million times in its first year, according to Niantic.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Follow Yuri Kageyama on Twitter at https://twitter.com/yurikageyama</p>
<p>Her work can be found at https://www.apnews.com/search/yuri%20kageyama</p> | Nintendo records quarterly profit on Switch sales success | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/07/26/nintendo-records-quarterly-profit-on-switch-sales-success.html | 2017-07-26 | 0 |
<p>All the major equity indices are trading to the downside ahead of tomorrow’s much-anticipated December payrolls report, with the exception of the Dow Transports:</p>
<p>Four of the top five stocks today in the transports are airlines: UAL is leading the pack, surging more than 7% on very upbeat preliminary 4Q results. Deutsche Bank was also out with some bullish comments on the group. Trucker (NYSE:CNW) and railroads (NYSE:CSX), (NYSE:NSC) and (NYSE:UNP) are also bucking the market’s downward trend:</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p> | Dow Transports Buck the Trend | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2014/01/09/dow-transports-buck-trend.html | 2016-03-04 | 0 |
<p>Today, the Senate voted to move forward on debate of new gun control legislation, approving a procedural motion with a&#160;68-31 vote.</p>
<p>The Senate will now take up the Democratic proposal which would expand background checks, place stricter enforcement on gun trafficking and increase funding for school security. Yesterday's <a href="" type="internal">compromise&#160;</a>between&#160;West Virginia's Joe Manchin and Pennsylvania's Pat Toomey gave many Republicans cover to stop a threatened filibuster by conservatives in the Senate.&#160;The bill, as it stands now, it is unlikely to pass the House.</p>
<p>Here are the 16&#160;&#160;Republicans who voted in favor of the motion - and the two Democrats who voted against it:</p>
<p />
<p>Lamar Alexander&#160;</p>
<p>Kelly Ayotte</p>
<p>Richard Burr</p>
<p>Saxby Chambliss</p>
<p>Tom Coburn</p>
<p>Susan Collins</p>
<p>Bob Corker</p>
<p>Jeff Flake</p>
<p>Lindsey Graham</p>
<p>John Hoeven</p>
<p>Johnny Isakson</p>
<p>Dean Heller</p>
<p>Mark Kirk</p>
<p>John McCain</p>
<p>Pat Toomey</p>
<p>Roger Wicker</p>
<p>Red State Democrats &#160;Mark Begich and Mark Pryor &#160;were nos.</p>
<p /> | Gun control legislation clears hurdle - with GOP help | true | http://humanevents.com/2013/04/11/list-of-republicans-who-stopped-the-filibuster/ | 2013-04-11 | 0 |
<p>By Hyunjoo Jin and Jungyoun Park</p>
<p>SEOUL (Reuters) - <a href="" type="internal">Samsung</a> Electronics and other Asian technology stocks tumbled on Friday as the sputtering global economy threatens to crimp demand for computers and TVs and hit earnings of chip and panel makers for the rest of the year.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Investors, who had expected Japan's earthquake three months ago to lift prices of memory chips and flat screens, dumped shares of Samsung and Hynix Semiconductor as a weak economic recovery in the United States and Europe dampened demand growth prospects.</p>
<p>"The tech momentum appears to be dead," said Cha Kyung-jin, a fund manger at Golden Bridge Asset Management, which owns Samsung shares. "Expectations have been lowered on the global economy and tech earnings in the second half."</p>
<p>In Japan, Elpida Memory lost 2.8 percent and Taiwan's Nanya Technology dropped 7 percent, while AU Optronics and Chimei Innolux lost 5.1 percent and 4.1 percent, respectively.</p>
<p>"There are concerns that tech firms may see little earnings recovery in the second half after posting poor second-quarter earnings. There is traditionally high demand in the second half, but seasonality may be weak this year because of macroeconomic difficulties," said Park Jong-min, a fund manager at ING Investment Management.</p>
<p>"Businesses are reluctant to build up inventory because of macroeconomic uncertainties and as they have already piled up components after the March 11 quake on fears of a parts shortage," he said. ING owns shares of Samsung and Hynix.</p>
<p>LOWERED EARNINGS OUTLOOK</p>
<p>Global PC shipments, which in recent years grew by double digits annually barring 2009 and serve as a key growth driver of the memory chip industry, are set to grow by only 5 percent this year as consumers opt for popular tablets and smartphones.</p>
<p>Samsung, which is set to update the market with its second-quarter earnings estimates in the first week of July, declined to comment on the current quarter results.</p>
<p>"Second-quarter is a typically weak season but the market condition was slightly worse than usual because tightness that many people had expected after the quake didn't really happen due to weak demand," said a senior executive at a major Korean electronics firm. The official declined to be named because he was not authorized to speak to the media.</p>
<p>Analysts' expectations for a recovery in the loss-making flat screen businesses of Samsung and LG Display have now been pushed back from the second quarter as TV sales remain weak.</p>
<p>Samsung' second-quarter operating profit is forecast to be around 4 trillion won ($3.66 billion), Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S data showed, compared to 5 trillion won a year ago.</p>
<p>Earnings expectations were being downgraded further.</p>
<p>"We recently lowered our second-quarter operating profit forecast on Samsung Electronics to 3.6 trillion won," said Jin Seong-hye, an analyst at <a href="" type="internal">Hyundai</a> Securities.</p>
<p>Hynix is seen posting a 553 billion won operating profit for the quarter ending in June, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S, compared with a 1 trillion won operating profit a year earlier.</p>
<p>"I cut my consensus forecast (for Hynix's second-quarter earnings) to 420 billion won, but I am also hearing talk in the market of 360 billion won," said James Song, an analyst at HI Investment &amp; Securities.</p>
<p>(Editing by Jonathan Hopfner and Muralikumar Anantharaman)</p>
<p>Advertisement</p> | Samsung, other Asian tech shares tumble on earnings | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2011/06/17/samsung-other-asian-tech-shares-tumble-on-earnings.html | 2016-01-29 | 0 |
<p>DUESSELDORF,&#160;Germany&#160;— German authorities said on Friday they had found torn-up sick notes showing that the pilot who crashed a plane into the French&#160;Alps&#160;was suffering from an illness that should have grounded him on the day of the tragedy.</p>
<p>French prosecutors believe&#160;Andreas Lubitz, 27, locked himself alone in the cockpit of the Germanwings Airbus A320 on Tuesday and deliberately steered it into a mountain, killing all 150 people on board.</p>
<p>"Documents with medical contents were confiscated that point towards an existing illness and corresponding treatment by doctors," said the prosecutors' office in Duesseldorf, where the co-pilot lived and where the doomed flight from&#160;Barcelona&#160;was heading.</p>
<p>The torn-up doctor's notes found in his home would have excused Lubitz from work for medical reasons&#160;for a period that included the day of the crash. That supported the view that Lubitz had "hidden his illness from his employer and his colleagues,"&#160;the prosecutors said.</p>
<p>They found no suicide note or confession, "nor was there any evidence of a political or religious background to what happened,"&#160;they added.</p>
<p>Germanwings said Lubitz had not submitted any sick note that would have grounded him on the day of the crash.</p>
<p>In&#160;France, authorities said they had recovered between 400 and 600 body parts strewn across the&#160;Alpine&#160;crash site. No bodies were found intact and DNA testing would be the best way to identify the remains,&#160;Patrick Touron, deputy head of the criminal research division of&#160;France's Gendarmerie, told reporters at the site. Investigators would look for pieces of uniform to try to identify the crew including Lubitz.</p>
<p>Lubitz's mental health — and what Germanwings and parent company Lufthansa knew about it — could become central questions in any future legal case over the crash. Under German law, employees are required to inform their employers immediately if they are unable to work.</p>
<p>A hospital&#160;in Duesseldorf said Lubitz had visited to receive a diagnosis as recently as March 10. It would not give further details because of patient confidentiality rules but said media reports he was treated there for depression were inaccurate.</p>
<p>Reports in German media suggested Lubitz had suffered from depression in the past&#160;and that Lufthansa would have been aware of at least some of that history.</p>
<p>Germany's Bild newspaper, citing internal documents forwarded by&#160;Lufthansa's Aero Medical Center&#160;to German authorities, reported that Lubitz had suffered a "serious depressive episode" around the time he suspended his pilot training in 2009. It said he subsequently spent over a year in psychiatric treatment.</p>
<p>Lufthansa and German prosecutors declined to comment on the report. The airline's CEO&#160;Carsten Spohr&#160;said on Thursday there was nothing in his past to suggest Lubitz was a risk, and that after he resumed his training, he passed all tests with "flying colors."</p>
<p>An international agreement generally limits airline liability to around $157,400 for each passenger who dies in a crash, but if families can prove an airline was negligent they can pursue compensation for greater damages in lawsuits.</p>
<p>"I don't feel anger"</p>
<p>Lawyers who have represented families in past airline disasters said that potential lawsuits could focus on whether Germanwings properly screened the co-pilot before and during his employment&#160;and on whether the airline had adequate safety policies controlling access to its cockpits.</p>
<p>Within hours after French prosecutors disclosed their theory that the crash was deliberate, several airlines changed their rules to require two crew members in the cockpit at all times, a measure already mandatory in the United States&#160;but not in&#160;Europe.</p>
<p>Lufthansa announced on Friday that it too would change its rules to require a second crew member in the cockpit. On Thursday, Spohr&#160;said he saw no need to do so, sparking a social media backlash.</p>
<p>Brussels&#160;announced it would recommend that rule change to all EU airlines. Such a recommendation can be implemented faster than changing European regulations to impose the requirement.</p>
<p>Robert Tansell Oliver, whose 37-year-old American son&#160;Robert Oliver Calvo&#160;was killed in the crash, said the family was not eager to sue. His son, a father of two small children, had been working for a fashion company in Barcelona.</p>
<p>"I don't feel anger. I'm really sorry for the parents of that young pilot. I can't imagine what they are going through right now," the father said outside a hotel near&#160;Barcelona airport&#160;where family members of victims have been staying.</p>
<p>"Mad suicidal action"</p>
<p>French Prime Minister&#160;Manuel Valls&#160;said the German airline had an obligation to share information about Lubitz.</p>
<p>"I am careful when there is a judicial inquiry, but everything points to a criminal, mad, suicidal action that we cannot comprehend," Valls told iTELE.</p>
<p>Lubitz was described by acquaintances in his hometown of Montabaur in&#160;western Germany&#160;as a friendly but quiet man who learned to fly gliders at a local club before advancing to commercial aviation as a co-pilot at Germanwings in 2013.</p>
<p>A friend who met Lubitz six years ago and flew with him in gliding school said he had become increasingly withdrawn over the past year.</p>
<p>Before Lubitz became a co-pilot in late 2013, the friend said the two had gone to movies and clubs together. But he noticed at two birthday parties they attended over the past year that he had retreated into a shell, speaking very little.</p>
<p>"Flying was his life," said the friend, who agreed to speak&#160;about Lubitz's mental state on condition of anonymity. "He always used to be a quiet companion, but in the last year that got worse."</p>
<p>(By Tom Käckenhoff.&#160;Additional reporting by&#160;Victoria Bryan and Michelle Martin in Berlin, Andy Callus in Paris, Marco Trujillo in&#160;Barcelona&#160;and Eric Gaillard in Seyne-les-Alpes; Writing by Noah Barkin and Peter Graff; Editing by Janet McBride and Giles Elgood)</p> | Torn-up sick notes show Germanwings copilot should have been grounded | false | https://pri.org/stories/torn-sick-notes-show-germanwings-copilot-should-have-been-grounded | 3 |
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<p>OGDEN, Utah (AP) — The Utah Poison Control Center says it has received 14 reports of poisonings this month caused after ingesting laundry detergent pods.</p>
<p>The Standard-Examiner <a href="http://www.standard.net/Health/2018/01/24/14-poisonings-involving-laundry-detergent-reported-in-Utah-in-2018-Tide-Pod-Challenge" type="external">reported</a> Wednesday that some poisoning cases are linked to the "Tide Pod Challenge" social media trend where people post videos of themselves biting down on laundry detergent pods.</p>
<p>Sherrie Pace with Utah Poison Control Center says people can experience "vomiting, wheezing, gasping, breathing problems and feeling sleepy" after ingesting detergent.</p>
<p>According to data, the center saw more than 200 cases involving detergent exposure statewide in 2017.</p>
<p>A majority of the cases from last year involved children.</p>
<p>The National Capital Poison Center says biting into a laundry detergent pod can cause serious injuries or even death.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Information from: Standard-Examiner, <a href="http://www.standard.net" type="external">http://www.standard.net</a></p>
<p>OGDEN, Utah (AP) — The Utah Poison Control Center says it has received 14 reports of poisonings this month caused after ingesting laundry detergent pods.</p>
<p>The Standard-Examiner <a href="http://www.standard.net/Health/2018/01/24/14-poisonings-involving-laundry-detergent-reported-in-Utah-in-2018-Tide-Pod-Challenge" type="external">reported</a> Wednesday that some poisoning cases are linked to the "Tide Pod Challenge" social media trend where people post videos of themselves biting down on laundry detergent pods.</p>
<p>Sherrie Pace with Utah Poison Control Center says people can experience "vomiting, wheezing, gasping, breathing problems and feeling sleepy" after ingesting detergent.</p>
<p>According to data, the center saw more than 200 cases involving detergent exposure statewide in 2017.</p>
<p>A majority of the cases from last year involved children.</p>
<p>The National Capital Poison Center says biting into a laundry detergent pod can cause serious injuries or even death.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Information from: Standard-Examiner, <a href="http://www.standard.net" type="external">http://www.standard.net</a></p> | 14 laundry detergent pod poisoning cases reported in Utah | false | https://apnews.com/amp/5566e262324a41549d4957ca3b325d9e | 2018-01-25 | 2 |
<p>I remember when the Columbine High School shootings happened in 1999. Schools across the country went into lockdown. Most of us were left mouths open watching news reports, trying to process and understand what happened and why. Schools and other public places quickly channeled significant energy toward planning how to respond if an “active shooter” was on their grounds. These days another school shooting is all too familiar.</p>
<p>From Columbine in 1999 until this week’s Reynolds High School shooting in Troutdale, Oregon there have been over 140 school shooting incidents resulting in over 200 deaths with many many more injuries. There has been a particularly marked increase in school shootings since 2010. These shootings happened in rural and urban areas, elementary, junior high, high school, and university campuses. Shooters were children, teens, and adults. There have been shootings and many other acts of atrocious violence in malls, movie theatres, and even houses of worship.</p>
<p>The problem of violence is not only for certain people such as the mentally disturbed or shadowy strangers in alleyways or people in poverty or school campuses or young people or shady areas of town. The problem of violence is everywhere and is everyone’s problem. Yes. You. Yes. Me.</p>
<p>Violence is not only a result of actions with weapons- guns, drones, bombs, knives, fists. Violence is also an attitude. An attitude of competition and entitlement. An attitude of fear and pride. Violence is often bred by fear and perpetuates fear in a vicious cycle. God is in the business of changing that cycle and we, as Christians, as Christ-followers, are called to join God’s work in peacemaking.</p>
<p>Jesus goes through a litany of people in difficult circumstances in The Beatitudes and calls each group blessed. Matthew 5:9 says, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God”. To be a child of God is to be a peacemaker. To be a peacemaker is to be a child of God. Peacemaking is not optional for people who call themselves Christians. Peacemaking is a difficult calling, but it is a calling for all Christians.</p>
<p>God’s peacemaking and final restoration is a process that includes the now and the not yet. This world is a construction zone with all of us called to join God in being construction workers. There is a rebuilding process from the former ways of violence- in action or attitude- to Jesus’ ways of peace and reconciliation. Peacebuilding is a Christian calling. Step by step. Little by little.</p>
<p>It is not enough not to contribute to violence. We are called to contribute to peace. Our attitudes must individually, congregationally, nationally, and internationally shift in order to be closer to the attitude and perspective of Jesus Christ which will lead to meaningful peacebuilding. Step by step. Little by little.</p>
<p>God is in the business of peacemaking and peacebuilding by Jesus Christ showing us a better way to live faithfully, and by the Holy Spirit comforting and guiding us each day as we move to a fully peaceful eternal reality in perfect harmony with God. Peace with God and peace with neighbor mirrors the greatest commandments to love God and love neighbor. &#160;Peacebuilding is love. Love is peacebuilding.</p>
<p>As the familiar hymn, Lord, Send a Revival by Baylus Benjamin McKinney says,</p>
<p>“Send a revival, O Christ, my Lord,</p>
<p>Let it go over the land and sea.</p>
<p>Send it according to Thy dear Word,</p>
<p>And let it begin in me.</p>
<p>Lord, send a revival,</p>
<p>Lord, send a revival,</p>
<p>Lord, send a revival,</p>
<p>And let it begin in me.</p>
<p>Send a revival in ev’ry heart,</p>
<p>Draw the world nearer. O Lord to Thee.</p>
<p>Let Thy salvation true joy impart,</p>
<p>And let it begin in me.”</p> | The problem of violence | false | https://baptistnews.com/article/the-problem-of-violence-2/ | 3 |
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<p>In case you’ve been out in the bush for the past couple of days, <a href="" type="internal">Islamic dingleberries&#160;have hit&#160;foggy London town</a>&#160;yet again. In typical fashion, the left has responded to the attack with their trademark dishonesty and buffoonery. One guy who’s not playing around, though? Phil Campion, a former SAS operative. This British Rambo equivalent had some strong words for his do-nothing government…</p>
<p />
<p />
<p>Yes! That’s what I’m talking about…</p>
<p>&lt;img class="size-full wp-image-40592 aligncenter" src="http://www.louderwithcrowder.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/can-i-get-an-amen.gif" alt="amen" width="430" height="315" /&gt;</p>
<p>While the left is busy <a href="" type="internal">worrying about Islamophobia</a> and <a href="" type="internal">staging fake Muslim protests</a>, these ISIS-loving dickweeds are getting locked and loaded for the next round. The suicide vests are strapped on. The knives are sharpened. The cars are gassed up. The only way to stop them is with a good, old-fashioned crackdown on their unwashed hindparts.</p>
<p>Leftists, on the other hand, are preoccupied with kowtowing to Islamists (read&#160; <a href="" type="internal">Katy Perry After Manchester Bombing, Wants to ‘Coexist without Borders’</a>). Because what the armed religious fanatic with an insatiable lust for world domination really needs is a hug.</p>
<p>There’s a little bit of hope on the horizon, with the British government&#160;finally&#160;admitting there’s a problem with Islamic extremism in their country (see&#160; <a href="" type="internal">UK Prime Minister: ‘Too much tolerance of extremism in our country…’</a>). Time will tell if they’re serious about doing anything about it. As long as douchey leftist dunces control the narrative and put so-called “unity” over common sense, nothing’s going to change.</p>
<p>While we’re on the subject…</p>
<p />
<p />
<p>NOT SUBSCRIBED TO THE PODCAST?&#160; <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/louder-with-crowder/id929121341?mt=2" type="external">FIX THAT</a>! IT’S COMPLETELY FREE ON BOTH&#160; <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/louder-with-crowder/id929121341?mt=2" type="external">ITUNES&#160;HERE</a>&#160;AND&#160; <a href="https://soundcloud.com/louderwithcrowder" type="external">SOUNDCLOUD&#160;HERE</a>.</p>
<p /> | British SAS Commando On Terrorism: ‘Drag Them Out Of Their Beds’… | true | https://louderwithcrowder.com/sas-commando-terrorism/ | 2017-06-06 | 0 |
<p />
<p>As detailed in my recent article “ <a href="" type="internal">The War on Weed is Winding Down</a>,” the health benefits of cannabis are now well established. It is a cheap, natural alternative effective for a broad range of conditions, and the non-psychoactive form known as hemp has thousands of industrial uses. At one time, cannabis was one of the world’s most important crops. There have been <a href="http://www.drugwarfacts.org/cms/Overdose#sthash.fXpf2xrj.dpbs" type="external">no recorded deaths from cannabis overdose</a> in the US, compared to about <a href="https://www.mpp.org/marijuana-is-safer/" type="external">30,000 deaths annually</a> from alcohol abuse (not counting auto accidents), and <a href="" type="internal">100,000 deaths annually from prescription drugs</a> taken as directed. Yet cannabis remains a Schedule I controlled substance (“a deadly dangerous drug with no medical use and high potential for abuse”), illegal to be sold or grown in the US.</p>
<p>Powerful corporate interests no doubt had a hand in keeping cannabis off the market. The question now is why they have suddenly gotten on the bandwagon for its legalization. According to <a href="" type="internal">an April 2014 article in The Washington Times</a>, the big money behind the recent push for legalization has come, not from a grassroots movement, but from a few very wealthy individuals with links to <a href="" type="internal">Big Ag</a> and <a href="" type="internal">Big Pharma</a>.</p>
<p>Leading the charge is George Soros, a major shareholder in Monsanto, the world’s largest seed company and producer of genetically modified seeds. Monsanto is the biotech giant that brought you Agent Orange, DDT, PCBs, dioxin-based pesticides, aspartame, rBGH (genetically engineered bovine growth hormone), RoundUp (glyphosate) herbicides, and RoundUp Ready crops (seeds genetically engineered to withstand glyphosate).</p>
<p>Monsanto now appears to be developing genetically modified (GMO) forms of cannabis, with the intent of cornering the market with patented GMO seeds just as it did with GMO corn and GMO soybeans. For that, the plant would need to be legalized but still tightly enough controlled that it could be captured by big corporate interests. Competition could be suppressed by limiting access to homegrown marijuana; bringing production, sale and use within monitored and regulated industry guidelines; and legislating a definition of industrial hemp as a plant having such low psychoactivity that only GMO versions qualify. Those are the sorts of conditions that critics have found buried in the fine print of the latest initiatives for cannabis legalization.</p>
<p>Patients who use the cannabis plant in large quantities to heal serious diseases ( <a href="" type="internal">e.g. by juicing it</a>) find that the natural plant grown organically in sunlight is far more effective than hothouse plants or pharmaceutical cannabis derivatives. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aL2XD1FHt7g&amp;feature=share" type="external">Letitia Pepper is</a> a California attorney and activist who uses medical marijuana to control multiple sclerosis. As she puts it, if you don’t have an irrevocable right to grow a natural, therapeutic herb in your backyard that a corporation able to afford high license fees can grow and sell to you at premium prices, isn’t that still a war on people who use marijuana?</p>
<p>Follow the Money to Uruguay</p>
<p>Monsanto has denied that it is working on GMO strains. But William Engdahl, author of <a href="" type="internal">Seeds of Destruction: The Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation</a>, presents compelling circumstantial evidence to the contrary. In a March 2014 article titled “ <a href="http://www.encod.org/info/The-Connection-Between-The.html" type="external">The Connection Between the Legalization of Marijuana in Uruguay, Monsanto and George Soros</a>”, Engdahl observes that in 2014, Uruguay became the first country to legalize the cultivation, sale and consumption of marijuana. Soros is a major player in Uruguay and was instrumental in getting the law passed. He sits on the board of the New York-based Drug Policy Alliance (DPA), the world’s most influential organization for cannabis legalization. The DPA is active not only in the US but in Uruguay and other Latin American countries. Engdahl writes:</p>
<p>Studies show that Monsanto without much fanfare conducts research projects on the active ingredient in marijuana, namely THC (tetrahydrocannabinol), in order to genetically manipulate the plant. David Watson of the Dutch company Hortapharm has since 1990 created the world’s largest collection of Cannabis seed varieties. In 1998, the British firm GW Pharmaceuticals signed an agreement with Hortapharm that gives GW Pharma the rights to use the Hortapharm cannabis for their research.</p>
<p>In 2003 the German Bayer AG then signed an agreement with GW Pharmaceuticals for joint research on a cannabis-based extract. In 2007, Bayer AG agreed to an exchange of technology with . . . Monsanto . . . . Thus Monsanto has discreet access to the work of the cannabis plant and its genetic modification. In 2009 GW Pharmaceuticals announced that it had succeeded in genetically altering a cannabis plant and patented a new breed of cannabis.</p>
<p>Monsanto could have even greater access to the Bayer/GW research soon. In March 2016, Monsanto approached the giant German chemical and pharmaceutical company Bayer AG with a joint venture proposal concerning its crop science unit. In May, Bayer then made an unsolicited takeover bid for Monsanto. On May 24th, <a href="" type="internal">the $62 billion bid was rejected</a> as too low; but negotiations are continuing.</p>
<p>The prospective merger would create the world’s largest supplier of seeds and chemicals. Environmentalists worry that the entire farming industry could soon be looking at sterile crops soaked in dangerous pesticides. Monsanto has sued hundreds of farmers for simply saving seeds from year to year, something they have done for millennia. Organic farmers are finding it increasingly difficult to prevent contamination of their crops by Monsanto’s GMOs.</p>
<p>In Seeds of Destruction, Engdahl quotes Henry Kissinger, Richard Nixon’s Secretary of State. Kissinger notoriously said, “Control oil and you control nations; control food and you control the people.” Engdahl asserts that the “Green Revolution” was part of the Rockefeller agenda to destroy seed diversity and push oil- and gas-based agricultural products in which Rockefeller had a major interest. Destruction of seed diversity and dependence on proprietary hybrids was the first step in food control. About <a href="http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/issues/311/ge-foods/about-ge-foods" type="external">75% of the foodstuffs</a> at the grocery store are now genetically manipulated, in what has been called the world’s largest biological experiment on humans.</p>
<p>Genetic engineering is now moving from foodstuffs to plant-based drugs and plant-based industrial fibers. Engdahl writes of Monsanto’s work in Uruguay:</p>
<p>Since the cultivation of cannabis plants in Uruguay is allowed, one can easily imagine that Monsanto sees a huge new market that the Group is able to control just with patented cannabis seeds such as today is happening on the market for soybeans. Uruguay’s President Mujica has made it clear he wants a unique genetic code for cannabis in his country in order to “keep the black market under control.”</p>
<p>Genetically modified cannabis seeds from Monsanto would grant such control. For decades Monsanto has been growing gene-soybean and GM maize in Uruguay too. George Soros is co-owner of agribusinesses Adecoagro, which planted genetically modified soybeans and sunflowers for biofuel.</p>
<p>Other commentators express similar concerns. Natural health writer <a href="" type="internal">Mike Adams warns</a>:</p>
<p>[W]ith the cannabis industry predicted to generate over $13 billion by 2020, becoming one of the largest agricultural markets in&#160;the nation, there should be little doubt that companies like Monsanto are simply waiting for Uncle Sam to remove the herb from its current&#160;Schedule I classification&#160;before getting into the business.</p>
<p>In <a href="" type="internal">a 2010 article concerning Proposition 19</a>, an earlier legalization initiative that was defeated by California voters, Conrad Justice Kiczenski noted that criminalization of cannabis as both industrial hemp and medical marijuana has served a multitude of industries, including the prison and military industry, the petroleum, timber, cotton, and pharmaceutical industries, and the banking industry. With the decriminalization of cannabis, he warned:</p>
<p>The next stage in continuing this control is in the regulation, licensing and taxation of Cannabis cultivation and use through the only practical means available to the corporate system, which is through genetic engineering and patenting of the Cannabis genome.</p>
<p>AUMA: Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing?</p>
<p>Suspicions like these are helping to fuel opposition to the Adult Use of Marijuana Act (AUMA), a 2016 initiative that would rewrite the medical marijuana laws in California. While AUMA purports to legalize marijuana for recreational use, the bill comes with so many restrictions that it actually makes acquisition more difficult and expensive than under existing law, and makes it a criminal offense for anyone under 21. Critics contend that the Act will simply throw access to this medicinal wonder plant into the waiting arms of the Monsanto/Bayer/petrochemical/pharmaceutical complex. They say AUMA is a covert attempt to preempt California’s Compassionate Use Act, Proposition 215, which was passed in 1996 by voter initiative.</p>
<p>Prop 215 did not legalize the sale of marijuana, but it did give ill or disabled people of any age the right to grow and share the plant and its derivatives on a not-for-profit basis. They could see a doctor of their choice, who could approve medical marijuana for a vast panoply of conditions; and they were assured of safe and affordable access to the plant at a nearby cooperative not-for-profit dispensary, or in their own backyards. As clarified by the 2008 Attorney General’s Guidelines, Prop 215 allowed reimbursement for the labor, costs and skill necessary to grow and distribute medical marijuana; and it allowed distribution through a “storefront dispensing collective.” However, the sale of marijuana for corporate profit remained illegal. &#160;Big Pharma and affiliates were thus blocked from entering the field.</p>
<p>At the end of 2015 (effective 2016), the California state legislature <a href="" type="internal">over-rode Prop 215 with MMRSA</a> – the Medical Marijuana Regulation and Safety Act of 2015/16 – which effectively rewrites the Health Code pertaining to medical marijuana. Opponents contend that MMRSA is unconstitutional, since a voter initiative cannot be changed by legislative action unless it so provides. And that is why its backers need AUMA, a voter initiative that validates MMRSA in its fine print. In combination with stricter California Medical Association rules for enforcement, MMRSA effectively moves medical marijuana therapy from the wholistic plant to a pharmaceutical derivative, one that must follow an AUMA or American Pharmaceutical Association mode of delivery. MMRSA turns the right to cultivate into a revocable privilege to grow, contingent on local rules. The right to choose one’s own doctor is also eliminated.</p>
<p>Critics note that of the hundreds of millions in tax revenues that AUMA is expected to generate from marijuana and marijuana-related products, not a penny will go to the California general fund. That means no money for California’s public schools, colleges, universities, hospitals, roads and other infrastructure. Instead, it will go into a giant slush fund controlled by AUMA’s “Marijuana Control Board,” to be spent first for its own administration, then for its own law enforcement, then for penal and judicial program expenditures.</p>
<p>Law enforcement and penalties will continue to be big business, since AUMA legalizes marijuana use only for people over 21 and makes access so difficult and expensive that even adults could be tempted to turn to the black market. “Legalization” through AUMA will chiefly serve a petrochemical/pharmaceutical complex bent on controlling all farming and plant life globally.</p> | Monsanto, Bayer, and the Push for Corporate Cannabis | true | https://counterpunch.org/2016/07/08/monsanto-bayer-and-the-push-for-corporate-cannabis/ | 2016-07-08 | 4 |
<p>NORTH LAS VEGAS, Nev. (AP) — North Las Vegas police say a 21-year-old passenger died in a car crash.</p>
<p>Department spokesman Eric Leavitt says the driver lost control of the vehicle as they were driving Monday evening and crashed into a streetlight in the median.</p>
<p>Police say rain may have factored in the crash.</p>
<p>Leavitt says the driver remained on the scene.</p>
<p>Police do not suspect impairment contributed to the crash.</p>
<p>NORTH LAS VEGAS, Nev. (AP) — North Las Vegas police say a 21-year-old passenger died in a car crash.</p>
<p>Department spokesman Eric Leavitt says the driver lost control of the vehicle as they were driving Monday evening and crashed into a streetlight in the median.</p>
<p>Police say rain may have factored in the crash.</p>
<p>Leavitt says the driver remained on the scene.</p>
<p>Police do not suspect impairment contributed to the crash.</p> | Police: 21-year-old man dead after North Las Vegas car crash | false | https://apnews.com/c75ebcaa4b1e4dd1ae873777ee1ae79b | 2018-01-09 | 2 |
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<p>Arizona was one of the last states in the country where officials refused to issue driver’s licenses to young immigrants who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children but allowed to remain under the 2012 Obama administration program.</p>
<p>Republican Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer waged a lengthy legal battle over the program. Courts ruled against the state on several occasions and cleared the way for licenses to be issued Monday.</p>
<p>People lined up early at a Motor Vehicle Division office in Phoenix and cheered when the doors opened. They said they were excited about getting a license after driving to their jobs without one and fearing they would be pulled over.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>“It’s going to be … peace of mind knowing that I’m legally allowed to drive now, not having to watch over my back and think of, ‘Oh am I going to get pulled over and get a ticket, get my car towed, and how am I going to get to work the next day,'” said Jose Cazares, 21.</p>
<p>After lining up in the dark outside Motor Vehicle Division offices, the immigrants filled out paperwork, then took written exams and driving tests, performing parallel-parking maneuvers surrounded by TV cameras.</p>
<p>“It feels pretty nice knowing that I finally have the piece of paper that I have been waiting for for over two years,” 19-year-old Ramon Maldonado said as he emerged with a license.</p>
<p>Jose Alberto Aguilar, a Mexico City native who was brought to the U.S. by his parents as a child, waited at a Motor Vehicle Division office in Tucson. The 23-year-old civil engineer rides the bus to work each day.</p>
<p>“It’s great because it allows me to get a car and be safer too,” he said.</p>
<p>Aguilar said he was hired as a civil engineer after an internship made possible when he acquired a Social Security number through the Obama administration program that he said “really opened a lot of doors for me.”</p>
<p>State officials expect the rush of applicants to continue in the weeks ahead since about 20,000 immigrants could be eligible for driver’s licenses.</p>
<p>A preliminary injunction issued Thursday by U.S. District Judge David Campbell barred the state from enforcing Brewer’s license policy.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Young immigrants have said the policy made it difficult or impossible for them to get essential things done, such as going to school, work or the store. Others were thrilled to have a form of state-issued identification that makes their everyday lives easier.</p>
<p>Brewer moved to deny the driver’s licenses after the Obama administration took steps to shield thousands of immigrants from deportation.</p>
<p>The president’s policy applied to people younger than 30 who came to the U.S. before turning 16; have been in the country for at least five continuous years; are enrolled in or have graduated from a high school or equivalent program; or have served in the military.</p>
<p>In the nation’s most visible challenge to Obama’s deferred-action program, Brewer issued an executive order in August 2012 directing state agencies to deny driver’s licenses and other public benefits to immigrants who get work authorization under the Obama policy.</p>
<p>Her attorneys have argued that the decision grew out of liability concerns and the desire to reduce the risk of the licenses being used to improperly access public benefits.</p>
<p>Despite her belief that issuing licenses is a state matter, Brewer’s office confirmed she would comply with the latest development. However, she is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review her appeal.</p>
<p>Nebraska is the only other state to have made similar denials, and a federal judge this year dismissed a lawsuit contesting that state’s policy.</p>
<p />
<p /> | Arizona immigrants get licenses | false | https://abqjournal.com/516276/arizona-immigrants-get-licences.html | 2 |
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<p>(Reuters) – Imports by retailers are forecast to rise 1.5 percent in December year-over-year, indicating that companies are expecting strong sales through the holiday season, according to industry group National Retail Federation (NRF).</p>
<p>Major U.S. retail container ports are expected to handle 1.6 million Twenty-Foot Equivalent Units (TEU) in December, according to the NRF’s monthly Global Port Tracker report. A TEU is a 20-foot-long cargo container or its equivalent.</p>
<p>“Retailers are doing last-minute restocking as consumers head toward the finish line of the shopping season,” Jonathan Gold, NRF’s vice president for supply chain and customs policy, said.</p>
<p>More than 174 million U.S. shoppers made purchases over the Thanksgiving weekend and Cyber Monday, the NRF said last week, beating the industry group’s expectations and signaling a strong start to the holiday quarter.</p>
<p>“With tax cuts that will leave more money in shoppers’ pockets in the headlines and consumer confidence high, all signs are that this has been a strong holiday season,” Gold said.</p>
<p>Most retailers, including Wal-Mart Stores Inc (N:) and Macy’s Inc (N:), headed into the holiday season with leaner inventories than previous years as they try to reduce the risk of ending the holidays with huge amounts of leftover inventory.</p>
<p>Ports covered by the Global Port Tracker handled 5.9 percent more TEUs in October from last year, while for November those were estimated to be down 0.3 percent.</p>
<p>“The fact that imports are still at a relatively high level and increasing over last year reflects that sales are doing well – retailers don’t import merchandise unless they think they can sell it,” Craig Shearman, NRF’s vice president for government affairs public relations, said.</p>
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<p>Fusion Media or anyone involved with Fusion Media will not accept any liability for loss or damage as a result of reliance on the information including data, quotes, charts and buy/sell signals contained within this website. Please be fully informed regarding the risks and costs associated with trading the financial markets, it is one of the riskiest investment forms possible.</p> | Retailers' December imports to rise on last-minute restocking: NRF | false | https://newsline.com/retailers039-december-imports-to-rise-on-last-minute-restocking-nrf/ | 2017-12-08 | 1 |
<p>FOX Business: Capitalism Lives Here</p>
<p>U.S. stocks stalled below record highs on Tuesday as traders shrugged off upbeat auto sales and factory data.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Today's Markets</p>
<p>The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 21.3 points, or 0.13%, to 16722, the S&amp;P 500 slipped 0.73 point, or 0.04%, to 1924 and the Nasdaq Composite slumped 3.1 points, or 0.07%, to 4234.</p>
<p>The Dow and broader S&amp;P 500 continue logging new record highs, nearly every day, as stocks drift marginally higher. However, the move comes on tepid volume, with Monday's tally coming in as the second lowest of the year. That has caused some to question the conviction of the recent leg higher.</p>
<p>Monthly sales figures from the major automakers took the spotlight on the day.</p>
<p>General Motors (NYSE:GM) said its sales jumped 13% in May, Fiat's Chrysler reported a 17% increase in its monthly sales results, while Ford's (NYSE:F) sales advanced 2.5%.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>Meanwhile, the Commerce Department said U.S. factory orders rose 0.7% in April, slightly beating estimates of a 0.5% increase.</p>
<p>Analysts also said they were revving up for the European Central Bank's meeting on Thursday, in which the central bank is widely expected to unleash new stimulus measures to boost inflation across the eurozone. The following day, the U.S. Labor Department is set to provide its monthly snapshot on the jobs market.</p>
<p>On the corporate front, AT&amp;T (NYSE:T) upped its full-year sales growth guidance to 5% and reaffirmed a slew of key measures. The news sent shares of the blue-chip telecommunications company rising.</p>
<p>Elsewhere, U.S. crude oil futures fell 11 cents, or 0.11%, to $102.36 a barrel. Wholesale New York Harbor gasoline dipped 0.57% to $3 a gallon. Gold rose $2.10, or 0.16%, to $1,246 a troy ounce.</p> | Wall Street Sputters Despite Strong Auto Sales | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2014/06/03/wall-street-sputters-despite-strong-auto-sales.html | 2016-03-06 | 0 |
<p>Author’s note: The reader will notice that some of the differences between Barack Obama in 2008 vs 2012 are actually from 2007. As presidential campaigns begin to last two years, statements made in 2007 are relevant because they are closely related to the 2008 campaign.</p>
<p>In a 2007 questionnaire for the Boston Globe, then-Senator Barack Obama <a href="https://www.boston.com/news/politics/2008/specials/CandidateQA/question2/" type="external">replied</a>:</p>
<p>The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.</p>
<p>In 2007, Obama also <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNUufdROKTs" type="external">supported</a> the War Powers Act, passed in 1973 with the stipulations that Congress must be notified within 48 hours of committing armed forces and that a declaration of war must be made within 60 days:</p>
<p>We thought we had learned this lesson after Vietnam. After Vietnam, Congress swore it would never again be duped into war and even wrote a new law, the War Powers Act, to ensure it would not repeat its mistakes.</p>
<p>By <a href="http://spectator.org/blog/2011/05/19/it-cant-be-mentioned-enough" type="external">2011</a>, President Obama committed air power to aid the rebels fighting Moammar Gaddafi. An administration report justified the action without congressional approval on the grounds that it was not a war, but “ <a href="http://nation.foxnews.com/libya-war/2011/03/23/white-house-libya-fight-not-war-its-kinetic-military-action" type="external">kinetic military action</a>“:</p>
<p>US operations do not involve sustained fighting or active exchanges of fire with hostile forces, nor do they involve the presence of US ground troops, US casualties or a serious threat thereof, or any significant chance of escalation into a conflict characterized by those factors.</p>
<p>Despite no legal consultation on the administration’s actions and more than <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/jun/6/white-house-says-it-complied-with-war-powers-act/print/" type="external">60 days</a> later, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney told the media, “I’m not aware of any special seeking of guidance…We believe we are acting consistent with the War Powers Resolution.”</p>
<p>Running against the Bush record in 2008, Obama <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydZTHPkOnvE" type="external">said</a>:</p>
<p>The way Bush has done it over the last eight years is to take out a credit card from the bank of China in the name of our children, driving up our national debt from $5 trillion for the first forty-two presidents. Number Forty-Three added $4 trillion by his lonesome so that we now have over $9 trillion of debt that we are going to have to pay back. $30,000 for every man, woman, and child. That’s irresponsible. That’s unpatriotic.</p>
<p>In the summer of 2011, Carney said of Obama in 2008 vs 2012:</p>
<p>The president…regrets that vote [against raising the debt limit in 2006] and thinks it was a mistake. He realizes now that raising the debt ceiling is so important to the health of this economy and the global economy that it is not a vote that, even when you are protesting an administration’s policies, you can play around with and you need to take very seriously the need to raise the debt limit so that the full faith and credit of the United States government is maintained around the globe.</p>
<p>As far back as 2002, then Illinois State Senator Barack Obama opposed a potential war in Iraq. In a 2008 New York Times op-ed, Obama <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/14/opinion/14obama.html?_r=0" type="external">prescribed</a>:</p>
<p>We can safely redeploy our combat brigades at a pace that would remove them in 16 months. That would be the summer of 2010 – two years from now, and more than seven years after the war began.</p>
<p>Combat troops were not officially redeployed and the Iraq war officially over until December 2011, as set up by the Status of Forces Agreement (SFA) negotiated by President Bush shortly before leaving office. As president, Obama attempted to <a href="http://world.time.com/2011/10/21/iraq-not-obama-called-time-on-the-u-s-troop-presence/" type="external">renegotiate</a> the SFA to allow American troops to remain in Iraq, but his proposal was rejected by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.</p>
<p>As early as the 1990s, Obama <a href="https://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2011/06/22/250931/timeline-barack-obama-marriage-equality/?mobile=nc" type="external">favored</a> gay marriage – well before gay marriage was on the national radar – but changed his mind by the time he ran for the US Senate in 2004. In his 2008 appearance at Pastor Rick Warren’s Saddleback Civil Forum on the Presidency, Obama <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=criiu2h3ZAk" type="external">said</a>, “I believe that marriage is the union between a man and a woman.” In 2012, Vice President Joe Biden <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4U7HtDODP4" type="external">endorsed</a> gay marriage on “Meet the Press.” President Obama <a href="http://articles.nydailynews.com/2012-05-10/news/31659150_1_gay-marriage-civil-unions-couples" type="external">followed</a> up by saying that he had already made the decision to support gay marriage, but was waiting until the Democratic National Convention to announce it.</p>
<p>Throughout 2007 and 2008, Obama repeatedly endorsed his intention to close the prison facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. After his election, in an interview with Steve Kroft on “60 Minutes,” Obama <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8USRg3h4AdE" type="external">reiterated</a> his intention, “I have said repeatedly that I intend to close Guantanamo and I will follow through on that.”</p>
<p>On January 22, 2009, in one of his first acts as president, Obama <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/closureofguantanamodetentionfacilities/" type="external">signed</a> an executive order <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/OTUS/guantanamo-bay-open-promises/story?id=16698768#.UInFqIZ0VPw" type="external">that</a>&#160;stated:</p>
<p>The detention facilities at Guantanamo for individuals covered by this order shall be closed as soon as practicable, and no later than one year from the date of this order.</p>
<p>Almost two years after, the deadline has passed, the controversial facility is still <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/OTUS/guantanamo-bay-open-promises/story?id=16698768#.UInFqIZ0VPw" type="external">open</a> and, in the summer of 2012, the Obama administration <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/23/opinion/a-spiteful-new-policy-at-guantanamo-bay.html?_r=0" type="external">issued</a> an executive order prohibiting contact between detainees and their lawyers.</p>
<p>Of one of the more controversial enactments of the Bush administration, Obama <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3XC7BhhZd0" type="external">said</a> in 2007:</p>
<p>I will provide our intelligence and law enforcement agencies with the tools they need to track and take out the terrorists without undermining our Constitution and our freedom. This means no more illegal wiretapping of American citizens, no more national security letters to spy on citizens who are not suspected of a crime. No more tracking citizens who do no more than protest a misguided war. No more ignoring the law when it is inconvenient.</p>
<p>In addition to extending the Patriot Act in 2011, which included the roving wiretap <a href="http://www.salon.com/2011/05/21/patriot_act_extended/" type="external">provision</a>, President Obama’s Departments of Justice and Homeland Security have released <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BN-3f6liAKc" type="external">reports</a> identifying certain single-issue and, commonly, right-wing groups such as pro-life activists, veterans, and activists for the Second Amendment, as potential terrorists or those who might be recruited by domestic terrorists.</p>
<p>Obama, who has admitted to recreational drug use in his youth, supported marijuana decriminalization in his <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/nov/15/obamas-views-on-drugs/" type="external">2004</a> US Senate campaign, and seemed reluctant to go after medical marijuana users in a Rolling Stone interview <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/obamas-war-on-pot-20120216" type="external">saying</a>, “I would not have the Justice Department prosecute and raid medical marijuana.” To a questioner in New Hampshire in 2007, Obama <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUze-oYsswI" type="external">restated</a>, “I would not have the Justice Department prosecute and raid medical marijuana users.”</p>
<p>However, numerous distributors of medical marijuana have been raided, such as <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/09/27/inside-obama-s-war-on-weed.html" type="external">Chaddwick McKeen</a> of Orange County, California, where holders of medical marijuana cards are protected. <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/25/obama-marijuana-raids-rolling-stone_n_1451744.html" type="external">Explaining</a> himself, Obama in 2008 vs 2012: “What I specifically said was that we were not going to prioritize prosecutions of persons who are using medical marijuana.” However, through early 2012, Obama was on pace to <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/obamas-war-on-pot-20120216" type="external">exceed</a> President Bush’s total of medical marijuana raids.</p>
<p>As a candidate, Obama criticized President Bush for his use of signing statements. In an installment for the Boston Globe in 2007, Obama <a href="https://www.boston.com/news/politics/2008/specials/CandidateQA/ObamaQA/" type="external">said</a> of signing statements:</p>
<p>While it is legitimate for a president to issue a signing statement to clarify his understanding of ambiguous provisions of statutes and to explain his view of how he intends to faithfully execute the law, it is a clear abuse of power to use such statements as a license to evade laws that the president does not like or as an end-around provisions designed to foster accountability. I will not use signing statements to nullify or undermine congressional instructions as enacted into law.</p>
<p>In March 2009, two months into his presidency, Obama issued his first signing statement and has since authored at least twenty others. One such signing statement in April 2011 declared Obama’s <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/12/us/politics/12signing.html?_r=0" type="external">intention</a> not to abide by a section of a bill that <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2011/04/president-obama-issues-signing-statement-indicating-he-wont-abide-by-provision-in-budget-bill/" type="external">defunded</a> several agency “czars.”</p>
<p>During the primary and general election, Obama made several <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3ZoKt0hxF0" type="external">promises</a> of transparency in his quest for health care reform. At a January 2008 Democratic candidates’ debate, the candidate declared that the process would not include “negotiating behind closed doors, but [bring] all parties together and [broadcast] those negotiations on C-SPAN.”</p>
<p>Obama&#160; <a href="http://blogs.suntimes.com/sweet/2010/01/obama_finally_admits_he_broke.html" type="external">admitted</a> this was a broken promise in an interview with ABC’s Diana Sawyer. This broken promise, which C-SPAN was <a href="http://www.opencongress.org/articles/view/1432-C-SPAN-Asks-to-Televise-Health-Care-Negotiations" type="external">prepared</a> to help the president fulfill, was:</p>
<p>[a] legitimate mistake that I made during the course of the year, and that is that we had to make so many decisions quickly in a very difficult set of circumstances that after awhile, we started worrying more about getting the policy right than getting the process right.</p>
<p>In 2007, with regard to the Bush administration’s <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/linkset/2007/03/05/LI2007030500666.html" type="external">dismissal</a> of several Justice Department attorneys, Senator Obama <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/06/obama-discovers-the-convenience-of-executive-privilege/258766/" type="external">criticized</a> the administration’s tendency to:</p>
<p>“[h]ide behind executive privilege every time there’s something a little shaky that’s taking place. The administration would be best served by coming clean on this. There doesn’t seem to be any national security issues involved with the US attorney question. There doesn’t seem to be any justification for not offering up some clear plausible rationale for why these US attorneys were targeted when, by all assessments, they were doing an outstanding job. I think the American people deserve to know what was going on there.</p>
<p>On June 20, 2012, President Obama <a href="https://www.boston.com/politicalintelligence/2012/06/20/president-obama-invokes-executive-privilege-for-first-time-block-release-fast-and-furious-documents/LRhJebB0MuDLiEgQWyGReI/story.html" type="external">invoked</a> executive privilege for the first time when the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform was <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2012/jun/20/news/la-pn-obama-invokes-executive-privilege-over-fast-and-furious-documents-20120620" type="external">preparing</a> to vote Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress for his failure to supply subpoenaed documents related to the failed “Fast and Furious” operation that resulted in the death of border agent Brian Terry.</p> | 10 Differences Between Candidate Obama in 2008 vs 2012 | false | https://ivn.us/2012/10/26/10-differences-between-candidate-obama-in-2008-vs-2012/ | 2012-10-26 | 2 |
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<p>Depreciation: A Major Car-Buying Factor</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>For many of us, a new car is one of the biggest purchases of our lifetime, and one of the largest costs associated with that new car is depreciation.</p>
<p>Car depreciation is the amount of value an auto loses over time, and that figure can vary dramatically from car to car. For consumers who keep their car for five years or less, depreciation should be one of the main factors to consider. Those looking to hold on to their car for the long haul may benefit by paying less upfront because the resale value really won't matter five or 10 years later.</p>
<p>Buyers should keep in mind that just because a vehicle has a lousy depreciation value, it doesn't mean it's a bad car. It just means that, for varying reasons, people aren't willing to pay top dollar for that model as a used car.</p>
<p>According to IntelliChoice, the Campbell, Calif.-based research firm, cars in high demand tend to have a high resale value, as do sporty cars, compact cars and the base-line model of a lineup. Large vehicles, midsize cars and minivans tend to lose their value, IntelliChoice says. With that in mind, here are five vehicles that lose a lot of value and what may be better alternatives, along with mpg estimates and manufacturer's suggested retail price, or MSRP. Some models are from 2012 because the 2013 depreciation values aren't out yet.</p>
<p>2012 Kia Sedona LX</p>
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<p>When it comes to minivans, the Kia Sedona may save you money upfront, but if you're concerned with selling it in the short run, you may want to think hard before purchasing it.</p>
<p>Over five years, the 2012 Sedona depreciates by $17,730 and carries a complete cost of ownership of $41,727, according to IntelliChoice. Although the Kia brand has been overhauled in the past few years, the Sedona is the last holdout of the previous generation, says Eric Lyman, vice president of ALG, a Santa Barbara, Calif.-based research firm that ranks vehicles based on their resale value.</p>
<p>"The automobile market is one of rapid change, and without significant enhancements since 2006, the Sedona is a bit outdated in terms of refinement and technology," Lyman says.</p>
<p>Want a minivan that retains more of its value? Check out the 2012 Honda Odyssey, with an MSRP at $28,375. According to IntelliChoice, the Odyssey has a five-year car depreciation of $14,768 and a complete cost of ownership of $38,398 after five years.</p>
<p>2013 Chevrolet Impala LT</p>
<p>Perhaps it's because of consumer perception or the run-of-the-mill interior, but for whatever reason, the Chevrolet Impala doesn't retain as much of its value compared to some of its peers.</p>
<p>According to IntelliChoice, the Impala depreciates by $17,983 in five years and has a complete cost of ownership of $41,327 during that time frame.</p>
<p>"The current 2013 Impala is suffering from a long-in-the-tooth design and an oversupply of vehicles coming out of daily rental-vehicle fleets," Lyman says. The 2014 model-year Impala came out at the beginning of 2013 and is much more competitive, he says. An alternative to the Impala is the2013 Toyota Camry L 4DR Sedan, with an MSRP of $22,235. According to IntelliChoice, the Camry depreciates $9,688 and has a complete cost of ownership of $29,976 after five years.</p>
<p>2012 Jeep Liberty Limited Sport 2WD</p>
<p>The Jeep Liberty is no off-road lightweight, but car reviewers question its handling and performance on the pavement, which could be a contributing factor to its poor resale value. According to IntelliChoice, the Liberty depreciates by $15,239 over five years and has a complete cost of ownership of $41,859.</p>
<p>"In its current form, the Liberty represents a more boxy and utilitarian design," says Lyman. Consumers want SUVs that have more car-like features, he says.</p>
<p>Still, it's not all bad news for Jeep Liberty fans. The Liberty will relaunch for the 2014 model year with "some great new features brought in by the new Fiat partnership," Lyman says.</p>
<p>Can't wait for the new Liberty? An alternative that retains a lot more of its value is the Toyota FJ Cruiser 4X2 AT, with an MSRP of $26,115. According to IntelliChoice, its car depreciation is $8,113 and its complete cost of ownership is $35,641 over five years.</p>
<p>2013 Suzuki Grand Vitara Premium RWD</p>
<p>The Suzuki Grand Vitara may not be a standout when it comes to depreciation, but for consumers who are willing to trade good resale value for upfront affordability, they won't be disappointed by this subcompact SUV.</p>
<p>However, from a depreciation-value standpoint, things don't look like they are going to improve. "With Suzuki exiting the U.S. marketplace, residual values will continue the downward trend that the brand has been experiencing over the past few years," Lyman says.</p>
<p>According to IntelliChoice, the Grand Vitara Premium will lose $14,379 of its value in five years and has a complete cost of ownership of $39,864 in that time frame.</p>
<p>Consumers willing to pay a little more for their subcompact SUV but still want one that holds value will do better with the 2013 Mini Cooper Countryman, with an MSRP of $22,000. According to IntelliChoice, the Countryman depreciates $10,210 in five years and has a complete cost of ownership of $31,974 after five years.</p>
<p>2013 Jaguar XJ AWD</p>
<p>The Jaguar XJ may not only be pricey to buy, but it turns out it is also expensive to own. According to IntelliChoice, the 2013 Jaguar XJ loses $52,014 of its value in five years and has a complete cost of ownership of $92,175 for five years.</p>
<p>"Despite improvements and industry recognition for their new products, Jaguar still suffers from a historical perception of negative quality that impacts (the car's) resale value in the used market," Lyman says.</p>
<p>Coming in a little better in the depreciation category is the 2013 Porsche Panamera, with an MSRP of $80,450. According to IntelliChoice, the Porsche Panamera loses $41,988 of its value in five years and has a complete cost of ownership of $84,293 after five years.</p>
<p>"Porsche has a reputation for engineering excellence in both vehicle performance, product fit and finish that leads to a strong perception of quality that results in a premium in the used market," Lyman says.</p> | Depreciation: 5 Car Models that Lose Value Fast | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2013/04/03/depreciation-5-car-models-that-lose-value-fast.html | 2016-10-11 | 0 |
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<p>But President Barack Obama’s new, open-ended strategy to confront Islamic State fighters in Iraq and Syria is likely to eat into some of the nearly $500 billion in Pentagon spending cuts that were planned over the next decade.</p>
<p>The first five weeks of U.S. airstrikes in northern Iraq cost $262.5 million, according to the Pentagon, and Obama lobbied key members of Congress in recent days to appropriate $500 million to help train and arm Syrian rebels at camps in Saudi Arabia.</p>
<p>While that’s still a pittance compared with the total $496 billion Pentagon budget, or the $1.2 trillion spent for the ground wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the costs of intervention are certain to increase under the plan to step up airstrikes, intensify surveillance and conduct counter-terrorism operations against the Sunni extremist force and its leaders.</p>
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<p>There are already calls in Congress to eliminate the $45 billion in sequestration spending cuts that are set to hit next fiscal year, which starts Oct. 1, and to increase the supplemental appropriations used to fund the actual war-fighting, as opposed to other parts of the Pentagon budget.</p>
<p>Rep. Peter T. King, R-N.Y., who chairs a House subcommittee on counterterrorism and intelligence, said lawmakers should reconsider cuts to the defense budget to ensure the latest military venture is funded for the long haul.</p>
<p>“This is not just bombing a mountainside or securing a dam,” he said. “This is a war that could go on for another 10, 15 years. And to do that we’re going to have to recalibrate our thinking toward defense, and realize that we have to be on a wartime footing when it comes to spending.”</p>
<p>The military action has meant a policy reversal for Obama, who vowed in May 2013 to take America off its “permanent war footing” and to curtail the use of drones. As of Saturday, the U.S. had launched 160 airstrikes in northern Iraq in five weeks, compared with 147 drone strikes over the past three years in northwest Pakistan, where al-Qaida is still based.</p>
<p>In a study released in April, the Pentagon outlined the impact of mandatory cuts, including a drop to 420,000 active-duty soldiers from 470,000 in the Army; the retirement of a Navy aircraft carrier; and scrapping the KC-10 tankers that refuel fighter and bomber jets in midair.</p>
<p>Since taking office in February 2013, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel has proposed, among other things, reducing the size of headquarters staff, cutting the number of troops and retiring fleets of Cold War-era aircraft.</p>
<p>The Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a Washington-based think tank, concluded in a recent report that inflation-adjusted defense spending has declined 21 percent since 2010.</p>
<p>The Pentagon was under pressure to lower war-related spending in the latest budget round of requests for fiscal 2015. At the time, the Pentagon requested $58.6 billion, which is about $20 billion less than the 2014 request.</p>
<p>But the budgets were drawn before the Islamic State fighters began seizing major cities and towns in Iraq last spring. The overseas contingency operations request, which still must be voted on by Congress, will likely be increased while the $496 billion base budget request for 2015 will stay untouched, analysts say.</p>
<p>In addition to new action in Iraq and Syria, the Pentagon plans to train and provide body armor, night-vision goggles and medical kits to Ukrainian military forces facing an insurgency by Russian-backed separatists, at a cost of $70 million.</p>
<p>Hawks in Congress argue that the Islamic State threat shows the folly of cutting military spending. Speaking at a conference Thursday, Rep. Howard “Buck” McKeon, R-Calif., who chairs the House Armed Services Committee, said funding cuts had “hollowed out” America’s armed forces.</p>
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<p /> | Cuts to defense budget threatened by new battle | false | https://abqjournal.com/462187/cuts-to-defense-budget-threatened-by-new-battle.html | 2 |
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<p>Now that the police believe they have in custody the Suburban Sniper, George W. Bush can once again try to get the people to focus on his message that as many as 24 million Iraqis need to be wiped off the earth in order to destroy Saddam Hussein and avenge the uncompleted work of George the Elder.</p>
<p>Saddam, with a Florida-rigged re-election, has done more to destroy human rights in Iraq than any other leader in that nation’s 70-year history as an independent kingdom. So far, the U.S. has been unable to remove Saddam by assassination or force. So, to kill Saddam, President Bush plans to destroy his country.</p>
<p>Beating the war drums at political pep rallies and at State dinners, the President has prepared Americans for war by declaring that Iraq has chemical, biological and, maybe, nuclear weapons. He says we are already fighting a war against terrorism. But, more than two dozen countries now have biological, chemical, or nuclear weapons, and there is no credible evidence there are links between Iraq and the terrorists who destroyed about 3,000 lives on 9/11.</p>
<p>The talk of war with Iraq to stop terrorism and the possible use of weapons against the U.S. is probably the President’s smoke screen to divert attention from the oil slick lobby, which has a long fiduciary interest with the President and his aides. It is also the failure to deal with international terrorism and critical domestic issues. The U.S. hasn’t destroyed al-Queda, nor has it located Osama bin Laden, who may be dead or hiding in a country that was far less capable of waging war than Iraq. But, Iraq does have industrial complexes that blow-up much nicer than do caves for the 6 O’Clock News. Underlying all of these reasons is that the President wants to end the work his father failed to finish more than a decade earlier.</p>
<p>To assure compliance with his wishes, President Bush–with the rabid encouragement of the Vice-President, defense secretary, and attorney general–none of whom ever saw combat–has tightened the noose around the Constitution, declaring that dissent is unpatriotic. They have ordered new restrictions, scripted by the fear of “terrorism,” to be enforced against bookstores, libraries, and American citizens who once thought they were living in a democracy, and not in a nation that has adopted some of the tactics against its own citizens that dictatorships use against theirs.</p>
<p>When the U.S. finishes its sabre-rattling and when the President, backed by a waffling Congress, launches an invasion, we will learn that a war against Iraq may cost $9-$10 billion a month. We will also learn that a “pre-emptive strike,” the kind President Bush proposes and which Japan once launched against the U.S., will undoubtedly bring in additional countries on both sides, escalating the war, the financial cost, and the casualties. To make sure everyone knows we won, we will keep score.</p>
<p>Because most Americans didn’t understand the Vietnam War, and most came to oppose it, the government, aided by a gullible media, turned the war into a sporting contest, with points scored based upon body counts. The more “body kills,” the higher the score. By the end of the war, if readers believed the media and the military, they would have learned that every North Vietnamese and Viet Cong civilian and soldier was killed at least twice. Even accounting for inflated figures, the final score was about a million of the enemy and our allies killed vs. “only” about 54,000 Americans.</p>
<p>During the Gulf War, which helped restore American pride from what is now conceded as a military and diplomatic loss in Vietnam, “only” 282 of the 50,000-120,000 killed were Americans. The military had prepared for Dover Air Force Base to receive as many as 20,000 body bags. We proclaimed victory, but Saddam continued his dictatorship.</p>
<p>By the end of the U.S.-Iraqi War, we will destroy Iraq’s infrastructure, its businesses and homes; we will kill more civilians than military, and write it off as “collateral damage.” Then, as President Bush promised, we will rebuild Iraq at a cost of $150 to $250 billion, more than the President will budget for health care reform or educational improvements; more than he thinks appropriate to improve the transportation system or to reduce the levels of poverty in the United States. The $127 billion budget surplus, which vanished under this President’s stewardship, has been replaced by a $157 billion budget deficit, a reminder of the President’s dismal economic, domestic, and foreign policies.</p>
<p>For at least a decade, the United States will expend funds for an occupation army that future administrations will have to deal with.</p>
<p>Opposing the upcoming war are numerous military leaders who have distinguished themselves in battle and don’t believe a “pre-emptive strike” is necessary or wise. Among those who oppose the President’s call to arms without provocation are Gen. Brent Scowcroft, national security advisor to this president’s father; Gen. Norman Schwartzkopf who led the Coalition force against Iraq in 1990-1991; and, for the most part, Gen. Colin Powell, currently secretary of state, who was chairman of the Joint Chiefs during the Gulf War. They are well aware we may still need those 20,000 body bags for a war the enemy did not start.</p>
<p>But the only voice that counts is that of a former jet jockey for the Texas Air National Guard who never saw combat outside of a bar, and seems to think putting more than three million Americans in harm’s way justifies killing one dictator from the “axis of evil.”</p>
<p>Final Score: President Bush, 1; Everyone else’s opinion: It doesn’t count.</p>
<p>Walter Brasch, professor of journalism at Bloomsburg University, is the author of 13 books; his latest is “ <a href="" type="internal">The Joy of Sax: America During the Bill Clinton Era</a>” a probing and witty look at the Clinton administration. He can be reached at <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a></p> | Scoring the US / Iraq War | true | https://counterpunch.org/2002/11/16/scoring-the-us-iraq-war/ | 2002-11-16 | 4 |
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<p>ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — New Mexico extended its streak of negative job growth to five consecutive months even though it was among 37 states to see a drop in unemployment rates in October.</p>
<p>The state had 5,900 fewer jobs in October than it did in the same month in 2011, a negative 0.7 percent, the New Mexico Department of Workforce Solutions said Tuesday.</p>
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<p>That is an improved picture from September when the deficit from the same month in 2011 was 9,200 jobs.</p>
<p>The job losses began in June after 10 months of over-the-year job growth, department spokeswoman Joy Forehand said.</p>
<p>Lee Reynis, director of the University of New Mexico Bureau of Business and Economic Research, said Tuesday the state’s economy is clearly weak but that monthly unemployment numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ current employment survey might show things are worse than they really are. Those numbers are often revised substantially when additional information becomes available, especially in small states like New Mexico, Reynis said.</p>
<p>“I have been very concerned about the very large negatives, but I can’t confirm the basis for them,” she said. “It is hard to judge the veracity of (the jobs data) coming out. I would not be at all surprised if things were basically flat” instead of declining.</p>
<p>Other indicators, including housing starts and announcements of business relocations, suggest “things are actually looking up,” but “I don’t see them yet in the numbers,” Reynis said.</p>
<p>The October jobs report shows six industries, including health care and education, are currently adding jobs but seven are losing them. Construction reported a loss of 1,300 jobs over the year and government employment lost 4,500 jobs since last year, the department said.</p>
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<p>New Mexico’s unemployment rate dipped to 6.3 percent in October from 6.4 percent in September.</p>
<p>The economy can lose jobs and still show an improved unemployment rate. Unemployment rates show the percentage of the workforce that reports itself as being out of work but actively looking for work. If the workforce shrinks or if more workers stop actively looking for work, the unemployment rate can decline.</p>
<p>A more detailed analysis of New Mexico data will be provided on Monday.</p>
<p>New Mexico counties with the highest unemployment rates were Luna at 11.8 percent, Mora at 11.1 percent, Guadalupe at 8.2 percent, and Taos and McKinley at 7.8 percent, according to department data.</p>
<p>Those with the lowest rates were Los Alamos at 3.4 percent, Lea at 3.8 percent, Eddy at 3.6 percent, De Baca at 4.3 percent, and Union and Harding at 4.4 percent.</p>
<p>Bernalillo County posted a 6.2 percent rate and Santa Fe County was at 4.9 percent.</p>
<p>New Mexico was one of 15 states that showed nonfarm payroll decreases, while 35 showed employment growth, according to the U.S. Labor Department.</p>
<p>Nationwide, the unemployment rate ticked up to 7.9 percent in October. But it has declined a full point in the past year. Employers nationally added 171,000 jobs in October.</p>
<p>Job gains in September and August were also stronger than initially estimated. That raised the average job growth from July through September to 174,000 a month, up from 67,000 a month in the April-June quarter.</p>
<p>The Associated Press contributed to this report. — This article appeared on page B1 of the Albuquerque Journal</p> | N.M. Extends Job Losses to 5 Months | false | https://abqjournal.com/147798/nm-extends-job-losses-to-5-months.html | 2 |
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<p>SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Noble Group (SI:) is in discussions with its North American lenders to extend an October deadline for a $2 billion credit facility, while also taking steps to sell parts of its business to cut debt, its chairman said on Tuesday.</p>
<p>Paul Brough, a board member and restructuring veteran, who took over as the commodity trader’s chairman in May, told shareholders in Singapore that Noble’s U.S. lenders had been very supportive of the company’s plans to sell assets.</p>
<p>“We have approached them for a further extension so that we can complete the oil liquids sale on a stable basis. I am hoping that we can also speak to our RCF (revolving credit facility) lenders about further forbearance from them,” Brough said.</p>
<p>Once Asia’s largest commodities trading house, Noble is slashing jobs and selling assets to cut debt after a crisis-wracked two years. It is in the process of selling its North American gas and power business and expects to announce a deal for its oil liquids unit by the end of September.</p>
<p>In the last few months, Noble also got waivers from other banks on its loan covenants. It has debt due next year also.</p>
<p>The Singapore-listed company said in June its $2 billion credit facility, secured on its inventories and working capital, would be extended by four months from June 20.</p>
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<p>Fusion Media or anyone involved with Fusion Media will not accept any liability for loss or damage as a result of reliance on the information including data, quotes, charts and buy/sell signals contained within this website. Please be fully informed regarding the risks and costs associated with trading the financial markets, it is one of the riskiest investment forms possible.</p> | Noble Group in talks to extend $2 billion credit facility deadline | false | https://newsline.com/noble-group-in-talks-to-extend-2-billion-credit-facility-deadline/ | 2017-09-05 | 1 |
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<p>Make a Wise Choice to Make Dad Happy</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Buying a Father's Day gift is not always easy. Ties? Dear ol' Dad's already got a gazillion of them. Cigars? He's given them up. And please, not another "World's Greatest Dad" T-shirt or more kitschy barbecue gear.</p>
<p>The key to a successful and memorable Father's Day gift is to zero in on Dad's interests and hobbies, suggests Katherine Hutt, spokeswoman for the Better Business Bureau. Yet, before you rush to purchase Red Sox (or Yankees) tickets, book a thrilling experience for your father or simply renew his favorite magazine subscription, Hutt says protect yourself by doing a little research, particularly if you are buying any of these gifts online.</p>
<p>To help with your Father's Day shopping, read on for neat gift ideas, advice for getting good deals and tips on how to avoid getting ripped off. Your dad would approve.</p>
<p>Don't Get Played With Sports Tickets</p>
<p>"Sporting events tickets are such a fun present, but you have to be careful because there are a lot of counterfeit tickets online," Hutt says.</p>
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<p>Buy tickets directly from the venue or stick with reputable ticket brokers such as Telecharge or Ticketmaster. Make sure you check the seating chart online to make sure any cheap tickets won't disappoint Dad with a bad view.</p>
<p>To save money, you could check out resale tickets at StubHub.com. But stay away from websites that won't offer any recourse if the tickets are phony, or simple classified ads hawking secondhand tickets. "I wouldn't buy a Father's Day gift from someone I met on Craigslist," says Hutt.</p>
<p>Make sure you buy more than one ticket, so your dad won't be going alone, she says. Better yet, make it a family outing by going in on the gift with your siblings and buying tickets for the entire family.</p>
<p>Score With Golfing Gift Cards for Dad</p>
<p>If your father loves golf but you can't spring for the latest titanium driver to add to his set of clubs, get a gift card to support his 18-hole habit. Many country clubs and resorts offer golfing gift cards, and they can even be sent out via email as last-minute gifts, says Frank DeBlasi, co-founder of the money-saving site HooplaDoopla.com.</p>
<p>The certificates are typically for regular rounds of play, but some can be purchased for lessons, so Dad can sharpen his skills. "Just make sure that what you purchase doesn't have an expiration date or fees for nonuse. If it does, let Dad know," says DeBlasi.</p>
<p>Since scheduling a round of golf can be pricey around Father's Day, check out discount golf booking sites such as GolfNow.com, suggests Trae Bodge, senior writer for the Insider magazine at deals website RetailMeNot.com. The golf sites allow you to reserve cut-rate tee times at hundreds of courses throughout the United States.</p>
<p>Appeal to Dad's Wild Side</p>
<p>If golf is too tame for your thrill-seeking dad, kick things up a notch by buying him a ticket for an adventure experience such as parachuting, hot air ballooning, scuba diving lessons, white-water rafting, sky diving or even stock car racing.</p>
<p>"If this sounds like your dad, there are many recreational-activity companies out there," says DeBlasi, who adds that sites such as XperienceDays.com or GreatAmericanDays.com help provide these kinds of experiences for a set price.</p>
<p>Note that some events and adventures may be group activities, so Dad may not necessarily get a private lesson or much one-on-one attention. Also, there might not be much choice on dates and times.</p>
<p>"Check to see if there are any cancellation fees if Dad is unable to attend, and the advance notice (the company) needs to refund your money," DeBlasi says. Also, if the event is cancelled on the company's end -- due to weather or other reasons -- make sure you'll be able to get your money back.</p>
<p>Possible Issues With Magazine Subscriptions</p>
<p>Maybe a golf outing, ticket to a ballgame or scuba adventure is not in your Father's Day budget this year. A subscription to a magazine devoted to your dad's favorite sport or activity could be a good gift that lasts all year long.</p>
<p>Though subscriptions are not big-ticket items, be alert for scams. Hutt says door-to-door magazine schemes have been making a comeback, particularly in the Pacific Northwest. "People will come to your door selling magazines for this cause or that, take your money or ask for your credit card information, and you'll never see the magazine."</p>
<p>The best way to give a magazine subscription? "Buy an issue, fill out the subscription card and send it out. Then wrap up the issue with a gift card," says Hutt.</p>
<p>Be careful with websites offering subscriptions to many different magazines, she warns. "Some are perfectly legitimate but some are not, and it can be hard to tell the difference."</p>
<p>Also avoid magazines sold by groups if a processing fee is required, advises Regina Novickis, consumer savings expert for coupon sites including PromotionalCodes.com. "More often than not, the processing fee is higher than the normal cost of the total subscription."</p>
<p>Take Care of Dad and His Yard, Too</p>
<p>If your dad is the type who'd prefer to spend more time relaxing on the couch and less time slaving in the yard, give him a break with a lawn care certificate. Just make sure you are buying from a reputable service, says Hutt. "Check (the bureau) site first for reviews," she says.</p>
<p>Depending on your budget, you could give Dad anywhere from one month to the entire summer off from yard work. "Check first to see if the lawn care company offers month-to-month payments for their service instead of annual contracts," says DeBlasi.</p>
<p>And watch for hidden fees, warns Novickis. "All lawn care companies are not the same," she says. "Some companies consider fertilizer, herbicides and insecticides as part of the standard package, and may charge an extra fee if you prefer to only fertilize, for example."</p>
<p>Watch Carefully: Giving Gifts of Time</p>
<p>Some dads are old-school and still love using a wristwatch -- rather than checking the time on a cellphone. If you're shopping around for a new watch for Father's Day, buy only from a reputable dealer or website. Beware of sellers offering deals too good to be true. "No one is giving away Rolexes for $80," Hutt says.</p>
<p>She notes that some retailers won't take watches back or will give only store credit if they have been removed from the box. "Ask first what the exchange policies are in case you don't get the right model your father wants," she says.</p>
<p>Make a good choice by asking yourself what kind of watch Dad needs and likes: "Will it be for work? Going out? Sports or gadget watch? There are many different kinds of watch styles that are all powered differently," DeBlasi notes. "Get the best one that fits Dad's lifestyle."</p>
<p>Most importantly, check the warranty to make sure the Father's Day gift is covered for the type of wear it's designed for, he says. "Some watch warranties only cover defects in materials or workmanship, such as if the watch suddenly stops for no apparent reason," he adds.</p> | Shop Smart for 6 Popular Father's Day Gifts | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2012/06/05/shop-smart-for-6-popular-father-day-gifts.html | 2017-02-08 | 0 |
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<a href="" type="internal">Email</a> | John Kennedy Wins Senate Runoff in Louisiana | false | http://thewhim.com/john-kennedy-wins-senate-runoff-louisiana/ | 2016-12-10 | 2 |
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<p>NEW YORK — New York real estate billionaire Charles Cohen owns several tall Manhattan buildings but his heart is in the art house.</p>
<p>Cohen’s day job is president and chief executive of Cohen Brothers Realty Corporation, which owns and manages more than 12 million square feet of office space and design centers like the Decoration &amp; Design Building in New York. His net worth is estimated by Forbes at $2.2 billion. But, a movie lover since seeing “Cinderella” at age three and an aspiring director as a teenager, cinema is a passion he’s turned into a thriving independent distribution company that, at least in cultural scope, is starting to dwarf his high-rise holdings.</p>
<p>Cohen Media Group , founded in 2008, has become an increasingly prominent player in the specialty movie business. In February, the company landed its first Oscar, the best foreign language film for Asghar Farhadi’s “The Salesman.” Last month, it opened the handsomely renovated Quad Cinema in New York, earning praise for the boutique theater’s design and creative programming. This week, Cohen Media will take two films (Jacques Doillon’s Auguste Rodin biopic and the latest from French filmmaker Agnes Varda) to the Cannes Film Festival. And on Friday, it will premiere a newly restored “Maurice,” one of the celebrated films of the Merchant-Ivory catalog Cohen acquired in 2014.</p>
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<p>“I’ve been telling people that this past February when I turned 65, my daughter gave me a grandson on my birthday,” said Cohen in a recent interview in his Lexington Avenue office.” Then we won the Academy Award. Now the Quad has opened and we’re going to Cannes. Life is good.”</p>
<p>Cohen, known for meticulousness in appearance, manner and design, is quick to point out that he runs Cohen Media and the Quad as a business, not a non-profit. But while movies are more than a hobby, he’s not driven by the same commercial concerns that the rest of the industry is.</p>
<p>“There are people who collect a lot more art than I do, but there are very few people that collect art films,” he said. “I’m a big believer in preservation, restoration, being able to see these films not only today but tomorrow.”</p>
<p>Movie business history is littered with wealthy men whose money producers gladly pocketed in exchange for a taste of Hollywood glamour — and soon find their back-end deals don’t pay out quite what they expected. Cohen’s first step into movie producing went along those lines when he produced 2008 crime drama “Frozen River.” It was a success in many ways — it earned two Oscar nods — but it led Cohen to consider other avenues.</p>
<p>“I became a distributor and I had the pleasure of losing more money,” he said, chuckling. “But I learned a lesson and it forged a path.”</p>
<p>Cohen Media has since helped bring some of the best films of recent years to American screens. It distributed in the U.S. the Oscar-nominated films “Mustang,” the Turkish-French drama about orphaned sisters in rural Turkey, and “Timbuktu,” the gentle, lyrical portrait of village life under radical Islamist rule. Its restorations have included Buster Keaton’s “The General,” Merchant-Ivory’s “Howard’s End” and Julie Dash’s “Daughters of the Dust,” which earned a citation from the New York Film Critics Circle.</p>
<p>“This is not a flash in the pan,” said Cohen. “This is a systematic, long-term project that will continue to snowball attention and affection from filmgoers.”</p>
<p>It’s not exactly the pervading belief that art-house films and independent movie theaters are today’s hottest investments. Yet New York hasn’t for decades, if ever, been more alive with bustling, exciting movie art-house theaters. And many in the specialty movie business are finding streaming options have connected moviegoers with a great wealth of films.</p>
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<p>“You work all your life, you make all these films, and then if you’re an independent filmmaker, you wonder what’s going to happen to them,” said James Ivory, whose partnership with the late Ismail Merchant made for one cinema’s most unshakable pairings. “Will the collection be broken up or lost? In this case it’s not going to be. And not only owning them, he’s restoring them.”</p>
<p>“Maurice,” Ivory and Ismail Merchant’s 1987 follow-up to “A Room With a View,” is also an E.M. Foster adaptation: a posthumously published novel about gay men in Edwardian England. Starring James Wilby and Hugh Grant, the film’s tenderness of character and extraordinary craft have only grown more exceptional with time.</p>
<p>“I know Charles’ activities include a lot of wheeling and dealing in real estate, but he’s a very sincere, ardent film fan,” said Ivory. “From purchasing those films — not just mine but many, many films that he’s gotten and restored — it’s a great, great thing he’s doing.”</p>
<p>To say the least, Hollywood isn’t much in the business of making films like “Maurice” anymore, or for that matter, most of those put out by Cohen Media. But a handful of deep-pocketed investors like Cohen and Megan Ellison, of Annapurna Productions, are helping keep cinema alive.</p>
<p>“There’s the franchise business and then there’s everything else,” Cohen said. “And everything else is pretty rich.”</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Follow AP Film Writer Jake Coyle on Twitter at: <a href="http://twitter.com/jakecoyleAP" type="external">http://twitter.com/jakecoyleAP</a></p> | Charles Cohen, art-house billionaire, sees value in cinema | false | https://abqjournal.com/1004123/charles-cohen-art-house-billionaire-sees-value-in-cinema.html | 2017-05-16 | 2 |
<p />
<p>CS gas, disingenuously called “tear gas” by the western media, is poisonous and can, and regularly does, kill people. The use of poisonous gas, toxic chemical sprays like mace, high velocity steel slugs coated with rubber and if these aren’t enough, bone-breaking, skull-cracking police baton charges have become standard operating procedures in to many “democratic” countries to list.</p>
<p>The very word “democratic” has been bastardized to the point where it stands next to “terrorism” in the extent of its misuse.</p>
<p>“Democracy; government by the people, exercised directly OR through elected representatives … Democratic; of or for the people in general; popular…Believing in or practicing social equality” (American Heritage College Dictionary).</p>
<p>In other words if a country’s leaders are not popular amongst its own people and there is no social equality in the country then that country is not democratic. Also one has to note that a country does not have to have elections to be democratic if that country’s leaders are in fact doing what their people want.</p>
<p>With the airwaves these days filled with brutal examples of tear gas “democracy” in action it is surely past time for those of us who are looking for a way out of this growing global crisis to begin questioning the very definition of what a “democratic” system of life is really all about.</p>
<p>We hear so much about “corruption” from those most corrupt themselves.</p>
<p>What is a “campaign contribution” of tens of thousands of dollars made by a businessperson to a politician? Or a $100 million from a bankster or financial terrorist to a human rights organization or NGO? A contribution towards good government or for the good of humanity (LOL)?</p>
<p>Or is it just plain common sense that they want something in return, influence or favors and are giving cold hard cash in exchange?</p>
<p>“Bribe; something offered or given to a person in a position of trust to influence that person’s views or conduct” (ibid.).</p>
<p>Simply put, campaign contributions by those seeking a favor in return is bribery, corruption in essence, no matter how many laws are passed making it all “legal”.</p>
<p>The fact is without “campaign contributions”, a.k.a. bribery, western style “democracy” simply cannot function. Could Obama, Merkel, Cameron or any of the western (or increasingly third world) leaders fund their multimillion (or $billion) national campaigns without taking bribes, engaging in corruption?</p>
<p>With western style “tear gas” democracy having taken over most of the world shouldn’t we be taking a second look at those countries that take care of their people first and foremost and quit being constipated with die hard beliefs in the sacredness of “elections”?</p>
<p>Especially when these elections are undeniably bought and paid for by the anti-social equality brigands known as the 1%?</p>
<p>There is so much tear gas democracy these days you can almost taste it coming out of your TV screen and I can only be thankful that I live in a country where I don’t have to worry about such. For the police here don’t have any poisonous gas, toxic chemical sprays, body armor and riot shields, steel bullets coated with rubber or instruments used to electrocute people such as tazers. As a matter of fact, our police don’t even carry firearms; that’s left to the army defending our borders.</p>
<p>But then, I live in a country that is reviled as “undemocratic” by those who are bribed, or blinded by tear gas democracy.</p> | Tear Gas “Democracy” | false | http://foreignpolicyjournal.com/2013/07/03/tear-gas-democracy/ | 2013-07-03 | 1 |
<p>WalMart has <a href="http://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/01/17/wal-mart-touts-plan-to-create-u-s-jobs-in-nod-to-trump.html" type="external">promised</a> to create 10,000 new jobs in the United States.</p>
<p>The company, which is one of the largest employers in the country with 1.5 million workers, made its announcement on Tuesday. The 10,000 new jobs will be in retail, the result of their new e-commerce services and store openings plus enlarging current stores in operation.</p>
<p>There will be an additional 24,000 jobs stemming from construction that will be needed for the creation and expansion of WalMart stores.</p>
<p>"With a presence in thousands of communities and a vast supplier network, we know we can play an important role in supporting and creating American jobs," <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2017/01/17/wal-mart-jobs/96661930/" type="external">said</a> Dan Bartlett, WalMart's vice president of corporate affairs, in a press release.</p>
<p>Additionally, WalMart announced that they would be opening 160 new academies to train over 225,000 workers and funnel $6.8 billion in investments throughout the U.S.</p>
<p>The announcement appears to be a positive rebound from when WalMart had to close 154 stores in January 2016, which resulted in 10,000 lost jobs. However, WalMart will be slashing 1,000 corporate jobs by the end of the month.</p>
<p>WalMart's announcement comes as General Motors announced their <a href="" type="internal">pledge</a> to invest $1 billion in U.S. factories, prompting President-elect Donald Trump to express on jubilation on Twitter that "people are seeing 'big stuff.'"</p>
<p>It's become clear that given Trump's disdain for companies that export jobs from the country, businesses are announcing their intentions to create jobs in the U.S. to avoid the president-elect's ire. There will likely be more companies with similar announcement as Trump's inauguration looms near.</p> | WalMart Pledges To Create 10,000 New Jobs | true | https://dailywire.com/news/12507/walmart-pledges-create-10000-new-jobs-aaron-bandler | 2017-01-17 | 0 |
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<p />
<p>The boys, both 17, "committed a home invasion" in Albuquerque at around 3 a.m. Friday, and fled toward Sandoval County in a vehicle stolen from the home, according to the sheriff's office.</p>
<p>At about 3:50 a.m., the vehicle broke down in the Placitas West area, and one of the boys knocked on the door of a home and asked the resident for jumper cables. The resident notified the sheriff's office.</p>
<p>A second person who was riding a bicycle in the area where the car broke down also contacted police.</p>
<p>Deputies responded to the area and encountered one of the suspects, who fled on foot, and was located later walking near N.M. 165.</p>
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<p>The department's tactical training team followed the second suspect's footprints to a vacant home located on Ridge Road in Placitas, which he had forced his way into, deputies said.</p>
<p>A photo provided by the sheriff's office shows two people standing near an older model tan Ford passenger car parked on the side of a gravel road.</p>
<p>Lt. Keith Elder said the sheriff's office is investigating the incident in cooperation with the Albuquerque Police Department. Elder said the teens' names are not being released at this time, and charges are pending.</p>
<p /> | Teens tied to home invasion caught in Placitas after car breaks down, Sheriff's Office says | false | https://abqjournal.com/653308/teens-tied-to-home-invasion-caught-in-placitas-after-car-breaks-down-sheriffs-office-says.html | 2015-10-02 | 2 |
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<p />
<p>After playing to a 51-51 tie in regulation, the Storm held a two-point lead with 5.4 seconds to go in the first extra session when Gaines scored on a layup, which forced a second OT.</p>
<p>In the next extra period, Espanola went to Gaines again, and this time he hit a tying 3-pointer with 1.7 seconds left.</p>
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<p>The Sundevils then put the game away in the third overtime to advance to the consolation final against Rio Rancho.</p>
<p>Gaines scored 28 points to lead the Sundevils and Nathan Cordova had 18.</p>
<p>Cleveland was led by Kaydon Sneed’s 39 points, which included four field goals from beyond the arc.</p>
<p>Also, Sterling Napier had 16 points and Marcus Williams 12 for the Storm, which was whistled for 32 fouls — 14 more than the Sundevils.</p>
<p>LOS LUNAS 72, CENTENNIAL 47: In Los Lunas, Ben Romero scored 17 points and Chris Sanchez added 15 to help the host Tigers (5-3) roll in a semifinals of the Village of Los Lunas Holiday Classic.</p>
<p>Kevin Vasquez scored 24 points for the Hawks, who trailed 20-4 after one quarter.</p>
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<p>Los Lunas will face Bosque School in tonight’s tournament championship game.</p>
<p>PHOENIX CENTRAL 58, ST. PIUS 48: In Las Vegas, N.M., Central was able to beat the Sartans’ trapping defense in the closing minutes to pull away for a victory in the Stu Clark Tournament.</p>
<p>Samoun Miller had 18 points for Central. Nick Stafford had a game-high 20 points for St. Pius.</p>
<p>CAPITAL 47, MORIARTY 40: Also at the Stu Clark Tournament in Las Vegas, Mikey Lopez scored 19 points to lead the Class 4A Jaguars into today’s boys final.</p>
<p>The Jaguars, ranked third in Class 4A, will take on Phoenix Central High in the title game. Central knocked out St. Pius, New Mexico’s sec.</p>
<p>ABQ. ACADEMY 43, LAGUNA ACOMA 34: At Rio Rancho’s Santa Ana Star Center, Ali Stratton scored 14 points as Academy advanced in the New Mexico American Indian Classic. The Chargers are 2-7 after an 0-7 start. Randi Romero scored a game-high 20 points for Laguna Acoma (9-3).</p>
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<p>LAS CRUCES 60, OÑATE 39: In Las Cruces, Alyssa Abney scored 11 points to lead a deep, balanced attack for the 10-deep Bulldawgs in the Holiday Hoop-La semifinal round. Las Cruces (11-0) gets Hobbs, a Friday night semifinal winner over Mayfield, in today’s final.</p>
<p>Kelsee Rosales scored a game-high 16 points for Oñate (6-6).</p>
<p>ESPANOLA VALLEY 61, TAOS 51: At the Lady Horseman Invitational in Santa Fe, Lauren Quintana scored 23 points to lead the Sundevils (10-3) to one semifinal victory. Alexis Lovato and Ashlynn Trujillo scored 12 apiece.</p>
<p>ST. MICHAEL’S 32, MORIARTY 17: At the Lady Horseman Invitational in Santa Fe, Elizabeth Serrano and Arianna Lovato scored nine each for the Lady Horsemen (6-9), who will play short-handed against Española Valley.</p>
<p>Sophomore Alexandra Groendwold, St. Mike’s leading scorer in the quarterfinal round, bruised her knee against the Pintos and probably will be rested.</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | Española Foils Cleveland In Triple OT | false | https://abqjournal.com/238531/espanola-foils-cleveland-in-triple-ot.html | 2 |
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<p>Monday, Sept. 10</p>
<p>New Orleans at Minnesota, 7:10 p.m. EDT. The Saints’ Drew Brees had a NFL-leading 5,208 yards passing last season, a record seventh time he’s topped the league, and will play out the final year of his contract with New Orleans. Sam Bradford is coming off a career-best season for Minnesota, and also is playing 2017 on an expiring deal while the Vikings wait for 2014 first-round draft pick Teddy Bridgewater to recover from a severe knee injury last summer.</p>
<p>___</p>
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<p>Los Angeles Chargers at Denver, 10:20 p.m. EDT. Chargers quarterback Philip Rivers is 3-9 in his last 12 games against Von Miller and the Broncos, with 18 touchdowns and 16 interceptions. Rivers also has been sacked 37 times by Denver in that span, including 13 by Miller. Vance Joseph will be making his head coaching debut for the Broncos.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>STARS</p>
<p>Passing</p>
<p>— Matthew Stafford, Lions, tossed four touchdown passes and went 29 of 41 for 292 yards with an interception in his first game as the NFL’s highest-paid player, leading Detroit to a 35-23 victory over Arizona.</p>
<p>— Matt Ryan, Falcons, threw for 321 yards and a touchdown in Atlanta’s 23-17 win at Chicago.</p>
<p>— Carson Wentz, Eagles, passed for 307 yards and two scores to help Philadelphia top Washington 30-17.</p>
<p>— Jared Goff, Rams, went 21 of 29 for a career-high 306 yards and a TD in Los Angeles’ 46-9 rout of Indianapolis.</p>
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<p>— Derek Carr, Raiders, had 262 yards passing and two touchdowns in Oakland’s 26-16 win at Tennessee — his first game since breaking his right leg late last season.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Rushing</p>
<p>— LeSean McCoy, Bills, ran for 110 yards on 22 carries in Buffalo’s 21-12 win over the New York Jets.</p>
<p>— Leonard Fournette, Jaguars, had 100 yards rushing and a touchdown on 26 attempts in his NFL debut, helping Jacksonville to a 29-7 win at Houston.</p>
<p>— Ezekiel Elliott, Cowboys, rushed for 104 yards on 26 carries and caught five passes for 36 yards in Dallas’ 19-3 win over the New York Giants.</p>
<p>— Terrance West, Ravens, ran for 80 yards and a TD on 19 carries in Baltimore’s 20-0 victory at Cincinnati.</p>
<p>— Marshawn Lynch, Raiders, had 76 yards rushing on 18 attempts in Oakland’s 26-16 win at Tennessee — his first regular-season game since coming out of retirement.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Receiving</p>
<p>— Antonio Brown, Steelers, caught 11 passes for 182 yards in Pittsburgh’s 21-18 win at Cleveland.</p>
<p>— Golden Tate, Lions, had 10 receptions for 107 yards as Detroit topped Arizona 35-23.</p>
<p>— Kenny Golladay, Lions, caught two TD passes in his NFL debut to help Detroit defeat Arizona 35-23.</p>
<p>— Nelson Agholor, Eagles, had 86 yards receiving, including a 58-yard TD, in Philadelphia’s 30-17 victory at Washington.</p>
<p>— Austin Hooper, Falcons, had 128 yards receiving and a TD on two catches in Atlanta’s 23-17 win at Chicago.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Special Teams</p>
<p>— Giorgio Tavecchio, Raiders, kicked field goals of 20, 52, 52 and 43 yards in his NFL debut, helping Oakland top Tennessee 26-16.</p>
<p>— Matt Prater, Lions, made a 58-yard field goal and averaged 34.8 yards on four punts — with a long of 47 — in relief of the injured Kasey Redfern in Detroit’s 35-23 victory over Arizona</p>
<p>— Greg Zuerlein, Rams, made all three of his field-goal attempts and five extra points to help kick Los Angeles past Indianapolis 46-9.</p>
<p>— Matt Bryant, Falcons, booted three field goals and two extra points in Atlanta’s 23-17 win at Chicago.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Defense</p>
<p>— Calais Campbell and Yannick Ngakoue, Jaguars. Campbell had four of Jacksonville’s franchise-record 10 sacks in a 29-7 win at Houston. Ngakoue had two sacks and forced two fumbles.</p>
<p>— Ryan Kerrigan, Redskins, returned an interception of Carson Wentz 24 yards for a touchdown in Washington’s 30-17 loss to Philadelphia. He has scored on all three of his career INTs.</p>
<p>— Brandon Graham, Eagles, had two sacks and forced a fumble in Philadelphia’s 30-17 victory at Washington.</p>
<p>— Terrell Suggs, Ravens, sacked Cincinnati’s Andy Dalton twice and forced a fumble in Baltimore’s 20-0 win.</p>
<p>— T.J. Watt, Steelers. The little brother of J.J. Watt had two sacks and an interception in his NFL debut, helping Pittsburgh to a 21-18 win at Cleveland.</p>
<p>— Justin Bethel, Cardinals, returned Matthew Stafford’s first pass 82 yards for a touchdown in Arizona’s 35-23 loss at Detroit.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>STREAKS &amp; STATS</p>
<p>Philadelphia’s 30-17 win at Washington on Sunday snapped a five-game skid against the Redskins dating to Sept. 9, 2014. The Eagles won at FedEx Field for the first time since 2013. … Pittsburgh’s Ben Roethlisberger improved to 21-2 in his career against Cleveland with a 21-18 win. The Steelers also improved to 32-6 against the Browns since 1999. Meanwhile, the Browns have lost 13 straight openers. … Jacksonville had a franchise-record 10 sacks and forced four turnovers against Houston in a 29-7 victory, its first in a season-opener since 2011. … Jets quarterback Josh McCown went 26 of 39 for 187 yards in a 21-12 loss at Buffalo, opening his 15th NFL season by extending his personal losing streak to eight games. The skid dates to Oct. 11, 2015, when he led Cleveland to a 33-30 win over Baltimore. McCown is 1-17 in his last 18 starts. … Aaron Rodgers’ regular-season streak of passes without an interception ended at a career-high 251 when Nazair Jones intercepted him at 9:26 of the first quarter of Green Bay’s 17-9 win over Seattle. It was Rodgers’ first interception since Nov. 13, 2016, at Tennessee. … Atlanta’s Austin Hooper had an 88-yard touchdown reception in the Falcons’ 23-17 win at Chicago, the longest TD catch by a tight end in a season opener in NFL history.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>MILESTONE</p>
<p>Dallas tight end Jason Witten broke the franchise record for yards receiving in the Cowboys’ 19-3 season-opening victory over the Giants. Witten, who scored the Cowboys’ first touchdown on a 12-yard catch and finished with seven catches for 59, broke Hall of Fame receiver Michael Irvin’s club record of 11,904 yards. Witten, already the franchise leader in catches, now has 1,096 receptions for 11,947 yards. Witten is the only tight end other than Tony Gonzalez with at least 1,000 catches and 10,000 yards.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>RAM TOUGH</p>
<p>Los Angeles Rams cornerback Trumaine Johnson and safety Lamarcus Joyner each returned interceptions for scores, and defensive end Morgan Fox had a safety in a 46-9 win over Indianapolis. The Rams became the first team in NFL history to return two INTs for TDs and a safety in a season opener.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>STINGY START</p>
<p>Baltimore’s 20-0 win at Cincinnati was the Ravens’ third season-opening shutout. They also blanked Pittsburgh in 2000 and Tampa Bay in 2006, both on the road. The Bengals hadn’t been blanked in their season opener since 1979, when they lost at Denver 10-0. They hadn’t been shut out at Paul Brown Stadium since 2001 by the Bears.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>DIAPER DANDY</p>
<p>The Los Angeles Rams routed the Indianapolis Colts 46-9 Sunday in 31-year-old Sean McVay’s impressive debut as the youngest head coach in modern league history. The Rams produced their highest-scoring performance since November 2014 in their first game since McVay took over a franchise that went 4-12 in its 13th straight non-winning season and 12th straight non-playoff season.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>DEBUTS</p>
<p>Cleveland’s DeShone Kizer ran for a 1-yard TD and threw a 3-yard scoring pass in an impressive debut, but came up just short in the Browns’ 21-18 loss to Pittsburgh. … Houston coach Bill O’Brien replaced Tom Savage with rookie Deshaun Watson at halftime of the Texans’ 29-7 loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars on Sunday, leaving questions about who will start on Thursday night for a team long plagued with problems at the position. Watson was 12 of 23 for 102 yards and had two carries for 16 yards. Savage managed just 62 yards passing and lost two fumbles, including one which was returned for a touchdown. … Carolina first-round pick Christian McCaffrey had an up-and-down debut in a 23-3 win at San Francisco. The former Stanford star gained 45 yards on 13 carries and added five catches for 38 yards, but also lost a fumble in the fourth quarter.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>BEWARE THE RAVENS</p>
<p>Baltimore’s rebuilt defense picked off Andy Dalton four times and forced him to fumble in the Ravens’ 20-0 victory over the Cincinnati Bengals. Dalton has nine three-interception games during his career, four of them against Baltimore. His only other four-interception game also was against the Ravens in the 2013.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>RAIDERS REPLACEMENT</p>
<p>Giorgio Tavecchio kicked field goals of 20, 52, 52 and 43 yards in his NFL debut, helping Oakland beat Tennessee 26-16. He was signed Friday to fill in for the Raiders’ all-time leading scorer and 18-year veteran Sebastian Janikowski, who’s on injured reserve with a bad back. Tavecchio became the first player in league history to make two field goals of at least 50 yards in his debut.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>BEAST MODE RETURNS</p>
<p>Marshawn Lynch took the first carry of the game for Oakland and rumbled right over Pro Bowl defensive lineman Jurrell Casey on the Raiders’ final scoring drive on one of his six rushes to set up the clinching field goal in a 26-16 win over Tennessee.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>OPENING ONSIDE</p>
<p>Tennessee became the first team since 2009 to open a season with an onside kick, pulling one off against Oakland in a 26-16 loss. The Minnesota Vikings were the previous, and they also didn’t recover the kick. Ryan Succop’s kick went to Shalom Luani. Derek Carr completed three passes, Marshawn Lynch rumbled 14 yards on his first carry, and Amari Cooper finished the drive with an 8-yard TD catch for a quick 7-0 lead for the Raiders.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>BACK IN BUSINESS</p>
<p>Both Oakland’s Derek Carr and Tennessee’s Marcus Mariota broke their right leg hours apart on Christmas Eve for season-ending injuries — and both were back on the field for the season opener — a 26-16 win by the Raiders. Carr finished his third season by tying Ezekiel Elliott of Dallas for third in voting for the AP MVP award after leading Oakland to a 12-4 season, while Mariota led the Titans to a 9-7 mark in just his second season. Carr threw for 262 yards and two touchdowns, while Mariota looked healthy in running for a 10-yard TD and threw for 256 yards.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>SIDELINED</p>
<p>A person familiar with the situation said that Jacksonville Jaguars receiver Allen Robinson is out for the season after tearing the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee in the season opener. The person spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity because the team had not released details of Robinson’s injury. Robinson landed awkwardly on his left knee while making a catch in the first quarter of Sunday’s 29-7 victory at Houston and did not return. Tests revealed a season-ending injury, the person said. … Houston linebacker Brian Cushing, tight ends Ryan Griffin and C.J. Fiedorowicz and receiver Bruce Ellington all left with concussions. … Arizona running back David Johnson left the Cardinals’ 35-23 at Detroit loss with a wrist injury in the third quarter. Johnson, who led the league with 2,118 yards from scrimmage and 20 touchdowns last season, was limited to 23 yards rushing on 11 carries and had six receptions for 68 yards. … Baltimore running back Danny Woodhead injured his left hamstring on the opening series and didn’t return to the Ravens’ 20-0 win at Cincinnati. Linebacker Za’Darius Smith hurt his left knee in the second quarter and was helped off the field. … Philadelphia lost cornerback Ronald Darby to what looked like a serious right ankle injury early in the second quarter of the Eagles’ 30-17 win at Washington. Kicker Caleb Sturgis, who made three field goals, was injured late in the game.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>SPEAKING</p>
<p>“Last year was last year. … We just got in there and got back to work. We just got the win today. We just put our head down and continued to work.” — Atlanta’s Julio Jones on opening with a 23-17 win at Chicago while coming off a Super Bowl loss.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>“I could have avoided it if I wanted to, but I felt like I kind of had to take it a little bit.” — a grinning Rams coach Sean McVay after the 31-year-old coach — the youngest in modern NFL history — led Los Angeles to a 46-9 win over Indianapolis in his debut.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>More AP NFL: <a href="http://www.pro32.ap.org" type="external">www.pro32.ap.org</a> and <a href="http://www.twitter.com/AP_NFL" type="external">www.twitter.com/AP_NFL</a></p> | NFL Today, Week 1 | false | https://abqjournal.com/1061541/nfl-today-week-1.html | 2 |
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<p>If they won't still get in touch with us, then we will find a way to reach them first with a message. Humanity is keeping hopes alive that we can eventually talk to aliens as scientists launched a major program aimed at sending messages to aliens despite strong warnings that doing so could be dangerous to the earth and to humanity.</p>
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<p>Messaging Extraterrestrial Intelligence or METI is a new project that will start in 2018 that aims to find a way to send out signals into space so that extraterrestrials can pick them up. The group behind METI hopes to raise $1 million for the work to commence. Part of the money will fund building or borrowing a powerful transmitter capable of sending out messages into the universe.</p>
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<p>The team would also devise the best plan to achieve its goal especially in terms of crafting a message that could be understood by potentially other living things in the distant universe. The scientists are looking at basic mathematical and scientific concepts for their initial message.</p>
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<p>There are no regulations governing messages that could be sent into space, neither are there any restrictions on what messages should or could contain.This gives METI the freedom to proceed with their project even if they meet any objections in the future. The group said their project is directed towards the good intention of learning and sharing information.</p>
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<p>Other scientists have long warned, however, that attempts to contact aliens can be dangerous and might lead to humanity's own " complete destruction". Stephen Hawking for one, earlier this year warned that we should even be wary of responding to any message from aliens comparing such possibility to the experience of native Americans with meeting Christopher Columbus, which he said " didn't turn out so well" for those being visited.</p>
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<p>Hawking has always cautioned that any civilization humanity might encounter is likely to regard us as "no more developed than bacteria" and as such it might not just stop at looking to kill us but in " wiping us out because it does not care about us."</p>
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<p>There have been previous efforts to send out messages into space including NASA's pioneer 10 and 11 spacecraft that carried messages written into plaques and a record, as well as radio messages meant to be delivered into the universe. It was not established, however, if those messages were received. Some have also suggested the possibility that for all we know, aliens have been similarly trying to send us messages or that we may unknowingly received such already. Scientists have concluded, however, that we have yet to succeed in hearing from aliens or talking to them.Still, we hold on to possibilities.</p> | Scientists Launch New Program Aiming To Talk To Aliens | true | http://thegoldwater.com/news/882-Scientists-Launch-New-Program-Aiming-To-Talk-To-Aliens | 2016-12-28 | 0 |
<p>Sales of new U.S. homes edged up modestly in October, led by a big jump in activity in the Midwest.</p>
<p>New home sales advanced 0.7 percent last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 458,000, the Commerce Department reported Wednesday. That October increase a smaller 0.4 percent gain in September and put sales at the highest point since May.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>The strength last month stemmed from a big 15.8 percent increase in sales in the Midwest and a smaller 7.1 percent rise in the Northeast. Those increases offset a 1.9 percent fall in sales in the South, which accounts for half of the new-home market, and a 2.7 percent drop in the West.</p>
<p>The median price of a home sold in October was $305,000, up 16.5 percent from a year ago.</p>
<p>Housing has struggled to recover since the recession ended in June 2009. Many potential buyers lack the savings and strong credit history needed to afford a home, causing them to rent or remain in their existing homes instead of upgrading. New home sales remain sharply below the annual rate of 700,000 seen during the 1990s.</p>
<p>In an encouraging sign, sales of existing homes rose 1.5 percent in October to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.26 million, according to the National Association of Realtors. October marked the first month of 2014 in which sales of previously owned homes were higher than the same month in 2013.</p>
<p>A combination of factors has depressed sales. An unusually harsh winter crippled sales at the beginning of the year and even after the snow had melted, tight credit, rising home prices and flat incomes for many Americans have limited the number of buyers who could afford a home.</p> | US new home sales edge up 0.7 percent in October to fastest pace since May | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2014/11/26/us-new-home-sales-edge-up-07-percent-in-october-to-fastest-pace-since-may.html | 2016-03-05 | 0 |
<p />
<p><a href="" type="internal" />While appearing on Fox and Friends, author Ed Klein said that Barack Obama is setting up a shadow government as part of a left-wing insurgency to undermine the incoming Trump administration, starting on inauguration day.</p>
<p>“For the past 100 years every president who is outgoing has packed up his stuff gone home and not criticized his successor. This is not what the Obamas are planning to do,” he said, according to a transcript posted at the <a href="http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2016/12/report-obama-setting-shadow-government-undermine-trump-starting-inauguration-day/" type="external">Gateway Pundit</a>.</p>
<p>Klein went on to say the Obamas have rented an eight-bedroom mansion in Washington, D.C., near Joe Lockhart, Bill Clinton’s last press secretary.</p>
<p>“In that house,” he said, “there’s enough room for Valerie Jarrett and Michelle and the kids. A place for ten cars to park. They are setting up what they are calling a shadow government.”</p>
<p>But, Pete Hegseth said, the Obamas claim it is because the children want to stay in D.C.</p>
<p>“That’s not the real reason they are staying there. They are staying there because despite what the president said in his press conference, he’s in a sense of outrage over this incoming Trump Administration, which he thinks is going to wipe out his legacy. So he’s setting up this kind of almost insurgency, picking people in foreign affairs, labor, abortion, union matters and setting them up to start appearing on television, making speeches and doing op-ed pieces for next four years, you’re going to see not only a Trump Administration but you’re going to see a shadow government opposing the Trump Administration,” Klein added, per the Gateway Pundit.</p>
<p>Here’s video of his statement:</p>
<p>Related:</p>
<p>If you haven’t checked out and liked our&#160; <a href="https://www.facebook.com/ConservativeFiringLine?fref=ts" type="external">Facebook</a>&#160;page, please go&#160; <a href="https://www.facebook.com/ConservativeFiringLine?fref=ts" type="external">here</a>&#160;and do so.</p>
<p>And if you’re as concerned about Facebook censorship as we are, go <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Banned-Facebook-Enables-Militant-Islamic/dp/1944212221/" type="external">here</a> and order this new book:</p> | Ed Klein: Obama setting up shadow government to undermine Trump starting on inauguration day | true | http://conservativefiringline.com/ed-klein-obama-setting-shadow-government-undermine-trump-starting-inauguration-day/ | 2016-12-19 | 0 |
<p>Federal scientists and land managers who've been crafting strategies to protect a ground-dwelling bird's habitat across the American West for nearly two decades are going back to the drawing board under a new Trump administration edict to reassess existing plans condemned by ranchers, miners and energy developers.</p>
<p>Federal officials are wrapping up a series of public meetings with three sessions starting Tuesday in Utah ahead of a Nov. 27 cutoff for comment on Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke's order last month to consider revisions to land management amendments for the greater sage grouse that were adopted under the Obama administration.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Zinke says he wants to make sure the amendments don't harm local economies in 11 western states and allow the states to have maximum control over the efforts within their borders.</p>
<p>Conservationists say it's a thinly veiled attempt to allow more livestock grazing and drilling, similar to Trump's efforts to roll back national monument designations, but on a much larger scale. They warn it could land the hen-sized bird on the endangered species list in 2020 when the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is scheduled to review its 2015 decision not to list it.</p>
<p>"They appear to be dismantling the whole land-planning amendment system and starting over," said Patrick Donnelly, the Center for Biological Diversity's Nevada state director.</p>
<p>"It's revisionist history," he told a Fish and Wildlife Service official during a scoping meeting-turned-brainstorming session at a Sparks hotel-casino Wednesday night.</p>
<p>Instead of recording public testimony, agency officials marked up easel pads with lists of criticisms, concerns and suggestions. About 80 participants moved between five breakout groups including "minerals," ''livestock grazing," and "wildlife and vegetation."</p>
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<p>They treaded familiar ground. Disagreement reigned over the size of protective buffer zones around grouse breeding grounds, states' role in setting federal policy and whether cattle or wild horses cause more habitat degradation. There was general agreement that invasive cheat grass is fueling one of the biggest threats - catastrophic wildfires - but little consensus on what to do about it.</p>
<p>"I don't understand why we're starting all over again," shouted a man who briefly disrupted the meeting and refused to provide his name.</p>
<p>Nevada Farm Bureau Vice President Doug Busselman said research increasingly suggests properly regulated grazing reduces fire fuels. But he said existing policy is "taking a restrictive approach ... and then watching massive fires sweep across the landscape, setting up the process for expansion of cheat grass, then more fire."</p>
<p>The U.S. House Natural Resources Committee heard the same thing last month from Idaho House Speaker Scott Bedke, a fifth-generation rancher who blames grazing restrictions for a wildfire that wiped out his family's winter grazing allotment this year.</p>
<p>"In the process of placating anti-grazing activists, federal agencies have made the No. 1 threat to the greater sage grouse in Idaho worse," Bedke said. Idaho Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter, a Republican, filed one of a series of lawsuits aimed at blocking the Obama plans.</p>
<p>Conversely, Republican Gov. Matt Mead of Wyoming, Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper of Colorado and Democratic Gov. Steve Bullock of Montana have expressed concern that altering existing plans could undermine efforts to prevent a listing. Nevada GOP Gov. Brian Sandoval also has cautioned against wholesale changes, although he applauded Zinke's recent lifting of a temporary ban on new mining claims across about 15,600 square miles (40,400 square kilometers) adopted under Obama.</p>
<p>Montana Fish and Wildlife Commission Chairman Dan Vermillion said existing protections took a diverse group of stakeholders years to work out.</p>
<p>"Those plans were essential to keeping sage grouse from becoming endangered," he wrote in a Nov. 7 letter to Zinke.</p>
<p>That's the message Karen Boeger delivered in Sparks.</p>
<p>"We all duked it out on these plans," said Boeger, a retired teacher and member of the Nevada Chapter of Backcountry Hunters and Anglers who previously served on a Bureau of Land Management advisory board. "We've hardly gotten out of the chute. Let's give it a chance."</p>
<p>The bureau's acting deputy director, John Ruhs, understands the frustration.</p>
<p>"A lot of folks have been engaged in this topic for a long time. Some have been at the table going back 15 years or more," said Ruhs, who's worked for the agency in Nevada, Oregon, Colorado and Idaho.</p>
<p>"We're trying to find the best methods to allow all uses of the land to occur and still ensure protection of habitat," he said. "It's a tall order."</p>
<p>Donnelly, whose Arizona-based group has sued over failure to list hundreds of species, said the intent of the Obama amendments "was very clear: Prevent the listing of the sage grouse." That goal seems to have gotten lost, he said.</p>
<p>"We heard a lot about mineral withdrawals and local collaboration, but all in the name of what?" Donnelly asked. "Are we still committed to conserving sage grouse, or is the intention to mine and drill every acre of the West? If that's the case, we are plunging head-long toward listing the grouse."</p> | US sage grouse policy heading back to square one | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/11/11/us-sage-grouse-policy-heading-back-to-square-one.html | 2017-11-11 | 0 |
<p>"Their Children Can't Vote, Will You?" reads a black and white pamphlet depicting black mothers whose children were killed by police officers. The pamphlet also contains the names of their dead children.</p>
<p>The New York Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/05/us/politics/young-blacks-voice-skepticism-on-hillary-clinton-worrying-democrats.html" type="external">reports</a> that focus group testing of this message showed it to be more effective than an alternative proposed flyer with a picture of Donald Trump and reading, "We have to beat the racists."</p>
<p>Although unspecified, political observers can assume the pamphlet's list of names includes Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Freddie Gray, Sandra Bland, and other dead blacks cast as racial martyrs by the left.</p>
<p>Hillary Clinton's campaign and her affiliates are deploying racial agitprop fused with the narrative of Black Lives Matter in order to mobilize black voters.</p>
<p>Also reported is that Democrat operatives are "expressing alarm at the lack of enthusiasm [for Clinton]" among young black youngers. Young black voters are said to lack confidence in Clinton's sincerity in her claimed pursuit of "racial equality and justice."</p>
<p>"She was part of the whole problem that started sending blacks to jail," said a young black man from Ohio, indirectly referencing the <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-36020717" type="external">so-called</a> <a href="https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-103hr3355enr/pdf/BILLS-103hr3355enr.pdf" type="external">Crime Bill of 1994</a>.</p>
<p>Turnout among black voters is critical for Democrat electoral fortunes. Black proportions of swing states' populations are not insignificant.</p>
<p>According the 2015 census:</p>
<p>Political overtures to varying racial and ethnic minorities are not new. Racial agitation and commensurate perceptions of division, however, are reaching new highs. Clinton's racial agitation, in the tradition of President Barack Obama, casts America as a broadly racist society with antipathy towards blacks.</p>
<p>Below is a Clinton campaign ad pushing the narrative of Black Lives Matter with Mothers of the Movement.</p>
<p>Follow Robert Kraychik on <a href="https://twitter.com/kr3ch3k" type="external">Twitter</a>.</p> | Clinton Allies Use Dead Blacks as GOTV Props | true | https://dailywire.com/news/8904/clinton-allies-use-dead-blacks-gotv-props-robert-kraychik | 2016-09-05 | 0 |
<p>LITCHFIELD, Ill. (AP) — A bald eagle has taken to the skies in central Illinois after months of rehabilitation for injuries she received in a fight.</p>
<p>Martha was released at Lake Lou Yaeger in Litchfield as dozens of onlookers rooted her on.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.sj-r.com/news/20180120/bald-eagle-takes-flight-at-litchfield-lake-after-rehab" type="external">The State Journal-Register</a> reports some of the over 500 people attending the release Saturday said they hoped Martha would reunite with George, the bald eagle who has been her nesting partner. The two have known Lake Lou Yaeger south of Springfield as their home since the early 2000s.</p>
<p>Martha was found last April in a ditch just outside the entrance to Rainmaker Campground near Butler.</p>
<p>Friends of Lake Lou Yaeger president Robert Wilson said Martha was clawed under the neck area, and workers at the TreeHouse Wildlife Center in Dow wanted to make sure all of those injuries healed.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Information from: The State Journal-Register, <a href="http://www.sj-r.com" type="external">http://www.sj-r.com</a></p>
<p>LITCHFIELD, Ill. (AP) — A bald eagle has taken to the skies in central Illinois after months of rehabilitation for injuries she received in a fight.</p>
<p>Martha was released at Lake Lou Yaeger in Litchfield as dozens of onlookers rooted her on.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.sj-r.com/news/20180120/bald-eagle-takes-flight-at-litchfield-lake-after-rehab" type="external">The State Journal-Register</a> reports some of the over 500 people attending the release Saturday said they hoped Martha would reunite with George, the bald eagle who has been her nesting partner. The two have known Lake Lou Yaeger south of Springfield as their home since the early 2000s.</p>
<p>Martha was found last April in a ditch just outside the entrance to Rainmaker Campground near Butler.</p>
<p>Friends of Lake Lou Yaeger president Robert Wilson said Martha was clawed under the neck area, and workers at the TreeHouse Wildlife Center in Dow wanted to make sure all of those injuries healed.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Information from: The State Journal-Register, <a href="http://www.sj-r.com" type="external">http://www.sj-r.com</a></p> | Bald eagle takes flight at Litchfield lake after rehab | false | https://apnews.com/amp/45c2f647c5524ad6b04b344934dc4620 | 2018-01-21 | 2 |
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<p>While it’s certainly good news that the Bush administration is approaching North Korea via the negotiation table and not at gunpoint, it remains to be seen what the current multilateral talks will achieve.</p>
<p>On Wednesday, China hosted both the Koreas, the United States, Japan and Russia in the first day of talks regarding Kim Jong Il’s nuclear status. Tensions have been running high since UN inspectors were kicked out of North Korea in December. Since then Jong Il’s administration claims to be busy reprocessing fuel rods, but American intelligence officials have not publicly confirmed such claims.</p>
<p>The message for North Korea was clear: stop making nukes and comply with international protocals. While the parties were essentially unified in their message for Jong Il, it’s not clear how North Korea can be <a href="http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Korea/EH27Dg05.html" type="external">first North Korean nuclear crisis</a> in 1993.</p>
<p>Jang Sun-min writes in Asia Times that part of the problem is that North Korea see the talks as <a href="http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Korea/EH28Dg05.html%22" type="external">serving foreign interests</a>:</p>
<p>“North Korea doesn’t perceive the US-led multilateral negotiation framework as a cooperative effort to resolve its nuclear issue, but as a mechanism to force the abandonment of its nuclear program.</p>
<p>North Korea and the US are fighting their own fierce battles with time, to avoid economic isolation in the international community and to prevent North Korea from developing nukes, respectively. If Pyongyang should fail in its nuclear negotiations and Bush wins the US presidency again in next year’s election, North Korea would be in more danger of military strikes from the US. For North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il, this would mean the collapse of his regime. Conversely, if the US should fail in its negotiations and North Korea should declare the completion of its nuclear development prior to the US presidential election, the Bush administration would be chastised for failing to solve the nuclear crisis, and this would have an impact on Bush’s re-election campaign. However, if the Bush administration should suggest a roadmap to a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula and thus successfully prohibit North Korea from developing nukes, history would appreciate the incumbent administration differently than otherwise.”</p>
<p>With no promises from the United States, Jong Il is in a precarious situation. The Christian Science Monitor points out that even with complying to inspections, North Korea has no guarantee that the <a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0828/p08s02-comv.html" type="external">US army won’t show up on their doorstep</a>:</p>
<p>“[T]he North saw in Iraq how the US abandoned inspections in favor of invasion. North Korea realizes that no matter how much it opens its closed society to inspections, the US could suspect a nuclear bomb under every rock.</p>
<p>The US certainly should be suspicious. North Korea’s diplomatic history is rife with deception. Only with continuing pressure from its only patron, China, will the North see the futility of throwing Northeast Asia, and perhaps the world, into a dangerous nuclear confrontation.”</p>
<p>Evidence that North Korea has <a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0828/p06s01-woap.html" type="external">limited nuclear capabilities</a> is strong, but the nation has not come out and admitted or denied their capabilities. But despite the lack of transparency, Claudia Rosett of the Wall Street Journal encourages negotiators to go slowly, and remember who they’re dealing with.</p>
<p>“[W]hatever talks may now in reality take place, it would be of considerable value for our talkers to keep in mind–even beyond North Korea’s huge, horrendous record of lies, and broken promises about its nuclear bomb program–that regimes which routinely betray, brutalize and butcher their own people are unlikely to deal in good faith with others. It is a rather different set of values they have signed onto.”</p>
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<p /> | Talking Nuclear | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2003/08/talking-nuclear/ | 2003-08-29 | 4 |
<p>I have a secret – It’s classified. I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you.</p>
<p>The possibilities are endless. Quotes from Top Gun can be worked into most conversations if you want to, and the thought of being at the real Top Gun school and quoting ‘Top Gun’ well that is is what I call a target-rich environment.</p>
<p>Don’t get too excited, though, if you feel the need, the need for speed, there’s a catch. The real Top Gun school, which&#160;moved&#160;from&#160;Naval Air Station Miramar&#160;where it was established on March 3rd, 1969, to the Naval Strike and Air Warfare Center at NAS Fallon, Nevada in 1996, well, &#160;she’s lost that loving feeling.</p>
<p>It was reported on AMC’s movie blog that any instructor who <a href="http://blogs.amctv.com//movie-blog/2011/08/story-notes-trivia-top-gun.php" type="external">quotes</a>Top Gun is fined $5. That seems like five dollars well spent if&#160;your ego writes checks your body can’t cash. I know that members of my son’s squadron&#160;would turn and burn and be permanently broke if they were there.</p>
<p>It is not clear if giving the finger,&#160;gnashing your teeth or coughing “bullshit” into your fist is considered quoting the movie but if they are there’s a total nine quotes packed into this post.</p>
<p>Featured Image via&#160;By U.S. Air Force photo/Capt. Justin T. Watson – Web site of the United States Air Force: image, <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2995667" type="external">Public Domain</a>.</p> | Shhh… Don’t Mention Top Gun (VIDEO) | true | http://offthemainpage.com/2017/03/12/shhh-dont-mention-top-gun-video/ | 2017-03-12 | 4 |
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<p>KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A third wave of sleet and drizzle glazed swaths of the central U.S. on Sunday, extending icy weather that some meteorologists began acknowledging fell short of dire forecasts.</p>
<p>Much of the region remained under an ice storm warning on the eve of the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday as stretches continued getting pelted by rain, often in areas where temperatures hovered around freezing.</p>
<p>The freeze made roads harrowing. In Kansas near Kansas City, two troopers escaped injury when their vehicles were struck while working a crash along northbound Interstate 635. And in central Nebraska, authorities believe icy conditions contributed to a fiery crash involving two tractor-trailers shortly before 9 a.m. Sunday on Interstate 80, forcing a three-hour closure of 15 miles of Interstate 80. There were no injuries.</p>
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<p>Authorities say ice contributed to a southwestern Kansas wreck Saturday night that killed a 35-year-old Oklahoma man and injured several others. The Kansas Highway Patrol said Thay Torres-Ocacio of Guymon, Oklahoma, died after the sport utility vehicle in which he was riding went out of control on an overpass and eventually overturned several times.</p>
<p>Some people lost power amid the storm. Nearly 11,000 electric customers were without power in Oklahoma, nearly all in northwestern part of the state. Woodward County Emergency Management Director Matt Lehenbauer said Sunday that the county was likely the hardest hit. He said that as some power is restored, the ice that’s bent tree limbs begins to melt and the limbs snap back into place, sometimes knocking down additional power lines.</p>
<p>South of Kansas City, the latest round of storms dumped three-quarters of an inch of precipitation overnight, resulting in about one-quarter of an inch of ice.</p>
<p>Jared Leighton, a National Weather Service meteorologist near Kansas City, Missouri, said Sunday that while the breadth of the ice accumulations fell short of expectations, “that shouldn’t distract from the impact of the storm.”</p>
<p>“The amounts were never really the story; the impacts were,” Leighton told The Associated Press. “The roads are still a mess, and the Highway Patrol is having their vehicles run into.”</p>
<p>Becky Allmeroth, a state maintenance engineer for the Missouri Department of Transportation, said ice is “the most difficult storm to fight.”</p>
<p>“We are keeping up with the changing conditions, but it is a continual battle,” she said of the department’s around-the-clock scrambling to treat the glazed roads. “The precipitation is coming in waves, and we have to apply more salt.”</p>
<p>Many residents had prepared for the storms by stocking up on bread, milk and other necessities and by buying flashlights and generators to have on hand in case power gets knocked out.</p>
<p>The storm prompted the NFL to move the AFC divisional playoff game in Kansas City between the Chiefs and the Pittsburgh Steelers to Sunday evening to allow more time to treat roads and parking lots at Arrowhead Stadium. The game was scheduled to kick off at noon but now will start at 7:20 p.m.</p> | More freezing rain hits portion of central US | false | https://abqjournal.com/928157/more-freezing-rain-hits-portion-of-central-us.html | 2017-01-15 | 2 |
<p>SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Apple is planning to build a new corporate campus and hire 20,000 U.S. workers in an expansion driven in part by a tax cut that will enable the iPhone maker to bring an estimated $245 billion back to its home country.</p>
<p>The pledge announced Wednesday comes less than a month after Congress approved a sweeping overhaul of the U.S. tax code championed by President Donald Trump that will increase corporate profits.</p>
<p>Besides dramatically lowering the standard corporate tax rate, the reforms offer a one-time break on cash held overseas.</p>
<p>Apple plans to take advantage of that provision to bring back most of its roughly $252 billion in offshore cash, generating a tax bill of about $38 billion. That anticipated tax bill implies Apple intends to bring back about $245 billion of its overseas cash, based on the temporary tax rate of 15.5 percent on foreign profits.</p>
<p>Apple has earmarked about $75 billion of the money currently overseas to finance $350 billion in spending during the next five years. The spree will include the new campus, new data centers and other investments.</p>
<p>But most of the $350 billion reflects money that Apple planned to spend with its suppliers and manufacturers in the U.S. anyway, even if corporate taxes had remained at the old 35 percent rate.</p>
<p>Analysts have also predicted that most of those overseas profits will flow into stock buybacks and dividend payments. That's what happened the last time a one-time break on offshore profits was offered more than a decade ago.</p>
<p>The new law lowers the corporate tax rate to 21 percent on U.S. profits while providing a sharper discount on overseas cash this year.</p>
<p>Apple CEO Tim Cook is now delivering on a longtime promised to bring back most of the company's overseas cash if the taxes on the money were slashed.</p>
<p>Other U.S. companies, including American Airlines, AT&amp;T and Comcast, <a href="" type="internal">have handed out $1,000 bonuses</a> to all their workers to share the wealth they will gain from the lower rate on their domestic earnings.</p>
<p>Excluding banks and other financial services companies, Moody's Investors Service estimates corporate America has an estimated $1.6 trillion in overseas cash. Most of that is in the technology industry, with Apple at the top of the heap.</p>
<p>Trump and lawmakers are hoping companies use the money to raise wages, expand payrolls, open more offices and invest in new equipment.</p>
<p>After plowing nearly $46 billion into dividends and stock repurchases in its last fiscal year, Apple is likely to funnel a big chunk of overseas money to its shareholders. But Wednesday's announcement was clearly designed to be a sign of its allegiance to the U.S., Apple's most lucrative market.</p>
<p>The public show of support also helps the optics of a company that will still make most of its iPhones, iPads and other gadgets in factories located in China and other faraway countries that offer cheaper labor — a practice that Trump and others have criticized.</p>
<p>"Apple is a success that could only have happened in America, and we always felt a very big sense of responsibility to give back to our country and the people who have made our success possible," Cook said during a ceremony Wednesday celebrating a new warehouse being built in Reno, Nevada.</p>
<p>The White House applauded Apple's commitment.</p>
<p>"Just as the president promised, making our businesses more competitive internationally is translating directly into benefits for the American worker, through increased wages, better benefits, and new jobs," White House spokeswoman Lindsay Walters said.</p>
<p>Apple Inc., which just spent an estimated $5 billion building a Cupertino, California, headquarters that resembles a giant spaceship, plans to announce the location of a second campus devoted to customer support later this year.</p>
<p>The company didn't say how big the second campus will be, or how many of the additional 20,000 workers that it plans to hire will be based there. About 84,000 of Apple's 123,000 workers currently are in the U.S.</p>
<p>One thing seems certain: Cities from across the U.S. will likely be offering Apple tax breaks and other incentives in an attempt to persuade the company to build its second campus in their towns.</p>
<p>That's what happened last year after Amazon announced it would build a second headquarters in North America to expand beyond its current Seattle home. The online retailer <a href="" type="internal">received 238 proposals</a> from cities and regions in the U.S., Canada and Mexico. Amazon is expected to announce the winning bid later this year.</p>
<p>Unlike Amazon, Apple isn't openly soliciting bids from cities interested in its new campus.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>AP writers Scott Sonner in Reno, Nevada, and Josh Boak in Washington, D.C., contributed to this report.</p>
<p>SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Apple is planning to build a new corporate campus and hire 20,000 U.S. workers in an expansion driven in part by a tax cut that will enable the iPhone maker to bring an estimated $245 billion back to its home country.</p>
<p>The pledge announced Wednesday comes less than a month after Congress approved a sweeping overhaul of the U.S. tax code championed by President Donald Trump that will increase corporate profits.</p>
<p>Besides dramatically lowering the standard corporate tax rate, the reforms offer a one-time break on cash held overseas.</p>
<p>Apple plans to take advantage of that provision to bring back most of its roughly $252 billion in offshore cash, generating a tax bill of about $38 billion. That anticipated tax bill implies Apple intends to bring back about $245 billion of its overseas cash, based on the temporary tax rate of 15.5 percent on foreign profits.</p>
<p>Apple has earmarked about $75 billion of the money currently overseas to finance $350 billion in spending during the next five years. The spree will include the new campus, new data centers and other investments.</p>
<p>But most of the $350 billion reflects money that Apple planned to spend with its suppliers and manufacturers in the U.S. anyway, even if corporate taxes had remained at the old 35 percent rate.</p>
<p>Analysts have also predicted that most of those overseas profits will flow into stock buybacks and dividend payments. That's what happened the last time a one-time break on offshore profits was offered more than a decade ago.</p>
<p>The new law lowers the corporate tax rate to 21 percent on U.S. profits while providing a sharper discount on overseas cash this year.</p>
<p>Apple CEO Tim Cook is now delivering on a longtime promised to bring back most of the company's overseas cash if the taxes on the money were slashed.</p>
<p>Other U.S. companies, including American Airlines, AT&amp;T and Comcast, <a href="" type="internal">have handed out $1,000 bonuses</a> to all their workers to share the wealth they will gain from the lower rate on their domestic earnings.</p>
<p>Excluding banks and other financial services companies, Moody's Investors Service estimates corporate America has an estimated $1.6 trillion in overseas cash. Most of that is in the technology industry, with Apple at the top of the heap.</p>
<p>Trump and lawmakers are hoping companies use the money to raise wages, expand payrolls, open more offices and invest in new equipment.</p>
<p>After plowing nearly $46 billion into dividends and stock repurchases in its last fiscal year, Apple is likely to funnel a big chunk of overseas money to its shareholders. But Wednesday's announcement was clearly designed to be a sign of its allegiance to the U.S., Apple's most lucrative market.</p>
<p>The public show of support also helps the optics of a company that will still make most of its iPhones, iPads and other gadgets in factories located in China and other faraway countries that offer cheaper labor — a practice that Trump and others have criticized.</p>
<p>"Apple is a success that could only have happened in America, and we always felt a very big sense of responsibility to give back to our country and the people who have made our success possible," Cook said during a ceremony Wednesday celebrating a new warehouse being built in Reno, Nevada.</p>
<p>The White House applauded Apple's commitment.</p>
<p>"Just as the president promised, making our businesses more competitive internationally is translating directly into benefits for the American worker, through increased wages, better benefits, and new jobs," White House spokeswoman Lindsay Walters said.</p>
<p>Apple Inc., which just spent an estimated $5 billion building a Cupertino, California, headquarters that resembles a giant spaceship, plans to announce the location of a second campus devoted to customer support later this year.</p>
<p>The company didn't say how big the second campus will be, or how many of the additional 20,000 workers that it plans to hire will be based there. About 84,000 of Apple's 123,000 workers currently are in the U.S.</p>
<p>One thing seems certain: Cities from across the U.S. will likely be offering Apple tax breaks and other incentives in an attempt to persuade the company to build its second campus in their towns.</p>
<p>That's what happened last year after Amazon announced it would build a second headquarters in North America to expand beyond its current Seattle home. The online retailer <a href="" type="internal">received 238 proposals</a> from cities and regions in the U.S., Canada and Mexico. Amazon is expected to announce the winning bid later this year.</p>
<p>Unlike Amazon, Apple isn't openly soliciting bids from cities interested in its new campus.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>AP writers Scott Sonner in Reno, Nevada, and Josh Boak in Washington, D.C., contributed to this report.</p> | Apple banks on tax break to build 2nd campus, hire 20,000 | false | https://apnews.com/amp/febaa19b4bf8408c9bd0f53cf5e8ccb3 | 2018-01-18 | 2 |
<p>This isn't your average shoe store.</p>
<p>At this online boutique, each pair of shoes is named after a child who is battling – or has battled – cancer.</p>
<p>Graham and his mother Sadie, both cancer survivors, love his <a href="https://www.oathenticity.com/collections/oathentic-boys/products/brown-boy-boot" type="external">'Graham' chelsea boots</a>. Sadie says the concept behind the 'Oathenticity' shoe store may be simple, but it helps people smile, even when they're dealing with the fight of their lives.</p>
<p>The three sisters behind 'Oathenticity' know firsthand what it's like to have a loved one struggle with the disease.</p>
<p>Co-owner Tosha Stevenson's daughter, Taleah, battled leukemia from the time she was 2 years old until she was 6 years old.</p>
<p>It was fundraising from 'Millie's Princess Foundation' that helped Taleah finally conquer her cancer.</p>
<p>Now the founders of 'Oathenticity' give back with their boutique, and donate a portion of proceeds from the store to fight pediatric cancer through 'Millie's Princess Foundation.'</p>
<p>Our affiliate <a href="http://kutv.com/news/local/using-shoes-to-battle-cancer" type="external">KUTV</a> contributed to this report.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.milliesprincessfoundation.org/" type="external">Click here to learn more about Millie's Princess Foundation.</a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.oathenticity.com/" type="external">Click here to learn more about Oathenticity.</a></p> | A portion of the proceeds from this shoe store goes toward fighting pediatric cancer | false | https://circa.com/story/2017/12/18/circa-cares/a-portion-of-the-proceeds-from-this-shoe-store-goes-toward-fighting-pediatric-cancer | 2017-12-18 | 1 |
<p><a href="" type="internal" /></p>
<p>Sarah Palin, the infamous half-term Governor of Alaska and failed Vice-Presidential candidate has quit halfway through her bus tour, and taken her family back home to Alaska.</p>
<p>Via Raw Story;</p>
<p>Amid diminishing media interest, Sarah Palin has quit her high-profile bus tour halfway through and returned to Alaska with her family, according to&#160; <a href="http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2011/06/22/palin_bus_tour_takes_extended_pit_stop__110313.html" type="external">RealClearPolitics</a>.</p>
<p>The move puts a damper on widespread speculations that Palin’s “One Nation” bus tour, which launched on Memorial Day, was a precursor to a potential White House bid for 2012. Palin never made it to her scheduled stops in the key primary states of Iowa and New Hampshire.</p>
<p>Read more at;&#160; <a href="http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/06/22/report-palin-quits-bus-tour-halfway-through-retreats-to-alaska/" type="external">http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/06/22/report-palin-quits-bus-tour-halfway-through-retreats-to-alaska/</a></p>
<p>This was reported by many major news agencies, but Palin has no issued a statement saying it is false.</p>
<p>Via her facebook page;</p>
<p>Imagine our surprise when reading media reports today that the “One Nation Tour” has been cancelled. Why didn’t anyone tell me? Oh, wait, that’s because it hasn’t been cancelled. (Good ol’ media… you never cease to amaze!)</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>As I said myself at the end of the east coast leg of the tour, the summer is long, and I’m looking forward to hitting the open road again. The coming weeks are tight because civic duty calls (like most everyone else, even former governors get called up for jury duty) and I look forward to doing my part just like every other Alaskan.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>I wouldn’t think it to be such a slow news day that, what with numerous wars and serious economic woes concerning Americans, a bus is driving news stories today. The next leg of the tour continues when the time comes. In the meantime, no one should jump to conclusions – certainly not the media with their long track record of getting things wrong or just making things up.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>– Sarah Palin</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p /> | Sarah Palin Quits After Half Her Bus Tour, Goes Home To Alaska | true | http://addictinginfo.org/2011/06/22/sarah-palin-quits-again-2/ | 2011-06-22 | 4 |
<p>Nothing could be more American than apple pie, right? Well, sort of. But the pie goes back way before the founding of the United States.</p>
<p>It turns out the "American"&#160;apple pie dates at least&#160;to the Middle Ages in northern Europe, according to food historian Rachel Laudan, who&#160;wrote&#160;the book,&#160; <a href="http://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520266452" type="external">Cuisine &amp; Empire: Cooking in World History</a>.</p>
<p>“Pie came to America with the first English settlers,” says Laudan. "It was an absolutely essential dish in northern Europe from at least the Middle Ages on, and [the colonists] couldn’t contemplate life in the New World without this basic item of their cuisine."</p>
<p>Traditional pies from northern Europe contain just about every filling from fish to&#160;eggs, meat to&#160;vegetables to fruit.</p>
<p>“Pie, after all, is another word for ‘package.’ Before you have baking tins and pie pans,&#160;the crust serves as something that you can bake in. So wrapping something in a crust allowed you to make this wonderful, handy, single meal.”</p>
<p>There’s no clear sense&#160;of exactly when apples came into the&#160;pie picture, according to Laudan. Still, "by the beginning of the 19th century, Jane Austen&#160;the novelist can say, ‘Good apple pies are a considerable part of domestic happiness,’” notes Laudan.</p>
<p>Apples were essential in northern Europe because they would keep throughout the winter. They’re the only fruit that will keep without added sugar.</p>
<p>“They also get turned into hard cider. And where you can’t make wine and where beer is a bit complicated to make,&#160;cider is the drink,” the historian says.</p>
<p>Cider was also the drink of the United States until the late 19th century.</p>
<p>“There was a growing movement for beer," Laudan says. "There were a lot of German immigrants and the big beer companies — like Budweiser, Schlitz, Pabst —&#160;all were setting up beer brewing on an industrial scale.”</p>
<p>And then prohibition put an end to beer&#160;and cider-making. The apple industry also went through a slump, according to Laudan.</p>
<p>She says that's when apple growers&#160;"embark[ed] on advertising campaigns and it's said that the tag line,&#160;‘An apple a day keeps the doctor away,’ was one of the advertising slogans to try to persuade people to eat fresh apples."</p>
<p>Apple pie became associated with Thanksgiving in&#160;1860, when Sarah Josepha Hale convinced President Abraham Lincoln to make the quintessential New England holiday&#160;a national holiday.</p>
<p>“She was very insistant when she wrote about [Thanksgiving] that it was to be a meal for all the American people," Laudan&#160;says. "It was not to be a national meal celebrated by diplomats or aristocrats or the rich. That would’ve been a French meal and it would’ve had a fancy dessert like a mousse or a crème."</p>
<p>That opened the way for the humble apple pie, says Laudan. "This was to be an American meal for all citizens and ...&#160;apple pie and the other pies are citizens' everyday dishes.”</p> | That 'American' apple pie actually goes back to Europe in the Middle Ages | false | https://pri.org/stories/2014-11-27/american-apple-pie-actually-goes-back-europe-middle-ages | 2014-11-27 | 3 |
<p>LONDON, UK - Italian police discovered a life-size porcelain bust of Al Pacino as Cuban drugs lord "Scarface" during a dawn raid on the home of a suspected mafia drugs boss outside Naples on Friday.</p>
<p>Police stumbled upon the bust at the home of 34-year-old Carlo Padovani, who was arrested along with more than 30 other people, including eight women, suspected of pushing drugs in Boscoreale, on the slopes of Mount Vesuvius, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-17560648" type="external">the BBC reports</a>.</p>
<p>Padovani, who is believed to be linked to three Camorra mafia clans operating in the area, reportedly <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2122148/Italian-police-raid-mob-Godfather-s-house-finding-drugs-guns--life-size-porcelain-bust-Al-Pacino-Scarface.html?ito=feeds-newsxml" type="external">ordered the bust from a local ceramic dealer</a>. It is said to be worth around 1,000 euros ($1,330).</p>
<p>Despite being initially arrested in July last year, police said Padovani managed to carry on running his drugs empire from his home where had been placed under house arrest.</p>
<p>Rosario Cantelmo, a senior prosecutor, <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/italy/9173633/Scarface-bust-found-in-mafia-drug-lords-home.html" type="external">told The Daily Telegraph</a> that Padovani's cocaine-dealing operation was organized on "an industrial scale," and provided jobs for entire families.</p>
<p>Adult drug dealers, some of them women with husbands in prison for mafia-related crimes, earned 400 euros ($530) a week as well as a bonus of 10 percent of the value of every deal done.</p>
<p>Children as young as six received a weekly wage of around 200 euros ($265) to act as lookouts, <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/world/reallife-mobster-pays-tribute-to-cinema-20120330-1w3pu.html" type="external">according to The Sydney Morning Herald</a>.</p>
<p>Pacino was nominated for best actor at the 1983 Golden Globes for his iconic performance as drug kingpin Tony Montana in the cult movie Scarface.&#160;</p> | Scarface bust found in real-life mobster's home | false | https://pri.org/stories/2012-03-30/scarface-bust-found-real-life-mobsters-home | 2012-03-30 | 3 |
<p>Swiss confectionery group Nestle SA (NESN.EB) plans to move some production from its U.K. factories to a plant in Poland, putting up to 298 jobs at risk.</p>
<p>Nestle said it would make the changes this year and in 2018 at four U.K. sites. It said it hopes to achieve the job cuts through voluntary redundancies.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>The company is changing shift patterns at each factory and moving production of Blue Riband chocolate wafers to a Nestle factory in Poland to improve efficiency, it said.</p>
<p>The GMB and Unite labor unions claimed the cuts were linked to the U.K.'s decision to leave the European Union, though a Nestle spokeswoman denied that.</p>
<p>A GMB spokesman said: "The government needs to step in before it's too late and reassure millions of workers across the country this is not just the tip of the Brexit iceberg."</p>
<p>The Nestle spokeswoman said: "The changes would be necessary irrespective of the U.K.'s vote to leave the EU."</p>
<p>-Write to Philip Waller at [email protected]</p>
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<p>(MORE TO FOLLOW) Dow Jones Newswires</p>
<p>April 25, 2017 09:21 ET (13:21 GMT)</p> | Nestle to Cut Nearly 300 Jobs at U.K. Plants, Move Production to Poland | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2017/04/25/nestle-to-cut-nearly-300-jobs-at-u-k-plants-move-production-to-poland.html | 2017-04-25 | 0 |
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<p>During pregnancy, Alper found yoga. Soon she was pushing a jog stroller or hauling children in a double-wide bike trailer. Now 47, Alper has returned to some of the high-impact routines of her youth, but her approach has matured.</p>
<p>“I’m more aware of my body’s needs, and I try not to be too hard on it,” said Alper, who regularly incorporates strength training for bone health and yoga for her sanity. “(Exercise) is such an important piece of my existence – I hope it always will be.”</p>
<p>Workout programs are like 401(k)s – they need to be re-balanced over the decades, said fitness expert Tom Holland. “As we age, we need to gradually take out the risk and put in more ‘blue chip’ elements,” he said.</p>
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<p>These four basic-yet-effective exercises – a squat, pushup, bicep curl and abdominal crunch – should remain in your program as long as you can perform them correctly, Holland said.</p>
<p>“When you’re young, blue chips are often perceived as being too easy, yet they are the key to creating and maintaining a strong foundation,” he said. “You may have to modify them slightly as you age – not going down as far on a squat, for example – but you keep them in as long as possible.”</p>
<p>As the body ages, it naturally begins to fall apart, with some functions breaking down faster than others. After age 20, the maximal amount of oxygen your body can use – also known as VO2 max – decreases by 1 percent a year in healthy men and women.</p>
<p>By the time you’ve hit 30, muscular strength begins to head south. But the majority of the decrease occurs after age 50, when it falls at the rate of 15 percent per decade. Bone mineral density also decreases with age; in women the rate accelerates after menopause.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>What to do .</p>
<p>Experts say the ideal combination of exercise for healthy aging should include a combination of aerobic, strengthening and flexibility exercises.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Balance exercises are also vital in helping prevent falls, which can lead to fractures. And though higher-intensity training programs are effective, less rigorous works can be just as effective, as long as they are done consistently.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>Kim Evans, 56, a fitness professional in Grand Haven, Mich., stresses functional fitness and de-emphasizes cardio as her clients age. “Older folks still need to get up and down off of the floor, to be able to chase after grandkids and play a round of golf or tennis without having to recover for several days,” she said.</p>
<p>“Aging is not for sissies. You need to face it head on,” Evans said. “Pay attention to your limitations, keep up your strength, keep trying new things and have a good attitude.”</p>
<p>Tweaking your workout can keep you active well into your golden years. Here’s how to reduce the risk in your exercise portfolio:</p>
<p>&#160;. if you’re a runner</p>
<p>Train like a triathlete, Holland said, because if you only run, you’ll be forced by injury to switch to swimming and biking to rehabilitate overuse injuries. Swimming is beneficial because “your posture and body weight is horizontal to gravity, so you work many muscles that receive little attention when running or can become weak and prone to injuries, such as the hamstrings, abdominals and low back,” said Michele Olson, a professor of exercise physiology at Auburn University at Montgomery, Ala. “Swimming provides a top-notch cardio challenge for heart health; that’s important since heart disease risk increases markedly as we age.”</p>
<p>Runners don’t necessarily need to drop their hard training days, said Amby Burfoot, 66, who plans to run the Boston Marathon in April on the 45th anniversary of his 1968 title. Burfoot isn’t running as far or as fast, and he needs more recovery time. But he still runs vigorous hill repeats several times a week and alte r nates running with easy spinning on a recumbent bike. He eliminated his long runs – his longest is a 13-miler versus the 20-milers of his youth. “I still run marathons but don’t race them,” he said.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>. if you’re a swimmer</p>
<p>Add gravity. Be sure to incorporate strength training, walking or anything weight bearing to help prevent the loss of bone density, said Pete McCall, an exercise physiologist with the American Council on Exercise. Also spend an equal amount of time on your back to help balance out the curves of the spine, recommends Jill Murphy, a physical therapist, licensed athletic trainer and strength and conditioning specialist in Neenah, Wis. Adding some backstroke into the mix “will stretch your pectoral muscles and work the muscles between your shoulder blades that help stabilize your spine and maintain your posture all day long,” she said.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>. if you’re a cyclist</p>
<p>Run. “Cycling mainly involves the quadriceps muscles while running is primarily a h amstring activity,” Holland said. “When either of these muscles is too strong, injury occurs. Combining biking and running keep these muscle groups balanced, which keeps you injury-free.” Also try the stationary rower, which doesn’t put vertical pressure on the knees, McCall said.</p>
<p>&#160;. if you’re a bodybuilder</p>
<p>Try yoga. “Improve your flexibility and provide a static challenge to the muscles versus the dynamic ‘pump, pump, pump,’ rep after rep you’ve experienced with a long-term routine of bodybuilding,” Olson said.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>. if you’re a tennis player</p>
<p>Balance the other side. “Do resistance training and in the form of dumbbells, bands and tubing to balance the strength on each side of the body,” Olson said. “If you are right-handed, most of the joints and muscles on the right side of the body will be better developed than those on the left side. With free weights, each arm has to independently hoist the weight such as shoulder presses with the left side versus the r ight side.”</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>. if you don’t work out</p>
<p>Start moving. “Don’t worry about weights, just get up and walk or try something fun like Zumba,” McCall said. Start with a form of cardio, such as walking, spinning or using a cardio machine. Adopt a good core-building activity, such a Pilates or use TRX to build a baseline of strength. Holland recommends exercise DVDs. “They’re ridiculously inexpensive now, you don’t have to leave home to exercise and you can find everything from tai chi to P90X,” he said. “And, if you press play enough, they really work.”</p> | Act your age when you work out | false | https://abqjournal.com/511204/act-your-age-when-you-work-out.html | 2 |
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<p>American firms are increasingly adopting measures to retain high-powered women through their work maternity programs.</p>
<p>Ferne Traeger, founder and president of Beyond the Boardroom, is an executive coach and organizational consultant who works with a U.K.-based firm called My Family Care that offers seminars for each stage of the maternity transition. In England, it’s nothing to go on a six- or nine-month leave for maternity, and get paid for it. However, paid maternity leave in the U.S. is typically just three months at most firms.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>“Here, the significance of the change is not really acknowledged at work, particularly for executive women,” said Traeger. “The goal for (more American) firms is to retain executive women after they go on maternity leave, and my goal is to help women return to their careers.”</p>
<p>Traeger says she worked with one senior associate at a law firm who before her pregnancy thought she was on the partner track. When she became pregnant, she felt she lost momentum.</p>
<p>“She felt like the pregnancy derailed her,” said Traeger. “All of a sudden someone behind her is getting ahead of her.” Then the pregnancy ends up becoming a “disability”, said Traeger.</p>
<p>The business case for firms to support new mothers and fathers through the transition of parenthood is the cost of losing competent, skilled employees.</p>
<p>“What was happening is that women colluded with their employers to ignore the transition,” said Traeger, “and then when they returned (to work), there was fallout.”</p>
<p>And as a result women would end up leaving their jobs.</p>
<p>Citigroup (NYSE:C) was one firm that noticed women were not returning to work after maternity leave. The firm in the U.K. partnered with an expert consulting firm in 2006 to help maternity transitions in the workplace. That program was adopted in 2010 by the company's U.S. operations.</p>
<p>“How do you keep women that have 10 years with the firm, who are leaders in the organization and have great relationships in the business?” said Jennifer Liston-Smith, Director of Coaching and Consultancy at My Family Care. “It’s a total emphasis on helping the employee navigate through the process while keeping her confidence and career on track.”</p>
<p>Research by Lisa Mainiero and Sherry Sullivan in 2005 used by My Family Care shows women leave jobs for the same reasons men do: lack of opportunities, job dissatisfaction and lack of organizational commitment. When women feel blocked by rigid policies or the glass ceiling, they are more likely to respond to the pull of the family, the study said.</p>
<p>Women feel professionally marginalized when they become pregnant, say maternity coaching experts. “Once a woman announces her pregnancy, she has to be focused and vigilant in order to stay on her career track,” said Traeger.</p>
<p>The services typically use one-on-one coaching for senior executives and seminars for lower level employees.</p>
<p>“It’s a very wonderful thing to know that this law firm has invested in a maternity coaching plan,” said Ruth Teitelbaum, an associate at global law firm Freshfields, who used Traeger’s services through the law firm in New York. “To acknowledge that employees have younger children is unique, it’s sending the message that you are valued.”</p>
<p>Maternity coaching experts say there are a couple of main issues that are common among women taking maternity leave. “The top issue is communicating with their manager and ensuring their manager sees their perspective in terms of their career ambitions,” said Liston-Smith.</p>
<p>Otherwise there are big assumptions made on both sides, according to the experts. They say some employers see a woman’s maternity leave as a sign that she wants to slow down at work. Experts say be proactive by defining your short-term career goals as a working mother, which will help guide your manager on how to be supportive during your pregnancy.</p>
<p>“It’s helped me take control of the situation much sooner with a coach,” said Teitelbaum speaking about her transition.</p>
<p>Maternity coaches help ensure women who are going on maternity leave have good conversations with the right people. Having the conversation with the senior partner in the team, a person who is going to weigh in on your career path, is key, say coaching experts.</p>
<p>During the maternity leave, the coaches are available. “I talk to women about what kind of childcare they want, back-up childcare options, how they feel about getting back to work, we talk about the practicalities,” said Traeger.</p>
<p>The bulk of the work is really when women return from maternity. Through the program, the focus is on how to set boundaries, how to do time management and how to prioritize, especially in the first month back. Managing expectations when returning from maternity leave can get tough at work, say experts, in particular dealing with leaving work at a certain time.</p>
<p>“When you come back from maternity leave, you come back with a little less confidence,” said Traeger. That’s why having good communication with the manager and having a support network at work and at home is key, she said.</p>
<p>“Women tell us these conversations have been a huge confidence builder when returning to work,” said Liston-Smith. &#160;The discussion with the manager often includes what the options are to allow for flexibility in the schedule and how to focus on the priorities at work.</p>
<p>Coaching experts say the reaction from employers is equally positive.</p>
<p>“They are very glad that they get key women reporting back to work after maternity leave,” said Liston-Smith. “They can take that to the CEO or the board when they talk about getting more diversity into the firm.”</p>
<p>While U.S. firms may still be playing catch-up to U.K.-based firms to embrace these programs, the trend is beginning to emerge.</p>
<p>“When helping new moms who are trying to carve out flexible working arrangements post return from maternity leave, I help them to frame this not so much as a 'mommy issue,' said Traeger, “but one that might pertain to any employee going through a significant life event.”</p>
<p>Advertisement</p> | More Firms Trying to Retain Women Through Maternity Programs | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2012/11/19/more-firms-trying-to-retain-women-through-maternity-programs.html | 2016-01-26 | 0 |
<p>Donald Trump called into Fox News (where else?) this morning to shrug off reports that his campaign is essentially broke. Via <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2016/06/trump-fundraising-problems-224586" type="external">Politico</a>:</p>
<p>The billionaire real estate mogul kicked off the month of June with just $1.3 million in his campaign account, a fraction of the $42 million Hillary Clinton had on hand. But that financial gulf between the two campaigns did not appear to worry Trump though during an appearance on Fox News’ “Fox and Friends” Tuesday morning.</p>
<p>“We want to keep it lean. I’m not looking to spend all this money. You know, I hear people spend a billion dollars. I’m saying, how do you spend a billion dollars? It’s impossible. Politicians are the only ones who can spend a billion dollars,” Trump said. “Hillary Clinton will spend a billion dollars of Wall Street money and money from the Middle East. She’s got a lot of money from the Middle East. She’s got money from people you don’t want her to have money from, but she’s going to spend more than a billion dollars. I don’t want to do that.”</p>
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<p /> | Trump On Finances Reports: Unlike Hillary I Don’t Need To Spend A Billion Dollars Of Wall Street Money [VIDEO] | true | http://joemygod.com/2016/06/21/trump-finances-reports-unlike-hillary-dont-need-spend-billion-dollars-wall-street-money/ | 2016-06-21 | 4 |
<p>One of the great games of the left is the Dependence Game. Here’s how it goes: first, you make somebody or something dependent on government funding. Then, no matter how little that person or program actually needs government funding, you claim that any cuts to government funding will kill that person or program, you heartless bastards!</p>
<p>One of the most obvious examples: Big Bird.</p>
<p>Every few years, there’s a national political conversation about cutting funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Since so many Americans watched Sesame Street, Americans think that if CPB funding ends, Big Bird will die a horrible death, much like a beautiful endangered eagle flying onto a red-hot solar grid. In 2012, Mitt Romney came under heavy fire for his suggestion that Big Bird might finally have to get out of the basement and earn himself a living. Now, Trump’s proposed budget cuts cash to the CPB. Here’s Forbes’ headline: “ <a href="https://news.google.com/news/url?sr=1&amp;sa=t&amp;ct2=us%2F0_0_s_0_0_t&amp;usg=AFQjCNFTIBtunLysNHocJ9dc1DjDr_F_Rw&amp;did=d1f71e36712e20be&amp;cid=52779424483726&amp;ei=JQDMWIDoB9SIhAG4rYZI&amp;rt=STORY&amp;vm=STANDARD&amp;url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.forbes.com%2Fsites%2Fmaddieberg%2F2017%2F03%2F16%2Ftrumps-budget-wont-kill-big-bird-but-it-may-make-him-endangered%2F" type="external">Trump’s Budget Won’t Kill Big Bird, But It May Make Him Endangered</a>.” Here’s Mashable: “ <a href="https://news.google.com/news/url?sr=1&amp;sa=t&amp;ct2=us%2F0_0_s_3_0_t&amp;usg=AFQjCNGBl0GqF3ODvvZxznW3qYjDVzyk_g&amp;did=fcfdd27c61396e3b&amp;cid=52779424483726&amp;ei=JQDMWIDoB9SIhAG4rYZI&amp;rt=STORY&amp;vm=STANDARD&amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fmashable.com%2F2017%2F03%2F16%2Ftrump-budget-arts-pbs-npr-cuts%2F" type="external">Maybe the GOP will finally get to kill Big Bird after all</a>.” Here’s Politico: “ <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2017/03/trump-budget-corporation-for-public-broadcasting-236125" type="external">Can Big Bird survive Trump?</a>”</p>
<p>That’s dumb.</p>
<p>Big Bird now lives in a palatial nest over at HBO. As <a href="http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/big-bird-has-been-an-hbo-star-for-two-years-now-and-will-survive-any-budget-cut/article/2617608" type="external">The Washington Examiner</a> points out, “The program's parent company, Sesame Workshop, struck a deal with HBO in 2015 that gave the private cable network first-run episodes. PBS is still allowed to air the reruns.” Which means that Big Bird can move in with his other private sector muppet buddies ranging from Kermit the Frog to Beaker. Somehow, Disney and Nickelodeon have been doing just fine without public funding. Why would Oscar the Grouch be any different? And the Cookie Monster will be into the chocolate chips for a while longer, no matter what.</p>
<p>Jim Epstein at <a href="https://reason.com/blog/2017/03/16/trump-pbs-npr-big-bird-cuts-media" type="external">Reason</a> explains that the rationale for public funding is largely to uphold regional radio and television stations. But with modern technology, that’s no longer a relevant rationale:</p>
<p>When the Public Broadcasting Act became law, maintaining a network of regional stations was the only way to insure that every American household had access to public television and radio content. Today, this decentralized system isn't necessary because it's possible to stream or download NPR or PBS content from anywhere in the world. As audiences moves online, the regional stations supported by the federal government are becoming unnecessary.</p>
<p>But as always, the leftist argument remains that once dependent on government, always dependent on government -- even if Big Bird is now a welfare queen.</p> | MORE FAKE NEWS: No, Trump Won’t Kill Big Bird | true | https://dailywire.com/news/14519/more-fake-news-no-trump-wont-kill-big-bird-ben-shapiro | 2017-03-17 | 0 |
<p>It was a scene straight out of a horror film. The bulldozer driver was a contractor working on a site right off of a main street. At around noon he ran amock. First he flattened a couple cars and then he scooped up a car and began driving down the street, ramming one city bus and tossing another to the sidewalk. Security guards began charging towards the mayhem and began shooting at him, and then two guards jumped into the cab to wrestle control away from the driver and they failed so he charged forward. Cops started shooting at him again. At the scene, this spokesman said there was no way to prepare for such an attack. Police are treating this as a terrorist attack, but others believe otherwise. What makes it difficult is that the bulldozer driver was an apparently ordinary man. There's likely to be a strong reaction and a new bill was proposed which would revoke the citizenship of Arab Israelis involved in terrorist attacks, and Ehud Olmert's cabinet also said it wanted revenge.</p> | Bulldozer rampage in Jerusalem | false | https://pri.org/stories/2008-07-02/bulldozer-rampage-jerusalem | 2008-07-02 | 3 |
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<p>Conrad Padilla knows Albuquerque is a fight town.</p>
<p>The 35-year-old Highland High graduate, barbershop owner and Army veteran has seen his hometown’s passion for combat sports spread into the world of mixed martial arts.</p>
<p>As the main-event headliner of tonight’s Jackson’s MMA Series XI event in Tingley Coliseum, Padilla hopes that passionate fan base continues to grow.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>“I’d like to set an attendance record,” said Padilla (4-0), who fights Nick Rhoads (5-2) of Tucson in the main event. “The most-attended (Jackson’s) event was 2,600. I’m looking forward to fighting in front of a big crowd. I want to one day get that Johnny Tapia-type crowd. He used to sell this place out – sell out the Pit. That’s huge. I want to get these shows to that level.”</p>
<p>Jackson-Winkeljohn MMA general manager Ricky Kottenstette said Padilla’s comments aren’t just wishful thinking. By this past Monday the event had already outsold December’s Jackson’s X event, and with tonight’s walk-up sales organizers are confident there will be a new attendance record.</p>
<p>The 12-fight card, which Kottenstette says features “realistically four or five guys that will be in the UFC in the near future,” will have six professional and six amateur bouts, including well-known locals such as Eric Dodson (2-0), the younger brother of UFC flyweight John Dodson, and Rio Rancho High’s former four-time state wrestling champion Vince Varela, who will make his amateur debut.</p>
<p>“This is the start of what I hope is a career in MMA,” said Varela, whose last fight in the Albuquerque area was when his arm was raised as the state’s 135-pound large-school wrestling champion in 2007, capping a perfect 45-0 senior season.</p>
<p>“I wouldn’t be doing this if I thought it was just a hobby,” Varela said. “You don’t get involved as much as I have at a place like Jackson’s and go up in practice every day against the best in the world if you don’t want to go all the way.”</p>
<p>Varela will fight in the second match of the card that starts at 7 p.m.</p>
<p>“I’ve worked on my entire game and will keep working on it,” Varela said. “I hope people I fight just assume all I can do is wrestle.”</p>
<p>As for Padilla, he didn’t start MMA training until he was 27 when a client of his barbershop, retired state cop Greg Richardson, suggested he take a few classes to defend himself if anything ever happened in his shop.</p>
<p>“No background or anything, really,” Padilla said. “I was 215 pounds when I started (he weighed 143.8 pounds at Friday’s weigh-ins) and have made this a big part of my life. Now I’m here as a main event. Pretty cool, huh?”</p>
<p>Padilla, like most of tonight’s 24 fighters, have high hopes of an MMA chance beyond the Jackson’s Series. But unlike some of the younger fighters, Padilla is also content with where he is.</p>
<p>“I’m just happy being in the sport,” Padilla said. “If I get called up to the big leagues, I’m cool with it of course. But I’m happy doing local events like this in my hometown, too. I’m doing this to stay in shape and to stay young.”</p>
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<p /> | Padilla hopeful fight fans flock to Tingley | false | https://abqjournal.com/245235/padilla-hopeful-fight-fans-flock-to-tingley.html | 2013-08-10 | 2 |
<p>Published time: 18 Aug, 2017 13:55Edited time: 18 Aug, 2017 14:28</p>
<p>Finnish police have shot a man who stabbed several people in the city of Turku, according to law enforcement. One person has been apprehended, police wrote on Twitter.</p>
<p>The Turun Sanomat newspaper reported that an elderly woman and a young boy have been injured, citing an eyewitness.</p>
<p>Several persons stabbed in central Turku. Police has shot at suspected perpetrator. One person is apprehendee</p>
<p>— L-S poliisi (@L_S_poliisi) <a href="https://twitter.com/L_S_poliisi/status/898543037940465665" type="external">August 18, 2017</a></p>
<p>The witness added that another elderly woman was injured on the other side of the square where the incident reportedly took place.</p>
<p>Multiple ambulances are at the scene, according to the newspaper.</p>
<p>The outlet also reported that a body has been covered at a junction, and that police and rescue personnel are at the scene.</p>
<p>Finnish tabloid Ilta-Sanomat reported that six people were injured, one man and five women, and that a woman pushing a stroller was among those attacked by a man with a large knife.</p>
<p>Authorities have warned people to stay away from the city center following the attack, which reportedly took place in the Puutori-Market Square area.</p>
<p>Finnish police said they have reinforced security at Helsinki Airport and train stations throughout the country.</p>
<p>DETAILS TO FOLLOW</p> | Several people stabbed in Finnish city of Turku, police shoot perpetrator | false | https://newsline.com/several-people-stabbed-in-finnish-city-of-turku-police-shoot-perpetrator/ | 2017-08-18 | 1 |
<p>OKINAWA, Bolivia — Fifty-five years ago, 272 Japanese from Okinawa Island arrived in a remote corner of Bolivia's Amazon rainforest in hopes of finding a better life.</p>
<p>The resettlement was part of a United States-sponsored emigration plan, patterned in part after a controversial Japan-sponsored program that between the 1920s and the 1960s prompted more than 300,000 Japanese citizens to move to Latin America — the second-largest destination for worldwide Japanese emigration over the past century, after the United States.</p>
<p>These Bolivian settlers battled the unforgiving perils of the jungle, including mysterious illnesses, to lay down the foundation of a "new Okinawa." On a visit to the town in June to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Japanese immigration to Bolivia, Japan’s Prince Masahito Hitachi lauded their achievement: "To observe this land that breathes the air of prosperity, and to think of the difficulties and suffering of the immigrants that built this, I want to express my respect."</p>
<p>Bolivia’s unique Japanese colonies, located four hours outside the city of Santa Cruz, are rare success stories for Japanese immigrants in Latin America. While the Japanese who settled in Bolivia had their hardships, many of those who stayed did well financially and maintained ties to Japan.</p>
<p>Today, an estimated 1.5 million people of Japanese descent live in the region, the vast majority of them in Brazil, with significant populations also in Peru, Argentina, Mexico, Bolivia and Paraguay. Japan actively promoted and financed emigration to the region up until the 1960s, a controversial experiment aimed at relieving a job shortage at home and improving economic and diplomatic relations abroad.</p>
<p>But in contrast to the Japanese colonies in Bolivia, Japanese immigrants elsewhere in the region have mostly assimilated with the culture of their adopted countries. And while in Okinawa decades of official Japanese assistance with agriculture, health and education eventually proved successful, in the rest of the hemisphere Japan’s results have been mixed or downright failures.</p>
<p>In fact, some Japanese immigrants in Latin America returned to Japan to sue their government for making false promises about conditions abroad.</p>
<p>In one telling case, in June 2006, 170 former Japanese immigrants in the Dominican Republic won a historic lawsuit in a Tokyo court. They had moved to the island in the 1950s expecting to live in a Caribbean paradise filled with fertile farmland. Instead, the 1,300 Japanese who settled in the Dominican Republic found unproductive land, and often, starvation. Some resorted to suicide.</p>
<p>In 2006, Japan's then-Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi agreed to pay each of the plaintiffs between 500,000 to 2 million yen and provide new financial support for the Japanese still living on the island. Koizumi also issued an official apology: "The government honestly regrets and apologizes for the enormous hardships the immigrants experienced due to the government's mismanagement at that time.”</p>
<p>Talk to the old-timers in Okinawa, and they also tell a story of hardship.</p>
<p>At the close of World War II, the U.S. Army constructed a military base on Japan’s Okinawa Island. In part as compensation for land confiscated to build the base, the U.S. offered some families attractive 124-acre parcels in Bolivia.</p>
<p>But two-thirds of the 3,315 persons who emigrated to Bolivia ultimately left their new Okinawa. Nearly half of the first group of 272 settlers fell seriously ill from an unknown disease within months of their arrival. Others tired of the isolation they encountered in a jungle landscape with no roads. There was no potable water; the nearest source of fresh water was several miles of walking away.</p>
<p>Those who did stay, however, have few complaints. Through decades of hard work&#160;— buttressed by low-interest loans and technical support from Japan — many expanded their holdings into large-scale farms, and are now comparatively among the super-rich in impoverished Bolivia.</p>
<p>Today, the elderly founding fathers of Okinawa, Bolivia, spend their afternoons at a seniors center playing gateball, one of Japan’s favorite pastimes, or watching sumo and other Japanese television offerings beamed to their screen from their very own local Japanese-language television station.</p>
<p>Their offspring manage the Okinawa Colonies Integral Agricultural Cooperative (CAICO), which sells million of dollars worth of goods (including milk, soy, sugar, corn, sunflowers and wheat — it's the largest wheat producer in Bolivia) annually throughout Bolivia. "The Japanese young people here who don't want to work, we send them back to Japan," joked Hugo Oyakawa, 44, production manager of CAICO.</p>
<p>There is a modern hospital and school, both built with the support of Japan. The Japanese-Bolivian Association is housed in a state of the art building and museum. And perhaps most astonishing is what you hear in Okinawa: Listen to some of the 1,000 Bolivians of Japanese descent, and you'll usually hear them speaking nonstop Japanese.</p>
<p>Dan Masterson, a historian on Japanese immigration to Latin America, believes a key reason for Okinawa’s success is that the settlers remained in rural areas. "The demise of Japanese culture in countries like Peru and Brazil happened because the vast majority left the countryside for the cities," he said.</p>
<p>Okinawans also credit their local school for helping maintain their Japanese identity. For decades, the Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA) has sent teachers from Japan to teach the mother language and cultural traditions.</p>
<p>Still, Kenchi Nakaza, 45, a farmer who grows wheat, soy and flowers, laughs when asked why the Okinawans so firmly hold on to their Japanese language. Nazaka believes his three young children mainly speak so much Japanese to understand him and his wife: “We only speak Japanese to each other at home,” he said.</p>
<p>Read more on immigration in the Americas:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/the-americas/090630/talking-havana" type="external">US and Cuba look for a bridge, but there's a lot of water between them</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/argentina/090526/african-immigrants" type="external">African immigrants seek refuge in Argentina</a></p> | Okinawa, Bolivia | false | https://pri.org/stories/2009-07-06/okinawa-bolivia | 2009-07-06 | 3 |
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<p>Stars: they're just like us. And, Hollywood photographer Sid Avery was the first to show that to the world. Avery captured the private moments of Hollywood's biggest celebrities, including Marilyn Monroe, James Dean, Audrey Hepburn, and Elizabeth Taylor, proving they were more than just the glamorous people they appeared on the big screen. On Saturday, to mark the 75th year since he took his first celebrity photo, <a href="http://www.mptvimages.com" type="external">mptv</a> (a photo agency Avery founded to help preserve photographer's images) will host a one-day exhibition and sale of Avery's most iconic photos. Here, Audrey Hepburn is seen on the Paramount lot with her pet dog, Famous, in 1957.</p>
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<p>Marlon Brando at his Beverly Glen home in Los Angeles, 1953.</p>
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<p>Steve McQueen drives his 1957 XK-SS Jaguar through Nichols Canyon in Hollywood, 1960.</p>
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<p>Rock Hudson and Elizabeth Taylor on location while shooting Giant in Marfa, Texas, 1955.</p>
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<p>James Dean on the set of Rebel Without a Cause, 1955.</p>
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<p>Audrey Hepburn looks into her dressing room mirror, 1957.</p>
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<p>Ocean's Eleven cast (left to right), 1960: Richard Conte, Buddy Lester, Joey Bishop, Sammy Davis, Jr., Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Peter Lawford, Akim Tamiroff, Richard Benedict, Henry Silva, Norman Fell, and Clem Harvey.</p>
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<p>Steve McQueen at his Hollywood home, 1960.</p>
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<p>Frank Sinatra at a Capitol Records recording session in Los Angeles circa 1957.</p>
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<p>Photo of Sid Avery circa 1960.</p>
<p /> | Sid Avery Captures the Private Moments of Hollywood's Golden-Era Stars (Photos) | true | https://thedailybeast.com/sid-avery-captures-the-private-moments-of-hollywoods-golden-era-stars-photos | 2018-10-02 | 4 |
<p>(cc image: Darren Barefoot)</p>
<p>On the verge of an IPO, Twitter is <a href="http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/09/12/twitter-confidentially-submits-plans-for-i-p-o/" type="external">estimated</a> to have a market value of $15-16 billion. What does that mean for our society?</p>
<p>In theory, stocks are valuable because they entitle you to a share of a corporation’s profits. The relationship of a stock’s price to the earnings per share varies widely, but a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price%E2%80%93earnings_ratio" type="external">price/earnings ratio</a> of around 15 could be considered fairly normal.</p>
<p>As a still-private company, Twitter doesn’t reveal its profits to the public, but its profits if any right now are relatively small, and would give the company an enormous p/e ratio. Its value, though, is based on perceptions of future earnings–so a value of $15 billion could be taken to mean that investors eventually hope it’ll be making a profit of at least a billion dollars a year.</p>
<p>A profitable tech company might have a <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/sector-profit-margins-sp-500-2012-8" type="external">profit margin</a> in the range of 25 percent. So let’s say that a profit of $1 billion implies revenues of $4 billion</p>
<p>Twitter derives its income from advertising–so that $4 billion comes from companies paying Twitter to reach its users with “sponsored tweets” in hopes of influencing their economic decisions. Obviously, these for-profit companies are hoping to take in from consumers more than they’re paying out for advertising; a study by Nielsen Analytic Consulting ( <a href="http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/newswire/2009/maximize-the-return-on-your-advertising-spend.html" type="external">12/1/09</a>)&#160; found that online advertising got a particularly high return on investment, with businesses getting $218 more in increased sales for every $100 they spent on online ads. To avoid misleading precision on these back-of-the-envelope calculations, let’s say advertisers are expecting to get back $2 for every dollar spent on Twitter.</p>
<p>That means that the corporate world thinks Twitter can get you to spend about $8 billion you otherwise would not have–very roughly half the value of the company. Twitter now has about <a href="http://allthingsd.com/20130913/does-twitter-have-a-growth-problem/" type="external">240 million users</a>, so in round numbers that’s about $32 a user. (Discount that by however many people you think investors eventually expect to be using the service.)</p>
<p>So can Twitter get you to see four movies that you wouldn’t have gone to otherwise, or eat eight more Big Macs? I can’t remember any buying decisions that I’ve made that were influenced at all by a sponsored tweet, but I guess it’s the nature of effective marketing to go unnoticed.</p>
<p>Every media business dependent on advertising leaves a footprint on the economy–if not measurable, at least estimatable.&#160;Facebook‘s market value recently <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-26/facebook-market-value-tops-100-billion-amid-mobile-ad-push.html" type="external">surpassed $100 billion</a>, which implies that investors think the social media site will eventually be able to drive roughly $50 billion a year in sales to advertisers. With more than a billion Facebook accounts worldwide, that’s less than $50 per user per year–though that’s a harder target to hit in countries like India and Indonesia, No. 2 and No. 4 in number of Facebook users, where $50 is more than 1 percent of the annual per capita income.</p>
<p>In the end, people are going to spend about as much income as they have (if they invest some of it instead, well, mutual funds advertise too), so advertising does not actually increase the size of the economy; instead, it shifts demand from one product to another.</p>
<p>Does advertising help to distribute demand in a more optimal way, to better meet consumer needs? It’s hard to make that case with a straight face after thinking about the substance-free emotional manipulation that is the content of most ads.</p>
<p>So the cost of “free” media really is a cost: The price of using a social media site without charge is allowing corporate advertisers to reprogram our minds to buy products we would not otherwise want. When you see the gushing business page stories about the fortunes being made from the latest Internet IPO, remember that the enormous sums mentioned are a price tag placed on us.</p> | The Price of Twitter Is Based on the Cost of You | true | http://fair.org/blog/2013/09/18/the-price-of-twitter-is-based-on-the-cost-of-you/ | 2013-09-18 | 4 |
<p><a href="http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5i054tkflDDjiUDpcNzE_Efo9VnQw?docId=CNG.a1bf0c4f6861fa8bd4596b026903f37a.351" type="external">Representatives of Libya's rebels are in Moscow</a> today to hold talks with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, less than one week after <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatches/globalpost-blogs/bric-yard/gaddafi-officials-headed-moscow" type="external">he hosted members of Gaddafi's government</a>.</p>
<p>The Libyan side was due to be reprsented by Abdel-Rahman Shalgam, a member of the National Transitional Council (NTC) and Tripoli's former UN ambassador.</p>
<p>Russia has stepped up its opposition to military intervention in Libya and is now pushing for a cease-fire.</p>
<p>"We are trying to promote an immediate end to the bloodshed, an immediate end to the military activities," Lavrov told reporters ahead of the meeting, <a href="http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5i054tkflDDjiUDpcNzE_Efo9VnQw?docId=CNG.a1bf0c4f6861fa8bd4596b026903f37a.351" type="external">AFP reported</a>. "We are convinced that a ceasefire, reconciliation and dialogue, an agreement ... are unavoidable no matter what. That is how things should end, and the sooner the better."</p>
<p>The Russian foreign ministry has claimed it does not seek to play the role of official mediator in the conflict, AFP notes.</p>
<p>But as <a href="http://af.reuters.com/article/commoditiesNews/idAFLDE74J0PI20110523?sp=true" type="external">this feature from Reuters notes</a>, Russia has a history of "pursuing quiet diplomacy" in some cases, particularly when it aimed to stop the NATO bombing of Serbia in 1999, an intervention it whole-heartedly opposed. &#160;</p> | Russia pushing for cease-fire in Libya | false | https://pri.org/stories/2011-05-23/russia-pushing-cease-fire-libya | 2011-05-23 | 3 |
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<p>Calling employers to check on the status of your application lets them know that you are serious about the opportunity and sets you apart from other candidates.</p>
<p>Regardless of what stage you are at when looking for a job, there are a few key things to keep in mind when calling an employer. If you have sent in a résumé or dropped off an application, verify the information you have for your contact, and ask what the best time is to call.</p>
<p>Think about why you are calling and what you are going to say before you make the call. This will help if you are nervous and will build your confidence. To get the point and avoid rambling, have talking points ready that include what position you are calling about, why you are calling, and how they can best reach you if they have questions.</p>
<p>You want to gain positive attention from a prospective employer, so do not become overly aggressive by calling multiple times and leaving several messages. Avoid calling during busy times of the day, and try to call when you can speak to someone rather than leaving a voicemail.</p>
<p>Keep a log of your applications, contact information and follow-up phone calls. This will help you stay on task when applying for multiple jobs and will help you use your time most effectively.</p>
<p>After submitting an application or résumé, review the job posting for any specific directions for follow-up. Sometimes postings will note if the employer prefers phone calls or emails as follow-up. If you have not heard from the employer for one to two weeks, you can call to confirm that all your information has been received. You can also politely ask if interviews have been scheduled.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>After an interview, send thank-you notes to the interviewer and-or interview panel within 24 hours thanking them for the interview and restate your qualifications and experience as related to the job. If you have not heard from the employer or hiring manager within three to five days, you can follow-up with a phone call. They will probably need a few days after the interviews to organize their paperwork.</p>
<p>When calling after the interview, refresh their memory of who you are, what job you interviewed for, and politely ask if the position has been filled. If a candidate has not been selected, you may ask if there is a specific date or timeline in which a decision will be made, and finish the phone call by expressing your gratitude for the interview and reiterate why your interest in the job.</p>
<p>You might call after an interview, and the employer has selected another candidate. If this is the case, thank them for the opportunity and add that you would be interested in any future opportunities with the company. You never know when another job will become available with the company, and you want to leave them with a good impression.</p>
<p>This is a regular column written by the N.M. Department of Workforce Solutions. For more information, go to <a href="http://www.dws.state.nm.us" type="external">dws.state.nm.us</a>.</p>
<p /> | Follow-up call shows interest | false | https://abqjournal.com/324817/followup-call-shows-interest.html | 2 |
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<p>New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin has <a href="http://www.katc.com/Global/story.asp?S=5506411" type="external">endorsed</a> the candidacy of Louisiana Rep. William Jefferson, the man who gave a new meaning to the term, “cold hard cash.” Jefferson is the target of a federal bribery investigation. Those he has not been charged, one of his aides and a Kentucky businessman have already pleaded guilty. During the course of the investigation, agents found $90,000 in cash hidden in Jefferson’s freezer.</p>
<p>The surprise isn’t so much that Nagin would lend his support to someone under investigation who looks pretty guilty, but that he would so enthusiastically support a Democrat. Nagin, a lifelong Republican who suddenly “became a Democrat” a day before his first mayoral campaign began, has governed like a Republican, and even endorsed Bobby Jindal (now a Congressman) for governor. Jindal is not merely Republican, but is on the extreme right wing end of things.</p>
<p>Nagin’s endorsement of Jefferson adds one more item to the list of things he has done that cast doubts on his ability to lead. From waffling about whether a landfill should be in the middle of a residential area to bungling the towing of trashed cars after Katrina to recently making a questionable deal with a trash pickup company, the mayor has caused New Orleanians to question his re-election. However, they have <a href="http://thedeesdiversion.blogspot.com/2006/05/nothing-not-even-post-katrina-election.html" type="external">only themselves to blame</a>.</p>
<p /> | With $90,000 In His Freezer, What’s Not To Love? | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2006/10/90000-his-freezer-whats-not-love/ | 2006-10-09 | 4 |
<p>Shares of MSC Industrial Direct Co. plummeted 13% in morning trade Wednesday, putting them on track to suffer the biggest one-day selloff in 15 years, after the metalworking and maintenance services company missed fiscal third-quarter revenue expectations and provided a downbeat profit outlook. The stock was headed for the lowest close since Nov. 4, 2016. MSC reported earlier a profit for the quarter to June 3 of $62.8 million, or $1.09 a share, compared with earnings $64.8 million, or $1.05 a share, in the same period a year ago, matching the FactSet EPS consensus of $1.09. Revenue rose to $743.9 million from $727.5 million, but missed the FactSet consensus of $745.2 million. For the fourth quarter, the company expects EPS of 97 cents to $1.01, below the FactSet consensus of $1.06, and expects revenue of $732 million to $746 million, surrounding expectations of $737 million. The stock, which is headed for the biggest decline since it shed 32% on Aug. 6, 2002, has tumbled 19% year to date, while the SPDR Industrial Select Sector ETF has climbed 11% and the S&amp;P 500 has gained 9.1%.</p>
<p>Copyright © 2017 MarketWatch, Inc.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p> | MSC Industrial's Stock Plunges Toward Biggest Loss In 15 Years After Disappointing Results, Outlook | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/07/12/msc-industrial-stock-plunges-toward-biggest-loss-in-15-years-after.html | 2017-07-12 | 0 |
<p>In April of 2013, <a href="" type="internal">Britain</a> and France informed the United Nations that there was credible evidence that Syria used chemical weapons against rebel forces. Only two months later, in June of 2013, the United States concluded that the Syrian government did, in fact, use chemical weapons in its fight against opposition forces. President Obama immediately used this <a href="" type="internal">chemical attack</a> as a pretext for invasion and authorized direct U.S. military support to the rebels, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/apps/g/page/world/timeline-unrest-in-syria/207/" type="external">according to the White House.</a></p>
<p>Since the US has been funding these ‘ <a href="" type="internal">moderate rebels</a>’ <a href="http://www.un.org/press/en/2015/sc12008.doc.htm" type="external">more than 250,000 people have been killed</a>, over 7,600,000 have been internally displaced, and <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/11728266/More-than-four-million-Syrian-refugees-in-neighbouring-countries-UN-says.html" type="external">4,000,000 other human beings have been forced from the country entirely.</a></p>
<p>All of this death and destruction carried out by a sadistic army of rebels who’ve been funded and armed by the United States government, based on, what we are now told, was a complete fabrication.</p>
<p>World renowned journalist Seymour Hersh has revealed, in a series of interviews and books, that&#160;the Obama Administration falsely blamed the government of Syria’s <a href="" type="internal">Bashar al-Assad</a> for the <a href="" type="internal">sarin gas attack</a> that Obama was trying to use as an excuse to invade Syria.</p>
<p>As Eric Zuesse <a href="http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2016/04/28/seymour-hersh-hillary-approved-sending-libya-sarin-syrian-rebels.html" type="external">explained</a> in Strategic Culture,&#160;Hersh pointed to a report from British intelligence saying that the sarin that was used didn’t come from Assad’s stockpiles. Hersh also said that a secret agreement in 2012 was reached between the Obama Administration and the leaders of Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar, to set up a sarin gas attack and blame it on Assad so that the US could invade and <a href="" type="internal">overthrow Assad</a>.</p>
<p>“By the terms of the agreement, funding came from Turkey, as well as Saudi Arabia and Qatar; the CIA, with the support of MI6, was responsible for getting arms from Gaddafi’s arsenals into Syria.”</p>
<p>Hersh didn’t say whether these ‘arms’ included the precursor chemicals for making sarin which were stockpiled in Libya, explains Zuesse in his report. But there&#160; <a href="http://www.ibtimes.co.in/libya-isis-takes-over-gaddafi-era-chemical-factory-steals-tons-mustard-gas-sarin-624301" type="external">have</a>&#160;been&#160; <a href="http://english.aawsat.com/2015/02/article55341700/libya-militias-capture-chemical-weapons-army-official" type="external">multiple</a>&#160;independent&#160; <a href="https://www.rt.com/news/326497-gaddafi-cousin-isis-sarin/" type="external">reports</a>&#160;that Libya’s Gaddafi possessed such stockpiles, and also that the US Consulate in Benghazi Libya was operating a “rat line” for Gaddafi’s captured weapons into Syria through Turkey.</p>
<p>While Hersh didn’t specifically say ‘Clinton transported the gas,’ he implicated her directly in this ‘rat line’ of arms which the sarin gas was part of.</p>
<p>Of Hillary Clinton’s involvement, Hersh <a href="http://www.alternet.org/world/exclusive-interview-seymour-hersh-dishes-saudi-oil-money-bribes-and-killing-osama-bin-laden" type="external">told</a> AlterNet&#160;that Ambassador Christopher Stevens, who died in the storming of the Benghazi embassy,</p>
<p>“The only thing we know is that she was very close to Petraeus who was the CIA director at the time … she’s not out of the loop, she knows when there’s covert ops. &#160;That ambassador who was killed, he was known as a guy, from what I understand, as somebody, who would not get in the way of the CIA. As I wrote, on the day of the mission he was meeting with the CIA base chief and the shipping company. He was certainly involved, aware and witting of everything that was going on. And there’s no way somebody in that sensitive of a position is not talking to the boss, by some channel.”</p>
<p>Backing up Hersh in his claims is investigative journalist <a href="http://nsnbc.me/2013/10/07/top-us-and-saudi-officials-responsible-for-chemical-weapons-in-syria/" type="external">Christof Lehmann</a>, who after the attacks discovered an evidence trail leading back to&#160;the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey, CIA Director John Brennan, Saudi Intelligence Chief Prince Bandar, and Saudi Arabia´s Interior Ministry.</p>
<p>As&#160; <a href="http://nsnbc.me/2013/10/07/top-us-and-saudi-officials-responsible-for-chemical-weapons-in-syria/" type="external">Lehmann explained</a>,&#160;Russian and other experts have repeatedly stated that the chemical weapon could not have been a standard issue Syrian chemical weapon and that all available evidence — including the fact that those who offered first aid to the victims were not harmed — indicates the use of liquid, home made sarin. This information is corroborated by the seizure of such chemicals in Syria and in Turkey.</p>
<p>While this is certainly no silver bullet, this implication should not be glossed over. As the Free Thought Project has reported extensively in the past, the presidential candidate has ties to international <a href="http://thefreethoughtproject.com/bombshell-panama-papers-expose-clintons-elite-criminal-campaign-donors/" type="external">criminal cartels who’ve been funding her and her husband for decades.</a></p>
<p>When Hillary Clinton became secretary of state in 2009, the William J. Clinton Foundation agreed to disclose its donors at the request of the White House. According to a <a href="http://media.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/documents/memorandum_of_understanding_clinton.pdf" type="external">memorandum of understanding</a>, revealed by <a href="http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/feb/26/american-crossroads/conservative-group-claims-hillary-clintons-foundat/" type="external">Politifact,</a> the foundation could continue to collect donations from countries with which it had existing relationships or running grant programs.</p>
<p>The records would show that of the 25 donors who have contributed more than $5 million to the <a href="" type="internal">Clinton Foundation</a> throughout the years, six are foreign governments, with the largest contributor being Saudi Arabia.</p>
<p>The importance of Saudi Arabia’s role in funding Clinton is tremendous, as the Syria/Saudi relationship over the last half century is what this civil war is all about.</p>
<p>As Zuesse points out in his article on <a href="http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2016/04/28/seymour-hersh-hillary-approved-sending-libya-sarin-syrian-rebels.html" type="external">Strategic Culture,</a></p>
<p>When the interviewer asked Hersh why Obama is so obsessed with replacing Assad in Syria, since&#160;“The power vacuum that would ensue would open Syria up to all kinds of jihadi groups”; and Hersh replied that not only he, but the Joint Chiefs of Staff,&#160;“nobody could figure out why.” He said,&#160;“Our policy has always been against him&#160;[Assad]. Period.”</p>
<p>This has actually been the case not only since the Party that Assad leads, the Ba’ath Party, was the subject of a shelved CIA&#160; <a href="http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2016/01/obamas-invasion-plan-syria-drawn-kim-roosevelt-1957.html" type="external">coup-plot in 1957</a>&#160;to overthrow and replace it; but, actually, the CIA’s first coup had been not just planned but&#160; <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_1949_Syrian_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat" type="external">was carried out in 1949</a>&#160;in Syria, overthrowing a democratically elected leader, in order to enable a pipeline for the Sauds’ oil to become built through Syria into the largest oil market, Europe; and, construction of the pipeline started the following year. But, there</p>
<p>But, there were then a succession of Syrian coups (domestic instead of by foreign powers –&#160; <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1954_Syrian_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat" type="external">1954</a>,&#160; <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1963_Syrian_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat" type="external">1963</a>,&#160; <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1966_Syrian_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat" type="external">1966</a>, and, finally, in&#160; <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corrective_Movement_%28Syria%29" type="external">1970</a>), concluding in the accession to power of Hafez al-Assad during the 1970 coup. And, the Sauds’ long-planned&#160; <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Arabian_Pipeline" type="external">Trans-Arabia Pipeline</a>&#160;has&#160;still&#160;not been built. The Saudi royal family, who own the world’s largest oil company, Aramco, don’t want to wait any longer. Obama is the first US President to have seriously tried to carry out their long-desired “regime change” in Syria, so as to enable not only the</p>
<p>The Saudi royal family, who own the world’s largest oil company, Aramco, don’t want to wait any longer. Obama is the first US President to have seriously tried to carry out their long-desired “regime change” in Syria, so as to enable not only the Sauds’ Trans-Arabian Pipeline to&#160;be&#160;built, but also to build through Syria the&#160; <a href="http://www.news.com.au/world/middle-east/is-the-fight-over-a-gas-pipeline-fuelling-the-worlds-bloodiest-conflict/news-story/74efcba9554c10bd35e280b63a9afb74" type="external">Qatar-Turkey Gas Pipeline</a>&#160;that the Thani royal family (friends of the Sauds) who own Qatar want also to be built there. The US is allied with the Saud family (and with their friends, the royal families of Qatar, Kuwait, UAE, Bahrain, and Oman). Russia is allied with the leaders of Syria – as Russia had earlier been allied with Mossadegh in Iran, Arbenz in Guatemala, Allende in Chile, Hussein in Iraq, Gaddafi in Libya, and&#160; <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-RyOaFwcEw" type="external">Yanukovych in Ukraine</a>&#160;(all of whom&#160;except&#160;Syria’s Ba’ath Party, the US has successfully overthrown).</p>
<p>Matt Agorist is an honorably discharged veteran of the USMC and former intelligence operator directly tasked by the NSA. This prior experience gives him unique insight into the world of government corruption and the American police state. Agorist has been an independent journalist for over a decade and has been featured on mainstream networks around the world.</p>
<p>Courtesy of <a href="http://thefreethoughtproject.com/pulitzer-prize-winning-journalist-hillary-sarin-gas-attack-syria-assad/" type="external">The Free Thought Project</a></p>
<p />
<p /> | Pulitzer Prize Winning Journalist: Hillary Approved Sending Sarin Gas to Rebels to Frame Assad, Start Syrian War | true | http://dcclothesline.com/2016/05/03/pulitzer-prize-winning-journalist-hillary-approved-sending-sarin-gas-to-rebels-to-frame-assad-start-syrian-war/ | 2016-05-03 | 0 |
<p>There was supposed to be a public hearing on Tuesday that could have shed important light on Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election, including whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russian operatives.</p>
<p>But House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-CA) <a href="" type="internal">abruptly cancelled</a> the hearing — which was scheduled to include former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates, former DNI James Clapper, and former CIA Director John Brennan — late last week. Ranking member Adam Schiff (D-CA) <a href="https://twitter.com/RepAdamSchiff/status/845293157055107072" type="external">called</a> it an “attempt to choke off public info.”</p>
<p>Now, thanks to letters between Yates and the Justice Department <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/trump-administration-sought-to-block-sally-yates-from-testifying-to-congress-on-russia/2017/03/28/82b73e18-13b4-11e7-9e4f-09aa75d3ec57_story.html?tid=ss&amp;utm_term=.7b6a97f6a76b" type="external">reviewed by the Washington Post</a>, it appears the Trump administration could have tried to prevent Yates from testifying about links between Russia and the Trump campaign.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://apps.washingtonpost.com/g/documents/national/read-the-letters-detailing-how-sally-yates-was-blocked-from-testifying-on-russia/2390/" type="external">letters</a>, sent earlier this month, said Yates could not testify freely at a congressional hearing about Trump’s potential association with Russia because the topics “are likely covered by the presidential communications privilege.” Justice Department officials recommended she consult with the White House when deciding what details to disclose to the Intelligence Committee.</p>
<p>The White House <a href="https://twitter.com/byrontau/status/846741394261786624" type="external">called</a> the Post’s story “entirely false” in an unsigned statement.</p>
<p>Yates, while still acting attorney general, played a central role in the investigation into former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn’s discussions with the Russian ambassador, and his withholding of information from the Trump administration, before Trump asked for his resignation.</p>
<p>In January, Yates told the White House Counsel, Donald McGahn, that the White House was getting its facts wrong in public statements about Flynn’s contact with the Russian ambassador.</p>
<p>Rep. Nunes raced to inform Trump, who is the target of an ongoing FBI investigation.</p>
<p>In a letter — dated March 23, the day before Nunes cancelled Tuesday’s hearing — Yates’ lawyer David O’Neill argued that the Justice Department was wrong to conclude that all she learned and did at the agency are client confidences. He said that she “will avoid discussing classified information and details that could compromise investigations” in the hearing.</p>
<p>The next day — Friday, March 24 — O’Neill wrote to McGahn and said that because White House officials had already talked about it, Yates was allowed to speak about her knowledge of the relevant January communications about Flynn.</p>
<p>The White House’s reply to this entire saga is that because they did not reply to the Friday letter from O’Neill, which also evidently contained a deadline, they were not “asserting executive privilege over these matters,” and Yates was free to testify. A White House deputy press secretary said “we took NO action therefore not blocking her.”</p>
<p>https://twitter.com/PeterAlexander/status/846748789952200705</p>
<p>Nunes cancelled the meeting that same day.</p>
<p>Much of the recent news about this inquiry has focused on how Nunes went to the White House grounds to <a href="" type="internal">secretly meet</a> with a source the night before his bizarre <a href="" type="internal">disclosure</a> that he “recently confirmed that on numerous occasions the intelligence community incidentally collected information about US citizens involved in the Trump transition.”</p>
<p>This heralds back to Trump’s Twitter-based <a href="" type="internal">accusation</a>, already <a href="http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/3/20/14982752/trump-wiretap-claims-officially-debunked-fbi-comey-nsa-rogers" type="external">debunked</a>, that former President Obama wiretapped Trump Tower. Nunes has attempted to <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2017/03/schiff-calls-on-nunes-to-recuse-himself-from-russia-probe-236565" type="external">keep his focus</a> on “the possible improper unmasking of names of U.S. citizens,” even as calls mount for him to recuse himself from the Russia investigation.</p>
<p>Jeremy Bash, who was chief of staff at both the CIA and the Defense Department after being the chief minority counsel to the House Intelligence Committee, said on CNN that the “real story” had nothing to do with Nunes’ “midnight run” to the White House.</p>
<p>It’s really that they wanted to cancel the hearing this week. The hearing this week was going to hear from Sally Yates, the former acting attorney general, and I’m told that she had some very interesting things to tell the committee, to tell the public about when she told the White House counsel that Mike Flynn had in fact been lying to the Vice President, and she was only going to be able to speak those things in the context of a congressional hearing, and so the White House and the chairman needed to shut her down.</p>
<p>“This was an elaborately choreographed gag order on Sally Yates,” Bash concluded.</p>
<p />
<p>Yates, formerly Deputy Attorney General, was only acting Attorney General for 11 days because Trump <a href="" type="internal">fired her</a> after he said in a White House statement that she had “betrayed the Department of Justice” by refusing to enforce the president’s Muslim ban executive order.</p>
<p>The irony being that the current Attorney General, former Senator Jeff Sessions, <a href="" type="internal">lauded her</a> for saying she would “follow the law” and give “independent legal advice to the president,” should the president asked “for something improper” or “unlawful.”</p>
<p>UPDATE:</p>
<p>At Tuesday afternoon’s White House press briefing, Press Secretary Sean Spicer provided the White House’s timeline of what happened with regard to Yates’ testimony:</p>
<p>As a matter of fact, I would like to walk you through the sequence of events just to make sure everyone is abundantly clear on what happened. On March 14th, Chairman Nunes and Ranking Member Schiff invited Sally Yates to testify on March 28th. On March 23rd Yates’ attorney sent a letter to the Department of Justice asking for their consent to testify without constraints. March 24th, the Department of Justice responded ‘the president owns those privileges’ to discuss the communications they were requesting to talk about and referred them to the White House. Also on the 24th, Ms. Yates’ attorney sent a letter to the White House counsel requesting that consent specifically stating if they did not receive a response by March 27th at 10:00 a.m. they would, quote, ‘conclude the White House does not assert executive privilege over these matters.’ The White House did not respond and took no action that prevented Ms. Yates from testifying. That’s the story, that’s what the documents show, and with that, I’m glad to take some questions.</p>
<p>In response to a question, Spicer said he hoped Yates testifies before the committee.</p>
<p />
<p>I hope she testifies. I look forward to it. Let’s be honest, the hearing was never — was actually never notified. If they choose to move forward, great. We have no problem with her testifying, plain and simple. The report in The Washington Post is 100 percent false. The letters that they frankly publish on their website all back up everything I just read… We didn’t respond, we encouraged them to go ahead. But to suggest in any way, shape, or form that we stood in the way of that is 100 percent false.</p>
<p>Later Spicer was asked if Chairman Nunes’ decision to cancel the hearing had “anything to do with pressure from the White House,” and he said, “No.”</p> | Trump administration resists Sally Yates’ public testimony | true | https://thinkprogress.org/nunes-hearing-sally-yates-cancelled-white-house-pressure-c2c5a17a74dc | 2017-03-28 | 4 |
<p>Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders had their first debate since the race narrowed down to just the two of them, and also the last one before voters head to the polls in the New Hampshire primaries next Tuesday. The debate got testy at times, with Clinton and Sanders going after each other on issues such as Wall Street reform and national security. Once again, the folks at the Google News Lab put together some interesting charts that examine the debate reaction. Here are some of the best.</p>
<p>Here’s real-time Google search traffic for each candidate during the debate:</p>
<p />
<p>Seen another way:</p>
<p />
<p>Here’s an interactive map that shows the highest search numbers per candidate by county, but also the top issues searched in New Hampshire:</p>
<p />
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>It’s also interesting to see what questions about each of the two candidates people in New Hampshire are searching. Here are the questions for Clinton:</p>
<p />
<p>Sanders:</p>
<p /> | Here’s What People Were Googling During the Democratic Debate | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2016/02/what-people-google-democratic-debate-hillary-bernie/ | 2016-02-05 | 4 |
<p><a href="" type="internal">&lt;img class=" size-large wp-image-5089 aligncenter" src="http://www.louderwithcrowder.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/GaySports-Link-1024x535.jpg" alt="GaySports Link" width="620" height="324" srcset="https://www.louderwithcrowder.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/GaySports-Link-1024x535.jpg 1024w, https://www.louderwithcrowder.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/GaySports-Link-300x157.jpg 300w, https://www.louderwithcrowder.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/GaySports-Link-900x470.jpg 900w, https://www.louderwithcrowder.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/GaySports-Link.jpg 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 620px) 100vw, 620px" /&gt;</a></p>
<p>“You will be made to care.”</p>
<p>Since Friday’s Supreme Court decision, people have been showing how open minded and tolerant they are by making their profile pictures rainbow colored. Businesses all over America issued statements or graphics showing how open minded and tolerant they were with rainbows. Some would say that none of the companies really care about gay rights as much as they do cheap publicity stunts, but they would be wrong. Some would also say that it’s just a horrendous fashion statement.</p>
<p>If you don’t go rainbow, you are a homophobic. Just like <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2015/06/the-sports-worlds-slow-embrace-of-gay-rights/397076/" type="external">American sports</a>…</p>
<p>The response from the country’s sports teams, by contrast, were relatively muted. Of the 122 teams in the four major American professional sports leagues—the NFL, NBA, MLB, and NHL—only five explicitly mentioned Friday’s ruling as of 7:30 pm Eastern time last night. Three—baseball’s San Francisco Giants, football’s San Francisco 49ers, and basketball’s Golden State Warriors—hail from the famously progressive Bay Area, while the other two (the NBA’s Los Angeles Clippers and Sacramento Kings) play elsewhere in blue-state California.</p>
<p>In fairness, social media isn’t the only arena in which sports teams interact with their community, and several have expressed support for gay rights in other ways. The Seattle Mariners, for example, will fly a rainbow flag during their game against the Chicago Cubs on Sunday. But the silence of so many teams on Friday was nonetheless striking. Why is the professional sports world so slow to embrace a social change favored by a large majority of Americans?</p>
<p>“The silence was striking” because private sports companies didn’t issue statements on a Supreme Court decision that didn’t effect them, and really only effected a handful of states that hadn’t already legalized gay marriage as it is. If only the NHL had posted a picture of a rainbow Stanley Cup <a href="" type="internal">spitting on a priest</a>, we might not have to write this right now.</p>
<p>My favorite quote would be the one below however, because it’s incredibly telling of what progressives are pushing here.</p>
<p>“Professional sports teams still haven’t been able to shake that toxic culture of masculinity.”</p>
<p>There it is. Masculinity, it’s very existence, is considered ‘toxic’ by modern leftists. Why? Because they want to see it as a relic of a bygone era where sex/gender still existed. The goal here is not only ‘tolerance’, it’s not only acceptance, but the ultimate destruction of gender dilineation completely. It’s the same reason that ‘Caitlyn Jenner’ is getting an award for… winning the men’s Decathlon… I think?</p>
<p>This is America. Not caring? Homophobe.</p>
<p>Not having an opinion? Homophobe.</p>
<p>Your favorite sports team not making a political statement? Homophobe.</p>
<p>Not&#160;vomiting in disgust over the very idea of ‘masculinity’? Toxic homophobe.</p>
<p>Heck, even in the professional sports world, merely thinking it’s good that everyone can get married, but not thinking you need to make your logo fabulous? Homophobe.</p>
<p>You will be made to care.</p>
<p /> | Some Sports Teams Didn’t Post ‘Rainbow Flags’. PC Liberals Attack… | true | http://louderwithcrowder.com/sports-teams-ignore-gay-marriage-bigots/ | 2015-06-30 | 0 |
<p>After three Israeli Jews were slaughtered in their home by a 19-year-old Palestinian terrorist as they sat down for their Sabbath meal, celebrating the birth of a new child, the media continued their long-standard efforts to equate the savage murder of Jews with Palestinians killed in riots as they hurled stones and other objects at Israeli soldiers.</p>
<p>Here’s a sampling of the headlines and the opening reports from the usual suspects:</p>
<p><a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/palestinians-israelis-killed-clashes-jerusalem-shrine/" type="external">CBS News</a>: “3 Palestinians, 3 Israelis killed in violence over Jerusalem shrine.” This was followed by:</p>
<p>Escalating Israeli-Palestinian tensions over the Holy Land’s most contested shrine boiled over into violence on Friday that killed six people -- three Palestinians in street clashes in Jerusalem and three Israelis in a stabbing attack at a West Bank settlement.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/al-aqsa-mosque-tensions-israel-bans-men-under-50-jerusalem-n785141" type="external">NBC News</a>: "Al Aqsa Mosque Clashes: 6 Killed as Jerusalem Shrine Tensions Worsen.” NBC continued:</p>
<p>Three Palestinians died in clashes in Jerusalem and three Israelis were killed in a stabbing attack at a West Bank settlement as tensions gave way to violence over the Holy Land's most contested shrine.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/21/world/middleeast/jerusalem-israel-protests-al-aqsa-mosque.html?_r=0" type="external">The New York Times</a>: "Deadly Violence Erupts in Standoff Over Mosque in Jerusalem." The Times had the gall to report the barbaric massacre of three Jews by claiming it “appeared to be a terrorist attack":</p>
<p>Six people were killed on Friday in an outbreak of violence that erupted over Israel's placement of metal detectors at entrances to the sacred Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem and spread to the West Bank. Three Israelis were killed in what appeared to be a terrorist attack in a West Bank settlement hours after three Palestinians were killed in clashes with Israeli security forces.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/07/21/middleeast/old-city-prayer-restrictions-imposed/index.html" type="external">CNN</a> did not equate the two incidents, but didn’t tell the whole story in its headline, either, referring to the massacre as a “stabbing”: “3 Israelis killed in stabbing; 3 Palestinians killed in clashes.”</p>
<p>The three Jews killed were Yosef Salomon, 70, his daughter, Chaya, 46, and his son Elad, 36. Elad’s wife Michal reacted quickly to the attack, <a href="http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/232829" type="external">rushing three of her five children into another room</a> where her two youngest, who are twins, were. She hurriedly locked the door, called for help, and held on to the doorknob for dear life. She told Yehudiot Aronot:</p>
<p>I saw the profile of a person ploughing towards the kitchen. The terrorist, apparently, saw them through the window and entered the house. He didn’t see me, and came directly at them. I heard him ask them in Arabic: “What’s your name?” and I immediately understood that something wasn’t right. That something bad was happening. I immediately took the 3 kids upstairs, where [the two youngest children] the twins were sleeping. It was important that I, first of all, protect the children no matter what. I started to hear shouts and screams. I held the door with all of my strength, because it wasn’t locked. I lost my sense of time, but I didn’t let go of the doorknob. I called the Police and told them what was happening as my children surrounded me. I heard terrible screams and shots, and after a period which seemed endless, I understood that it was over. I came downstairs and saw Elad. I understood that my husband was no longer alive.</p>
<p>The family was <a href="http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/232837" type="external">celebrating</a> a "shalom zachar," the traditional Friday night celebration after the birth of a son.</p>
<p>Here's what the scene looked like on the kitchen floor after the bodies were removed:</p>
<p>ZAKA Chairman Yehuda Meshi-Zahav <a href="http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/232837" type="external">stated:</a></p>
<p>The amount of blood here is horrific. To see this amount of blood, right near the Shabbat (Sabbath) table with the wine and the Shabbat candles, and the preparations for the celebration ... It's horrific. It says in the Bible, “Through your blood, you shall live.” Here, they celebrated the new life of a baby, and a terrorist came and took away lives. They didn't even have a chance to touch the foods they'd prepared to celebrate the newborn. It was a stroke of luck that the neighbor heard the screams. ... Otherwise, I don't even want to think what could have happened, G-d forbid.</p>
<p>The IDF soldier who raced to the scene and shot the terrorist, saving the rest of the family, serves in the Oketz Unit, which is the IDF's canine special forces unit. He recounted:</p>
<p>Last night, while my family ate the Friday night meal, we heard screams from the direction of our neighbor's home. My father and I went out to see what was happening. When we saw that the situation was serious, I ran back home to get my weapon. I stood outside the house and saw the terrorist through the window. I knew that I couldn't lose my cool; I had to be professional and controlled. I shot one shot towards his stomach and neutralized him. It seems I was at the right place at the right time. This is no doubt a traumatic incident for the community. We feel the sorrow of the family and embrace them. For me personally it's not a simple occurrence. I try to focus on the fact that what I did prevented what could have been a worse tragedy. But this is not the first time we have experienced something like this. Three years ago a terrorist came into our house and attacked my younger sister. That incident ended miraculously — better than what happened last night.</p>
<p>The terrorist who slaughtered the Jews, Omar al-Abed, was treated in Petach Tikvah’s Rabin Medical Center.</p>
<p>Israeli Prime Minister <a href="http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/232826" type="external">bluntly stated</a>, "This was an act of terrorism committed by a beast incited by wild hatred.”</p>
<p>But don't tell that to the media.</p> | DISGUSTING: Media Draws Equivalence Between Family Of Jews Slaughtered By Palestinian Terrorist And Palestinians Killed in Rioting | true | https://dailywire.com/news/18886/disgusting-media-draws-equivalence-between-family-hank-berrien | 2017-07-23 | 0 |
<p>Published time: 6 Oct, 2017 18:41</p>
<p>A Queensland police officer is under investigation after shocking footage emerged of him grabbing a schoolgirl and throwing her to the ground, seemingly unprovoked.</p>
<p>Police were reportedly called to the small Australian town of Murgon, 270km north-west of Brisbane, to reports of people causing a disturbance on the street.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.rt.com/usa/397158-minneapolis-police-officer-resigns-australian-woman/" type="external">READ MORE: Minneapolis police chief resigns amid fallout of fatal shooting of Australian woman</a></p>
<p>The controversial video begins with an officer, <a href="https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/world/raw-video-shocking-moment-outback-aussie-cop-snaps-dragging-young-school-girl-ground" type="external">reportedly</a> Sergeant Gregory Kapernick, in a tense shouting match with the residents. “You’re causing a disturbance on the street,” the officer can be heard saying, “I want you all to leave, move on,” he yells.</p>
<p>As tension escalates the irate officer loses control when one resident curses at him. “Stop swearing!,” Kapernick yells before grabbing the woman, pulling her onto the road and starting a tug-of-war with residents as they try to wrestle the woman from his grip.</p>
<p>The sergeant eventually gives in, lets the woman free and sees a girl is holding his keys that he dropped during the scuffle. Kapernick lunges at the girl, who appears to run in fear, and drags both of them to the ground as he pries the keys from her hand.</p>
<p>“The officer dropped his keys and the girl picked them up and stood there holding her hand out for him to grab them but chose to throw himself at her instead hence why she ran,” wrote the video’s uploader Tayla Hillier.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.rt.com/search?q=police+australia&amp;type=" type="external">READ MORE: Koala rides 16km trapped behind wheel until driver hears it cry (PHOTOS)</a></p>
<p>Hillier wrote that after the incident, the crowd dispersed and Kapernick started following the residents, creating a “scene” and telling them he had just returned to work from sick leave. Afterward he sat in his car and “sobbed to himself while the other officers were professional and handled the situation,” wrote Hillier.</p>
<p>So far, the video has been shared more than 4,000 times on Facebook and notched up over 430,000 views.</p>
<p>Queensland Police said the incident is now under investigation by the Ethical Standards Command, <a href="http://www.9news.com.au/national/2017/10/06/17/08/queensland-police-officer-video-girl-thrown-to-ground" type="external">reports</a> 9News.</p> | Aussie cop throws schoolgirl to the ground in dramatic footage (VIDEO) | false | https://newsline.com/aussie-cop-throws-schoolgirl-to-the-ground-in-dramatic-footage-video/ | 2017-10-06 | 1 |
<p>Published time: 18 Dec, 2017 13:29</p>
<p>A possible version of Russia’s Olympic ice hockey jerseys has been published online, following the International Olympic Committee’s decision to bar Russian national symbols, its anthem and flag at the 2018 Winter Games.</p>
<p>Despite <a href="http://tass.ru/sport/4819535" type="external">statements</a> from the Russian Olympic Committee’s (ROC) president, Alexander Zhukov, who insisted that no agreement regarding Olympic kit design had been reached so far, images of the team’s possible ice hockey jersey have appeared on the website of one of Russia’s biggest sports news outlets, which cites a source “close to the IOC.”&#160;</p>
<p>The Nike-manufactured jerseys are labeled “Olympic athlete from Russia,” and feature an ice hockey player across the chest instead of the symbolic double-headed eagle from Russia’s coat of arms.</p>
<p>The IOC has reportedly sent an official letter to Russian sports federations ahead of the 2018 Winter Games in PyeongChang, South Korea, clarifying its demands regarding the new design of the national Olympic uniform.</p>
<p>To meet the criteria set by the Olympic governing body, sports outfit suppliers must remove all symbols and emblems which could be associated with Russia. ‘Olympic Athlete from Russia’ or the abbreviation ‘OAR’ should be used instead of the traditional inscriptions – Team Russia and RUS – while the Russian national flag must be replaced with the Olympic rings symbol.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.rt.com/news/412029-russia-ioc-2018-olympics-participation/" type="external">READ MORE:&#160;Russian Olympic Committee banned from 2018 Winter Games, athletes allowed to compete as neutrals</a></p>
<p>The national anthem as well as the white, blue and red tricolor will be banned in PyeongChang, but Olympic kit designers have been allowed to use two out of three national colors while making the uniform for neutral athletes.</p>
<p>Read more</p>
<p><a href="https://www.rt.com/sport/412101-russia-olympic-ban-hockey-kovalchuk/" type="external" /></p>
<p>All the requirements stipulated by the IOC should be applied to Russian athletes intending to compete in PyeongChang, as well as to technical staff and officials who will attend the Games. The neutral uniform should be approved the IOC, which will penalize any athlete who displays Russian emblems.</p>
<p>Two weeks ago, the IOC barred Russia from the 2018 Olympics as punishment for alleged “systematic state-sponsored doping,” adding, however, it would grant Olympic entry to individual Russian athletes who have not been convicted of doping. An IOC doping panel will review applications from ‘clean’ Russian athletes to confirm their participation at the PyeongChang Games.</p>
<p>Last week, the Russian Olympic Assembly voted unanimously to take part in the 2018 Olympics under a neutral flag, rejecting the idea of boycotting the Games in response to the IOC decision. ROC chief Zhukov said that the organization had “taken the blow itself to give athletes the chance to realize their Olympic dreams.”</p> | Leaked: Russia’s 'neutral' Olympic ice hockey jersey | false | https://newsline.com/leaked-russias-039neutral039-olympic-ice-hockey-jersey/ | 2017-12-18 | 1 |
<p>This September, Little Village will open the doors to four new high schools that the community, for the first time, can call its own. A grandmothers’ hunger strike in 2001 forced Chicago Public Schools (CPS) to reconsider the educational needs of this largely Mexican community on the city’s West Side.</p>
<p>Since then, a $63 million facility is being built to suit, and educators and organizers from the community have had their say over every detail related to the school, from curriculum to interior design (they call it earth, wind, water, fire) to a handpicked staff.</p>
<p>However, a citywide new-schools initiative backed by City Hall has thrown a last-minute wrench into their plans. Schools slated to open under the initiative—dubbed Renaissance 2010—will use a new funding formula that also gives them more control over their money, setting the stage for more transparency and equity in how funds are allocated to schools throughout the district.</p>
<p>It sounds like a community’s dream, but Little Village principals are balking. “We’ve looked at this from every angle and no one wants it,” says Jose Rico, whose Multicultural Arts High School is one of the small schools scheduled to open there this fall. “It’s more money the other way.”</p>
<p>Their response suggests difficult times ahead for a funding approach that CPS is looking to take districtwide by 2007. Renaissance schools will pilot the approach, which allots a basic amount of money per child and then supplements those funds with additional money for each child with special circumstances, such as coming from a low-income family or needing special education or bilingual services.</p>
<p>Called weighted per-pupil funding or student-based budgeting, the approach is getting increased attention nationally now that schools are being held accountable for student performance under the federal No Child Left Behind law. If schools are expected to teach all children, the reasoning goes, then they need resources to match their students’ needs.</p>
<p>That is not what happens under the budgeting system now in place in Chicago and the vast majority of school districts across the country. “I’ve looked at the data, and if someone asked me today how much it costs to educate a child, I have no clue,” admits CPS Budget Director Pedro Martinez, who’s leading the push for greater equity within the district.</p>
<p>Indeed, a Catalyst Chicago analysis of $1.7 billion in school-level funding in CPS found per-pupil spending ranges widely from school to school, from a low in elementary schools of $2,150 at Doolittle East to a high of $8,582 at Farren. Among high schools, it ranges from $5,404 at Westinghouse Career Academy to $16,757 at Lindblom College Prep.</p>
<p>The extreme differences between these schools, to be sure, reflect unusual situations. For instance, nearby school closings swelled enrollment at Doolittle East beyond expectations. Lindblom was relocated temporarily while its building was repaired and, for now, is not accepting new students. And Farren, located at 50th and State streets, has seen the number of students in its attendance area shrink as public housing is demolished.</p>
<p>But between these individual school extremes, patterns of inequity exist.</p>
<p>The Catalyst analysis also shows that small high schools, like those slated to open in Little Village, receive more funding from the district, on a per-pupil basis, than large schools. Magnets and selective enrollment schools are also funded at higher-than-average rates.</p>
<p>Common practices impact bottom lines</p>
<p>Dozens of factors can impact the per-pupil funding in an individual school’s budget, from enrollment size to the types of classes offered. But a few common budgeting practices—used here and elsewhere—can also dramatically impact a school’s bottom line.</p>
<p>First, schools get teaching positions based on the number of students enrolled, and the district picks up the tab for hiring those teachers no matter where they fall on the pay scale. The reality, however, is that similar schools may spend vastly different amounts of money on teacher salaries, producing unequal budgets.</p>
<p>For example, the average teacher salary at Paderewski Learning Academy is $44,000 compared with $58,000 at Kershaw. Both are regular elementary schools, but Kershaw is getting about 33 percent more in per-pupil funding this year than Paderewski.</p>
<p>Rigid staffing formulas play a role, too. Consider the art and music programs at Joplin and Haley elementaries. The district pays half the salary for Joplin’s art teacher, but it picks up the full tab for Haley’s music teacher because its total student enrollment squeaked by the minimum requirement of 750. Joplin fell short by 3 students.</p>
<p>In a strictly student-based system, the budgeting process would start with each school getting a certain amount of money based on the number and characteristics of the students it served. It would then have to live within those means, hiring teachers from varying levels of experiences as it can afford.</p>
<p>Another cause of inequity in school-level budgets is central office control over large sums of money that eventually get spent at schools. In Chicago, for example, CEO Arne Duncan and Chief Education Officer Barbara Eason-Watkins control the dispersal of some $200 million earmarked for district educational priorities.</p>
<p>About $50 million of that money pays for 600 literacy coaches who work in about half of the district’s schools under the Chicago Reading Initiative. Schools that are on academic probation get additional supports, but there are no clear rules to guide spending.</p>
<p>Chicago is not alone. “That’s the non-transparent part of many district’s budgets,” says school finance researcher Marguerite Roza of the Center on Reinventing Public Education at the University of Washington.</p>
<p>Roza has identified large-scale inequities within dozens of urban districts, including Houston, Cincinnati and Denver. Most of the districts she studied have adopted a semblance of per-pupil budgeting, and all those experienced political backlash similar to that now brewing in Little Village.</p>
<p>“In many districts, a few schools clearly receive more than their share of the district pie,” says Roza. “In order for district leaders to be strategic in allocating their dollars across schools and types of students, they need a clear picture of where their dollars are going.”</p>
<p>Achieving equity is painful</p>
<p>Leveling the playing field can be painful for schools that get more money under traditional budgeting schemes, especially in cash-strapped districts like Chicago and Cincinnati, which has been slowly implementing per-pupil funding under tough conditions for six years.</p>
<p>“It’s a mixed bag. The reality is we’re just spreading crumbs,” says Sue Taylor, president of the Cincinnati Federation of Teachers.</p>
<p>Cincinnati desperately needed to equalize its funding, she notes, but the district did not foresee a myriad of problems that accompany student-based budgeting. Some schools overstated their enrollment to get more money, Taylor says.</p>
<p>Principals and parents at some schools tried to scrap caps on class size—a major issue for the union-so they could cut staff and shift money to after-school programs, she adds. Arts programs got the ax as well.</p>
<p>Chicago Teachers Union officials, who were not aware that the district was considering the new budgeting approach, questioned the district’s motives. “Is the total amount of funding that’s going into the schools going to be enough to meet those schools’ needs?” asks Vice President Ted Dallas. “Are we trying to improve education or are we just trying to save money?”</p>
<p>It’s a lot easier for districts to convert to weighted per-pupil funding if the move is accompanied by an infusion of extra cash, Roza says. That way, the district can minimize losses at higher-funded schools as it balances the scales.</p>
<p>Charters push more per-pupil funding</p>
<p>Chicago’s move toward weighted funding owes much to charter schools rallying for increased funding.</p>
<p>Illinois law requires districts to fund charter schools at a minimum of 75 percent of the district’s average base educational costs. Existing charter school leaders complained that they were being shortchanged because they didn’t have access to millions of dollars in federal and state funds that are earmarked for special programs, such as special education and summer school.</p>
<p>In November, the district raised the basic per-pupil allocation for charters and other schools slated to open under Renaissance 2010. Elementary schools will get roughly $5,000 per student; high schools will get $6,000. On top of those funds, schools will get additional per-pupil funding to compensate them for small enrollment ($200 per pupil), extended-day programs ($260) and bilingual education ($520).</p>
<p>Still being worked out are per-pupil figures for special education services, where expenses can vary widely depending on the severity of a student’s disability.</p>
<p>CPS based the figures on rough estimates of the amount of money it spends out of central budgets and school-level budgets in regular schools, figures obscured by the district’s antiquated budgeting practices.</p>
<p>One result may be that Renaissance schools will have at their disposal more money per pupil than most regular schools. Diana Nelson, executive director for the Cross City Campaign for Urban School Reform, favors the move to per-pupil funding but wonders whether inequities will be exacerbated during the pilot.</p>
<p>‘All we want is parity’</p>
<p>Charter schools are clear winners in the district’s transition to student-based funding. Most significant will be the additional funds those schools will receive to pay for special education services, where charters are most pinched financially, says Chris Kelly, dean of operations for North Lawndale College Prep.</p>
<p>“All we want is parity in funding,” says Ron Manderschied, board president of Noble Street Charter School. “We get no funding for night school, after-school programs, summer school or sports. You start to add all that up and you’re starting to talk about some real, serious money.”</p>
<p>Parity is an easy sell to schools that stand to get more money, but not for those facing the prospect of losing it.</p>
<p>The Little Village high school principals compared the per-pupil rates the district was offering to Renaissance schools to the amount it spent at existing small high schools, and say they found the small schools were better off. The principals also wanted to avoid responsibility for paying teacher salaries, as charter schools do; regular public schools use staffing formulas that shift the financial burden for teacher salaries to the district. Finally, they noted that sheer numbers would initially work against them—as start-ups, each Little Village school would enroll only 100 or so freshmen this fall.</p>
<p>Martinez explains that new schools with artificially small enrollments could get additional funds to supplement their per-pupil allotment as they grow to full enrollment.</p>
<p>South Shore’s School of Entreprenuership, a small high school that is one class shy of full enrollment, for instance, is getting a basic allotment of $5,858 per pupil. If it were a Renaissance school, it would get $150 per pupil more.</p>
<p>To further make the district case for per-pupil funding, Martinez notes that principals using the new system would have increased purchasing power, much like charter schools have now. And he is eyeing a strategy that would mitigate the financial impact of more expensive, experienced teachers.</p>
<p>That’s an attractive proposition to Principal Bill Gerstein of the School of Entrepreneurship. “I’d love more control over the budget, but you’d have to be careful which schools you roll it out in,” he says. Experienced principals who work well with their local school councils and who know their students’ needs are the ones who will make effective hiring and purchasing decisions, he notes.</p>
<p>Gerstein warns the district to slow down the rollout of its budget reforms. School leaders need enough time to adjust to the district’s new computerized financial system, which is slated to come online this fall, let alone any newfound spending authority. Already, 10 principals are test driving the new computer program which streamlines finances and budget planning. CPS will train 60 more this spring and move every school online over the summer.</p>
<p>Since November, Martinez has also convened focus groups of principals to find out how much control and flexibility local leaders would like over their schools’ finances.</p>
<p>Finkl Elementary Principal Susan Jensen, who is participating in the pilot, says the new system organizes the school’s spending history and saves her a lot of time. A recent computer purchase, for instance, would have taken weeks to process under the old system, but the new system allowed her to shift $5,000 in the budget to make way for the acquisition.</p>
<p>Timothy Knowles, director of the University of Chicago’s Center for Urban School Improvement, suggests CPS go all the way with its budget decentralizing effort, citing a successful pilot schools program in Boston. There, he says, the district converted central office services offered to schools, such as art programs, into a per-pupil rate. Participating schools could then choose whether they wanted to buy those services from central office or elsewhere. “Not surprisingly, they didn’t buy much back,” says Knowles, formerly a Boston deputy superintendent.</p>
<p>Knowles offers that the district’s reading, math and science initiatives are good candidates for buy-back.</p>
<p>CPS is unlikely to take its project that far, says Martinez. Funds for the reading and math initiatives are controlled by Eason-Watkins, he says. “It’s not like we can say, ‘Here’s $250 a student, now go run your own reading program.'”</p>
<p>Nonetheless, Martinez says he’s ready for the challenge. “We feel confident that going forward with a per-pupil funding system is right for us. We’re going to do the whole thing and figure it out as we go.”</p>
<p>Can CPS stay the course?</p>
<p>Some longtime reformers, noting an erosion of local school councils’ authority, doubt that all of the district’s leaders fully embrace the idea of shifting most or all control over budgets to school leaders.</p>
<p>John Ayers of Leadership for Quality Education cites two recent examples. A small schools initiative in recent years created several autonomous small high schools to replace larger schools, but the district did not turn over the reins to the budget to the new schools’ leaders, he says.</p>
<p>Also, he says, the district recently reasserted its control over budgets in schools on probation. These schools must spend “discretionary” funds—state and federal supplemental poverty funds that go directly to schools—on a mandated reading program.</p>
<p>“We can’t afford to waste a single penny in our schools,” responds schools chief Arne Duncan. He envisions a system where area instructional officers make decisions about spending and instruction for schools that have poor academic and fiscal track records. However, district bureaucrats would step aside and allow better performing schools to make their own decisions.</p>
<p>“It’s really about trusting your stars,” he says.</p>
<p>For now, Little Village’s new school principals remain opposed to the new funding approach. Full autonomy from the start is overwhelming, says Martha Irizarry, principal of Infinity, one of those schools. “Having CPS hold our hands is not such a bad thing.”</p>
<p>New principals don’t fully understand what costs go into running a school, says Angela Miller-Perez, a consultant who helped Little Village. “If you’re a seasoned principal, then you would have a sense [of whether] this business of per-pupil funding will be sufficient,” says Miller-Perez.</p>
<p>Little Village will eventually have to reverse its position on per-pupil funding, says Martinez, who optimistically anticipates that every school will be converted by September 2007.</p>
<p>But political tensions between the community and the district show no signs of abating.</p>
<p>Jaime De Leon of Little Village Community Development Corp.-the group that organized the hunger strike-says the district’s per-pupil budget formula and other policies for Renaissance schools don’t fit the community’s needs. Neither does the Renaissance label, which he says implies that the district willingly created the new high schools, he adds.</p>
<p>Says DeLeon: “People know very little about Renaissance 2010. But the history of these schools is understood. These schools are a result of common struggle.”</p> | CPS eyes budget equity | false | http://chicagoreporter.com/cps-eyes-budget-equity/ | 2006-01-06 | 3 |
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<p />
<p>Here are some of the legal issues involved:</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>WHAT HAPPENED?</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Police body-camera video released Thursday shows Salt Lake City Detective Jeff Payne handcuffing nurse Alex Wubbels on July 26 after she refused to allow blood to be drawn from an unconscious patient after a car crash.</p>
<p>In the video, Wubbels, who works in the burn unit at Utah University Hospital, explains she’s protecting the patient’s rights and she can’t take the man’s blood unless he is under arrest, police have a warrant or the patient consents.</p>
<p>None of that applied, and the patient was not a suspect. Payne’s written report says he wanted the sample to show the victim did nothing wrong.</p>
<p>The dispute ended with Payne telling Wubbels: “We’re done, you’re under arrest.” He pulled Wubbels outside while she screams: “I’ve done nothing wrong!”</p>
<p>Wubbels is being praised for her actions to protect the patient, while Payne and another officer are on paid leave. Criminal and internal affairs investigations are underway.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>LEGAL ISSUES AT PLAY?</p>
<p>A 2016 U.S. Supreme Court ruling says a blood sample can’t be taken without patient consent or a warrant. But in this case, the officer reportedly believed he had “implied consent” to take the patient’s blood.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Implied consent assumes that a person with a driver’s license has given approval for blood draws, alcohol breath screenings or other tests if there’s reason to believe the driver is under the influence.</p>
<p>Paul Cassell, a criminal law professor at the University of Utah’s S.J. Quinney College of Law, wrote in an opinion piece for The Salt Lake Tribune that state law doesn’t permit a blood draw in this situation — especially since the blood was being sought to prove the patient was not under the influence.</p>
<p>Wubbels’ attorney, Karra Porter, said the state’s implied-consent law “has no relevance in this case whatsoever under anyone’s interpretation. … The officer here admitted on the video and to another officer on the scene that he knew there was no probable cause for a warrant.”</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>MEDICAL PERSONNEL VS. POLICE</p>
<p>Charles Idelson, a spokesman for National Nurses United, said a nurse’s prime responsibility is to be a patient advocate and protect patients, especially when they can’t consent themselves.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, police are investigators and have to capture forensic evidence, which in the case of a blood draw, is decaying with every passing minute, said Ron Martinelli, a forensic criminologist and certified medical investigator.</p>
<p>“For the officer, the clock is ticking,” Martinelli said.</p>
<p>But even with those different objectives, police and medical professionals routinely cooperate and conflicts like the Utah case are infrequent, Martinelli said.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>THE OFFICERS</p>
<p>A second officer who was put on leave Friday has not been formally identified, but officials have said they were reviewing the conduct of Payne’s boss, a lieutenant who reportedly called for Wubbels’ arrest if she kept interfering.</p>
<p>Wubbels, who was not charged with a crime, has said that Payne “bullied me to the utmost extreme.” Payne hasn’t returned messages left at publicly listed phone numbers.</p>
<p>The Salt Lake City police chief and mayor also apologized and changed department policies on blood draws. Police spokeswoman Christina Judd said the new policy does not allow for implied consent for any party and requires a warrant or consent.</p>
<p>Judd also said the agency has met with hospital administration to ensure it does not happen again and to repair relationships.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Forliti reported from Minneapolis. Associated Press writer Sally Ho in Las Vegas contributed to this story.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Follow Amy Forliti on Twitter: <a href="http://www.twitter.com/amyforliti" type="external">http://www.twitter.com/amyforliti</a> . More of her work can be found at https://apnews.com/search/amy%20forliti .</p> | Utah nurse’s arrest raises questions on evidence collection | false | https://abqjournal.com/1057856/utah-nurses-arrest-raises-questions-on-evidence-collection.html | 2017-09-03 | 2 |
<p>The Atlantic <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/09/trump-and-putins-relationship/500852/" type="external">reports</a>:</p>
<p>Rob Glaser is one of the leading left-of-center campaign donors in America. With a fortune gained as an early employee at Microsoft and then as founder of RealNetworks, Glaser has backed causes including the Democracy Alliance and the early political career of Barack Obama. In this current cycle, Glaser is funding a new kind of political effort: a website — <a href="http://putintrump.org/" type="external">PutinTrump.org</a> — intended to highlight the connections between the Republican presidential nominee and Russia’s authoritarian president. PutinTrump.org will launch on September 21.</p>
<p>“There’s frankly a lot we don’t know about the relationship between Putin and Trump, especially the financial ties between Trump’s business empire and Russia writ large—both the Russian government itself, and Russian oligarchs who are close to Putin. 

We’re hoping that PutinTrump.org will encourage more reporting and investigation into the troubling links we already do know about. For instance we have a feedback section where people can report scoops—anonymously if they want—and we’ll do our best with our small but talented staff to track them down as well as to pass along anything we learn to other respected journalists.”</p>
<p>Hit the link for the rest of the interview.</p> | PutinTrump.org: New Site Launches To Expose Financial Ties Between Trump, Putin, And Russian Oligarchs | true | http://joemygod.com/2016/09/21/putintrump-org-new-site-launches-expose-financial-ties-trump-putin-russian-oligarchs/ | 2016-09-21 | 4 |
<p>Facial recognition technology is in use all over the globe — and ready to change the world, <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/mach/tech/how-facial-recognition-systems-will-reshape-your-daily-life-ncna801336" type="external">NBC News reported.</a></p>
<p>The latest sign of the revolution came with announcement new <a href="http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/apple-iphone-facial-recognition/2017/07/03/id/799603/" type="external">iPhones are using the technology.</a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/mach/tech/how-facial-recognition-systems-will-reshape-your-daily-life-ncna801336" type="external">But NBC News reported</a> in China, the technology is already in office buildings and at ATM machines, while high-end European hotels and retailers use it identify celebrity customers — and Australian airports are installing a system to let passengers get through security without passports.</p>
<p>“Everybody’s face is slightly different, so it’s almost like a 3D fingerprint,”&#160;Lyndon Smith, professor of computer simulation and machine vision at the University of the West of England, told NBC News. “Even identical twins, you can differentiate between them when you’re applying this kind of technique.”</p>
<p>“Wherever you go in the world . . . you could, rather than carrying a card around with a PIN and all this complexity, just simply use your face,” he added.</p>
<p>According to NBC News, researchers in the U.K. and India have developed a system that can even see through disguises. Its aim, says researcher Amarjot Singh, a graduate student in engineering at the University of Cambridge, is to “take a lot of criminals off of the streets.”</p>
<p>“Essentially you’ve developed an X-ray to look into people’s identity, and that I think is very exciting,”&#160;he told NBC News.</p>
<p>The revolution has sparked some anxiety as well.</p>
<p>Last week, Stanford University researchers sparked a controversy when they published research suggesting <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/controversial-ai-gaydar-study-spawns-backlash-ethical-debate-n801026" type="external">facial recognition can predict sexual orientation</a>, NBC News reported.</p>
<p>“Our intention is certainly not to have some kind of Big Brother thing going on; we wouldn’t want this system to be used by anybody who didn’t want to use it,” Smith told NBC News. “We’re not trying to monitor people — we’re trying to help people in their everyday lives.”</p> | US on Verge of 'Facial Recognition' Revolution | false | https://newsline.com/us-on-verge-of-facial-recognition-revolution/ | 2017-09-14 | 1 |
<p>Legendary singer Stevie Wonder says anyone who does not believe in global warming “must be blind.”</p>
<p>His comments came during the televised “Hand in Hand” telethon to raise money for hurricane relief and were reported by <a href="http://thehill.com/blogs/in-the-know/in-the-know/350399-stevie-wonder-anyone-who-doesnt-believe-in-global-warming-must" type="external">The Hill.</a></p>
<p>“Anyone who believes that there’s no such thing as global warming must be blind or unintelligent,” says Wonder, who is blind.</p>
<p>“Lord, please save us all.”</p>
<p>Meanwhile, Miami’s Republican Mayor Tomas Regalado urged President Donald Trump to acknowledge that climate change is playing a role in the extreme weather, the <a href="http://www.miamiherald.com/news/weather/hurricane/article172080587.html" type="external">Miami Herald reported.</a></p>
<p>“This is the time to talk about climate change,” Regalado says. “This is the time that the president and the EPA and whoever makes decisions needs to talk about climate change.”</p> | Stevie Wonder: Those Who Don't Believe in Global Warming 'Must Be 'Blind' | false | https://newsline.com/stevie-wonder-those-who-dont-believe-in-global-warming-must-be-blind/ | 2017-09-13 | 1 |
<p>Former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who rose to national fame because of his aggressive policies regarding illegal immigration and criminals, has gone from enforcer of the law to convicted criminal. His crime, according to U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton's ruling Monday, is criminal contempt of court for willfully violating a federal judge's order to stop detaining suspected illegal immigrants, a practice the judge condemned as "racial profiling."</p>
<p>Judge Bolton's ruling carries a sentence of up to six months in confinement, but Arpaio says he's going to appeal and press for a trial. <a href="http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/nation-now/2017/07/31/joe-arpaio-verdict/526253001/" type="external">The Arizona Republic</a> provides some context for the ruling against Arpaio's "immigration round-ups":</p>
<p>In December 2011, amid a long-running racial profiling case, U.S. District Court Judge G. Murray Snow ordered Arpaio’s deputies to stop holding individuals solely on the belief they were in the country illegally. They only were to detain those who were accused of a state crime.</p>
<p>But Arpaio’s deputies continued to do so for at least 17 months thereafter. During the bench trial, witnesses testified that 171 individuals were illegally apprehended and then turned over to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement or to the Border Patrol.</p>
<p>Arpaio has defended his action by arguing that Judge Snow's injunction against the "round-ups" was unclear, and that rather than being a case of "willful intent" to defy the order, Arpaio was simply not clear about what he could or could not do. "The only one who understood what Judge Snow meant was Judge Snow himself," said Defense attorney Dennis Wilenchik.</p>
<p>But on Monday, Bolton ruled against that defense, insisting that Snow "issued a clear and definite order enjoining Defendant from detaining persons for further investigation without reasonable suspicion that a crime has been or is being committed" and that Arpaio "willfully violated the order by failing to do anything to ensure his subordinates’ compliance and by directing them to continue to detain persons for whom no criminal charges could be filed."</p>
<p>While on the opposite end of the spectrum, the case is similar to the case against "sanctuary cities" in that Arpaio was ruled as defying federal law in his handling of illegal immigrants. About a decade ago, Arpaio took the lead as an enforcer of the state's illegal immigration laws and began stopping those suspected of being illegal immigrants, a practice known as "pretextual" stops. Many of those detained were turned over to federal immigration authorities:</p>
<p>Many of those taken into custody were not accused of violating a state crime, but only of living in the country illegally. Once they were detained, deputies would turn over the individuals to Immigrations and Customs Enforcement or Border Patrol officials, who would initiate deportation proceedings.</p>
<p>Arpaio's enforcement practices were ruled to be "racial profiling" in 2013 by Judge Snow, who went on to expand the case in 2015 to determine if Arpaio violated his injunction. Snow ruled that Arpaio and three of his aides were guilty of civil contempt then referred them to federal prosecutors, who dropped the charges against all but Arpaio and decided to only go after him for violating the preliminary injunction.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/nation-now/2017/07/31/joe-arpaio-verdict/526253001/" type="external">Read more on the case here</a>.</p> | Famous Arizona Sheriff Convicted Of Contempt For 'Immigration Round-ups' | true | https://dailywire.com/news/19290/famous-arizona-sheriff-convicted-contempt-james-barrett | 2017-08-03 | 0 |
<p>The Senate passed a bill Wednesday that would fund the government through Dec. 9 and avert a shutdown this weekend. The bill now goes to the House of Representatives. The government is currently funded through the end of the day Friday. Democrats had opposed the funding bill until a deal was struck on aid for the Flint, Mich., water crisis. The aid is in a separate measure.</p>
<p>Copyright © 2016 MarketWatch, Inc.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p> | Senate Passes Bill To Keep Government Funded Through Dec. 9 | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/09/28/senate-passes-bill-to-keep-government-funded-through-dec.html | 2016-09-28 | 0 |
<p />
<p>Bedawi Palestinian camp, LEBANON – Can Hezbollah Prevent DAASH (IS) From Pulling Lebanon into its Caliphate?</p>
<p>The answer to that question is—perhaps. But for a number of reasons, some suggested below, it’s not a happy picture, and it won’t be a walk in the park.</p>
<p>The recent “victories” by DAASH (IS, or Islamic State) in Syria and Iraq have not taken long to begin reverberating through the ground in Lebanon. A gauntlet of sorts stands before this country, one that it must negotiate successfully if it is to avoid an all-out war, dismemberment or its substantial subjection to elements of extreme Islam.</p>
<p>One IS leader, Abu Sayyaf al-Ansari, recently announced the expansion of the IS to include Lebanon, declaring, “Our war will no longer be confined to Syria and Iraq. Soon, Lebanon will ignite.”</p>
<p>Meanwhile, Lebanon’s branch of al-Nusra Front posted on its Twitter feed its fourth official statement to date, entitled “Urgent appeal to Sunnis in Lebanon.” The statement reads in part: “Our war will no longer be confined to Syria. Soon, Lebanon will ignite. Iran’s party [i.e. Hezbollah] and all its bases and strongholds are a legitimate target for us wherever they may be found.”</p>
<p>The sole concern, Al-Nusra went on to proclaim, is for the blood of the Sunnis and to clear the Umma’s “conscience before God,” and the organization issued a call for “Sunnis in Lebanon to refrain from approaching or residing in [Hezbollah] areas or near its bases, and to avoid its gathering places and posts.”</p>
<p>Security sources have reported that the terrorist cells intercepted at the Napoleon and Duroy hotels in Beirut had been dispatched by IS as part of its strategy to overwhelm Lebanon with a formidable wave of suicide bombings. The security services apparently base this reading on the previous modus operandi and strategy of the terrorist cells, and also on information relayed by U.S. and European sources, indicating that the many suicide bombers had been dispatched by IS/Nusra Front to Lebanon.</p>
<p>It is fairly clear as of July 11 that jihadi factions are racing to declare war on Lebanon, this occurring simultaneous to a Lebanese Army crackdown on individuals suspected of involvement with these groups. Analysts in Washington and Europe suggest that the jihadi expansion into Lebanon will be a developing new phase, ushering in a paradigm shift in terror attacks in the country. Some even suggest that halting this forward progress will require Hezbollah taking a lead role, and that the Lebanese Army and security agencies are not up to the job.</p>
<p>Hezbollah may agree with Washington, at least on the latter point. Loyalty to the Resistance bloc MP WalidSukkarieh, from the Bekaa Valley, called last week for cooperation between the armies of Lebanon and Syria to control the flow of gunmen through the border—but he pointed out that the presence of Lebanese security forces along the border in the eastern town of Arsal aren’t enough to do the job.</p>
<p>“The fanatic groups will try to take control over a big geographical area in Akkar and the Palestinian camps,” he said. “I have information from Akkar about ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusra training camps. They’re trying to move toward Tripoli, and their plan is to get closer to Beirut.”</p>
<p>Reports are also mounting of sleeper cells in different Lebanese regions such as Beirut, the Beqaa Valley, and North Lebanon, and according to Sukkarieh, “Thousands are flocking from around the world to join the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq.”</p>
<p>Two quick cases in point. The lovely British twin sisters, 16-year-old Salma and Zahra Halane, are bubbly, exceptionally bright, and hold amazing 28 GCSEs (GSCE, or General Certificate of Secondary Education, is an academic qualification awarded in a specified subject in the British education system).</p>
<p>Both girls were planning to train as doctors. Now, however, they are in Syria, where they reportedly have joined DAASH, and may soon be headed for Lebanon. Reports suggest the sisters were normal teenagers, doing what teens do everywhere these days—pouting for selfies, shopping, participating in school activities, etc.—and they apparently did not discuss politics much with friends, although they were known to support the Palestinian cause.</p>
<p>Their parents believe they followed their older jihadi brother, who left for Syria last year, suspending his higher education, at which he also had excelled. At any rate, the teenagers’ parents speculate that Salma and Zahra became radicalized while viewing extremist Islamist material online, though really no one knows for certain.</p>
<p>The other example is the British DAASH recruit, Muthanna, by all reports a sweet, polite, and very considerate young man. Muthanna is now an IS spokesman, urging all people of good will to join him in the new Caliphate in making jihad for the betterment of mankind. The kid is barely out of high school. The family immigrated to Britain from Yemen, and before deciding to join DAASH, Muthanna had been accepted by four medical schools in Britain, according to the UK Daily Mail.</p>
<p>“Send us; we are your sharp arrows,” he has pledged to IS “Amir” Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. “Throw us at your enemies wherever they may be.”</p>
<p>On another video, the young man can be seen saying, “We’ll go to Jordan and Lebanon with no problem.”</p>
<p>Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, by the way, shares the same forename-by-deed-poll with the first Caliph of Islam, Abu Bakr al-Siddiq (the Truthful), but what’s in a name? More importantly, why are some our best and brightest young Muslims joining extremist jihadists? Can they be reasoned with and stopped? How many more youngsters at this hour are preparing something similar?</p>
<p>Recent developments in Iraq and Syria should be worrisome. DAASH’s goals of creating an Islamic state across the Sunni Arab world and erasing the borders drawn by colonial powers have energized jihadist factions across the region and even the world. In a video released last week, a group of jihadist fighters from several countries showed their support for IS. “We have participated in battles in Al-Sham (Syria) and we will go to Iraq in a few days, and then we’ll come back and move to Lebanon,” they aver.</p>
<p>In point of fact, DAASH has already come to Lebanon, and more jihadists arrive every day. This country’s extremely politicized and sectarian local media have been accused of frightening the public by overstating the matter, and these days “news” accounts of DAASH agents flooding across the Syrian border have been a bit weak on substantive details.</p>
<p>Moreover, every “confession” from a “takfiri” is widely suspected to be the result of torture. But be that as it may, on July 9, Beirut’s Daily Star, citing security sources, announced that “Nusra Front and IS (DAASH)-affiliated cells are regularly making their way into Beirut, readying themselves to conduct more suicide bombings in Lebanon…some of these cells have received intensive trainings in secret locations in Arsal’s Wadi Hamayed.”</p>
<p>Suspected also, it seems, is that several members of fundamentalist groups may be laying low in various apartments and hotels across the Lebanese capital, as well as in Palestinian refugee camps. What appears fairly certain is that Lebanon is being nominated to join the IS—and that DAASH is here.</p>
<p>We also hear reports of 28 rigged cars, vehicles purportedly being kept in secret locations in Arsal, Western Beqaa, Tripoli, and the Beirut neighborhood of Tariq al-Jadideh. The autos are said to be hidden in camouflaged garages, while security forces are working to determine the identity of their owners.</p>
<p>DAASH’s ability to inspire such intense support, such as from the young people noted above, worries Lebanese and U.S. officials. Their fighters seemingly will go anywhere and do anything for the cause, combining an intense passion for “justice” with an unusual degree of organization, technical skill and tactical planning.</p>
<p>Some in Lebanon are beginning to refer to “Amir” Bakr Baghdadi as “the Nasrallah of DAASH.” Both leaders exhibit personal charisma, intelligence and ability to gather and inspire followers. Some have even gone so far as to suggest organizational acumen and self-sacrifice similarities between the two men and their organizations, despite profound ideological/religious/sectarian differences.</p>
<p>An IS invasion of Lebanon, along the lines of what it achieved in northwest Iraq, is thus looking increasingly likely.</p>
<p>Most of the expected tactics are well known in Lebanon, and include bringing suicide bombers to target politicians, the use of IS sleeper cells, and exploiting some specific areas in some Palestinian or Syrian refugee camps.</p>
<p>Lebanese journalist Jean Aziz, for one, feels the threat is quite significant. Aziz discusses a recent intelligence report making the rounds that concludes that DAASH will invade Lebanon from Al-Qalamoun Mountains, more specifically from the western slope of the eastern mountain range between Lebanon and Syria.</p>
<p>The expected massive DAASH ground incursion will include a large force comprised of various nationalities, a force well known to be gathering in the mountainous regions and consisting of veterans from nearby battles, including at al-Qusayr, villages around Homs, Yabrud, Nabak Nasab, and west to Qalamoun, as well as hardened fighters from secret camps near the Lebanon border.</p>
<p>The report cited by Aziz estimates that as many as 5,000 DAASH fighters will be mobilized by offering cash, spoils, “victory” and enlargement of the Islamic State. Many are believed currently residing in caves and tunnels dug in the mountains over the past three years, reportedly with a huge arsenal of weapons and ammunition, and once the battle begins, thousands of fighters from across Lebanon may pledge allegiance to DAASH.</p>
<p>What is disturbing security services in Beirut, Washington, and elsewhere, is Lebanon’s seemingly vast geography of fertile sectarian soil for IS to plant its creed, grow recruits and harvest territory for the expanding Caliphate.</p>
<p>Some in Washington also feel an attack could be launched from Arsal, possibly under cover of several simultaneous attacks around the country from sleeper cells. Such attacks most likely would target key Lebanese military and security sites, and could be carried out with the assistance of many in Lebanon who are sympathetic to DAASH. This would include residents in some Palestinian camps as well Syrian refugees in certain sensitive areas.</p>
<p>Another development, one being downplayed by Washington but which is said to be causing private worry in the Pentagon, is this week’s Iraqi warning to the UN that Sunni militants have seized nuclear materials used for scientific research at a university in Mosul. In a letter reported by Reuters, Iraq’s envoy to the UN is claiming that DAASH has taken possession of nearly 40kg (88lb) of uranium compounds.</p>
<p>Washington and Tehran, along with their allies, view threats from DAASH similarly in some respects. Islamist militants that have swept across Iraq and parts of Syria pose a clear and “imminent danger,” as Defense Secretary Chuck. Hegel put it.</p>
<p>“Make no mistake—and this country should not make any mistake on this, nor anyone in Congress—this is a threat to our country,” Hagel said. “This is a force that is sophisticated, it’s dynamic, it’s strong, it’s organized, it’s well-financed, it’s competent.”</p>
<p>Similarly, Tehran has made it clear Iran will not tolerate an IS caliphate on its borders, nor will it allow the formation of a Sunni mini-state in Iraq’s Anbar province backed by Turkey or one of the Gulf States.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, Hezbollah is closely following the political, security and field developments in Iraq, and is reportedly conducting intensive meetings with military officials from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps at the Iranian Embassy in Beirut, with summaries of the discussions forwarded to Gen.</p>
<p>Qassem Suleimani, the commander of the Quds Force of the IRGC. Iran is aware that despite its support for the Iraqi regime’s weak forces and the claimed “revitalization” of Iraqi Shia militias, it cannot contain DAASH on its own, and this fact is leading to speculation of a limited US-Iran détente.</p>
<p>One question frequently asked by this observer in the Palestinian camps and in Hamra is why are Sunni Muslims, who in the main, like their Shia brothers and sisters, are distinctively moderate—why are they suddenly and seemingly in great numbers taking such an interest in DAASH’s military achievements? And why are so many insisting that the Umma will modify and tame the DAASH jihadist tiger, once the Caliphate returns, as happened to a great extent under the Ottomans?</p>
<p>This observer, like many in this region, has been struck by the Sunni-Shia mutual mistrust and growing antagonism, a rupture that will deeply affect Lebanon’s coming war with DAASH.</p>
<p>During the spate of bombings over the past year in my largely Shia Hezbollah neighborhood of South Beirut—bombings which left many dead and wounded, including two lovely youngsters, Ali and Marie, from my building on Abbas Mousawi Street—I took strong personal umbrage when a few Sunni friends made outrageous comments like, “They (their countrymen and fellow Muslims in Dahiyeh) deserved it, and let’s hope there are many more bombings of the party of Satan by the rebels!”</p>
<p>Despite this appalling hate speech, which appears to be growing these days in Lebanon, does Hezbollah hold the keys to ending the Sunni-Shia conflict in Lebanon and defeating DAASH? This observer believes that it does, and that Hezbollah, in partnership with Lebanese security forces, can and will stop DAASH, that it will do this by employing some of the elements of a Sunni-Shia strategy outlined in a written report by the author this week for Hezbollah leadership.</p> | Jihadists in Lebanon | false | http://foreignpolicyjournal.com/2014/07/15/jihadists-in-lebanon/ | 2014-07-15 | 1 |
<p />
<p>U.S. consumer confidence jumped to its highest level in seven months in September as Americans were more optimistic about the job market and income prospects, a private sector report showed on Tuesday.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>The Conference Board, an industry group, said its index of consumer attitudes rose to 70.3 from an upwardly revised 61.3 in August. It was the highest level since February and topped economists' expectations for 63, according to a Reuters poll.</p>
<p>August was originally reported as 60.6.</p>
<p>"Despite continuing economic uncertainty, consumers are slightly more optimistic than they have been in several months," said Lynn Franco, director of The Conference Board Consumer Research Center, said in a statement.</p>
<p>The expectations index climbed to 83.7 from 71.1, while the present situation index gained to 50.2 from 46.5.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>Consumers' labor market assessment improved. The "jobs hard to get" index slipped to 39.9 percent from 40.6 percent the month before, while the "jobs plentiful" index rose to 8.3 percent from 7.2 percent.</p>
<p>Looking six months ahead, 16.3 percent expected income increases, up from 16 percent, while 14.1 percent anticipated decreases, down from 16.7 percent.</p>
<p>Consumers also felt better about price increases with expectations for inflation in the coming 12 months down to 5.8 percent from 6 percent.</p> | Consumer Confidence Jumps to 7-Month High | true | http://foxbusiness.com/politics/2012/09/25/consumer-confidence-jumps-to-7-month-high.html | 2016-03-03 | 0 |
<p>LONDON (AP) — Goals from Olivier Giroud and Mesut Ozil helped Arsenal end a run of two consecutive defeats in the Champions League with a 2-0 victory over Bayern Munich on Tuesday.</p>
<p>Arsenal knew that victory in at least one of its next two matches against Bayern would be vital for advancing from Group F, and it managed to inflict a first defeat of the season on Pep Guardiola's side.</p>
<p>The three points gained at the Emirates Stadium puts Arsenal back in the hunt for qualification. Bayern stays top of the group, level on six points with second-place Olympiakos, which beat Dinamo Zagreb 1-0. Dinamo and fourth-place Arsenal have three points each.</p>
<p>"We had an absolute necessity to win the game and we did it," Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger said. "Bayern had more possession than us but we decided to make it tight in the final third and catch them on the break. I think we have beaten a very strong team. We must get a result in Munich."</p>
<p>Substitute Giroud gave Arsenal the lead when he bundled the ball into the net on the 77th minute, after Manuel Neuer rushed off his line and failed to claim a free-kick into the penalty area from Santi Cazorla.</p>
<p>Ozil sealed the win in stoppage time, converting a cross at the byline from Hector Bellerin. Neuer hooked the ball away, but only after it had crossed the line and the goal was confirmed by the fifth official.</p>
<p>Bayern controlled possession throughout the first half at the Emirates Stadium and Arsenal relied on saves from Petr Cech to deny Thiago Alcantara and Douglas Costa.</p>
<p>Yet for all the German side's dominance, it was Arsenal which went closest to taking the lead before halftime.</p>
<p>Nacho Monreal delivered a precise cross down the left in the 33rd minute, finding Theo Walcott unmarked on the six yard line.</p>
<p>The striker flicked a header at goal, only for Neuer to make an astounding one-handed save to claw the ball off the line.</p>
<p>Despite an indifferent display from Neuer, with his error leading to Arsenal's first goal, Guardiola refused to lay the blame with him.</p>
<p>"We didn't lose because of Manuel Neuer," Guardiola said. "In the first half, he made some really great saves. He took a decision and that's it. We had enough chances to win the match, or at least not to lose. I'm so proud of my team, I like to win and I'm not happy, but we played with a lot of courage."</p>
<p>Cech came to Arsenal's rescue in the second half, smothering an opening one-handed when Robert Lewandowski was through on goal in the 75th minute. It was a vital save, as Arsenal got the free kick which resulted in the first goal in the next foray forward.</p>
<p>When Arsenal next faces Bayern in Germany, it could be without Aaron Ramsey, who went off injured after 58 minutes, holding his right hamstring.</p>
<p>There could also be trouble from UEFA before then, following a protest about ticket prices.</p>
<p>Hundreds of seats were left vacant in the Bayern supporters section for the first five minutes of the game, with two signs placed across the rows of seats, sending the message '64 pounds a ticket but without fans football is not worth a penny.'</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>This story has been corrected to show that Arsenal is fourth, not third.</p>
<p>LONDON (AP) — Goals from Olivier Giroud and Mesut Ozil helped Arsenal end a run of two consecutive defeats in the Champions League with a 2-0 victory over Bayern Munich on Tuesday.</p>
<p>Arsenal knew that victory in at least one of its next two matches against Bayern would be vital for advancing from Group F, and it managed to inflict a first defeat of the season on Pep Guardiola's side.</p>
<p>The three points gained at the Emirates Stadium puts Arsenal back in the hunt for qualification. Bayern stays top of the group, level on six points with second-place Olympiakos, which beat Dinamo Zagreb 1-0. Dinamo and fourth-place Arsenal have three points each.</p>
<p>"We had an absolute necessity to win the game and we did it," Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger said. "Bayern had more possession than us but we decided to make it tight in the final third and catch them on the break. I think we have beaten a very strong team. We must get a result in Munich."</p>
<p>Substitute Giroud gave Arsenal the lead when he bundled the ball into the net on the 77th minute, after Manuel Neuer rushed off his line and failed to claim a free-kick into the penalty area from Santi Cazorla.</p>
<p>Ozil sealed the win in stoppage time, converting a cross at the byline from Hector Bellerin. Neuer hooked the ball away, but only after it had crossed the line and the goal was confirmed by the fifth official.</p>
<p>Bayern controlled possession throughout the first half at the Emirates Stadium and Arsenal relied on saves from Petr Cech to deny Thiago Alcantara and Douglas Costa.</p>
<p>Yet for all the German side's dominance, it was Arsenal which went closest to taking the lead before halftime.</p>
<p>Nacho Monreal delivered a precise cross down the left in the 33rd minute, finding Theo Walcott unmarked on the six yard line.</p>
<p>The striker flicked a header at goal, only for Neuer to make an astounding one-handed save to claw the ball off the line.</p>
<p>Despite an indifferent display from Neuer, with his error leading to Arsenal's first goal, Guardiola refused to lay the blame with him.</p>
<p>"We didn't lose because of Manuel Neuer," Guardiola said. "In the first half, he made some really great saves. He took a decision and that's it. We had enough chances to win the match, or at least not to lose. I'm so proud of my team, I like to win and I'm not happy, but we played with a lot of courage."</p>
<p>Cech came to Arsenal's rescue in the second half, smothering an opening one-handed when Robert Lewandowski was through on goal in the 75th minute. It was a vital save, as Arsenal got the free kick which resulted in the first goal in the next foray forward.</p>
<p>When Arsenal next faces Bayern in Germany, it could be without Aaron Ramsey, who went off injured after 58 minutes, holding his right hamstring.</p>
<p>There could also be trouble from UEFA before then, following a protest about ticket prices.</p>
<p>Hundreds of seats were left vacant in the Bayern supporters section for the first five minutes of the game, with two signs placed across the rows of seats, sending the message '64 pounds a ticket but without fans football is not worth a penny.'</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>This story has been corrected to show that Arsenal is fourth, not third.</p> | Arsenal beats Bayern Munich 2-0 in the Champions League | false | https://apnews.com/amp/b4fdc32b6c9d4cf6909458c11a664ef2 | 2015-10-20 | 2 |
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<p>LAS CRUCES, N.M. — The longtime director of the Dona Ana County Detention center has resigned as he faced marijuana possession charges and a move to fire him.</p>
<p>The Las Cruces Sun-News ( <a href="http://bit.ly/2wHB3AV" type="external">http://bit.ly/2wHB3AV</a> ) reported Wednesday that Chris Barela resigned after an administrative hearing where he was contesting a move to fire him.</p>
<p>Barela has pleaded not guilty to four misdemeanor marijuana possession charges and has a court date later this month. Local narcotics detectives launched an investigation in April after receiving a tip that Barela had regularly been buying marijuana. Detectives then set up a sting and Barela allegedly purchased pot from undercover operatives.</p>
<p>Barela told the Sun-News he resigned under “eminent threat of termination” after being told the hearing officer would order him fired.</p>
<p>Barela has overseen the county jail since 2005.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Information from: Las Cruces Sun-News, <a href="http://www.lcsun-news.com" type="external">http://www.lcsun-news.com</a></p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | Dona Ana County jail director resigns under fire | false | https://abqjournal.com/1059756/dona-ana-county-jail-director-resigns-under-fire.html | 2 |
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<p>Just as Lenin’s body remains on public display in Russia, because one never knows when he might be useful to rally the masses, so, too, does the ghost (but thankfully not the body) of the late Joseph McCarthy (R-Wis.) remain a useful symbol for Democrats in Washington.</p>
<p>Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) are the latest to summon McCarthy’s ghost.</p>
<p>After Sen. Ted Cruz, (R-Texas), asked defense secretary nominee Chuck Hagel whether he had been compensated by foreign interests hostile to the United States for speeches he made in which he seemed to favor their aspirations, Boxer said of Cruz’s tenacious questioning, “It was really reminiscent of a different time and place, when you said, ‘I have here in my pocket a speech you made on such and such a date,’ and of course nothing was in the pocket. It was reminiscent of some bad times.”</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>McCarthy said “hand,” not “pocket,” but why quibble?</p>
<p>That Democrats over the years have filibustered and smeared some people nominated by Republican presidents as “out of the mainstream,” or “extremists” (remember Robert Bork?) does not register on the media hypocrisy meter, but hypocrisy is sometimes bipartisan, so let’s move on to a more important topic.</p>
<p>Why do Democrats fear the double threats of Ted Cruz and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.)? A day after the State of the Union address, CNN ran a chyron that questioned whether Rubio’s reach for a bottle of water during his pointed response to President Obama’s speech might have been a “career-ender.” Democrats wish.</p>
<p>After becoming the first Hispanic to win a Senate seat in Texas, Cruz told CBS News, “I think the values in the Hispanic community are fundamentally conservative, but you’ve got to have candidates that connect with that community in a real and genuine way and communicate that the values between the candidate and the community are one and the same.”</p>
<p>This is what Cruz and Rubio are doing.</p>
<p>They don’t use their heritage as a wedge to divide; rather they are using it as an avenue for communicating ideas to those who share that heritage — and to a wider audience — in ways that can improve everyone’s life.</p>
<p>Cruz talks about “opportunity conservatism,” a phrase that contrasts with some Democrats’ apparent belief that the federal government should reign supreme.</p>
<p>Cruz and Rubio are dangerous to statists because they speak of things that ignited the Reagan revolution, including the belief that the power to improve your life is in you, not in Washington.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>If those who have placed their faith and trust (and votes) in President Obama and the cult of big government awaken to the idea that only they have the power to change their circumstances, they won’t need politicians.</p>
<p>Such an awakening will not bode well for Democrats whose political careers are often about bigger and more encroaching government and penalizing the successful with ever-higher taxes and burdensome government regulations.</p>
<p>Democrats aren’t likely to sit still and allow Cruz and Rubio’s ideas to reach not only Hispanics, but the rest of America. Their ideas are more powerful than the weapons used by Democrats in their race and class warfare where people are seen not as individuals, but as voting blocs.</p>
<p>That is why much of the media seems to focus on trivialities, rather than on what Rubio and Cruz are saying.</p>
<p>Some conservatives like to summon the ghost of Franklin Roosevelt whose programs could be said to have sparked the modern entitlement mentality.</p>
<p>For liberals, it’s McCarthy.</p>
<p>Both should be returned to the history books and removed from contemporary political debate.</p>
<p>With McCarthy, it probably won’t happen because Cruz and Rubio threaten to damage the Democrats’ base, and they can’t have that.</p>
<p>For some Democrats it’s more about political power and reliance on dysfunctional government, than about ideas that work.</p>
<p>E-mail: <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a>; copyright, Tribune Media Services.</p> | Liberals need to stop playing the McCarthy card | false | https://abqjournal.com/170695/liberals-need-to-stop-playing-the-mccarthy-card.html | 2013-02-20 | 2 |
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<p>Store co-owner Janene Zakrajsek feeds a dog a gourmet meal at the Pussy &amp; Pooch Pet Lifestyle Center store in Beverly Hills, Calif. American pets include an estimated 95.6 million cats and 83.3 million dogs, 20.6 million birds, 8.3 million horses, 145 million freshwater fish, 13.6 million saltwater fish, 11.6 million reptiles and 18.1 million small animals. (AP Photo/Nick Ut, File)</p>
<p>LOS ANGELES - Dogs and cats have become part of the American family's inner circle over the past 20 years, sleeping in their own beds or yours, eating food bought specially to help their digestive tracts, drinking purified water and cuddling up in chairs on heated pads made to fend off arthritis.</p>
<p>In addition to veterinarians, some pets have their own groomers, trainers, sitters and occasional walkers.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>All this suggests a bright future for an industry that has grown alongside the popularity of pets, expanding at a steady 4 percent to 6 percent a year since the American Pet Products Association started record-keeping in 1996.</p>
<p>Americans spent an all-time high $55.7 billion on their pets last year, and spending will creep close to $60 billion this year, association president and CEO Bob Vetere told buyers and exhibitors at the Global Pet Expo in Orlando, Fla., earlier this month.</p>
<p>The biggest chunk of 2013 spending, $21.6 billion, went for food - a lot of it more expensive, healthier grub. In 1996, total pet spending was just $21 billion. Adjusted for inflation, that's $31.3 billion.</p>
<p>Leather dog collars are displayed at the Pussy &amp; Pooch Pet Lifestyle Center store in Beverly Hills, Calif. An industry spokesman said Americans spent an all-time high of $55.7 billion on their pets in 2013 and will creep close to $60 billion this year. (AP Photo/Nick Ut, File)</p>
<p>The humanization of our pets started about 20 years ago, Vetere said in a telephone interview. As pets accepted their new perch in the family, manufacturers introduced products that helped animals move from the backyard to the front room.</p>
<p>"What is feeding a large part of the growth now are the baby boomers who have become empty-nesters and are looking for some other ways to find the love and affection they used to get from their kids," Vetere said.</p>
<p>"In the past, children were a reflection of us, and people are now extending that to their pets," said Dr. Jessica Vogelsang, a San Diego veterinarian who owns the website pawcurious.com.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>People don't bring their pets in just for health reasons anymore - they also want them to look good and smell good, she said. "From my perspective, it's a good thing. It's nice to see people care as deeply as they do."</p>
<p>People have always spent more on food than any other pet spending category, and pet food trends follow human food and diet trends, according to Vetere.</p>
<p>That means if you are on a health kick, chances are your pet is too.</p>
<p>"Food choices are extraordinarily confusing," Vogelsang said. "I think people spend more time in the dog food aisle than they do in the rest of the store."</p>
<p>Sales numbers show owners are buying more age-specific, breed-specific, vitamin-infused or additive-enhanced foods, Vetere said.</p>
<p>Dave Bolen is president and CEO of Pet Supplies Plus, a chain of 294 specialty stores in 24 Eastern states. His 25-years-old business has expanded every year - it opened eight stores in 2013 and plans to open 30 this year.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>"We are bullish about pet ownership," he said.</p>
<p>It can only get better, Bolen said, as people discover all the healthy benefits of owning pets.</p>
<p>Other spending last year included $14.4 billion for veterinary care; $13.1 billion for supplies and over-the-counter medicines; $2.2 billion for live animal purchases; and $4.4 billion for other services.</p>
<p>Those services include grooming, boarding, training and pet-sitting and grew by the largest percentage last year - 6.1 percent.</p>
<p>How much did Americans spend on other popular industries?</p>
<p>They spent just under $44 billion on carbonated soft drinks in 2012, based on the latest year of data available, the Mintel Group said. In 2013, Americans spent $83 billion on beer, Mintel said, although Beer Marketer's Insights set sales at just over $100 billion.</p>
<p>Health and wellness products, supplies and over-the-counter medications - which grew by 7.4 percent in 2012 - grew only 3.9 percent in 2013, Vetere said.</p>
<p>Sales of live animals - everything except dogs and cats - has fallen off in the past few years, Vetere said. He expects it to drop off another 2 percent this year.</p>
<p>American pets include an estimated 95.6 million cats and 83.3 million dogs, the APPA said. There are also 20.6 million birds, 8.3 million horses, 145 million freshwater fish, 13.6 million saltwater fish, 11.6 million reptiles and 18.1 million small animals.</p>
<p /> | No pause in pet spending | false | https://abqjournal.com/373167/no-pause-in-pet-spending.html | 2 |
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<p>Shares of some top insurance companies are down at 10 a.m.:</p>
<p>ACE L fell $1.81 or 1.6 percent, to $110.56.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Aflac Inc. fell $.31 or .5 percent, to $64.18.</p>
<p>American International Group fell $.32 or .6 percent, to $57.84.</p>
<p>MBIA fell $.10 or 1.0 percent, to $9.67.</p>
<p>MGIC Investments Corp. fell $.12 or 1.1 percent, to $10.00.</p>
<p>MetLife fell $.35 or .7 percent, to $50.65.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>XL Group PLC fell $.50 or 1.3 percent, to $37.31.</p> | Insurance companies shares down at 10 a.m. | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2015/04/17/insurance-companies-shares-down-at-10-am.html | 2016-03-05 | 0 |
<p>Canadian ex-pats Steven Crowder and <a href="" type="internal">TheRebel.media's own Gavin McInnes</a> get together for an end-of-the-year chat.</p>
<p />
<p>They complain about immigrants who work in call centres <a href="http://www.weloveuber.com" type="external">and drive taxis</a>, and the experience of getting censored on Fox News' Red Eye (of all places.)</p>
<p>When the topic shifts to health care, that's when things get passionate.</p>
<p>Crowder and McInnes trade stories about relatives who've suffered under socialized medicine; immigrants getting treatment before "old stock" citizens; why Americans should never call an ambulance; and the leftwing mania for "traditional Chinese medicine," which Gavin calls, "Getting it wrong for 3000 years."</p>
<p>(NOTE: At one point Gavin briefly shows off his "tighty whitey" underpants...)</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p><a href="http://www.TheRebel.media/join" type="external">JOIN TheRebel.media FREE</a> for more fearless news and commentary you won’t find anywhere else. <a href="https://tinyurl.com/votedconservative" type="external">”Don't blame me: I voted Conservative"</a>The t-shirt and bumpersticker that says it all — ONLY from TheRebel.media store!Canada needs a conservative infrastructure to influence the culture! <a href="http://www.RebuildTheRight.ca" type="external">SIGN UP at RebuildTheRight.ca</a> to be part of this new movement</p> | WATCH: Gavin McInnes and Steven Crowder's Canadian health care horror stories | true | http://therebel.media/gavin_mcinnes_and_steven_crowder_s_canadian_health_care_horror_stories | 2015-12-22 | 0 |
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<p>First, it is important to emphasize that these assessments are temporary, for three years only. The assessments actually go down in ensuing years and then disappear in 2017.</p>
<p>During this time, a large proportion of the 90,000 uninsured in Bernalillo County (most of them city of Albuquerque residents) could access affordable health care. Because of this assessment, insurance plans that cover them on the exchange could receive a three-year buffer for taking on patients who have not had their serious health needs met for years. The various plans on the exchange will benefit from these fees.</p>
<p>Second, this amounts to 2 percent of the total cost of premiums for the city. Over the last decade, insurance premiums have increased between 7 percent and 10 percent every single year – sometimes doubling in a decade.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Third and most important: Once Medicaid expansion kicks in, the city of Albuquerque will find that a majority of the uninsured currently served will qualify for Medicaid. So yes, the city will pay more for city employees on one hand, but will also save substantial amounts of money when their uninsured residents are covered. This will leave the city with a fair chunk of change to fund other priorities.</p>
<p>The indigent fund that the county’s taxpayers now support will also find that more than 75 percent of its recipients are eligible for Medicaid. The county assessment for health care that will largely be replaced by Medicaid now totals over $60 million and some of this money can be used to offset the cost of reinsurance fees. In addition, economists have estimated that there will be an increase in gross receipts taxes to cities when providers can finally bill for these services which will result in more funds for all sorts of services.</p>
<p>Technically, Quigley is correct when he says “the charges do not provide any additional direct benefit to people already insured.” But what about the indirect benefit to the entire community? People without insurance use emergency rooms at a much higher level than people with insurance, and they are usually sicker when they do and incur costs that they cannot pay. These become uncompensated costs to health care providers which then get reflected in higher premiums. Then, everyone pays in higher premiums – every business, every individual and the city of Albuquerque.</p>
<p>As business people, we know that high numbers of uninsured are bad for the business of health care: Doctors and hospitals in the city don’t get paid for the services they provide when there are large numbers of people without insurance. And those who own and run businesses in New Mexico know that a high uninsured population is bad for business and productivity.</p>
<p>When workers are uninsured and do not have the security of knowing they can see a doctor when they need to – before it rises to the level of more expensive care, the results are more absenteeism, less productivity, and more turnover.</p>
<p>What businesses need is a healthy, reliable, productive workforce. Increasing the opportunity for this to happen, even with a 2 percent assessment on a temporary basis, is a benefit to us all.</p>
<p>Diane D. Denish is a board member of New Mexico Health Connections, the New Mexico not-for-profit health insurance plan created under the ACA.</p>
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<p /> | Affordable Care Act fee assessment temporary, beneficial | false | https://abqjournal.com/300415/affordable-care-act-fee-assessment-temporary-beneficial.html | 2 |
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<p>The US economy is walking a tight-rope.</p>
<p>The sharp drop-off in growth in the first quarter of 2007, and the expected weak second and third quarters of less than 2% growth, caused the widely watched <a href="" type="internal">UCLA Anderson Forecast</a>, a leading national economic forecaster, to conclude that although we may not actually be in a recession “it is certainly close.”</p>
<p>Only days later, the New York Times reported a $3.2 billion move by Bear Stearns, the investment bank, to bail out one of its hedge funds that was collapsing because of bad debts on sub-prime mortgages.</p>
<p>The Anderson Forecast saw the slowed economy as lasting longer than previously expected. Weakness in the housing market and higher gasoline prices are starting to affect consumer spending. California, hit by a “double-whammy” from construction and mortgage finance, foreshadows a drag on the rest of the economy.</p>
<p>A recession is usually defined as a decline in a country’s real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for two or more successive quarters.</p>
<p>Market-oriented, or capitalist, economies are characterized by economic cycles. The business cycle represents swings between periods of relatively rapid growth and periods of relative stagnation. Capitalism is noted for its cycles. Its nature is to boom and bust.</p>
<p>There have been a number of such bounces–recessions, financial crises, depressions and just plain downturns since the Panic of 1819, the first major financial crisis in the United States, when our capitalist system was still in diapers. That one lasted until 1824 before the economy recovered only to be hit again by the Panic of 1837 which lasted until 1843, due to bank failures and the public’s lack of confidence in paper money. It was followed by the Panic of 1857 and the Panic of 1873 prompted by the failure of Jay Cooke &amp; Co., the largest bank in the United States at the time. This panic finally burst the post-Civil War speculative bubble.</p>
<p>Wars are frequently associated with these cycles because wars are used to stimulate the economy enough to help pull it out of the slump. The so-called “Long Depression” that began with the Panic of 1873 lasted until 1896 and spread throughout the world.</p>
<p>President William McKinley, who took office in 1897, called himself “an advance agent of prosperity” and his administration wowed the robber barons with his dramatic action. One of his first acts was to convince Congress to annex Hawaii and make it a US Territory. Something new had been added to the US form of government, and McKinley said this about it: “We need Hawaii just as much as we did California.”</p>
<p>McKinley found another way of enhancing prosperity. The explosion (cause unknown) on the USS Maine in Havana harbor killing 274 men, gave him a reason to declare war on Spain in 1898.</p>
<p>Victory in the Spanish-America War after only 109 days, garnered for the United States ownership of former Spanish colonies–Puerto Rico, the Philippines and Guam. Secretary of State John Hay called it a “splendid little war!” We also took control of Cuba, expelling the Spanish and ending the insurrection there. The naval war in Cuba and the Philippines was the most profitable war in US history. The United States was well on its way to becoming a first rate imperial power.</p>
<p>Then along came the Panic of 1907; a run on Knickerbocker Trust Company stock that set the stage for future economic problems.</p>
<p>After the post-WWI recession that caused severe hyperinflation in Europe, production in North America took a dive.</p>
<p>The Great Depression hit with a crash. First, the stock market in 1929; then the banking collapse that sparked a global downturn.</p>
<p>Despite Roosevelt’s gallant effort with the NRA and other supportive devices like the TVA and the WPA, the economy stumbled along well into the beginning of World War II. The economy saved by another war.</p>
<p>Recession came again after the Korean War in 1953. They just won’t quit. We used the Vietnam War to get away from that one. But it only bogged us down until 1975 when we lost to the Vietnamese communists. Before the war ended, we had the 1973 oil crisis–a quadrupling of oil prices by OPEC and high government spending–a war and stagflation at the same time.</p>
<p>In 1979, the Iranian Revolution was a bolt from the blue. Not only did the Ayatollahs seizure American hostages but they also skyrocketed the price of oil. The result: early 1980s recession and drop in commodity prices that lasted until the year 2000.</p>
<p>From 1988 to 1992 we saw the collapse of bonds and a stock market crash that led to a recession in much of the world.</p>
<p>The Japanese recession started in 1991 and is still going on. The collapse of a real estate bubble and more fundamental problems halted Japan’s once astronomical growth. The general Asian financial crisis started in 1997. The collapse of the Thai currency inflicted damage on many of the Asian economies.</p>
<p>An early 2000 recession, the collapse of the Dot Com Bubble, the 9/11 attack, the Afghanistan and Iraq Wars are now contributing to our present problems.</p>
<p>George W. Bush seems to be a spiritual follower of President McKinley. The cost of the Iraq war will wind up costing American taxpayers an estimated 1 trillion dollars. Can you wrap your head around that figure? In numbers it looks like this: $1,000,000,000,000. Or, if you want to look at it another way; $200 million a day or $3 billion a week, by Congressional estimates.</p>
<p>Think of what can be done, in this country, with that kind of money– rebuilding the infrastructure, our schools and our hospital, paying for National Health Insurance, clean air and fresh water and development of pollution free energy, and that’s only for starters.</p>
<p>Lawrence Lindsey, economic adviser in the Bush Administration, when asked by The Wall Street Journal about the cost of the Iraq war replied, “The successful prosecution of the war would be good for the economy.”</p>
<p>STEPHEN FLEISCHMAN, television writer-director-producer, spent thirty years in Network News at CBS and ABC, starting in 1953. In 1959, he participated in the formation of the renowned Murrow-Friendly “CBS Reports” series. In 1983, Fleischman won the prestigious Columbia University-DuPont Television Journalism Award. In 2004, he wrote his memoir. See: <a href="http://www.ARedintheHouse.com/" type="external">http://www.ARedintheHouse.com/</a>, E-mail: <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a></p>
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<p>&#160;</p> | The Tightrope Economy | true | https://counterpunch.org/2007/06/26/the-tightrope-economy/ | 2007-06-26 | 4 |
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<p>Jurors who convicted 40-year-old Jessie Con-ui last month of first-degree murder and murder of a correction officer failed to reach agreement Monday on whether he should face death or a life term, meaning he receives an automatic sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole.</p>
<p>Prosecutors sought the death penalty, saying 34-year-old Eric Williams was stabbed more than 200 times at the Canaan federal prison in Waymart in February 2013 because Con-ui was angry about an earlier search of his cell.</p>
<p>While killing Williams, Con-ui cut his hand and stopped the attack to walk over to a shower and clean the wound before wrapping it in his shirt and continuing the attack, prosecutors said. Con-ui later paused to chew a piece of gum he took from the dying guard’s pocket, they said.</p>
<p>Officers who followed a bloody trail to Con-ui’s cell asked if he killed Williams, and they said he responded, “Yes, disrespect issue.”</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Con-ui is already serving 25 years to life for a 2002 gang initiation murder in Arizona.</p>
<p>Defense attorneys cited an upbringing that included poverty and domestic violence and flaws in the prison system. They also presented evidence about the effect his execution would have on his family, presenting witnesses including his young sons. They argued that he has already been punished, since he has been held in isolation at a super-maximum security prison in Colorado.</p>
<p>Con-ui apologized in court for killing Williams, who had been working in a housing unit at the prison, but said he couldn’t explain his actions. He told Williams’ family and others in the courtroom he’s “always going to feel shame for taking an innocent man’s life.”</p> | Inmate who paused to chew gum while killing guard gets life | false | https://abqjournal.com/1031043/inmate-who-paused-to-chew-gum-while-killing-guard-gets-life.html | 2017-07-10 | 2 |
<p>A bill put forward by Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., proposes to slap some limits on the U.S. government’s collecting of information on Americans under its warrantless electronic spying program and forfeit access to information gathered if the courts that oversee such surveillance reject a spying request.</p>
<p>“Keeping Americans safe versus protecting Americans’ privacy is a false choice,” Merkley said. “We have a moral and constitutional duty to do both.”</p>
<p>— Posted by <a href="" type="internal">Alexander Reed Kelly</a>.</p>
<p>Wired’s Threat Level:</p>
<p />
<p>Among other things, Merkley’s proposal seeks to amend a section that generally requires the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Court to rubber-stamp terror-related electronic surveillance requests that ensnare Americans’ communications. The government does not have to identify the target or facility to be monitored. It can begin surveillance a week before making the request, and the surveillance can continue during the appeals process if, in a rare case, the secret FISA court rejects the surveillance application. The court’s rulings are not public.</p>
<p>Under Merkley’s “Protect America’s Privacy Act,” if the secret FISA court rejects a spying request, the government “must immediately stop the information acquisition and that any information collected from Americans may not be used in legal proceeding.” What’s more, if data is collected on Americans, it cannot be accessed without a standard, probable-cause warrant.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/08/warrantless-wiretapping-powers/" type="external">Read more</a></p> | Senator Moves to Rein In Warrantless Spying | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/senator-moves-to-rein-in-warrantless-spying/ | 2012-08-04 | 4 |
<p>You must first be decidedly clear on who you are; you must take pride in your values; in your identity; you must never cease to fight hate with love…</p>
<p>When I was a little boy, I used to dream of being reborn outside the hardship of the Refugee Camp in Gaza, in some other time and place where there were no soldiers, no military occupation, no concentration camps and no daily grind—where my father fought for our very survival, and my mother toiled to balance out the humiliation of life with her enduring love.</p>
<p>When I grew older and revisited my childhood fantasies, I came to quite a different conclusion: if I had to, I would do it all over again; I would not alter my past, however trying, in any way. I would embrace every moment, relive every tear, every loss, and cherish every triumph, however small.</p>
<p>When we are young, they often fail to tell us that we should not fear pain and dread hardship; that nothing can be as rewarding to the growth of one’s identity, sense of purpose in life, and the liberation of the human spirit than the struggle against injustice. True, one should never internalize servitude or wear victimhood as if a badge; for the mere act of resisting poverty, war, and injustice of any kind is the first and most essential criterion to prepare one for a more meaningful existence, and a better life.</p>
<p>I say this because I understand what many of you must be going through. My generation of refugee camp dwellers experienced this in the most violent manifestation you can ever imagine. These are difficult and challenging years for most of humanity, but all the more for you, young Muslims, in particular. Between the racism of American and European politicians and parties, the anti-Muslim sentiment sweeping much of the world, propagated by selfish individuals with sinister agendas, playing on people fears and ignorance, and the violence and counter-violence meted out by groups that refer to themselves as ‘Muslims’, you find yourself trapped, confined in a prison of stereotypes, media hate speech and violence; targeted, labeled and, undeservedly, feared.</p>
<p>Most of you were born into, or grew up in, that social and political confinement and remember no particular time in your past when life was relatively normal, when you were not the convenient scapegoat to much of what has gone wrong in the world. In fact, wittingly or otherwise, your characters were shaped by this prejudiced reality, where you subsist between bouts of anger at your mistreatment, and desperate attempts at defending yourself, fending for your family, and standing up for your community, for your culture and for your religion.</p>
<p>Most importantly, you continue to struggle, on a daily basis, to develop a sense of belonging, citizenship in societies where you often find yourself rejected and excluded. They demand your ‘assimilation’, yet push away whenever you draw nearer. It is seemingly an impossible task, I know.</p>
<p>And, it seems that, no matter what you do, you are yet to make a dent in the unfair misrepresentation of who you are and the noble values for which your religion stands. Their racism seems to be growing, and all the arrows of their hatred persistently point at Islam, despite your passionate attempts to convince them otherwise.</p>
<p>In fact, you hardly understand why Islam is, indeed, part of this discussion in the first place. Islam never invited the US to go to war in the Middle East, to tamper with your civilizations and to torment fellow Muslims in other parts of the globe.</p>
<p>Islam was never consulted when Guantanamo was erected to serve as a gulag outside the norms of human rights and international law.</p>
<p>Islam is hardly a topic of discussion as warring parties, with entirely self-interested political agendas, are fighting over the future of Syria or Iraq or Libya or Yemen or Afghanistan, and so on.</p>
<p>Islam was not the problem when Palestine was overrun by Zionist militias, with the help of the British and, later, the Americans, turning the Holy Land into a battlefield for most of the last century. The repercussions of that act has sealed the region’s fate from relative peace into a repugnant and perpetual war and conflict.</p>
<p>The same logic can be applied to everything else that went awry, and you have often wondered that yourself. Islam did not invent colonialism and imperialism, but inspired Asians, Africans and Arabs to fight this crushing evil. Islam did not usher in the age of mass slavery, although millions of American and European slaves were, themselves, Muslim.</p>
<p>You try to tell them all of this, and you insist that the likes of vicious groups like ISIS are not a product of Islam but a by-product of violence, greed and foreign interventions. But they do not listen, countering with selective verses from your Holy Book that were meant for specific historical contexts and circumstances. You even share such verses from the Quran with all of your social media followers: “…if any one killed a person, it would be as if he killed the whole of mankind; and if any one saved a life, it would be as if he saved the life of the whole of mankind…” (Chapter 5; Verse 32), hoping to elicit some understanding of the sanctity of human life according to your religion, but a fundamental change in attitude is yet to come.</p>
<p>So you despair; at least some of you do. Some of those who live in western countries cease to share with others the fact that they are Muslim, avoiding any discussion that may result in their being ostracized from increasingly intolerant societies. Some of those who live in Muslim majority countries, sadly, counter hate with hate of their own. Either way, they teeter between hate and self-hate, fear and self-pity, imposed apathy, rage and self-loathing. With time, a sense of belonging has been impossible to achieve and, like me when I was younger, perhaps you wonder what it would have been like if you lived in some other time, in some other place.</p>
<p>But, amid all of this, it is vital that we remember that the burdens of life can offer the best lessons in personal and collective growth.</p>
<p>You must understand that there is yet to exist a group of people that was spared the collective trials of history: that did not suffer persecution, racism, seemingly perpetual war, ethnic cleansing and all the evils that Muslims are contending with right now, from Syria to Palestine to Donald Trump’s America. This does not make it ‘okay’, but it is an important reminder that your hardship is not unique among nations. It just so happens that this could be the time for you to learn some of life’s most valuable lessons.</p>
<p>To surmount this hardship, you must first be decidedly clear on who you are; you must take pride in your values; in your identity; you must never cease to fight hate with love, to reach out, to educate, to belong. Because if you don’t, then racism wins, and you lose this unparalleled opportunity at individual and collective growth.</p>
<p>Sometimes I pity those who are born into privilege: although they have access to money and material opportunities, they can rarely appreciate the kind of experiences that only want and suffering can offer. Nothing even comes close to wisdom born out of pain.</p>
<p>And if you ever weaken, try to remember: God “does not burden a soul beyond that it can bear.” (Chapter 2; Verse 286).</p> | An Open Letter to Young Muslims Everywhere: The Seed of Triumph in Every Adversity | false | http://foreignpolicyjournal.com/2015/12/30/an-open-letter-to-young-muslims-everywhere-the-seed-of-triumph-in-every-adversity/ | 2015-12-30 | 1 |
<p>(What does it mean to you and Kenya whether the US considers this to be ethnic cleansing?) These are all politically loaded. Both sides are seeking to establish legitimacy for the claim of who's better, stronger. (You have written that every Kenyan is a split personality�what does that mean?) Virtually every Kenyan has a language they share with their tribe, then there's a national language which we all share, and then you have English which is the official language and is the colonial language and the language of authority. Now what happens with all these tongues is complicated. Mother tongues have gone underground sort of, but is used for a cultural camaraderie or other reasons. But Kenyans have always been embarrassed of their mother tongues. There's a fear that naming individual tribes is taboo or harmful or embarrassing, that it doesn't belong in the national discourse. (And the election has basically blown the lid off this?) Basically the constitution failed us. all the threats then become paranoia. All this is a byproduct of a failure of a constitution. There's a clear political and structural problem behind this. What we have in Kenya is an imperial presidency. (It must be difficult for you when dealing with stereotypes. You're Kikuyu yet you've said at some point you might have to find yourself in a Kikuyu space. Meaning?) I have been trying to be scrupulous in trying to see each side of the story. As people get killed and get removed from one area or another, it becomes more difficult to talk about being reasonable. I don't have such feelings right now, but you can see how it's going in that direction.</p> | Ethnicity in Kenya | false | https://pri.org/stories/2008-01-30/ethnicity-kenya | 2008-01-30 | 3 |
<p>Coming off this summer’s deadly box office, with domestic ticket sales the lowest they’ve been in more than a decade, studios and beleaguered theater owners are looking to the highly anticipated horror film “ <a href="http://variety.com/t/it/" type="external">It</a>” to scare up some serious business as the fall moviegoing season gets under way.</p>
<p>The R-rated adaptation of Stephen King’s 1986 novel of the same name is projected to debut this weekend to at least $60 million, and potentially go on to amass tens, if not hundreds, of millions more during its run in theaters, on home entertainment platforms and in other ancillary markets. A follow-up film is already expected to begin production in the first quarter of next year.</p>
<p>Stocks of the country’s major theater circuits — AMC, Regal Entertainment, Cinemark and Imax — have been getting pummeled by the downturn. Summer box office, which ended on Labor Day, was down more than 20% from 2016, and year-to-date revenue is off 6%.</p>
<p>King, who was not involved with the making of the movie, says he’s excited about the film, which he describes as “fabulous.” The author even recorded a short video that introduced an extended theatrical trailer of the film in August. He says he has only one issue with the upcoming adaptation of his book. “Geez, I don’t even think they sent me any swag,” he jokes in a recent phone interview with Variety. “But maybe that’s a good thing.” (Producer Barbara Muschietti assures us that King has since been sent “a truckload” of swag.)</p>
<p>Film adaptations of King stories have run the gamut from Oscar-worthy — see “The Shawshank Redemption” and “Misery” — to disastrous, such as the recent attempt to launch “The Dark Tower” as a movie franchise and TV show. The first film, released in late July, was ignored by audiences and panned by the critics. This weekend, “It” is expected to break the record for biggest opening weekend of a non-sequel, R-rated horror film, currently held by “The Conjuring,” which debuted to $41 million in 2013.</p>
<p>Not bad for what producer Seth Grahame-Smith calls “an R-rated movie starring 13-year-old kids.” It was also a film that underwent many changes, was stalled, and switched directors since it was first announced by Warner Bros. in early 2009. The result, says Grahame-Smith, is “a culmination of more than six years of trying to get the book made — and made the right way.”</p>
<p>The film is the first in a planned duology.</p>
<p>The novel itself is divided into two parts, the first section centering on seven kids coming of age in 1950s small-town Derry, Maine, who dub themselves “the Losers Club.” They battle an evil entity known as “It,” which can take the form of whatever you fear, though it’s most commonly portrayed as a grinning clown known as Pennywise. The second half of the book revisits the characters 27 years later, when “It” has returned to their hometown. ABC aired a miniseries adaptation in 1990, starring Tim Curry as Pennywise, and cut between the two timelines. But the new film focuses only on the first part of the story.</p>
<p>When Warners announced the movie eight years ago, it marked a reunion for producers Dan Lin and Roy Lee and writer David Kajganich, all of whom had worked together on 2007’s “The Invasion” for the studio. Shortly thereafter, Grahame-Smith and his producing partner David Katzenberg came on board. In 2012, director Cary Fuku­naga signed on to direct after he proved he could handle an adaptation of a beloved novel with 2011’s acclaimed “Jane Eyre,” and went to work on the screenplay with Chase Palmer, whittling down King’s 1,100-plus-page opus.</p>
<p>In 2014, as the project took on more steam thanks to the success of the first season of Fukunaga’s HBO series “True Detective,” Warner Bros. moved “It” over to its New Line division. New Line has a strong horror history thanks to its highly successful “The Nightmare on Elm Street” franchise — earning the film company the nickname “The House That Freddy Built.”</p>
<p>In May 2015, Fukunaga announced the casting of Will Poulter (“The Revenant”) as Pennywise. But before the month was over, Fukunaga had dropped out (Poulter eventually followed). Rumors circulated he was unhappy with New Line’s proposed budget of $32 million, but in a September 2015 interview with Variety, Fukunaga dismissed that notion. “It was the creative that we were really battling,” he said. “They wanted me to make a much more inoffensive, conventional script. But I don’t think you can do proper Stephen King and make it inoffensive.” Upon the announcement, King tweeted: “The remake of IT may be dead — or undead — but we’ll always have Tim Curry. He’s still floating down in the sewers of Derry.”</p>
<p>But, not unlike a character in a King novel, “It” rose again. Like so many in Hollywood, Argentine filmmaker Andy Muschietti and his sister-producer, Barbara Muschietti, had been tracking the project.</p>
<p>Their 2013 film “Mama” proved a good mesh of horror and character and grossed more than $146 million worldwide. “We had a good relationship with New Line and set a meeting,” notes Barbara Muschietti, the downside being that they had only four days to prep, during which time her brother reread the entire book.</p>
<p>Of their initial meeting, Andy Muschietti acknowledges, “I started on the wrong foot. I opened my notebook, and it was full of all these napkins with my writing and drawings. There was a 20-second silence where they all fell to the ground and I was picking up what was essentially my pitch.”</p>
<p>But Grahame-Smith and Katzenberg weren’t worried. “Andy stood out immediately because he came in talking about the book,” Grahame-Smith says. “People would come in and talk about set pieces and jumps and clowns. Andy came in talking about the kids and the Losers Club and his experience being a teenager in Argentina reading this book. We knew it was in his heart, and he was going to care for it the way we wanted to care for it.” Katzenberg adds that the napkins were actually impressive. “He’s a fantastic artist; some of those doodles really got me excited.”</p>
<p>Andy Muschietti signed on to direct in July 2015 with an eye toward a summer 2016 shoot. “We wanted to do it before our cast went off to school,” Katzenberg says. Gary Dauberman, who penned “Annabelle” and its hit sequel for New Line, was brought on board to rework the script, though Fukunaga and Palmer retain writing credits.</p>
<p>“I looked at it as picking up the ball and running with it,” Dauberman says. “There were some smart decisions made early on that we kept — one of them being that the focus would be on the kids for this movie.” At one time, Warner Bros. had hoped to make one film of the entire story. But Katzenberg says that idea was quickly scrapped, noting, “It would have been a five-hour movie.” Even with just telling the first part of the story, Dauberman says it was tough to eliminate parts of the book. “Your choice is between great … and great,” he says.</p>
<p>The biggest challenge was incorporating all the different tones King covers in his stories. “It’s a horror movie, but [also] a character-driven drama with comedy and emotion,” says Andy Muschietti. Barbara concurs, “I would say his best adaptations don’t try to settle on one tone. His books are a roller coaster, and his movies should reflect that.”</p>
<p>What does King think makes a good adaptation of his work?</p>
<p>“I think it’s good when they stick as close to the story as they can because that’s what they bought,” he says. “You don’t want to think they just bought the launching pad, but they bought the rocket too.”</p>
<p>The author also appreciates effort: “I’m a workhorse myself, and I like people who work hard. I like people who are creative, who are visual, who come to it with a professional attitude and have an artistic flair.”</p>
<p>A significant change to the story was in updating the start of the events 30 years. “When King wrote the book in the ’80s, that nostalgia was about the ’50s,” Grahame-Smith explains. “Now it’s about the ’80s.”</p>
<p>The period resonates more than they could have imagined: “It” was in production in Canada in July 2016 when an unknown series set in the ’80s called “Stranger Things” premiered on Netflix. Comparisons were inevitable, and the projects even share an actor; Finn Wolfhard, who was chosen out of hundreds to play Richie Tozier in the film, stars as Mike in the hit series. “I think we knew he had done something called ‘Stranger Things,’ but we didn’t really know what it was,” Barbara Muschietti admits. She adds that when production started, Wolfhard had 400 followers, and by the time it ended, he had 1 million.</p>
<p>As for the correlations, Katzenberg says, “It’s kind of a bummer some people think ‘Stranger Things’ came before ‘It’ did.” But he adds, “If that brings more people to see our movie, great.”</p>
<p>King also thinks nostalgia for the 1990 miniseries plays a big role in the current buzz. He points to the first teaser for “It,” which broke the record for most-viewed trailer online in a single day with 197 million views. “When that hit and everyone went bonkers, I think a lot of that excitement came from people who were 14 when the miniseries came on and it scared the shit out of them,” King says.</p>
<p>But the filmmakers took pains to differentiate the movie from the miniseries. “The last thing anybody wants to do is riff on what Tim Curry did,” Grahame-Smith says. “You had to create something new and iconic.” Andy Muschietti notes a lot of that fell to Bill Skarsgård, who was cast as Pennywise. “Bill built the character to have a more intellectual dimension or hint at where he comes from. There’s a lot of thinking about the character that’s not necessarily reflected in the movie. I won’t rule out more developing will happen in the second half.”</p>
<p>While the second film technically hasn’t been greenlit, it seems inevitable as “It” races toward a record-breaking opening.</p>
<p>The producers are coy about even discussing a part two, while Andy Muschietti says, “I don’t think it’s a sequel; it’s a second half to the story.”</p>
<p>So he’d be up for returning? The director doesn’t blink. “One hundred percent,” he says.</p> | Stephen King’s ‘It’ Arrives at a Terrifying Time for the Movie Business | false | https://newsline.com/stephen-kings-it-arrives-at-a-terrifying-time-for-the-movie-business/ | 2017-09-05 | 1 |
<p>Three military members remained hospitalized in critical condition early Thursday after they were wounded in the deadly <a href="" type="internal">shooting rampage at Fort Hood</a>, officials said.</p>
<p>Six others were also in hospital, where their condition was still "serious but stable,” at 6 a.m. ET, according to a spokesman for the Scott &amp; White Memorial Hospital in nearby Temple, Texas.</p>
<p>The nine patients – eight men and one woman – were the most seriously wounded of the 16 who suffered injuries in Wednesday afternoon’s killing spree at the base.</p>
<p>The seven other wounded were treated at the base's Carl R. Darnall Army Medical Center.</p>
<p>Doctors at the Scott &amp; White Memorial Hospital earlier described gunshot wounds to patients’ arms, legs, abdomens, chests and necks.</p>
<p>The commander of the base asked for prayers for the wounded and for the families of “the fallen.”</p>
<p>Three people were killed when <a href="" type="internal">the shooter</a> opened fire in one building at the base, got into a vehicle, continued shooting and then opened fire in another building before being confronted by a female military police officer and shooting himself dead.</p>
<p>“Our focus now is family of injured and killed to provide best counseling,” Lt. Gen. Mark Milley, Fort Hood's commanding officer, told reporters late Wednesday.</p>
<p>“We ask for all your thoughts and prayers for fallen and wounded in this particular case.”</p> | Fort Hood Shooting: Nine in Hospital, Three Critically Wounded | false | http://nbcnews.com/storyline/fort-hood-shooting/fort-hood-shooting-nine-hospital-three-critically-wounded-n70581 | 2014-04-03 | 3 |
<p>Pizzagate. This was the hashtag attached to the viral, social media mystery surrounding Hillary Clinton, John Podesta, and an alleged pedophile sex-ring operating out of the back rooms of Comet Ping Pong--a pizza joint in Washington D.C.</p>
<p>No joke.</p>
<p>The rumors began with a tweet, were further fanned by InfoWars anchor Alex Jones, and spiraled out of control on websites like 4Chan and Reddit. The story came to a head when a man named Edgar Welch drove from North Carolina to Washington D.C. to investigate, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/pizzagate-from-rumor-to-hashtag-to-gunfire-in-dc/2016/12/06/4c7def50-bbd4-11e6-94ac-3d324840106c_story.html?utm_term=.d4914118ba9c" type="external">bursting into Comet Ping Pong</a> with a gun.</p>
<p>Fortunately, no one was injured. Also, there was no pedophile sex dungeon inside the pizza place.</p>
<p>How could anyone believe a conspiracy theory so stunningly out there? In the age of instant information in which speculation mutates rapidly, an unbelievable story can become absolute truth in no time at all, and without any real evidence.</p>
<p>With no hard evidence to validate Pizzagate, one would think that belief in the story would evaporate, or at least temper. However, some Trump voters still believe there's validity to it. An <a href="https://today.yougov.com/news/2016/12/27/belief-conspiracies-largely-depends-political-iden/" type="external">Economist-YouGov survey</a> recently asked Trump voters to rate the following sentence as "True," or "Not True":</p>
<p>Leaked emails from the Clinton campaign talked about pedophilia and human trafficking. 'Pizzagate'</p>
<p>46% of Trump voters said "True." 53% said "Not True." Nearly half of Trump voters believe that there is at least some legitimacy to the "Hillary Clinton-child sex trafficking" story. What this appears to show is that a large portion of individuals who voted for Donald Trump either haven't taken the time to investigate the fake story, or that despite countervailing evidence, they simply don't believe the story is fake. Either way, that's disturbing.</p>
<p>Politics is more than a game. For a republic to function properly, its people must be informed and intellectually honest. The Economist-YouGov survey shows that a portion of Trump supporters are neither. The 46% who believe the "Hillary Clinton-sex trafficking" story has validity are either uninterested in knowing the truth, or they have been shown the truth, and have instead chosen to indulge their conspiratorial urges.</p>
<p>We need to be rigorous in our scrutiny--not only of our leaders and our press, but of ourselves. If we fail to analyze our belief systems in an intellectually honest way, if we fail to separate fact from fiction, we will become vulnerable to con men.</p>
<p>Come to think of it, perhaps such a vulnerability has already been exploited.</p> | How Many Trump Voters Think Pizzagate is Real? | true | https://dailywire.com/news/11935/how-many-trump-voters-think-pizzagate-real-frank-camp | 2016-12-27 | 0 |
<p>Joseph Ratzinger came to the Chair of St Peter late in life, a 78-year-old man who could look back (although he rarely, if ever, chose to do so) on decades of intellectual accomplishment. Recognised by even his critics as one of the premier Catholic theologians of the 20th century, he had also attracted the respect of his fellow intellectuals throughout Europe, many of them, like the influential German philosopher Jürgen Habermas, of a decidedly secular cast of mind. Indeed, the then Cardinal Ratzinger convinced Professor Habermas, in January 2004, that the new Europe embodied politically in the expanded European Union could not be built on the thin and shaky foundation of epistemological scepticism about the human capacity to know the truth of things, including the moral truth of things. And it is because Pope Benedict was elected three days after his 78th birthday that his papacy’s teaching has had the character of a great summing up: here is a master-teacher, distilling decades of research and reflection into a body of truths that he manages to convey in language and imagery accessible to those untrained in theology and philosophy — which is to say, to the overwhelming majority of the human race. The enormous crowds at his general audience addresses testify to the hunger for truth which Pope Benedict has touched.</p>
<p>Familiar themes were in play in the Pope’s first encyclical, Deus Caritas Est, which was no surprise, in title or content, to those who had never bought the cartoon Ratzinger and who understood that the image of the “God with a human face” was central to Ratzinger’s theological project. Similarly, in a recently published book entitled Christianity and the Crisis of Cultures, Pope Benedict distils a lifetime of reflection on the relationship between faith and reason, and on the cultural consequences of a collapse of both faith and reason, into a challenge of prime importance for the entire world — but especially for Europe, in its current crisis of civilisational morale.</p>
<p>In the controversy immediately following his now famous lecture at the University of Regensburg in September 2006 attention was focused almost exclusively on the Holy Father’s analysis of certain theological tendencies in Islam and their unhappy consequences in the world of politics. Yet that remarkably cogent lecture was in fact addressed at least as much to the West as to Islam. Yes, the Pope warned his listeners that an unreasonable faith is a real and present danger to the world — a faith, for example, in which God can be imagined capable of commanding the irrational, like the murder of innocents. But so, the Pope argued at Regensburg, is a loss of faith in reason: that, too, is a real and present danger. If, for example, the West limits the concept of “reason” to a purely instrumental rationality, or, in a fit of post-modern self-indulgence, denies the human capacity to grasp the truth of anything with certainty, then the West will be unable to defend itself. Why? Because it will be unable to give an account of its political commitments and their moral foundations, to itself, or to those who would replace the free societies of the West with a very different pattern of human community, based on a very different idea of God — and, consequently, of the just society.</p>
<p>These, of course, are points that Joseph Ratzinger has been making for years, indeed decades. In Christianity and the Crisis of Cultures he synthesises his arguments into a series of finely tuned propositions on which all men and women of good will would do well to reflect. Among the most important of these propositions I would list the following, illustrating each with a brief citation from the book:</p>
<p>Proposition 1: We live in a moment of dangerous imbalance in the relationship between the West’s technological capabilities and the West’s moral understanding.</p>
<p>Thus Ratzinger writes: “Moral strength has not grown in tandem with the development of science; on the contrary, it has diminished, because the technological mentality confines morality to the subjective sphere. Our need, however, is for a public morality, a morality capable of responding to the threats that impose such a burden on the existence of us all. The true and gravest danger of the present moment is precisely this imbalance between technological possibilities and moral energy.”</p>
<p>Proposition 2: The moral and political lethargy we sense in much of Europe today is one by-product of Europe’s disdain for the Christian roots of its unique civilisation, a disdain which has contributed in various ways to the decline of what was once the centre of world culture and world-historical initiative.</p>
<p>Thus Ratzinger writes: “…Europe has developed a culture that, in a manner hitherto unknown to mankind, excludes God from public awareness… God is irrelevant to public life… [This contemporary European culture] is the most radical contradiction not only of Christianity, but of all the religious and moral traditions of humanity…”</p>
<p>Proposition 3: The abandonment of Europe’s Christian roots implies the abandonment of the idea of “Europe” as a civilisational enterprise constructed from the fruitful interaction of Jerusalem, Athens, and Rome. This infidelity to the past has led, in turn, to a truncated idea of reason, and of the human capacity to know, however imperfectly, the truth of things, including the moral truth of things. There is a positivism shaping (and mis-shaping) much of Western thought today — a positivism that excludes all transcendent moral reference points from public life.</p>
<p>Ratzinger asks whether such a positivism is an exercise of what the Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor describes as “exclusive humanism”, and then asks whether such an exclusivist humanism, is, itself, rational. His answer is a resounding no. As he writes: “This philosophy expresses, not the complete reason of man, but only one part of it. And this mutilation of reason means that we cannot consider it to be rational at all. Hence it is incomplete and can recover its health only through reestablishing contact with its roots. A tree without roots dries up…”</p>
<p>And so, evidently, do civilisations.</p>
<p>Proposition 4: The recovery of reason in the West would be facilitated by a reflection on the fact that the Christian concept of God as Logos helped shape the distinct civilisation of the West as a synthesis of Athens, Jerusalem, and Rome. If men and women have forgotten that they can, in fact, think their way through to the truth of things, that may have something to do with the European forgetfulness of God which Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn identified as the source of Europe’s 20th-century civilisational distress.</p>
<p>Thus Ratzinger writes: “From the very beginning, Christianity has understood itself to be the religion of the Logos, to be a religion in keeping with reason… [But] a reason that has its origin in the irrational and is itself ultimately irrational does not offer a solution to our problems. Only that creative reason which has manifested itself as love in the crucified God can truly show us what life is.”</p>
<p>Then, in light of these propositions, the Holy Father lays down a challenge: “In the age of the Enlightenment, the attempt was made to understand and define the essential norms of morality by saying that they would be valid etsi Deus non daretur, even if God did not exist… [Today], we must… reverse the axiom of the Enlightenment and say: Even the one who does not succeed in finding the path to accepting the existence of God ought nevertheless to try to live and to direct his life veluti si Deus daretur, as if God did indeed exist. This is the advice Pascal gave to his non-believing friends, and it is the advice I should like to give to our friends today who do not believe. This does not impose limitations on anyone’s freedom; it gives support to all our human affairs and supplies a criterion of which human life stands sorely in need.”</p>
<p>In his fine introduction to Christianity and the Crisis of Cultures, Marcello Pera, a member of the Italian senate, a distinguished philosopher of science, and an agnostic, takes up Pope Benedict’s challenge and issues a clarion call for moral and cultural renewal throughout the West:&#160; “This proposal should be accepted, this challenge welcomed, for one basic reason: because the one outside the Church who acts [as if God did indeed exist] becomes more responsible in moral terms. He will no longer say that an embryo is a ‘thing’ or a ‘lump of cells’ or ‘genetic material’. He will no longer say that the elimination of an embryo or a foetus does not infringe any rights. He will no longer say that a desire that can be satisfied by some technical means is automatically a right that should be claimed and granted. He will no longer say that all scientific and technological progress is per se a liberation or a moral advance. He will no longer say that the only rationality and the only form of life outside the Church are scientific rationality and an existence bereft of values. He will no longer act as only half a man, one lacerated and divided. He will no longer think that a democracy consisting of the mere counting of numbers is an adequate substitute for wisdom.”</p>
<p>How might such decisions to live “as if God did indeed exist” effect the needed changes in the civilisational morale of the West — and particularly the civilisational morale of Europe, the progenitor of the West? In their jointly authored book Without Roots, Joseph Ratzinger and Marcello Pera agreed, in a variant on Arnold Toynbee’s theory of historical change, that a “creative minority” of men and women, convinced that the truths the West lives politically are truths susceptible to rational defence, can be the agents of Europe’s rebirth as a culturally self-confident civilisation, capable of giving an account of its democratic political aspirations — which is to say, a civilisation willing to face squarely and respond imaginatively to the threat posed by the aggressive elements of the far different civilisational project now housed within it.</p>
<p>With the dust settled after the Regensburg lecture, perhaps we can see that Pope Benedict, in cooperation with men like Senator Pera, has for some time now been trying to give the world a precious gift: a vocabulary through which a serious, global discussion of both the crisis of technological civilisation in the West and the crisis posed by jihadist ideology and its lethal expressions around the world can be engaged by believers and non-believers alike — the vocabulary of “rationality” and “irrationality”. If Europe begins to recover its faith in reason, then at least some in Europe may, in time, rediscover the reasonableness of faith; and in any event, a renewed faith in reason would provide an antidote to the spiritual boredom from which Europe is dying — and thus open the prospect of a new birth of freedom in Europe, and throughout the West.</p>
<p>Benedict XVI has been trying to remind the world that societies and cultures are only as great as their spiritual aspirations. It is not an act of ingratitude toward the achievements of the Enlightenment to suggest that the soul-withering secularism — the exclusivist humanism — that has grown out of one stream of Enlightenment thought threatens the future of the West, precisely because it prevents us from giving an account, to ourselves and our children and grandchildren, of the noble political ends embodied in the Western democratic tradition. As Marcello Pera put it in Without Roots: “Absolute [worldliness], supposing there is such a thing, is an absolute vacuum in which neither the happy majority nor the creative minorities can exist.”</p>
<p>I dislike the role of Jeremiah, as I am sure Pope Benedict does. But it is neither cynicism nor despair to note that two possible Dark Ages loom on the horizon of the 22nd century: there is the Dark Age of a technologically manufactured and morally stunted humanity, created by the unwise deployment of the new, Promethean knowledge given us by genetics; and there is the Dark Age in which an anti-humanistic theism fills the vacuum created by atheistic humanism and extinguishes the Western experiment in freedom whose deepest roots run to the Christian civilisation of the Middle Ages. Neither is inevitable; both can and must be resisted, with all the tools of wit and wisdom at our disposal. We are fortunate to have, in Pope Benedict XVI, such a wise guide through the thickets before us.</p>
<p>George Weigel is Distinguished Senior Fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C. and holds EPPC’s William E. Simon Chair in Catholic Studies.</p> | Pope Benedict XVI: The Master-Teacher | false | https://eppc.org/publications/pope-benedict-xvi-the-master-teacher/ | 1 |
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<p>WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — The family of a 14-year-old Wichita girl who was nine months pregnant when she was killed says a man who was paid to help has applied for clemency.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.kansas.com/news/local/article195708969.html" type="external">The Wichita Eagle</a> reports that 29-year-old Everett Gentry Gentry is serving a 25-year-to-life prison sentence for capital murder for helping to orchestrate Chelsea Brooks's killing so her baby's father wouldn't be prosecuted for raping her.</p>
<p>Chelsea's older sister, Andrea Fremouw, and her mother, Terri Brooks, said they were told Thursday that Gentry has asked for a pardon by the governor. The women say notice of Gentry's application for clemency came by letter from the Kansas Department of Corrections Office of Victim Services.</p>
<p>The family is asking people to write letters and emails to the Kansas Department of Corrections opposing Gentry's request.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Information from: The Wichita (Kan.) Eagle, <a href="http://www.kansas.com" type="external">http://www.kansas.com</a></p>
<p>WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — The family of a 14-year-old Wichita girl who was nine months pregnant when she was killed says a man who was paid to help has applied for clemency.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.kansas.com/news/local/article195708969.html" type="external">The Wichita Eagle</a> reports that 29-year-old Everett Gentry Gentry is serving a 25-year-to-life prison sentence for capital murder for helping to orchestrate Chelsea Brooks's killing so her baby's father wouldn't be prosecuted for raping her.</p>
<p>Chelsea's older sister, Andrea Fremouw, and her mother, Terri Brooks, said they were told Thursday that Gentry has asked for a pardon by the governor. The women say notice of Gentry's application for clemency came by letter from the Kansas Department of Corrections Office of Victim Services.</p>
<p>The family is asking people to write letters and emails to the Kansas Department of Corrections opposing Gentry's request.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Information from: The Wichita (Kan.) Eagle, <a href="http://www.kansas.com" type="external">http://www.kansas.com</a></p> | Man convicted in teen's death seeks clemency, family says | false | https://apnews.com/amp/8813a79a6c354333a16e1bc2d45a464f | 2018-01-22 | 2 |
<p>A draft letter from U.S. and Canadian anti-doping authorities recommends Russia be banned from the summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro if an upcoming report finds evidence of state-sponsored doping.</p>
<p>The news organization <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-doping-russia-usada-exclusive-idUSKCN0ZW0XH" type="external">Reuters first reported</a>the draft letter and its contents. The Associated Press also reported the letter and its contents and <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/17/sports/olympics/russia-doping-summer-games-rio.html?emc=edit_na_20160716&amp;nlid=69707970&amp;ref=cta" type="external">New York Times</a> reported on the effort, citing email correspondence.</p>
<p>Pat Hickey, president of the European Olympic Committees, <a href="http://www.eurolympic.org/en/news/3743-statement-by-pat-hickey-president-of-the-european-olympic-committees.html" type="external">in a statement Saturday</a>said he saw an email from Beckie Scott, the chair of the World Anti-Doping Agency athletes commission with the letter attached.</p>
<p>Hickey said the email and letter "has shocked and concerned me on a number of levels" and could compromise the credibility of the report, expected to be presented Monday. "This letter calls upon the IOC to instigate a wholesale ban of the Russian Olympic Committee team in Rio2016," Hickey said.</p>
<p>Related: <a href="" type="internal">Russian Athletes Dismiss Cheating Allegations</a></p>
<p>U.S. Anti-Doping Agency officials told the AP the letter would only be sent if the report details widespread, state-sponsored doping in Russia. The draft letter calls for the IOC to act by July 26 to ensure that Russia's Olympic Committee and sports federations will not be allowed in Rio de Janeiro, the AP reported. The games are set to start on Aug. 5.</p>
<p>The report followed claims by Russia's former anti-doping director that he ran an organized doping program for Russian athletes at the Sochi Games and helped switch tainted samples for clean ones.</p>
<p>Grigory Rodchenkov <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/13/sports/russia-doping-sochi-olympics-2014.html" type="external">told The New York Times</a> that at least 15 Russian athletes relied on doping for their victories during the 2014 Sochi Winter Games.</p>
<p>The letter encourages exceptions for Russia-born athletes who can prove they were subject to strong anti-doping systems in other countries, according to the AP.</p>
<p>"It is clear from the e-mail and letter that both the independence and the confidentiality of the report have been compromised," Hickey said the statement Saturday. "My concern is that there seems to have been an attempt to agree an outcome before any evidence has been presented."</p>
<p>The Times reported that anti-doping officials from at least 10 nations and 20 athlete groups have joined, anticipating that Rodchenkov’s claims will be validated. The national anti-doping organizations include the U.S., Canada, Germany, Japan, Switzerland and Spain, the Times reported.</p>
<p>A draft letter seen by Reuters is from U.S. Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart calls for a ban on all Russian athletes.</p>
<p>"The only appropriate, and permissible, course of action in these unprecedented circumstances is for the IOC to immediately suspend the Russian Olympic and Paralympic Committees from the Olympic Movement.... and declare that no athlete can represent Russia at the Rio Olympic Games," the news agency quoted the letter as reading in part.</p>
<p>Related: <a href="" type="internal">Olympians Who Doped Face 'Life Long Bans,' IOC Chief Says</a></p>
<p>Tygart told the AP that at least six national anti-doping agencies backed the letter. He said the letter was not meant to become public unless the upcoming report contained evidence of a major state-sponsored doping program.</p>
<p>"We always want universal inclusion at the Olympic Games, but we can’t be blind to the evidence before us, and if we — as those who cherish the Olympic values — are not preparing for all potential outcomes, then we are not fulfilling our promise to clean athletes," Tygart said in a statement to Reuters.</p>
<p>After the Times <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/13/sports/russia-doping-sochi-olympics-2014.html" type="external">published Rodchenkov’s claims in May,</a> two Russian Olympic champions mentioned in the article denied doping. Cross-country skier Alexander Legkov called the claims “totally absurd.”</p>
<p>Russian Federation Deputy Sports Minister Yury Nagornykh at that time also denied a doping program. “There is no doping program in the Russian Federation, and there never was one,” he said.</p>
<p>Russia has been battling allegations of institutionalized doping use since late 2014, based mostly on whistleblower reports by ex-athletes. President Vladimir Putin has personally admitted the problem, though denied the use of doping was state-sanctioned.</p>
<p>Already, track's governing body, the IAAF, has suspended Russia's track team from the Olympics after a separate investigation turned up evidence of a state-sponsored doping system used to benefit that team. The Court of Arbitration for Sport is expected to rule July 21 on the eligibility of 68 Russian athletes who have appealed to compete in Rio.</p> | Anti-Doping Officials May Call for Russia Ban at Rio Olympics | false | http://nbcnews.com/news/sports/anti-doping-officials-may-call-russia-ban-olympics-n611026 | 2016-07-17 | 3 |
<p />
<p>For many journalists, including myself, Sunday held the promise of a relatively quiet day.&#160; That calm was shattered by an e-mail message from The New York Times:</p>
<p>Sunday, December 14, 2003 -- 6:53 AM ET------------------------------------------------------------Iraq Governing Council Says Saddam Hussein Has Been Captured</p>
<p>Although television sets were quickly turned on, so was my Web browser to see how news sites would be handling this breaking story.Much has been written about online as the medium that people turn to – after television – for in-depth coverage of a breaking story. However by 9 a.m. ET most of the breaking news was out and the broadcast television networks turned to their Sunday morning talk shows to move the story forward.This is a classic opportunity for websites to move the story.&#160; Newspapers still have almost another 24 hours before they hit the doorsteps again.&#160; And while television is doing a great job, the story is tailor-made for the Web.For those who got up late, hey, it's Sunday, the Web is the place to turn to for the most complete story.&#160;There are lots of angles on this story.&#160;Photos. Video.&#160;Background.&#160; And later in the morning, new stuff about how the capture happened.The challenge, then, is how to show site visitors that you have organized the story for them.&#160; Here are a few examples I find compelling.</p>
<p>The Boston Globe's <a href="http://www.boston.com" type="external">www.boston.com</a> site did a great job packing lots of links into the page.&#160; They also gave readers a visual icon to signal different type of content.---The Knight Ridder network of sites provided a cleanly organized site of links, although their presentation ability is still hampered by their publishing template.&#160; For my taste, I think there is too much open space on the page, especially under the Saddam photo.&#160; Wasted opportunty space. The example here is from the Fort Wayne Newspapers site, <a href="http://www.fortwayne.com" type="external">www.fortwayne.com</a>.---</p>
<p>Although I was surprised that the Minneapolis Star Tribune's <a href="http://www.startribune.com" type="external">www.startribune.com</a> did not have a Saddam photo on the home page at 9:30 a.m ET, you can't fault them for collection of links to the story.&#160; In addition to audio for the story, they also have a link to a discussion area.&#160; By 11 a.m. there were already a dozen comments posted. And a photo of Saddam on the front.---While East Coast news operations had&#160;a time advantage with this story (news broke in the middle of the night in the West), I was struck by how much the Tacoma News Tribune's site, <a href="http://www.tribnet.com" type="external">www.tribnet.com</a>, had up when we checked.&#160; It was 4 a.m. PT when this story broke for the Tacoma newsroom.</p>
<p>It isn't just about the linksThere is another aspect of this story that requires some careful attention by those running news websites: the photographs of Saddam released by the U.S. military.&#160;The bearded image of the former dictator is compelling. But it needs words to put it in context.&#160;So does the picture that was taken after he was shaved.Yet, too many sites fail to add captions to these kinds of photographs.&#160; And while confusion might be&#160;fleeting and eliminated by reading the story, that misses the point.&#160; We know that readers look at photos and read captions.&#160; We should add clarity and context.&#160; Not confusion.</p>
<p>Here are some examples of how different sites handled&#160; photos:The Dallas Morning News, <a href="http://www.dallasnews.com" type="external">www.dallasnews.com</a>, did a one of the best jobs of showing the different photos of Saddam. They had the bearded and the shaved photos.&#160; They also had an earlier photo of to help put the images in context.---Less visually appealing, but just as journalistically successful was the Free Lance-Star's, <a href="http://www.fredericksburg.com" type="external">www.fredericksburg.com</a>. The Free Lance-Star had both pictures and a text block that explains what the reader is seeing.---Less successful was the Long Beach Press-Telegram, <a href="http://www.press-telegram.com" type="external">www.press-telegram.com</a>. The site used the same two photos as the Free Lance-Star, but failed to explain to the reader what they were looking at.&#160; And while it doesn't cause a lot of confusion, I would err on the side that says:&#160; You can't assume the reader knows.Do you want to see more sites?&#160;Poynter Online has compiled a collection of more 80 screen captures of website front pages from Sunday, Dec. 14, between 9:36 a.m. and 10:04 a.m. ET.&#160; The collection has a variety of news sites published by newspapers, television stations, and online organizations.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://poynterextra.org/centerpiece/saddam/saddamscreens.html" type="external">website Snapshots are in a Flash</a> file built by Robin Sloan that is quite large (4.7 megs). Don't click if you are are on a dial-up.&#160; Or "right click" on the link to save the file to your desktop.</p>
<p>Postscript John Hawkinson, who is at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, sends along his e-mail alert from CNN&#160;that he received at 5:32 a.m. ET.&#160;Here's what that alert said:</p>
<p>U.S. forces capture a number of wanted Iraqis in Tikrit, possibly including former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, U.S. officials say. Identities still being confirmed.</p>
<p>We want to give credit where credit is due.</p> | Saddam Captured: The Online Coverage | false | https://poynter.org/news/saddam-captured-online-coverage | 2003-12-14 | 2 |
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