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<p>Nearly a half-century after Jordanian troops failed to wipe the nascent Jewish State off the map with a series of preemptive wars, beginning in 1948 with the Israeli War for Independence and culminating in the 1967 Six Day War, Jordan’s King Abdullah is condemning Israel for its supposed war of attrition with the Palestinians. Speaking at the United Nations rostrum in New York on Tuesday, Abdullah insisted that unless Israel accepts a so-called Palestinian state, the Middle East will be “engulfed in a sea of hatred.”</p>
<p>The king’s statements were one part threat, another part ominous pseudo-prophetic sermon.</p>
<p>“No injustice has spread more bitter fruit than the denial of a Palestinian state,” <a href="http://www.timesofisrael.com/accept-palestine-or-face-sea-of-hatred-jordanian-king-warns-israel/" type="external">said</a> the heir to a hereditary Arab monarchy. “I say: Peace is a conscious decision. Israel has to embrace peace or eventually be engulfed in a sea of hatred in a region of turmoil.”</p>
<p>Oblivious, or perhaps indifferent to his own country’s violent colonialist history, Abdullah actually touted his role as “custodian” of the al-Aqsa mount in Jordan-occupied East Jerusalem.</p>
<p>“As the Custodian of Islamic holy sites in Jerusalem, I will continue my efforts to protect these places, and stand up against all violations of their sanctity, including attempts for temporal and spatial division of Al-Aqsa Mosque/Al Haram Al Sharif,” declared the king.</p>
<p>The monarch’s own words made clear that there was never any Palestinian state. In fact, most of Jerusalem, including sites housing the Jewish Temple of Solomon, was occupied by Jordan until the 1967 war when Israeli paratroopers regained land cultivated by their ancestors.</p>
<p>It was only in 1967 when so-called “Palestinians” pushed back Israel’s presence in Jerusalem, contriving a nationalist movement to oppose the Jewish State’s supposed “occupation.” Before Israel’s arrival, these same people rallying under the over-wrought flag of “Palestine,” hardly put up a fight against Jordanian colonization. To this day, Jordan enjoys control of the Dome of the Rock, refusing to allow Jews on Islamic holy sites.</p> | Embattled Jordanian King: If Israel Doesn’t Accept ‘Palestine,’ There Will Be A ‘Sea Of Hatred’ | true | https://dailywire.com/news/9399/embattled-jordanian-king-if-israel-doesnt-accept-joshua-yasmeh | 2016-09-22 | 0 |
<p>Near the Syrian border northeast of Baalbek.</p>
<p>I had not planned to watch Obama’s Cairo speech on June 5, since I had an appointment in the plush Bekaa Valley, near Baalbek-Hermel with Shaykh Subhi Tufayli one of the founders of Hezbollah and its first Secretary General.</p>
<p>Shaykh Tufayli, still a revered cleric,&#160;was a participant in the August 1982 First Conference for the Downtrodden which, I argues in a forthcoming volume, was the essential organizing event&#160;at which&#160;Hezbollah can be said to have come into existence.</p>
<p>At the Conference with Subhi Tufayli, twenty seven years ago, were Lebanon’s now senior Shia cleric, &#160;Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah, Shaykh Muhammad Yazbak,&#160; the martyr Shaykh Raghib Harb,&#160; Shaykh Afif al-Nablsi and others who are&#160;still active in the Party.</p>
<p>Like Grand Ayatollah Mohammad Hussein Fadallah, Shaykh Tufaili disconnected from the core of Hezbollah, for political, personal and religious reasons, but remains an important figure in terms of social welfare services, especially in the Bekaa Valley.</p>
<p>Even though Shaykh Tufaili &#160;has not been active with Hezbollah for more than 17 years he was nonetheless placed on the US terrorism list by the Bush administration on October 12, 2001, one month and a day after &#160;9/11, &#160;during that period of &#160;frantic &#160;State and Treasury Department compilation of T-list names.&#160; One thing students learn while engaged in research in Lebanon is just how flawed US intelligence has often been here&#160;this past quarter century.</p>
<p>On route to Hermel, and having received a call from a Baalbek journalist about a pending lawsuit against certain media outlets regarding wild and unsubstantiated claims about Hezbollah being involved in Hashish farming, I dropped in on an extended family that I have known this past year and who are true experts on this subject.&#160;&#160; The father had just returned, after six weeks of laying low, from one of his hideouts after he was alerted that things had quieted down, pre-election, around Baalbek. Since December 2008&#160;&#160;the Lebanese Amy and Internal Security Service&#160; have been conducting raids on suspected hashish growers.</p>
<p>“Where is Ali, Marwan and “Bin Laden”, I asked, not seeing three of his bodyguards I &#160;had gotten to know from previous visits.</p>
<p>“All in prison”, I was told. The new team was just as heavily armed, muscled and edgy.&#160; As we were served fine pastries by Sri Lankan maids, my Shia journalist friend joined us, arriving by taxi , because, as he explained, if his car tags are recorded in this particular area the army might try to arrest him for involvement in the alleged business of our host and his&#160;roughly 60,000 member extended&#160;family.</p>
<p>“Al Arabia &#160;TV said I have 4000 warrants &#160;against me and that is not true!&#160; There are only 40 warrants against me. I am suing them and others who claim I am mafia or a drug baron”, our host explains as the assembly laughs.</p>
<p>I asked our host, who grew up just two miles from where we were meeting if the Army might come and attempt another arrest that afternoon.</p>
<p>“No they will not come because there will be a war if they do and they know that. These men will shoot anyone who comes near&#160;this house.&#160; Our family will fight them and will revenge any spilt blood and&#160; so the authorities&#160; will avoid a clash.&#160; Don’t worry,&#160;they will not come and after the election, especially if Hezbollah wins, we will negotiate a solution to this problem. Around 30,000 people in the Bekaa Valley having warrants against them for just trying to earn a living or subsist. We cannot continue living like this.”</p>
<p>While we were sitting in the living room with a huge TV screen and half a dozen couches filled with heavily armed men, three women arrived with about 14 children, most of whom I met previously and we exchange hugs.&#160; One of the women, whose husband is currently&#160;in Washington DC awaiting trial for allegedly trying to import drugs to the US, asked if we were going to watch President Obama who was giving a speech in Cairo.</p>
<p>My friend turns on the TV and started to explain about the election and how in the Bekaa Valley there are three electoral districts: Western Bekaa-Rashaya, Mid Bekaa – Zahle and Baalbeck-Hermel. In Zahle there is Majority-Opposition competition as there is in the Western Bekaa. In Baalbeck-Hermel, there is no competition and Hezbollah will win handily.&#160; Naturally, Hezbollah is competing and pouring electoral resources only into constituencies where there is competition. Where there is no competition, like in South Lebanon and parts of South Beirut (Dahiyeh) , the Party is asking supporters to vote &#160;in huge numbers as if it &#160;is a referendum on the Lebanese National Resistance, its arms and &#160;its call for a post election unity government.</p>
<p>In heavily Christian, Zahle and the Western Bekaa, Rashaya and the Mid Bekaa, Hezbollah is backing the Opposition slate against the pro-US Hariri slate.&#160; The Opposition candidate&#160;slate in these areas does not include Hezbollah members.</p>
<p>Interestingly, since the dozen men in the room are from the Baalbek area, &#160;and ten of them are Shia (two&#160; of the hired guns are Palestinians from the nearly base of Ahmad Jibribl’s Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command) not one of them supports Hezbollah. “ That seems odd, Why not”? I ask.</p>
<p>Some of their reasons had to do will family/tribal feuds. Hezbollah arrested a couple of them for various reasons, one said. He claimed he was held 10 floors underground in Dahiyeh until his large family sent a tribal elder to Hezbollah and explained they would fight them if he was not released. He said he was out the next morning and explained how his&#160; order of loyalty was to God, family, tribe and then Lebanon.</p>
<p>Others complained that Hezbollah has not done enough for&#160;the people of&#160;Lebanon’s &#160;Bekaa Valley&#160;in terms of employment and infrastructure,&#160; that Hezbollah tends to take their support and votes for granted, and has not helped with political ‘cover’ with their agricultural business&#160;pursuits, or getting their comrades &#160;or relatives out of jail etc. Hezbollah’s response to these oft-heard charges is that it is not them but rather&#160;&#160;the central government&#160; that is ignoring the Bekaa. They explain that during the 1960s the Bekaa residents were told that they should &#160;not expect help from the central government &#160;due to the fact that&#160; the people&#160;supported the Shia leader Imam Musa Sadr and his “movement of the dispossessed”. Then since the 1980s the residents have been told in &#160;the Bekaa that as they are loyal to Hezbollah they should look to them for infrastructure and government services and not the central government.</p>
<p>Hezbollah’s response in Parliament and to the residents of the Bekaa is that there are certain things and services that the central government must do that a Party or Resistance movement cannot do.&#160;&#160;Hezbollah&#160;has &#160;promised that after the election, if&#160;the National Lebanese Resistance wins, it&#160;will set up a Baalbek-Hermal Development Zone, and also an Akkar Development Zone (Muslim Sunni and Christian area near Tripoli in the North) and bring services that every Lebanon has the right to, such as water, electricity, medical care, and jobs. Government services have been absent from these areas from the days of the &#160;Ottomans and the French colonial powers, up until today’s “modern” government.</p>
<p>On the big TV Obama &#160;was giving his speech which was then followed by analysis.&#160; Those is the packed living room liked what&#160;the American President&#160;said about Islam, his commitment to setting up a state in Palestine, getting rid of the settlers, and his language about there being seven million Muslims in America, a mosque is every state and the necessity of combating Muslim stereotypes.</p>
<p>“Obama Qwess! Qwess!” (good), two or three said.</p>
<p>As the kids were climbing over the couches and&#160; gleefully fingering, pointing&#160;and holding some of the weapons including pistols, AK-47’s and two Rocket Propelled Grenade launchers, my rather worthless Alfee mobile phone rang.</p>
<p>It was Press TV from Tehran.&#160; Would I be willing to come to their Bir Hasan Studio near Shatila Camp for an on-camera interview, the caller asked. I explained there is no way that this is&#160; possible because I am in the Bekaa Valley, two hours east of Beirut&#160; plus I have appointments.</p>
<p>The lady with a nice voice asks if we could do a phone interview.&#160; I asked my friends if his TV gets Press TV.&#160; It does.</p>
<p>So as one of the kids found the right channel, and the News Headlines were read the Screen cuts in with my&#160; file photo and &#160;the kids and gunmen drop their jaws and do a double take and &#160;stare as my friend explains what is going on. How I can be with them and on TV from Iran&#160;at the same time.</p>
<p>It was a funny &#160;spectacle, trying to hear and respond to the questions from the interviewer from my phone with live bounce-back sound from the TV screen, in a crowded room with kids holding and playing with guns and me hoping one isn’t accidentally discharged.</p>
<p>We got through it with this hilarious &#160;kid-squealing and finger-pointing event with me mumbling about&#160; how &#160;Obama at least did not use the word terrorism, and was obviously trying to redirect post Bush relations between the US and the Muslim and Arab world, and that all is all it was positive etc.</p>
<p>My gunmen interlocutors proved the rule about the Lebanese.</p>
<p>Whatever their job or activity or age or confession, they are often way more astute politically than many of us.</p>
<p>The Bekaa Valley seems to like Obama, are hopeful that American will finally stop enabling Zionist colonialism in their part of the World, and will be a friend and ally for Lebanon.</p>
<p>Even Shayke&#160; SubhiTufaili appreciated the humor of what happened on the way to my dialogue with him. He like many here believes the days of Zionism are numbered and the growing global&#160;Resistance, after June 7th, will welcome dialogue with President Obama’s administration.&#160; He believes the US will be among the first in line to work with Hezbollah, Hamas, Syria and Iran to bring an end to the injustice that the Palestinian have endured for so long.</p>
<p>FRANKLIN LAMB is doing research in Lebanon.&#160; He can be reached at <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a>.</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | How Much Really Separates Obama and Netanyahu? | true | https://counterpunch.org/2009/06/05/how-much-really-separates-obama-and-netanyahu-2/ | 2009-06-05 | 4 |
<p>Paul Joseph Watson <a href="http://www.prisonplanet.com" type="external">Prison Planet.com</a> Wednesday, May 19, 2010</p>
<p />
<p>At a recent Council on Foreign Relations speech in Montreal, co-founder with David Rockefeller of the Trilateral Commission and regular Bilderberg attendee Zbigniew Brzezinski warned that a “global political awakening,” in combination with infighting amongst the elite, was threatening to derail the move towards a one world government.</p>
<p>Brzezinski explained that global political leadership had become “much more diversified unlike what it was until relatively recently,” noting the rise of China as a geopolitical power, and that global leadership in the context of the G20 was “lacking internal unity with many of its members in bilateral antagonisms.”</p>
<p>In other words, the global elite is infighting amongst itself and this is hampering efforts to rescue the agenda for global government, which seems to be failing on almost every front.</p>
<p>Brzezinski then explained another significant factor in that, “For the first time in all of human history mankind is politically awakened – that’s a total new reality – it has not been so for most of human history.”</p>
<p>Watch the clip.</p>
<p />
<p>Brzezinski continued, “The whole world has become politically awakened,” adding that all over the world people were aware of what was happening politically and were “consciously aware of global inequities, inequalities, lack of respect, exploitation.”</p>
<p>“Mankind is now politically awakened and stirring,” said Brzezinski, adding that this in combination with a fractured elite “makes it a much more difficult context for any major power, including currently the leading world power, the United States.”</p>
<p>During a subsequent question and answer session, Brzezinski was asked if he thought another organization should replace the United Nations as the de facto “one world government,” to which Brzezinski responded, “There should be such an organization,” before pointing out that the UN was not it in its current role.</p>
<p>As the text at the end of the video makes clear, Brzezinski’s admission that humanity has undergone a political awakening is not a positive development in the eyes of the elite.</p>
<p>In his 1970 book Between Two Ages: America’s Role in the Technetronic Era, Brzezinski wrote the following.</p>
<p>“The technetronic era involves the gradual appearance of a more controlled society. Such a society would be dominated by an elite, unrestrained by traditional values. Soon it will be possible to assert almost continuous surveillance over every citizen and maintain up-to-date complete files containing even the most personal information about the citizen. These files will be subject to instantaneous retrieval by the authorities.”</p>
<p>The “elite” to which Brzezinski refers included many of those who were in attendance for his speech at the CFR meeting. The global political awakening which Brzezinski discussed represents part of the resistance to that very elite dominated society and the systems of control, subjugation and surveillance that they have imposed upon the human race in pursuit of a “more controlled society” and a one world government.</p> | Brzezinski Decries “Global Political Awakening” During CFR Speech | true | http://infowars.com/brzezinski-decries-global-political-awakening-during-cfr-speech/ | 2010-05-19 | 0 |
<p />
<p>If any industry were going to use tech-savvy algorithms to hire more minorities, it makes sense it would be Silicon Valley.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>With Google (NASDAQ:GOOGL) stirring the pot in the world's largest tech hub by releasing astonishingly one-sided diversity figures last month, one recruiting firm is claiming to have an answer.</p>
<p>Entelo, the three-year-old tech recruiting database that scrapes the Internet for public data to be used by employers for recruitment purposes, says its newly-unveiled diversity tool enables companies to weed through potential job candidates and search for minorities.</p>
<p>While it has been criticized by some as reverse discrimination, CEO Jon Bischke says it is not only completely legal but much in demand by some of Entelo’s major corporate clients as social pressures mount.</p>
<p>“A number of our customers have approached us wanting to know if our data could help them find people from underrepresented groups,” said Bischke in an interview with FOX Business.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>Google became the sector’s first heavyweight to voluntarily disclose its diversity stats two weeks ago, revealing a staff comprised of 70% men that is 60% white.&#160;It came at the persistent urging of Rev. Jesse Jackson, who for months has been pressuring Silicon Valley to be more transparent.</p>
<p>“We’ve always been reluctant to publish numbers about the diversity of our workforce at Google,” said Laszlo Bock, senior vice president of people operations at Google. “We now realize we were wrong.”</p>
<p>Mountain View, Calif.-based Google said its 46,000-person workforce is <a href="" type="internal">“miles” away from where Google would like to be</a>. It blamed education, and touted its efforts to try and fix the problem such as sending engineers to historically black colleges to reinvent IT curriculums and investing in education for girls.</p>
<p>It gave little color as to how it would improve its actual recruiting efforts, but Google has a robust recruiting team that will likely hone in on this goal for the tech darling. The path is less clear for smaller companies that don’t have as many resources.</p>
<p>“My concern is the 99% of other companies who want and need diverse teams but don’t have the team to recruit them,” Bischke said. “This could help level the playing field.”</p>
<p>What Entelo provides is more than 20 million profiles of potential employees filled with publicly-available data pulled from sites like Twitter (NYSE:TWTR) and LinkedIn (NASDAQ:LNKD).</p>
<p>Its proprietary algorithms then sort through this information using big data, predictive analytics and social cues, to determine the likelihood that people fall into a number of demographic subsets: female vs. male, white vs. black, etc.. It also identifies U.S. military veterans.</p>
<p>"We realized we could do this with a high degree of accuracy,” Bischke said.</p>
<p>The idea is that it would help companies to more cost-effectively and efficiently scour a wider group of potentially ethnically-diverse and qualified candidates, freeing up resources to focus on innovation, training, and ideally develop these people into future industry leaders.</p>
<p>After all, Marissa Mayer, who started at Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) in 1999 as the company’s 20th employee and first female engineer, is now CEO of Yahoo (NASDAQ:YHOO).</p>
<p>As for the critics, Bischke says diversity recruiting is something employers have been doing “for years.” Entelo, he adds, is not set up in such a way that it fosters discrimination. Rather, he says it assists in finding less represented candidates.</p>
<p>“Our response [to the critics] is always, ‘We believe you should always hire the best person for the job,'" he said. "But we also believe you should hire a diverse person from a diverse group of applicants."</p>
<p>Elizabeth Ames, a vice president at the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology, told FOX Business she applauds Entelo's intention and believes there is a place for "applying computer science to assist in this process."</p>
<p>However, she also believes these efforts can and should stretch far beyond just algorithms.</p>
<p>For example, companies can write job descriptions to be gender neutral, use blind resume screening and accept referrals from women and minority employees.</p> | In Silicon Valley, Searching for Diversity in an Algorithm | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2014/06/09/in-silicon-valley-searching-for-diversity-in-algorithm.html | 2016-03-04 | 0 |
<p>By <a href="http://www.commondreams.org/news/2016/02/07/rebuke-swift-after-albright-declares-special-place-hell-women-who-dont-vote-clinton" type="external">Lauren McCauley / Common Dreams</a></p>
<p>Maybe it wasn’t such a great idea for Hillary Clinton to invite Madeleine Albright to campaign for her in New Hampshire.</p>
<p>During a campaign event in Concord on Saturday, the former Secretary of State <a href="http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/watch/albright-addresses-women-voters-617720899732" type="external">declared</a>: “Young women have to support Hillary Clinton. The story is not over!”</p>
<p>“They’re going to want to push us back,” she continued. “It’s not done and you have to help. Hillary Clinton will always be there for you. And just remember, there’s a special place in hell for women who don’t help each other.”</p>
<p />
<p>And while it was not the first time Albright <a href="http://espn.go.com/wnba/columns/story?id=2517642&amp;columnist=voepel_mechelle" type="external">muttered</a> that phrase, the backlash was swift and severe.</p>
<p>Pointing to Albright’s notorious <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RM0uvgHKZe8" type="external">defense</a> of the Iraq invasion, during which she said that the death of 500,000 Iraqi children was “worth it,” observers speculated about someone else who may end up in that “special place.”</p>
<p>It’s stunning to see atrocity advocates moralize about gender representation. Is there a club <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Sociopaths4Hillary?src=hash" type="external">#Sociopaths4Hillary</a> club? There should be.</p>
<p>— Rania Khalek (@RaniaKhalek) <a href="https://twitter.com/RaniaKhalek/status/696084814437486592" type="external">February 6, 2016</a></p>
<p>Madeline Albright, the 1st female Sec of State, said 500,000 dead Iraqi children was “worth it.” Don’t you dare lecture me about feminism.</p>
<p>— Yasmin Yonis (@YasminYonis) <a href="https://twitter.com/YasminYonis/status/696365585391861760" type="external">February 7, 2016</a></p>
<p>Madeline Albright helped hundreds of thousands of Iraqi women to death in the 1990s. Special place in hell, indeed. <a href="https://t.co/V4U96NH2jz" type="external">https://t.co/V4U96NH2jz</a></p>
<p>— Dave Zirin (@EdgeofSports) <a href="https://twitter.com/EdgeofSports/status/696066814082678786" type="external">February 6, 2016</a></p>
<p>Overheard re Madame <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Albright?src=hash" type="external">#Albright</a>: “I guess none of those half-million Iraqi children killed by US sanctions were girls” <a href="https://t.co/Oo3kLsGGM8" type="external">https://t.co/Oo3kLsGGM8</a></p>
<p>— AFRICA IS A COUNTRY (@AfricasaCountry) <a href="https://twitter.com/AfricasaCountry/status/696098812331425792" type="external">February 6, 2016</a></p>
<p><a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Bernie2016?src=hash" type="external">#Bernie2016</a> you know Hillary’s in trouble when Madeleine Albright &amp; Gloria Steinem say asinine things in support on same day. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/FeelTheBern?src=hash" type="external">#FeelTheBern</a></p>
<p>— Raffi Cavoukian (@Raffi_RC) <a href="https://twitter.com/Raffi_RC/status/696220642404773889" type="external">February 7, 2016</a></p>
<p>The comments came a day after feminist icon Gloria Steinem <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=scO9gIpR8BI" type="external">said</a> in an interview that young women were supporting Bernie Sanders because “that’s where the boys are.”</p>
<p>Donna Smith, executive director of Progressive Democrats of America and Common Dreams contributor, <a href="http://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/02/07/young-women-sanders-not-be-underestimated" type="external">said</a> on Sunday that Steinem’s argument was “really odd … coming from a woman who has lived her life lifting women up and demanding that as equals to men we have the right to our own minds and bodies. Presumably that includes the right to our own political decisions as well.”</p>
<p>“When we get through this presidential primary season on the Democratic side, I want us to present the best possible platform for all people,” Smith continued. “Right now as I observe this presidential race, Bernie’s positions on critical issues for working class women like me offer the best hope that lives may be transformed in ways that give all of us the best chance to achieve our potential.”</p>
<p>Kevin Gosztola, managing editor of Shadowproof, <a href="http://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/02/07/absurd-identity-politics-establishment-pundits-critiquing-bernie-sanders" type="external">argued</a> that comments such as Albright’s and Steinem’s have “degraded debate about feminist issues and boorishly transformed characteristics of personalities into matters of equal rights.”</p>
<p>Throughout the campaign, Clinton has taken heat for her associations, including Goldman Sachs and Walmart. But in recent days, the individuals who have come forth to vouch for her candidacy, including Albright, have raised more than a few eyebrows.</p>
<p>During Thursday’s Democratic debate, Clinton said that she “was very flattered when Henry Kissinger said I ran the State Department better—better than anybody had run it in a long time.” This she said of a person who has been <a href="http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/01/indefensible-kissinger-102123?paginate=false" type="external">accused</a> of war crimes.</p>
<p>Apparently, as the New Republic’s Michael Tracey <a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/129325/hillary-clinton-basking-henry-kissingers-praise" type="external">put it</a>: “The significance of Kissinger’s well-documented responsibility for atrocities in Cambodia, East Timor, Chile, and elsewhere is subordinate to his reputation as a statesman unbound by partisan loyalties.”</p>
<p>Or as columnist Dave Zirin wrote:</p>
<p>If you care about lives in the global south, touting support from Henry Kissinger and Madeline Albright isn’t just tone-deaf. It’s obscene.</p>
<p>— Dave Zirin (@EdgeofSports) <a href="https://twitter.com/EdgeofSports/status/696067463050629120" type="external">February 6, 2016</a></p> | Madeleine Albright Declares a 'Special Place in Hell' for Women Who Don't Vote for Hillary Clinton | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/madeleine-albright-declares-a-special-place-in-hell-for-women-who-dont-vote-for-hillary-clinton/ | 2016-02-08 | 4 |
<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p>
<p />
<p>Thursday, Oct. 16</p>
<p>Atrisco Heritage 33, Valley 25</p>
<p>Manzano 53, Highland 0</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
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<p>Animas def. NMSD, forfeit</p>
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<p>&#160;</p>
<p>Saturday, Oct. 18</p>
<p>Navajo Prep at Dexter, 1 p.m.</p>
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<p>Questa at McCurdy, 1 p.m.</p>
<p>Ruidoso at Hope Christian, 1 p.m., Milne</p>
<p>Reserve at Vaughn, 1 p.m.</p> | Prep football scores/schedule: Thursday 10/16-Saturday 10/18 | false | https://abqjournal.com/479870/prep-football-schedule-thursday-1016-to-saturday-1018.html | 2 |
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<p>TUKWILA, Wash. (AP) — The Seattle Sounders ended last season with a thud in the MLS Cup final.</p>
<p>It was a disappointing performance but not one that made team officials feel a roster overhaul was necessary.</p>
<p>The changes Seattle made before the start of last season, plus some summer additions, put the Sounders in a position where the offseason heading into the 2018 campaign has so far been mostly, well, boring.</p>
<p>"We feel really good about our team, if I'm honest," general manager Garth Lagerwey said Monday. "Nothing is given, nothing is promised, we've got to go out and earn it. Again, if you look at our whole 18 and you can say we could have 15 or 16 of these guys back from our 18 guys that dressed in the final, OK. Certainly we want to continue to try and add players and get better, but we feel pretty good about our group."</p>
<p>Just six weeks and a couple of days after losing to Toronto in the MLS Cup final, the Sounders returned to the practice field for the start of preseason camp. Most of the camp will be conducted somewhere other than Seattle, with the Sounders spending lengthy stints in Southern California and Arizona.</p>
<p>And it's a season that gets started sooner than most. By the time the Sounders face the expansion Los Angeles Football Club on March 4 to open the MLS regular season, they will have already played two critical games in the CONCACAF Champions League round of 16. The Sounders face Santa Tecla from El Salvador in a two-game, home-and-home series beginning Feb. 22 to open the knockout round of the tournament.</p>
<p>The Champions League matches have added importance to Seattle's preseason. No MLS team has won the Champions League in its current format and Seattle has never advanced beyond the semifinals. But it's the second straight offseason with little downtime for the players.</p>
<p>"The lack of rest certainly is an issue. I would say it's equal parts mental and physical as the guys have been going for two years straight with not a lot of rest," coach Brian Schmetzer said. "We would certainly prefer that to the flip side which is getting two months off and not doing well."</p>
<p>Helping Seattle ramp up its preseason preparations is the fact its roster is nearly the same as when it lost to Toronto. The only full-time starter Seattle lost in the offseason was Joevin Jones, who joined Darmstadt in Germany. Jordan Morris and Cristian Roldan are at U.S. national team camp. The major changes to the roster came through the acquisition of defender Waylon Francis from Columbus and the drafting of Alex Roldan, the younger brother of Cristian.</p>
<p>Contrast that with last year when the Sounders changed 13 players, including five starters, from the roster that won the 2016 MLS Cup title.</p>
<p>Lagerwey didn't want the lack of change to be viewed as a sign Seattle was content with what happened last season.</p>
<p>"We are not sitting here saying losing in the final in that manner is acceptable," Lagerwey said. "But what we are saying is we're not willing to throw the baby out with the bathwater and build from scratch because we lost one game on the road either."</p>
<p>TUKWILA, Wash. (AP) — The Seattle Sounders ended last season with a thud in the MLS Cup final.</p>
<p>It was a disappointing performance but not one that made team officials feel a roster overhaul was necessary.</p>
<p>The changes Seattle made before the start of last season, plus some summer additions, put the Sounders in a position where the offseason heading into the 2018 campaign has so far been mostly, well, boring.</p>
<p>"We feel really good about our team, if I'm honest," general manager Garth Lagerwey said Monday. "Nothing is given, nothing is promised, we've got to go out and earn it. Again, if you look at our whole 18 and you can say we could have 15 or 16 of these guys back from our 18 guys that dressed in the final, OK. Certainly we want to continue to try and add players and get better, but we feel pretty good about our group."</p>
<p>Just six weeks and a couple of days after losing to Toronto in the MLS Cup final, the Sounders returned to the practice field for the start of preseason camp. Most of the camp will be conducted somewhere other than Seattle, with the Sounders spending lengthy stints in Southern California and Arizona.</p>
<p>And it's a season that gets started sooner than most. By the time the Sounders face the expansion Los Angeles Football Club on March 4 to open the MLS regular season, they will have already played two critical games in the CONCACAF Champions League round of 16. The Sounders face Santa Tecla from El Salvador in a two-game, home-and-home series beginning Feb. 22 to open the knockout round of the tournament.</p>
<p>The Champions League matches have added importance to Seattle's preseason. No MLS team has won the Champions League in its current format and Seattle has never advanced beyond the semifinals. But it's the second straight offseason with little downtime for the players.</p>
<p>"The lack of rest certainly is an issue. I would say it's equal parts mental and physical as the guys have been going for two years straight with not a lot of rest," coach Brian Schmetzer said. "We would certainly prefer that to the flip side which is getting two months off and not doing well."</p>
<p>Helping Seattle ramp up its preseason preparations is the fact its roster is nearly the same as when it lost to Toronto. The only full-time starter Seattle lost in the offseason was Joevin Jones, who joined Darmstadt in Germany. Jordan Morris and Cristian Roldan are at U.S. national team camp. The major changes to the roster came through the acquisition of defender Waylon Francis from Columbus and the drafting of Alex Roldan, the younger brother of Cristian.</p>
<p>Contrast that with last year when the Sounders changed 13 players, including five starters, from the roster that won the 2016 MLS Cup title.</p>
<p>Lagerwey didn't want the lack of change to be viewed as a sign Seattle was content with what happened last season.</p>
<p>"We are not sitting here saying losing in the final in that manner is acceptable," Lagerwey said. "But what we are saying is we're not willing to throw the baby out with the bathwater and build from scratch because we lost one game on the road either."</p> | Familiar faces abound as Sounders open preseason camp | false | https://apnews.com/amp/0c662a16271c4851bf6618c2b003a83f | 2018-01-22 | 2 |
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<p>LACONIA (NH)Boston GlobeBy Associated Press, 4/24/2003</p>
<p>LACONIA, N.H. -- The first criminal trial of a priest in New Hampshire's church abuse scandals ended in a deadlocked jury yesterday.</p>
<p />
<p />
<p />
<p />
<p>Jurors got the case of the Rev. George Robichaud Monday afternoon and deliberated 13 1/2 hours over three days before telling Superior Court Judge Harold Perkins they could not agree.</p>
<p>Earlier yesterday, they told the judge they were deadlocked, and Perkins told the six men and six women to try again before he declared the mistrial.</p>
<p>Belknap County Attorney Lauren Noether was involved in another trial and had no immediate comment on a retrial, but court clerk Dana Zucker said a new trial was being scheduled, probably in June.</p> | Trial of N.H. priest ends in hung jury | false | https://poynter.org/news/trial-nh-priest-ends-hung-jury | 2003-04-24 | 2 |
<p>Viacom Inc. beat revenue and profit forecasts in its latest quarter, but saw a decline in domestic advertising revenue.</p>
<p>In recent weeks, Viacom had entered talks to acquire Scripps Networks Interactive Inc., but eventually left the process, paving the way for Discovery Communications Inc. to strike a $11.9 billion deal for the cable TV programmer.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>On a call with analysts to discuss its results, Viacom Chief Executive Robert Bakish declined to discuss the Scripps talks but said the company will "look broadly at potential partnerships and M&amp;A opportunities." Asked about the possibility of reuniting with CBS Corp., which like Viacom is controlled by National Amusements Inc., Mr. Bakish said, "that's really the decision of the board not by myself as the CEO. Late last year National Amusements abandoned its plans to explore recombining CBS and Viacom.</p>
<p>In its third quarter, domestic advertising revenues declined 2% to $955 million from a year earlier, as higher pricing was offset by a reduction in the amount of commercials on Viacom networks. International advertising grew 14% to $280 million as the company bought one of Argentina's main free-to-air channels for $345 million last year.</p>
<p>Viacom Chief Financial Officer Wade Davis said if the company's networks had maintained the previous level of commercials in its content domestic advertising would have been up 1%. The number of commercials on Viacom networks however had become a sore point with viewers and Mr. Bakish said on the call that, "our ad loads, in my opinion, were unhealthily high."</p>
<p>In its media networks unit, revenue grew 2% to $2.56 billion, with affiliate revenue increasing 4% and total advertising revenue up 2%. In June, the company's MTV channel saw year-over-year ratings growth for the first time since 2011.</p>
<p>MTV, Mr. Bakish said, "is really starting to gain traction."</p>
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<p>On the distribution front, Mr. Bakish again reiterated that he thinks Viacom is well-positioned to offer its channels to subscribers as part of a smaller package of entertainment networks for consumers tired of paying for channels they don't watch. "The ship has sailed on everyone having a $100 bundle," he said.</p>
<p>Viacom's most immediate distribution challenge is a contractual dispute it is in with Charter Communications Inc., which recently moved Viacom networks including MTV, Nickelodeon and Comedy Central off its most popular offering of channels to a more expensive package with fewer subscribers. Charter's move last May caused Viacom stock to tumble.</p>
<p>Mr. Bakish played down the possibility of filing suit against Charter, saying he would rather not take customers to court. Mr. Davis though interjected that the company "will reserve the right to enforce" what it believes its distribution deal with Charter allows.</p>
<p>Revenue at its filmed entertainment unit rose 36% to $847 million, driven by the latest "Transformers" movie. The company also sought to soften speculation that one of the studio's financial partners -- Chinese film company Huahua -- is on shaky ground. "We've been in business with Huahua for a long time, everything's fine," Mr. Davis said.</p>
<p>The media giant has been working to reduce its hefty debt load. At the end of June, total debt outstanding was $11.17 billion, compared with $11.91 billion at the end of last September.</p>
<p>In all for the quarter, Viacom's profit rose to $683 million, or $1.70 a share, compared with $432 million, or $1.09 a share, in the prior-year quarter. Excluding certain items, Viacom earned $1.17 a share.</p>
<p>Revenue increased 8.3% to $3.36 billion. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters had expected $3.29 billion in revenue and adjusted earnings per share of $1.05.</p>
<p>Viacom shares rose 0.3% to $41.30 in after-hours trading.</p>
<p>Write to Austen Hufford at [email protected] and Joe Flint at [email protected]</p>
<p>(END) Dow Jones Newswires</p>
<p>August 03, 2017 19:05 ET (23:05 GMT)</p> | Viacom's Domestic Ad Revenue Declines -- 2nd Update | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2017/08/03/viacoms-domestic-ad-revenue-declines-2nd-update.html | 2017-08-03 | 0 |
<p>We're on the trail of 007 in today's Geo Quiz. The latest James Bond movie is in production right now. Some of the scenes for "Quantum of Solace" are being filmed in the middle of a desert in northern Chile.</p>
<p>Photo: Patrick CoxPhoto: Patrick Cox</p>
<p>The filming caused a bit of a commotion among local residents. They were demanding that the local mayor be released by police.</p>
<p>The mayor got in trouble after driving his pick-up truck right onto the set, and nearly running over the crew.</p>
<p>Photo: Patrick CoxPhoto: Patrick Cox</p>
<p>He was upset because the filmmakers were using his community to film scenes supposedly taking place in Bolivia.</p>
<p>OUR question to you is ... what's the REAL name of this South American desert?</p>
<p>It stretches across northern Chile from the foothills of the Andes Mountains to the Pacific Coast.</p>
<p>Use your secret agent skills to come up with the name. We have security clearance to reveal the answer...</p>
<p>We're going to declassify the answer to our Geo Quiz.</p>
<p>Photo: Jackie CoxPhoto: Jackie Cox</p>
<p>The name of the South American desert to be featured in the new James Bond flick is the Atacama Desert.</p> | Geo answer | false | https://pri.org/stories/2008-04-02/geo-answer | 2008-04-02 | 3 |
<p>British Airways says it has resolved a problem with its check-in systems that led to long delays and frustrated passengers at London's Heathrow and other airports.</p>
<p>The airline says the glitch caused "some delays for our customers" on Wednesday morning. BA says it had to use a manual check-in process that takes longer than the computerized system.</p>
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<p>Problems were reported at U.K. airports including Heathrow, Gatwick and London City.</p>
<p>It says travelers are now able to check in normally, "and our staff are working flat out to help customers get away on their holidays."</p>
<p>It is the latest in a string of problems to hit BA, which suffered a huge global IT failure in May that grounded flights around the world.</p> | BA says it has fixed check-in glitch that caused delays | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/08/02/ba-says-it-has-fixed-check-in-glitch-that-caused-delays.html | 2017-08-02 | 0 |
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<p>Image source: PepsiCo.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Mindlessly replicating the investment decisions of others is hardly a sound recipe for long-term success in the market, so investors should always do their own research before buying or selling a particular stock. However, taking a look at what the big money managers are doing can be a smart way to find attractive investment ideas for your own portfolio.</p>
<p>In that spirit, we have tracked the investment decisions of a wide variety of hedge funds, in many cases led by massively successful billionaires, and the big money seems have a considerable appetite for PepsiCo stock lately. According to regulatory filings, eight different hedge funds bought nearly 5.3 million shares of PepsiCo in the first quarter of 2016.</p>
<p>Investing professionals can make mistakes just like everyone else, in fact, they often do. Nevertheless, there are some strong reasons to consider PepsiCo a top-quality dividend stock to buy and hold for the long term.</p>
<p>PepsiCo comes well behind Coca-Cola in the soda wars. Coca-Cola owns both the first and second market share positions in the U.S. with its flagship Coca-Cola and Diet Coke products, while PepsiCo comes in third place with Pepsi. However, soft drinks are not a particularly promising business, far from that, soda consumption in the U.S. is on a long-term decline due to health considerations. Per capita consumption of carbonated soft drinks dropped to the lowest level since 1985 last year, and there is no reason to expect a reversal in the trend anytime soon.</p>
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<p>Most of the growth opportunities in the industry are currently coming from drinks and snacks targeted toward health-conscious consumers, and PepsiCo is doing a sound job at adapting to changing consumer demand over the last several years.</p>
<p>Management tracks performance for two kinds of healthy product categories. "Everyday nutrition" are products that provide healthy nutrients, such as grains or fruits and vegetables in addition to products that are naturally nutritious, like water and unsweetened tea. These products currently account for nearly 25% of PepsiCo's total revenue.</p>
<p>The "guilt-free" product category includes everyday nutrition products plus diet beverages and other drinks and snacks with low calories or reduced levels of sodium and saturated fat. This category represents nearly 45% of total sales for PepsiCo nowadays. In a sign of the times, PepsiCo is now making less than 25% of sales from traditional soft drinks, and brand Pepsi accounts for a modest 12% of revenue.</p>
<p>The company is aggressively investing in research and development to create better sweetener solutions and healthier versions of existing products, while also transforming its packaging to offer reduced calories per serving. Mountain Dew Kickstart is a remarkable success story in this area, now in its third year, Kickstart produced over $300 million in retail sales during 2015, while sales volume increased by an impressive 34% in the first quarter of 2016.</p>
<p>Foreign currency fluctuations are hurting financial performance, but PepsiCo still announced a solid increase of 3.5% in organic revenue during the first quarter of 2016. Global snacks organic volume grew 1.5%, while global organic volume in beverages increased 3%, the highest quarterly rate in beverage volume growth that PepsiCo has experienced in the last three years.</p>
<p>Management is running a tight ship, PepsiCo has achieved $1 billion per year in annual productivity savings since 2012, and the company intends to sustain its productivity efforts over the years ahead. Gross profit margin increased by 130 basis points last quarter, while operating margin expanded by 165 basis points. This allowed PepsiCo to deliver a big increase of 11% in core constant currency earnings per share during the period, not bad at all coming from a market leader in a stable and mature industry.</p>
<p>The company has a pristine trajectory of dividend payments over the long term. PepsiCo has paid uninterrupted quarterly dividends since 1965, and it has accumulated 44 consecutive years of consistently growing dividends, including a 7% dividend hike for 2016. This shows that the business is strong enough to produce increasing cash flows through all kinds of scenarios.</p>
<p>The dividend yield stands at nearly 3%, and management is planning to allocate $7 billion to dividends and buybacks in 2016. This means that the total cash return -- dividends plus buybacks over market capitalization -- is approaching 4.8%. Considering that PepsiCo is a rock-solid cash generating machine, investors in the company are being well rewarded with sweet and healthy cash distributions.</p>
<p>The article <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/2016/05/31/billionaire-investors-are-buying-pepsico-stock.aspx" type="external">Billionaire Investors Are Buying PepsiCo Stock</a> originally appeared on Fool.com.</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/acardenal/info.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">Andrs Cardenal</a> has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Coca-Cola and PepsiCo. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services <a href="http://www.fool.com/shop/newsletters/index.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">free for 30 days</a>. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that <a href="http://wiki.fool.com/Motley?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">considering a diverse range of insights</a> makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/Legal/fool-disclosure-policy.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">disclosure policy</a>.</p>
<p>Copyright 1995 - 2016 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/help/index.htm?display=about02" type="external">disclosure policy</a>.</p> | Billionaire Investors Are Buying PepsiCo Stock | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/05/31/billionaire-investors-are-buying-pepsico-stock.html | 2016-05-31 | 0 |
<p>Although the words Bush and Technology seem incompatible in so many ways, Wired.com <a href="http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.06/bush_spc.html" type="external">reports</a> that members of the illiterate, hunter-gatherer society known as the San Bushmen of Africa's Kalahari Desert have begun using handheld personal digital assistants equipped with Global Positioning System cards to map animal tracks and droppings. When these 21st Century aborigines find tracks or spoor, they punch an animal's icon on their PDA, which records and maps the find. For millennia, the San Bushmen have been renowned for their abilities to track animals, which is one of the longest continuous traditions of systematic human knowledge in existence today. But this is the first year in which they've done it digitally.</p> | The Digital Aboriginal | false | https://poynter.org/news/digital-aboriginal | 2003-06-03 | 2 |
<p>LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - A Dutch startup is launching an app which will allow people to give legal consent to sex via their mobile in an initiative spurred by Sweden’s plans to bolster its rape law.</p>
<p>The LegalFling app, which lets users set out which practices they are and are not comfortable with, records sexual consent in a legally binding agreement.</p>
<p>“Sex should not only be fun, but also safe,” LegalFling creator Rick Schmitz, chief executive of tech company LegalThings, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation on Thursday.</p>
<p>“You’re not going to ask someone to sign a contract before sex - LegalFling is an easy way to clearly set and communicate&#160;rules and boundaries before having sex.”</p>
<p>The app’s creators said they came up with the idea as a practical response to Sweden’s proposal to introduce legislation requiring explicit consent for sexual contact later this year.</p>
<p>The launch - due in three weeks - comes amid heated public debate over issues around consent triggered by the #MeToo social media campaign against sexual harassment and assault which has seen a slew of allegations against Hollywood stars.</p>
<p>The app uses blockchain, the technology behind the cryptocurrency bitcoin, making it impossible for anyone to tamper with the agreement.</p>
<p>Users can stipulate sexual dos and don’ts as well as rules on the use of condoms, disclosure of sexually transmitted diseases and the taking of photos and videos. The app allows both parties to agree on a penalty if footage is shared.</p>
<p>Acts of revenge porn if the relationship broke down would be a breach of contract and easy to take to court, the developers say.</p>
<p>The idea of such an app was ridiculed by actress Catherine Deneuve and other French women in a recent open letter which said the #MeToo campaign had gone too far and Sweden’s plans “bordered on ridiculous”..</p>
<p>“Next thing you know, two adults wanting to sleep together will have to specify beforehand, via an app ... which practices they do and don’t consent to,” they wrote, apparently unaware of LegalFling.</p>
<p>Other commentators have raised concerns about the ethics and workability of the app.</p>
<p>Writing on tech site Gizmodo, journalist Melanie Ehrenkranz said consent was not a “one-time checklist” but should occur continually throughout a sexual encounter and could also be withdrawn.</p>
<p>The LegalFling website states users can change their mind and withdraw consent through the app.</p>
<p>Editing by Katy Migiro. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, which covers humanitarian news, women's rights, trafficking, corruption and climate change. Visit news.trust.org to see more stories.</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>PARIS (Reuters) - The French military targeted Syria’s main chemicals research center and two chemical production facilities overnight, officials said, adding that the air strikes were over but the military was ready to act upon request.</p> French President Emmanuel Macron attends a meeting as part of the joint airstrike operation by the British, French and U.S. militaries in this picture obtained on April 14, 2018 via social media. Emmanuel Macron/Twitter/via REUTERS
<p>President Emmanuel Macron ordered the military intervention in Syria alongside the United States and Britain in response to a poison gas attack that killed dozens of people last week.</p>
<p>“This action was proportionate and targeted, it was not aimed at (Syrian President Bashar al) Assad’s allies nor at the civilian population,” Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said in a televised statement.</p>
<p>“It was limited to specific objectives: the destruction of the Syrian regime’s chemical capabilities to stop it from committing new chemical massacres.”</p>
<p>Defence Minister Florence Parly said cruise missiles had been fired, in coordination with the United States and Britain. The operation was carried out at 3 a.m. (0100 GMT), she said, adding naval and air means had been used, including an air raid launched from several air bases in France.</p>
<p>“We are not looking for confrontation and refuse any logic of escalation, that is the reason why we, with our allies, ensured the Russians were warned beforehand,” Parly said.</p>
<p>While there had been general public warnings broadcast by U.S. President Donald Trump, Macron himself and other Western leaders, a French presidency source clarified that the French leader did not tell Russian President Vladimir Putin the allies would strike overnight when they talked over the phone on Friday.</p>
<p>Regular “deconfliction” contacts were made with the Russian military once the operation had been kicked off to make sure that they would not be accidentally hit, the source said.</p>
<p>The French presidency issued a video on Twitter showing what it said were war planes taking off as part of the intervention.</p>
<p>“On April 7, dozens of men, women and children were massacred in Douma, with the use of a chemical weapon in a total violation of international rules (...) The red line established by France in May 2017 was crossed,” Macron said in a statement.</p>
<p>He said the attack had been limited so far to Syria’s chemical weapons facilities and said the facts and the responsibility of the Syrian regime were beyond doubt.</p>
<p>Macron, who tweeted a picture of himself in a meeting room with military and diplomatic advisers, said a debate about France’s military involvement would take place in parliament.</p>
<p>The French air force has been active in Syria since 2015 to fight Islamic State.</p>
<p>Reporting by Geert De Clercq; Writing by Matthias Blamont and Ingrid Melander; Editing by Angus MacSwan</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>LONDON (Reuters) - British had no alternative but to take military action to degrade Syria’s chemical weapons capability, Prime Minister Theresa May said on Saturday after ordering air-launched cruise missile strikes along with the United States and France.</p>
<p>Four Royal Air Force Tornado jets from the Akrotiri base in Cyprus fired Storm Shadow missiles at a military facility near Homs where it was assessed that Syria had stockpiled chemicals, Britain’s Ministry of Defence said.</p>
<p>May cast the strike as “limited and targeted” and came after intelligence indicated Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government was responsible for an attack using chemical weapons in the Damascus suburb of Douma a week ago.</p>
<p>May said the missile strike, designed to minimize civilian casualties, was aimed at deterring further use of chemical weapons and was not an attempt to topple the Syrian government.</p>
<p>“This is not about intervening in a civil war. It is not about regime change,” May said in statement made from her country residence at Chequers just minutes after U.S. President Donald Trump announced the strikes from the White House.</p>
<p>Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson said the mission had been highly successful and implied that no further action was imminent.</p>
<p>“We don’t expect that we’ll be a position where we’re having to make further strikes,” he told LBC radio. “We believe that the strikes we have taken last night had a significant impact in terms of what the Syrian regime can do in the future.”</p>
<p>By launching strikes without prior approval from parliament, May dispensed with a non-binding constitutional convention dating back to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. She said speed was essential and that military action was in the national interest.</p>
<p>May, whose government is propped up by a small Northern Irish party, said Britain and the West had an obligation to deter both Assad and others from using chemical weapons after the poison gas attack in Douma near Damascus killed up to 75 people, including children, last Saturday.</p>
<p>However, opposition Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, a fervent anti-war campaigner, called the strikes “legally questionable” and said May should have recalled parliament from a holiday and “not trailed after Donald Trump”.</p>
<p>“Bombs won’t save lives or bring about peace,” he said in a statement. “Britain should be playing a leadership role to bring about a ceasefire in the conflict, not taking instructions from Washington and putting British military personnel in harm’s way.”</p>
<p>Britain has accused Russia of being behind last month’s nerve agent attack on former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter in Salisbury, southern England - a charge Moscow has denied.</p>
<p>“While this action is specifically about deterring the Syrian regime, it will also send a clear signal to anyone else who believes they can use chemical weapons with impunity,” May said.</p>
<p>“We cannot allow the use of chemical weapons to become normalized – within Syria, on the streets of the UK, or anywhere else in our world.”</p>
<p>May said Britain and its allies had sought to use every diplomatic means to stop the use of chemical weapons, but had been repeatedly thwarted, citing a Russian veto of an independent investigation into the Douma attack at the U.N. Security Council this week.</p>
<p>“So there is no practicable alternative to the use of force to degrade and deter the use of chemical weapons by the Syrian regime,” she said.</p> An RAF Tornado taxis to the threshold before taking-off, in Akrotiri, Cyprus April 14, 2018. © UK MOD Crown 2018/Handout via REUTERS
<p>The Western missile strikes demonstrate the volatile nature of the Syrian civil war, which started in March 2011 as an anti-Assad uprising but is now a proxy conflict involving a number of world and regional powers and a myriad of insurgent groups.</p>
<p>Trump said he was prepared to sustain the response until the Assad government stopped its use of chemical weapons.</p>
<p>Russia, which intervened in the war in 2015 to back Assad, has denied there was a chemical attack and has accused Britain of helping to stage the Douma incident to stoke anti-Russian hysteria.</p> “TARGETED STRIKES”
<p>Britain’s defense ministry said “very careful scientific analysis” had been applied to maximize the destruction of stockpiled chemicals while minimizing any risk of contamination to surrounding areas.</p>
<p>Many politicians in Britain, including some in May’s own Conservative Party, had called for parliament to be recalled to give authority to any military strike.</p> Slideshow (2 Images)
<p>Former Prime Minister David Cameron lost a parliamentary vote on air strikes against Assad’s forces in 2013 when 30 Conservative lawmakers voted against action, with many Britons wary of entering another conflict after intervention in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya failed to bring stability to the region.</p>
<p>A YouGov poll for The Times newspaper this week indicated that only a fifth of voters believed that Britain should launch attacks on Syrian military targets and more than two-fifths opposed action.</p>
<p>Williamson said Britain had had to act swiftly and added May would update parliament when lawmakers returned on Monday.</p>
<p>Additional reporting by Andrew MacAskill and William James; Writing by Michael Holden and Guy Faulconbridge; editing by Angus MacSwan and Peter Graff</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>WASHINGTON/BEIRUT (Reuters) - U.S., British and French forces struck Syria with more than 100 missiles on Saturday in the first coordinated Western strikes against the Damascus government, targeting what they called chemical weapons sites in retaliation for a poison gas attack.</p>
<p>U.S. President Donald Trump announced the military action from the White House, saying the three allies had “marshaled their righteous power against barbarism and brutality”.</p>
<p>As he spoke, explosions rocked Damascus.</p>
<p>The bombing represents a major escalation putting the West in direct confrontation with Assad’s superpower ally Russia, but is unlikely to alter the course of a multi-sided war which has killed at least half a million people in the past seven years.</p>
<p>That in turn raises the question of where Western countries go from here, after a volley of strikes denounced by Damascus and Moscow as both reckless and pointless.</p>
<p>By morning, the Western countries said their bombing was over for now. Syria released video of President Bashar al-Assad, whose Russian- and Iranian-backed forces have already driven his enemies from Syria’s major towns and cities, arriving at work as usual, with the caption “morning of resilience”.</p>
<p>British Prime Minister Theresa May described the strike as “limited and targeted”. She said she had authorized the British action after intelligence indicated Assad’s government was responsible for the attack using chemical weapons in the Damascus suburb of Douma a week ago.</p> Related Coverage
<a href="/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-russia/russia-likely-to-call-u-n-meeting-over-syria-attack-russian-lawmaker-idUSKBN1HL075" type="external">Russia likely to call U.N. meeting over Syria attack: Russian lawmaker</a>
<a href="/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-israel/syria-strikes-an-important-signal-to-iran-and-hezbollah-israeli-minister-idUSKBN1HL0A4" type="external">Syria strikes an 'important signal' to Iran and Hezbollah: Israeli minister</a>
<a href="/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-explosions/western-attack-struck-syrian-research-center-other-targets-idUSKBN1HL02U" type="external">Western attack struck Syrian research center, other targets</a>
<p>French President Emmanuel Macron said the strikes had been limited so far to Syria’s chemical weapons facilities.</p>
<p>With more than 100 missiles fired from ships and manned aircraft, the allies struck three of Syria’s main chemical weapons facilities, U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Joseph Dunford said.</p>
<p>The targets included a Syrian center in the greater Damascus area for the research, development, production and testing of chemical and biological weaponry as well as a chemical weapons storage facility near the city of Homs. A third target, also near Homs, contained both a chemical weapons equipment storage facility and a command post.</p>
<p>Mattis called the strikes a “one time shot”, although Trump raised the prospect of further strikes if Assad’s government again used chemical weapons.</p>
<p>“We are prepared to sustain this response until the Syrian regime stops its use of prohibited chemical agents,” the U.S. president said in a televised address.</p>
<p>The Syrian conflict pits a complex myriad of parties against each other, with Russia and Iran giving Assad military and political help that has largely proven decisive over the past three years in crushing any rebel threat to topple him. Fractured opposition forces have had varying levels of support from the West, Arab states and Turkey.</p>
<p>The United States, Britain and France have all bombed the Islamic State group in Syria for years and had troops on the ground to fight them, but refrained from targeting Assad’s government apart from a volley of U.S. missiles last year.</p>
<p>Although the Western countries have all said for seven years that Assad must leave power, they held back in the past from striking his government with no wider strategy to defeat him.</p>
<p>Assad’s government and allies responded outwardly with fury, although there were also clear suggestions that they considered the attack a one-off, unlikely to harm Assad.</p>
<p>A senior official in a regional alliance that backs Damascus told Reuters the Syrian government and its allies had “absorbed” the attack. The sites that were targeted had been evacuated days ago thanks to a warning from Russia, the official said.</p>
<p>“If it is finished, and there is no second round, it will be considered limited,” the official said.</p>
<p>Russia’s ambassador to the United States, Anatoly Antonov, said on Twitter: “Again, we are being threatened. We warned that such actions will not be left without consequences.”</p>
<p>Syrian state media called the attack a “flagrant violation of international law.” An official in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said it would cause consequences that were against U.S. interests.</p>
<p>French Defence Minister Florence Parly said the Russians “were warned beforehand” to avoid inadvertant escalation.</p> “ABSORBED THE STRIKE”
<p>At least six loud explosions were heard in Damascus and smoke was seen rising over the city, a Reuters witness said. A second witness said the Barzah district of Damascus had been hit in the strikes. Barzah is the location of a major Syrian scientific research center.</p>
<p>Iran’s Foreign Ministry condemned the U.S.-led attacks and said Washington and its allies would bear responsibility for the consequences in the region and beyond, state media reported.</p>
<p>State-controlled Syrian TV said Syrian air defenses shot down 13 missiles fired in the attack. The Russian defense ministry said none of the rockets launched had entered zones where Russian air defense systems are protecting military facilities in Tartus and Hmeimim.</p>
<p>The combined U.S., British and French assault appeared more intense than a similar strike Trump ordered almost exactly a year ago against a Syrian air base in retaliation for an earlier chemical weapons attack that Washington attributed to Assad.</p> A missile is seen crossing over Damascus, Syria April 14, 2018. SANA/Handout via REUTERS
<p>Mattis said the United States conducted the air strikes with conclusive evidence that chlorine gas was used in the April 7 attack in Syria. Evidence that the nerve agent sarin also was used was inconclusive, he said.</p>
<p>Allegations of Assad’s chlorine use are frequent in Syria’s conflict, raising questions about whether Washington had lowered the threshold for military action in Syria by deciding to strike after a chlorine attack. Syria agreed in 2013 to give up its chemical weapons. It is still permitted to have chlorine for civilian use, although its use as a weapon is banned.</p>
<p>Mattis, who U.S. officials said had earlier warned in internal debates that too large an attack would risk confrontation with Russia, described the strikes as a one-off to dissuade Assad from “doing this again”.</p>
<p>But a U.S. official familiar with the military planning said there could be more air strikes if the intelligence indicates Assad has not stopped making, importing, storing or using chemical weapons including chlorine. The official said this could require a more sustained U.S. air and naval presence in the region, as well as more surveillance.</p> EXIT SYRIA?
<p>Trump has been leery of U.S. military involvement in the Middle East, and is eager to withdraw roughly 2,000 troops in Syria taking part in the campaign against Islamic State.</p>
<p>“America does not seek an indefinite presence in Syria, under no circumstances,” Trump said in his address. “The purpose of our actions tonight is to establish a strong deterrent against the production, spread and use of chemical weapons.”</p> Slideshow (11 Images)
<p>The U.S. president, who has tried to build good relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin, had sharply critical words for Russia and Iran over their support of Assad.</p>
<p>“To Iran and to Russia, I ask, what kind of a nation wants to be associated with the mass murder of innocent men, women and children?” Trump said.</p>
<p>Last year, the United States fired 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles from the guided missile destroyers USS Porter and the USS Ross that struck the Shayrat air base.</p>
<p>At the time, the Pentagon said that a fifth of Syria’s operational aircraft were either damaged or destroyed.</p>
<p>Reporting by Steve Holland and Tom Perry; Additional reporting by Phil Stewart, Tim Ahmann, Eric Beech, Lesley Wroughton, Lucia Mutikani, Idrees Ali, Patricia Zengerle, Matt Spetalnick and John Walcott in Washington; Samia Nakhoul, Tom Perry, Laila Bassam Ellen Francis in Beirut; Michael Holden and Guy Faulconbridge in London; and Jean-Baptiste Vey, Geert de Clerq and Matthias Blamont in Paris; Polina Ivanova in Moscow; Writing by Yara Bayoumy, Warren Strobel, Nick Tattersall and Peter Graff; Editing by Angus MacSwan</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>LONDON (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Theresa May needed to act with speed when she ordered a missile attack on Syria and she will update parliament on Monday, Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson told BBC radio.</p> Britain's Secretary of State for Defence Gavin Williamson leaves 10 Downing Street in London, Britain, April 12, 2018. REUTERS/Simon Dawson
<p>Britain joined the United States and France on Saturday in what May cast as a “limited and targeted” strike after intelligence indicated Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government was responsible for an attack using chemical weapons in Douma.</p>
<p>All crews from the Royal Air Force Tornado jets returned safely, Williamson said. When asked if there would be more military action against Syria, Williamson said he thought the Western strikes had so far had sufficient effect.</p>
<p>Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge; editing by Michael Holden</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> | After #MeToo, phone app allows you to legally consent to sex France orders military action in Syria with U.S., Britain Britain says we had to attack Syria, strikes were highly successful U.S., British, French air strikes target Syrian chemical capabilities Britain had to act with speed, PM May will update parliament: defense minister | false | https://reuters.com/article/netherlands-tech-sex-apps/after-metoo-phone-app-allows-you-to-legally-consent-to-sex-idUSL8N1PC371 | 2018-01-18 | 2 |
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<p>One misconception that must be addressed is the notion that these jobs were outsourced due to new technology. The facts are that the 57 transcriptionists who are losing their jobs are currently using the same voice recognition technology at University of New Mexico Hospital as they will be using if employed by Nuance.</p>
<p>The decision to outsource was obviously made on an economic basis to save UNMH over $500,000 for one year. The sad fact of the matter is the hospital is saving this money at the expense of these experienced professionals, who are losing a great deal in wages and benefits, and our community.</p>
<p>The only way large corporations such as Nuance Technologies are able to provide the same work for less money and make a profit is to pay their workers less, which absolutely affects our local economy.</p>
<p>Currently, less than one third of the transcriptionists have elected to go with Nuance. The Journal correctly reported that the payroll last year for the transcriptionists was $2.3 million.</p>
<p>If one dollar in pay circulated in the economy creates five dollars, what is the economic impact of this layoff?</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>It would have been nice if UNM had used its resources to do such a study rather than looking at short-term savings. One would think that a public institution funded by tax dollars would be more concerned about maintaining a healthy tax base.</p>
<p>U.S. Rep. Michelle Lujan Grisham, a New Mexico Democrat, had it exactly right when she wrote to Steve McKernan, CEO of UNMH, “As a public university, UNM should hold itself to a higher standard and should set an example for the rest of the state. It sends the wrong message when an important state institution outsources jobs.” She further said, “New Mexico needs strong community partners to lead the way if we are going to jump start our economy and reverse negative job growth.”</p>
<p>What the Journal terms as a win-win situation is certainly perceived otherwise by our union members, neighbors and many state legislators we have spoken to.</p>
<p>Recently, the Journal had an article citing Albuquerque workers being paid 6 percent less in comparison to other workers nationally. This trend will only continue if our public institutions continue to outsource good jobs with benefits to achieve short-term savings.</p> | UNMH outsourcing an economic decision | false | https://abqjournal.com/211443/unmh-outsourcing-an-economic-decision.html | 2013-06-17 | 2 |
<p>&lt;a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/gageskidmore/24293008560/in/photolist-D1G26b-DsNvZk-CvpUyx-D1FLEY-Diecq3-CvpGSX-CvpC7z-D1FvQh-D1FnCA-DsMUeT-CUhYjk-D1EVbY-DkvLEK-DsMhBF-DkvCye-Did3sf-Dkvt2t-DqsV37-Cvop2D-DqsMYs-CUh26p-CTMuaH-CTMs7p-D1axVE-D1asoC-CuLzsG-D1amEy-DhGHaA-D1aeq3-CuLmXG-CuT5K6-DhGrZL-DhGqaU-D19Vff-DjZFtT-DhGf9G-DhGans-CTMDKV-DpYgUf-DpYbDf-CSEVCX-DraNw8-CSESSg-DraKD4-DoRy51-DraGj8-CZ3Zto-CtE7j1-DiTLuT-DrayUD"&gt;Gage Skidomore&lt;/a&gt;/Flickr</p>
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<p>For New Hampshire voters, there’s a certain kind of flinty pride that comes with helping to set the tone of the presidential election. But, in exchange for the privilege of their first-in-the-nation status, Granite Staters must also endure a special kind of hell. I’m talking about the ceaseless robo-calls, the too-chipper canvassers, the legions of journalists taking up all the damn parking spots in downtown Manchester. And the mailers. They start trickling into mailboxes many months before the primaries, and, as the election nears, the deluge grows biblical.</p>
<p>My in-laws, who live in southern New Hampshire, are putting me up for a few days while I cover the primaries with my colleagues, and they saved some of their mailers for me. This is about a week or twos’ worth. (They are registered Republicans, though occasionally vote Democrat, which is why the bulk of the campaign literature they receive concerns GOP candidates. Their moderate leanings may also explain why they are getting a disproportionate number of mailers for and against New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.)</p>
<p>Here’s one from a group called <a href="http://www.americaneedsleadership.org/" type="external">America Needs Leadership</a>. It’s not entirely clear who’s behind this outfit, since a group by this name doesn’t even show up in the Federal Election Commission’s database. What is clear is that this group’s backers believe America needs leadership—and those leaders shouldn’t include Marco Rubio (or Hillary Clinton).&#160;</p>
<p>Here’s one from pro-Christie super-PAC America Leads—not to be confused with the mysterious America Needs Leadership.</p>
<p>Notice who’s reflected in Hillary’s shades in this mailer from pro-Marco Rubio super-PAC Conservative Solutions? (It’s Rubio.)</p>
<p>Here’s another Conservative Solutions mailer, this one taking on Rubio rival Ted Cruz.</p>
<p>This mailer from Jeb Bush’s campaign is intended to appeal to Granite State gun owners. The gun-carrying guy in the right-hand corner at first glance appears to be Jeb, but he may actually be just some random guy!</p>
<p>At least one out of every three mailers seems to come from Right to Rise, the pro-Jeb Bush super-PAC that <a href="" type="internal">raised more than $100 million</a> during its first fundraising quarter.</p>
<p>Another from Right to Rise.</p>
<p>Spoiler alert: the contents are not urgent.</p>
<p>And then there’s this classy specimen.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
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<p /> | The Special Hell of Being a New Hampshire Voter | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2016/02/new-hampshire-primary-mailers/ | 2016-02-06 | 4 |
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<p>In his first season with the Brewers, Thames capped a five-run sixth with a two-run drive off reliever Robert Stephenson.</p>
<p>Zach Davies (2-2) allowed six hits in five scoreless innings, lowering his ERA from 8.24 to 6.57. He stranded a pair of runners in three innings.</p>
<p>Oliver Drake pitched a hitless sixth and Tommy Milone allowed two hits over three innings, including Adam Duvall’s eighth-inning homer, for his second big league save, his first since August 2015.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Scott Feldman (1-2) gave up four runs, five hits and five walks in five innings.</p>
<p>CUBS 1, PIRATES 0</p>
<p>PITTSBURGH — Kyle Hendricks rediscovered his 2016 form, limiting Pittsburgh to four hits over six innings to outduel Gerrit Cole and lead Chicago to a win.</p>
<p>Hendricks (2-1) struck out two and walked three, and Wade Davis worked a perfect ninth for his fifth save as the Cubs won for the sixth time in seven games.</p>
<p>Addison Russell doubled in the second off Cole (1-3) and scored when second baseman Alen Hanson airmailed first base on a Jason Heyward grounder, the Pirates’ major league-high 20th error this season. Pittsburgh has lost six of eight.</p>
<p>NATIONALS 15, ROCKIES 12</p>
<p>DENVER — Trea Turner hit for the third cycle in Nationals history and drove in a career-high seven runs, helping Washington to a win over Colorado on a frigid night.</p>
<p>Turner — with a red ski mask covering his face — had a single in the first, a two-run double in the second, a two-run homer in the sixth and a bases-loaded triple in the seventh. It was the first cycle by the Nationals since Cristian Guzman on Aug. 28, 2008.</p>
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<p>Turner’s seven RBIs are tied for second-most in a single game in Nationals history. Daniel Murphy also had a big night, tying a career best by driving in five runs.</p>
<p>Enny Romero (2-1) earned the win by pitching 1 1/3 scoreless innings a night after taking the loss.</p>
<p>German Marquez (0-1) was roughed up in his first start of the season</p>
<p>BLUE JAYS 6, CARDINALS 5, 11 INNINGS</p>
<p>ST. LOUIS — Chris Coghlan made an acrobatic, run-scoring leap over All-Star catcher Yadier Molina, and Marcus Stroman came across with the go-ahead run after pinch hitting in the 11th inning and doubling for his first major league hit in Toronto’s win over St. Louis.</p>
<p>With the score 2-2, Coghlan walked in the seventh and sped around the bases on Kevin Pillar’s triple in the right-field corner, which hit high off the fence over Stephen Piscotty and bounced back toward the infield.</p>
<p>Piscotty’s throw to the plate was slightly up the third-base line, and Molina leaned down to pick up the ball after its third hop. As Molina reached for the ball, the 31-year-old Coghan hurled himself over the catcher, somersaulted and landed on the plate with his helmet and left hand.</p>
<p>Jason Grilli (1-2) struck out the side in the 10th for Toronto and Ryan Tepera pitched the 11th for his first save.</p>
<p>Stroman scored on a throwing error by shortstop Aledmys Diaz. Miguel Socolovich (0-1) took the loss.</p>
<p>DODGERS 2, GIANTS 1</p>
<p>SAN FRANCISCO — Clayton Kershaw struck out seven over seven innings in another impressive performance in San Francisco’s home ballpark, and Los Angeles ended a four-game losing streak against its rival.</p>
<p>Kershaw (4-1) allowed six hits and one run, walking one as he improved to 11-4 in 19 outings and 18 starts in San Francisco’s waterfront ballpark.</p>
<p>The Dodgers, who were on the other end of a 2-1 result a night earlier, also ended a six-game skid at AT&amp;T Park to avoid matching the franchise’s longest winless stretch in San Francisco from April 21-Sept. 28, 2015.</p>
<p>Lefty Ty Blach (0-1) allowed two runs and four hits in five innings making his first start in place of injured Madison Bumgarner. The ace southpaw bruised his ribs and sprained the AC joint in his pitching shoulder in a dirt bike accident last Thursday during a day off in Colorado.</p>
<p>TIGERS 19, MARINERS 9</p>
<p>DETROIT — James McCann, Justin Upton and Alex Avila homered — and that was before Detroit added nine runs in the fifth inning en route to a rout of Seattle.</p>
<p>Felix Hernandez (2-2) left with stiffness in his right shoulder. He allowed four runs in two innings in his shortest outing since 2015, and Seattle’s next two pitchers fared even worse. Detroit finished with 24 hits, 19 of which came in the first five innings.</p>
<p>Jordan Zimmermann (2-1) allowed five runs in six innings. Jean Segura, Danny Valencia and Nelson Cruz hit solo homers for Seattle, but that wasn’t nearly enough to keep up with Detroit’s offensive onslaught.</p>
<p>Mikie Mahtook added another home run for the Tigers in the eighth. Ian Kinsler had four hits and four runs before being lifted for a pinch hitter in the seventh.</p>
<p>ANGELS 2, ATHLETICS 1, 11 INNINGS</p>
<p>ANAHEIM, Calif. — Kole Calhoun ripped a two-out single in the 11th inning to score Danny Espinosa and send Los Angeles to a victory over Oakland.</p>
<p>Jesse Hahn pitched eight innings for Oakland and JC Ramirez went seven for Los Angeles as the game remained scoreless until Josh Phegley and Mike Trout hit solo homers in the 10th.</p>
<p>Ryan Madson (0-2) allowed singles to Espinosa and Calhoun in the 11th after Brooks Pounders (1-0) pitched a scoreless inning for the win.</p>
<p>ASTROS 4, INDIANS 2</p>
<p>CLEVELAND — Dallas Keuchel (4-0) pitched a six-hitter, allowing home runs to Austin Jackson in the third and Michael Brantley in the ninth that raised his ERA to 1.22.</p>
<p>Josh Reddick gave Houston a 3-1 lead with a two-run single in the fifth Josh Tomlin (1-3), then took a home run away from Jason Kipnis with a leaping catch at the center-field fence in the bottom half.</p>
<p>Houston is 10-2 since April 11 and leads the AL West at 14-6.</p>
<p>Astros second baseman Jose Altuve and outfielder Teoscar Hernandez collided in right while chasing Yan Gomes’ eighth-inning popup, which dropped for a single. Altuve banged up his left shoulder and Hernandez bruised his left leg.</p>
<p>RAYS 2, ORIOLES 0</p>
<p>BALTIMORE — Austin Pruitt combined with four relievers on a two-hitter in his first big league start. Pruitt allowed one hit in three innings, Danny Farquhar got two outs, Jumbo Diaz went 1 1/3 innings, Chase Whitley (1-0) contributed three perfect innings and Alex Colome finished for his fifth save.</p>
<p>Jonathan Schoop had a second-inning double and Chris Davis a fourth-inning infield single.</p>
<p>Wade Miley (1-1) gave up four hits and six walks in seven innings. Tim Beckham hit an RBI single and Derek Norris added a run-scoring fly ball in the fourth, when Miley walked three.</p>
<p>DIAMONDBACKS 9, PADRES 3</p>
<p>PHOENIX — Paul Goldschmidt drove in three runs to match a team record with his fourth straight multi-RBI game, Patrick Corbin struck out nine in seven innings and Arizona rolled over San Diego.</p>
<p>The Diamondbacks jumped on Clayton Richard (2-3) early and kept hitting to match the 2008 team for the franchise’s best home start at 10-2.</p>
<p>Corbin (2-3) allowed two runs and eight hits, including a solo homer by Jabari Blash in the seventh inning.</p>
<p>TWINS 8, RANGERS 1</p>
<p>ARLINGTON, Texas — Ervin Santana delivered his fourth straight outstanding start, Miguel Sano sparked a seven-run fifth inning with a leadoff homer and Minnesota pounded Texas.</p>
<p>Santana (4-0) allowed a run, four hits and one walk with six strikeouts in seven innings.</p>
<p>Both homers came off Andrew Cashner (0-2), who labored through his four-plus innings. He matched a career high with six walks, allowed five hits, had a wild pitch and threw 92 pitches.</p>
<p>WHITE SOX 10, ROYALS 5</p>
<p>CHICAGO — Todd Frazier drove in three runs, Leury Garcia had three hits and Chicago got its second straight one-sided win over Kansas City.</p>
<p>Kansas City is 0-6 on a seven-game trip, its longest skid since losing eight consecutive games last June. Last in the AL Central at 7-13, the Royals are off to their worst 20-game start since opening 6-14 in 2012, when they finished 72-90.</p>
<p>Frazier’s sacrifice fly tied the score in the third inning, and Chicago took a 4-2 lead in the fourth against Danny Duffy (2-1) when Omar Narvaez and Garcia hit consecutive doubles, and Tim Anderson followed with an RBI single.</p>
<p>Dan Jennings (2-0) retired all five batters he faced to win in relief.</p> | Baseball Capsules | false | https://abqjournal.com/993586/baseball-capsules.html | 2 |
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<p>One of the claims following the stunning victory of Donald Trump as president of the United States is that Senate Republicans performed better if they had openly supported Trump. A closer look at the numbers, however, suggests this talking point is false.</p>
<p>Trump's campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, tweeted out the following:</p>
<p>Important read - and critical to remember moving forward. Still waiting for those stories on how Trump helped down-ballot Rs win the day. <a href="https://t.co/Eqknv3DvCs" type="external">https://t.co/Eqknv3DvCs</a></p>
<p>In <a href="http://dailycaller.com/2016/11/10/republicans-dominated-the-senate-races-except-the-ones-who-dumped-trump/?utm_campaign=atdailycaller&amp;utm_source=Twitter&amp;utm_medium=Social" type="external">The Daily Caller piece</a> Conway linked to, author Blake Neff argued that since the three major Republican Senate candidates that lost – Mark Kirk, Kelly Ayotte and Joe Heck – had all refused to openly embrace Trump, it meant that supporting Trump was what caused the rest of the Republican candidates to win.</p>
<p>"While Ayotte, Heck, and Kirk were going down in defeat, several very vulnerable senators who embraced Trump won upset victories," Neff wrote. "Ron Johnson’s seat in Wisconsin was considered the most likely Democratic pick-up besides Kirk’s seat, but he instead rode Trump’s coattails to a comfortable 3.5-point victory. Similarly-vulnerable Toomey pulled an upset as well, winning by 100,000 votes in a race Nate Silver’s 538 gave him only a 38% chance of winning."</p>
<p>However, the data does not support Neff's assertion, as the numbers show that Republican Senate candidates – including the ones that lost – received more votes than Trump did. The Washington Post's <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/11/09/despite-his-surprise-victory-trump-still-underperformed-most-republican-senate-candidates/" type="external">Phillip Bump</a> compiled data from the Associated Press and found that as a whole, Senate Republicans outperformed Trump:</p>
<p>Trump did outperform Heck in Nevada by 0.8 points, but he also outperformed Senate Republican candidates Todd Young and Roy Blunt in Indiana and Missouri, respectively, both of whom won.</p>
<p>The data shows that Senate Republican candidates tended to receive more votes than Trump, even those that didn't stump for Trump, so there is no evidence to suggest that it hurt them.</p> | Did Senate Candidates Do Better If They Stumped For Trump? Nope. | true | https://dailywire.com/news/10686/did-senate-candidates-do-better-if-they-stumped-aaron-bandler | 2016-11-10 | 0 |
<p>The Republican candidates in South Carolina have spent the last week beating each other up over their supposed untrustworthiness. This has had particular impact on Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX), who runs under the slogan “TrusTED” and talks ad infinitum about his consistently conservative record. Polls show that the charges against Cruz have slowed his ascent in South Carolina.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, Cruz slaps Republican frontrunner Donald Trump for his alleged lies on the campaign trail to conservative voters; Trump denounces those accusations and doubles down on the charge that Cruz is the true liar.</p>
<p>And then there’s Marco Rubio, sniping at Cruz while attempting to avoid Trump’s flailing fists of fury. He too says that Cruz is a liar; at the same time, Cruz calls Rubio a liar on immigration, Planned Parenthood, and same-sex marriage.</p>
<p>So, let’s sort this thing out: of the three candidates, who is the biggest liar?</p>
<p>Donald Trump. Trump lies routinely and repeatedly. On Saturday night, Trump said that George W. Bush had lied America into war in Iraq; two days later, he told Mike Gallagher that he’d <a href="http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2016/02/15/trump_i_didnt_say_george_bush_lied_to_invade_iraq_but_its_a_fact_he_did_not_keep_us_safe_on_911.html" type="external">never said that</a>. Both were lies. He called Ted Cruz a liar in debate after Cruz said Trump supported funding Planned Parenthood – but Trump does support funding Planned Parenthood’s “non-abortion services,” a completely nonsensical position. During the debate, Trump claimed that Cruz operatives were calling people to tell them that he was dropping out of the race; he’s provided no evidence of that assertion. During the debate, Trump said that he had warned that an Iraq war would “destabilize” the Middle East – it never happened.</p>
<p>His latest: yesterday, he tweeted out a fake quote from former Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK), which supposedly ripped Cruz as “without a doubt, one of the most dishonest people in DC.” Coburn immediately responded by stating, “It’s an absolute fabrication. I’ve never said that, period. It’s unfortunate he would use my name to say something dishonest. It’s a total fabrication.” Trump eventually <a href="http://therightscoop.com/coburn-trump-pushing-anti-cruz-quote-that-is-an-absolute-fabrication/" type="external">deleted the tweet</a>.</p>
<p>Today, he continued calling Cruz the biggest liar he has ever met.</p>
<p>Ted Cruz. Trump and Rubio have been browbeating Cruz about his supposed dishonesty for weeks. Cruz, says Trump, is the most dishonest person he’s ever met; he can’t understand how Cruz calls himself a Christian. Rubio says Cruz is a liar, too. So, what has Cruz lied about? Trump says that Cruz lied about Ben Carson dropping out of the race in Iowa; <a href="" type="internal">we’ve dealt with the entire timeline here</a>. Suffice it to say, that’s nonsense. Carson gave indicators he was dropping out to CNN, which reported it, and the Cruz campaign told people about it. End of story. The “voter violation” mailer used by the Cruz campaign is a campaign mailer. End of story.</p>
<p>Now, on to Trump’s accusations. Trump has called Cruz a liar for stating that Trump would appoint leftist judges (maybe, given that Trump said that he would appoint his own leftist sister to the Supreme Court, a position he now disowns); that Trump backs Obamacare (actually, Trump says he opposes Obamacare, but he supports a government-run universal healthcare system); that Trump wants to fund Planned Parenthood (true); that Trump is pro-choice (sort of, given that Trump says he supports “caveats” and doesn’t consider abortion murder); that Trump’s Supreme Court appointee would get rid of gun rights (unclear, see above).</p>
<p>Rubio has called Cruz a liar for targeting his immigration record (Cruz’s hit against Rubio’s immigration record is <a href="" type="internal">perfectly legitimate</a>, as discussed here); saying that Rubio didn’t want to use Congress’ “constitutional authority to defund Planned Parenthood” (sort of, given that Rubio didn’t back attaching Planned Parenthood defunding to the appropriations process, while Cruz did, although Rubio is in favor defunding Planned Parenthood); that Rubio is insufficiently anti-same-sex marriage, and that Rubio believes same-sex marriage is “the settled law of the land and we must…surrender and move on” (Rubio <a href="http://www.rubio.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=1622381c-1b1f-494d-9aee-78e0f4a5012c" type="external">said</a> “we live in a republic and must abide by the law” and then suggested appointing judges to applying the Constitution properly while opposing a Constitutional amendment); that Rubio wasn’t sufficiently anti-same-sex marriage to earn the backing of the National Organization for Marriage (false, says NOM, although they originally said that Rubio’s opposition to same-sex marriage was “lip service…if he can’t even get behind a constitutional amendment that allows the People to decide the issue”).</p>
<p>Marco Rubio. Rubio has now unleashed ads claiming that Cruz wanted “mass legalization of illegal immigrants” (false, he voted against the Gang of Eight bill co-sponsored by Rubio, although he did propose an amendment that would have given legal work status to illegal immigrants; Cruz claims he proposed the amendment to show that the Gang of Eight wouldn’t compromise on legal status without citizenship). The Cruz campaign has demanded the ads be withdrawn.</p>
<p>Yesterday, Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) <a href="http://dailycaller.com/2016/02/16/trey-gowdy-upset-after-fake-facebook-page-claims-he-switched-endorsement/" type="external">suggested that the Cruz campaign</a> was responsible for a Facebook page claiming that Gowdy had withdrawn his support for Rubio. Cruz forcefully denied the allegations, but that didn’t stop Gowdy from releasing a statement stating that the Cruz campaign “may not place the same value on waging a contest based on truth and facts…we have seen a systematic effort by Senator Cruz and his allies to spread false information and outright lies in the hopes of winning votes by appealing to our lowest common denominator.” The Rubio campaign then cited a supposed list of Cruz lies: the Facebook post (denied by the Cruz campaign), the anti-Rubio immigration ads (the ads are essentially accurate), Cruz’s Planned Parenthood accusations (see above), the NOM controversy (see above), utilization of South Carolina push polls (an oft-used political tool), the Carson accusations (again, false), and the what the Rubio campaign termed a “softcore porn ad” ( <a href="" type="internal">a ridiculous accusation – see here for more</a>).</p>
<p>So, in other words, the Rubio campaign is now calling Cruz a liar based on a series of prevarications by the Rubio campaign about Cruz.</p>
<p>So, here’s the conclusion: both Rubio and Cruz are playing hard-nosed politics. They both nitpick each other’s record in usual political fashion, exaggerating here and there for effect. There’s nothing out of the ordinary going on in either campaign, although it’s certainly ugly up close.</p>
<p>Then there’s Trump.</p>
<p>Trump lives moment to moment, and he’ll disown his own comments as though they never happened. He switches positions based on what’s convenient, and he falsely accuses his opponents of lying about him.</p>
<p>If there’s a Big Fat Liar in this campaign, there’s little doubt who it is. And it isn’t either Marco Rubio or Ted Cruz.</p> | So, Who's The Real Liar: Cruz, Trump, or Rubio? | true | https://dailywire.com/news/3451/so-whos-real-liar-cruz-trump-or-rubio-ben-shapiro | 2016-02-17 | 0 |
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<p>This is an introductory page displayed on the website of InkSoft, an Albuquerque-based designer of business software for printers. (Courtesy of Inksoft)</p>
<p>Three of the four top-ranking firms have only been in business since 2009, and most of the other 20 companies on the list launched after 2006.</p>
<p>Taken together, they collectively doubled their revenue over the past five years, from $31.3 million in 2009 to $65.5 million last year. They also doubled their workforce in the same period, with the number of employees at all firms combined rising from 168 to 339.</p>
<p>“We have a vibrant startup economy,” said John Freisinger, president and CEO of Technology Ventures Corp. “There’s a real focus now on building new businesses, and it’s making Albuquerque and New Mexico a great place to start a company. In general, the number of startups making it beyond the first critical year of operation is increasing significantly.”</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>This year’s top honoree, InkSoft Inc., grew its revenue from just $7,300 in sales during its first year of operations in 2009 to $2.49 million last year. The company provides business software for screen printers who imprint images on clothing to fully manage their operations online.</p>
<p>With about 250,000 such apparel screen printers in the U.S. alone, InkSoft has a large market to grow in, said founder, owner and CEO Scott Allen.</p>
<p>“We expect to reach $3.7 million in revenue this year,” Allen said. “We’re also developing more software to expand into new markets, such as printing on coffee mugs, smartphone cases, mouse pads and signs and banners.”</p>
<p>Like InkSoft, many companies on the list have launched a range of new, homegrown products in a variety of fields, including computer hardware and software, biotechnology, and high-tech optical devices.</p>
<p>Actoprobe, for example – which launched in 2009 and earned the number three spot on this year’s list – makes microneedles, or probes, to allow scientists to see things at the nanoscale. The company builds the probes with lasers at the University of New Mexico’s Center for High Technology Materials.</p>
<p>“These are workforce tools that can provide images of a single molecule, and in some cases of single atoms,” said Actoprobe Managing Director Alexander Ukhanov.</p>
<p>Other fast-growing startups on the list offer a broad range of engineering services.</p>
<p>The Burgos Group LLC, which manages construction, safety and facility operations at military installations, earned second place this year after growing its revenue from $92,600 when it launched in 2006 to $5.55 million last year.</p>
<p>LoadPath LLC, which launched in 2009 to provide structural engineering design work for satellites, earned fourth place. Its revenue grew from $236,000 to $3.47 million.</p>
<p /> | Thriving environment for homegrown startups | false | https://abqjournal.com/419493/thriving-environment-for-homegrown-startups.html | 2014-06-23 | 2 |
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<p>Wal-Mart Stores Inc said on Thursday it will cut about 7,000 back-office jobs, mostly in accounting and invoicing positions at its U.S. stores, continuing a program it announced in June of cutting such jobs on the West Coast.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Wal-Mart spokeswoman Deisha Barnett said the company will now cut back-office workers in all its approximately 4,600 stores over the next several months. The retailer employs about 1.5 million people in the United States.</p>
<p>Barnett said the move is part of Wal-Mart's efforts to have more employees on the sales floor, and the retailer is offering affected workers consumer-facing positions in stores.</p>
<p>In June, Wal-Mart, the country's largest private-sector employer, had said it would cut back-office jobs in hundreds of stores and if it was satisfied with the changes it would roll it out to other stores.</p>
<p>Recently, the retailer launched a new system for scheduling workers at 650 U.S. stores in an effort to improve staffing levels during peak shopping times.</p>
<p>Wal-Mart has also committed to investing $2.7 billion in programs that involve training its workforce and a series of wage hikes that took the minimum hourly pay for store workers to $10 an hour earlier this year.</p>
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<p>The Wall Street Journal first reported the number of job cuts on Thursday.</p>
<p>The eliminated back-office jobs typically include higher paid hourly workers who manage tasks like an individual store's daily cash flow or process claims from manufacturers delivering goods directly to stores. Starting early next year, those jobs will be automated and handled by a central office, the retailer had said in June. (Reporting by Nandita Bose in Chicago and Subrat Patnaik in Bengaluru; editing by Savio D'Souza and David Gregorio)</p> | Wal-Mart to Cut 7,000 U.S. Store Back-Office Jobs | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/09/01/wal-mart-to-cut-7000-u-s-store-back-office-jobs.html | 2016-09-01 | 0 |
<p>Editor's note: The idea for this article was suggested by a GlobalPost member. What do you think we should cover? <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/members/information" type="external">Become a member today</a> to suggest and vote on story ideas.</p>
<p>EDINBURGH, Scotland - Britons celebrated the wedding of Prince William to Catherine Middleton by hanging out the Union Jack, from the cliffs of Dover to the Scottish highlands. A week later, the Scottish electorate threatened to make the famous tri-colored flag obsolete.</p>
<p>The flag dates from the 17th century, when the St. Andrew's cross was merged with the St. George's cross to symbolize the royal union of England and Scotland as King James I, a Scot, ascended to the English throne. The St. Patrick's cross was added in the 19th century after the Kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland merged.</p>
<p>But Scotland's election of a nationalist government last week could undo the United Kingdom.</p>
<p>When in 1997 Tony Blair's Labour government devolved governing responsibilities to Scotland's parliament for the first time in 300 years, it thought the proportional voting system it had devised would neutralize the threat of the Scottish National Party (SNP), keeping it from gaining the overall majority required to claim a mandate for independence.</p>
<p>It worked for a while, delivering first a coalition and then, in 2007, a minority SNP government. But over the past four years the nationalists, under their charismatic leader Alex Salmond, have handled power competently and tempered their leftist leanings. At the same time, senior Labour politicians have given the impression they regard the Scottish parliament in Edinburgh as the poor relation of its London equivalent. At a rally in Glasgow at the start of the election campaign, London-based Labour leader Ed Miliband announced that victory in Scotland would be "the first step to returning the party to power in Westminster." Scots did not take kindly to their parliament being regarded as a mere staging post.</p>
<p>With the third-party Liberal Democrats deeply unpopular for entering into coalition in London with British Prime Minister David Cameron's Conservative Party, which has little support in Scotland, the SNP won a nine-seat majority May 5.</p>
<p>It was a stunning result and Salmond - disparagingly dubbed "El Presidente" by Cameron - delivered a typically presidential victory speech in which he promised to stage an independence referendum in the second half of his five-year term.</p>
<p>"Scotland has chosen to believe in itself," he announced. "We've given ourselves permission to be bold."</p>
<p>His justice minister Kenny MacAskill was more direct, announcing: "It is time for Scotland to take responsibility and become a nation once again."</p>
<p>It is difficult to overstate the impact secession could have. Britain only began to impose itself on the world after England and Scotland signed the Treaty of Union in 1707, which created the United Kingdom of Great Britain, a political follow-up to the union of the crowns a century before. Today the two countries share a seat on the United Nations Security Council, armed forces, the BBC and membership of the European Union. All that could change should Scotland decide to secede.</p>
<p>The SNP says it would consider abandoning the British Pound and joining the Euro, raising the prospect of different currencies either side of the border.</p>
<p>The Queen would remain head of state, but Scotland could diverge from England in international affairs. Salmond strongly opposed the Iraq War and would be unlikely to pursue an interventionist foreign policy. Without Scottish troops and bases, Cameron and his successors in London may no longer have the resources to do so.</p>
<p>But independence is not yet inevitable. Many people voted SNP on May 5 because they believe the party will fight hardest for their interests and provide the most effective government, not necessarily because they support secession. Assessing the election result, Glasgow's influential Herald newspaper concluded: "The Scottish people have not said Yes to independence. What has been said, it could be argued, is a resounding Maybe."</p>
<p>There is also a possibility that Salmond's pledges of free university education and tax freezes will prove unaffordable and undermine his reputation for responsible financial management. 2011 could be as good as it gets for the SNP.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, the alarm bells are ringing in London. Within days of the election the British government promised to grant the Edinburgh parliament more borrowing powers in the hope that greater devolution will persuade Scots there is no need to take a chance on independence. Cameron also appears to realise there is an urgent need to champion the union and tap into the sense of Britishness engendered by the royal wedding.</p>
<p>"If they want to hold a referendum I will campaign to keep our United Kingdom together with every single fiber I have," he pledged.</p>
<p>The Battle for Britain is about to begin.</p> | What the Scottish National Party's victory might mean | false | https://pri.org/stories/2011-05-13/what-scottish-national-partys-victory-might-mean | 2011-05-13 | 3 |
<p>A compressive agreement between the P5+1 countries and Iran is unlikely to be reached by the November 24, 2014 deadline, multiple sources told&#160; <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/11/12/us-iran-nuclear-idUSKCN0IW2MO20141112" type="external">Reuters</a>.&#160;</p>
<p>"We could see the outline of a final deal emerging by Nov. 24 but probably not the deal itself," a Western official told&#160;Reuters. A comprehensive agreement would see the lifting of economic sanctions by the six major world powers in exchange for Iran conceding major elements of its nuclear program.</p>
<p>After the signing of the Joint Plan of Action (JPOA) on November 24, 2013, the P5+1 countries and Iran intended to reach a comprehensive agreement by July 2014. When that deadline wasn't met, the agreement date was extended until November 24th, 2014.</p>
<p>The United States and its allies in the Middle East, specifically Israel and Saudi Arabia, fear that an extension&#160;of negotiations will only allow Iran to further advance its nuclear capabilities.</p> | Comprehensive Agreement With Iran Unlikely By Deadline | true | http://truthrevolt.org/news/comprehensive-agreement-iran-unlikely-deadline | 2018-10-04 | 0 |
<p>DAYTON, Ohio (AP) — The Ohio community where the National Aviation Hall of Fame enshrinement ceremony was held for decades before moving to Fort Worth, Texas, last year is seeking the return of the event.</p>
<p>The Dayton Daily News <a href="http://www.daytondailynews.com/news/pitch-made-bring-aviation-hall-fame-ceremony-dayton-again/uZOseZj89XNjGrod3Pw1QP/?ecmp=newspaper_email&amp;" type="external">reports</a> Dayton is one of five contenders for this year's ceremony. The hall of fame hasn't announced the other contenders.</p>
<p>Executive Director Amy Spowart says the organization will make a final decision in the upcoming weeks.</p>
<p>Except for last year, the annual ceremony has been held in Dayton since 1962, drawing astronauts and Hollywood stars to the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force.</p>
<p>Tony Sculimbrene, of the nonprofit National Aviation Heritage Alliance, says he thinks there's no better place for the ceremony than the museum in Ohio.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Information from: Dayton Daily News, <a href="http://www.daytondailynews.com" type="external">http://www.daytondailynews.com</a></p>
<p>DAYTON, Ohio (AP) — The Ohio community where the National Aviation Hall of Fame enshrinement ceremony was held for decades before moving to Fort Worth, Texas, last year is seeking the return of the event.</p>
<p>The Dayton Daily News <a href="http://www.daytondailynews.com/news/pitch-made-bring-aviation-hall-fame-ceremony-dayton-again/uZOseZj89XNjGrod3Pw1QP/?ecmp=newspaper_email&amp;" type="external">reports</a> Dayton is one of five contenders for this year's ceremony. The hall of fame hasn't announced the other contenders.</p>
<p>Executive Director Amy Spowart says the organization will make a final decision in the upcoming weeks.</p>
<p>Except for last year, the annual ceremony has been held in Dayton since 1962, drawing astronauts and Hollywood stars to the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force.</p>
<p>Tony Sculimbrene, of the nonprofit National Aviation Heritage Alliance, says he thinks there's no better place for the ceremony than the museum in Ohio.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Information from: Dayton Daily News, <a href="http://www.daytondailynews.com" type="external">http://www.daytondailynews.com</a></p> | Officials want aviation hall of fame ceremony back in Ohio | false | https://apnews.com/amp/cdbb911c0ca247c69218c662b21d2bd7 | 2018-01-15 | 2 |
<p>As we have pointed out repeatedly, Trump has an unprecedented opportunity to nominate a substantial percentage of the federal judiciary.</p>
<p>There are currently over 100 vacancies, and many more are likely to open up,&#160; <a href="" type="internal">Liberal nightmare: Trump could appoint half federal judiciary</a>. Yet Democrats, so blinded by the light of #TheResistance, appeared oblivious to the&#160; <a href="" type="internal">approaching Tsunami of Trump lower court nominations</a>.</p>
<p>Today the first waves of the Trump judicial nomination tsunami hit the beaches in D.C.</p>
<p>USA Today reports, <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/05/08/trump-names-10-conservatives-federal-courts/101431848/" type="external">Trump names 10 conservatives to federal courts</a>:</p>
<p />
<p>President Trump borrowed a page from George W. Bush’s playbook Monday by nominating 10 federal court judges en masse, almost 16 years to the day that Bush named 11 appeals court judges — including a Washington lawyer named John Roberts who soon became chief justice of the United States.</p>
<p>Trump’s action represents the opening salvo in what will be at least four years of battles with Senate Democrats over the federal judiciary, one that the president intends to pack with conservatives after President Barack Obama spent eight years <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2014/09/04/federal-appeals-court-dc-health-care/15080667/" type="external">tilting nearly every circuit court to the left</a>.</p>
<p>Ilya Shapiro writing at the CATO Institute website likes the list, <a href="https://www.cato.org/blog/trumps-first-slate-lower-court-judges-big-league" type="external">Trump’s First Slate of Lower-Court Judges Is Big League</a>:</p>
<p>With this excellent slate, Trump continues fulfilling his campaign promise—perhaps his most important one, in terms of securing the Republican coalition—regarding judicial nominations. For example, the two state justices who were on the potential Supreme Court list, Joan Larsen and David Stras, are engaged jurists who will make terrific circuit judges. Kevin Newsom is a serious lawyer and public servant who will serve the nation well. Pacific Legal Foundation’s Damien Schiff, with whom I’ve worked on many cases, is an inspired pick for the Court of Federal Claims.</p>
<p>The main person missing from this first list of nominees is Justice Don Willett of the Texas Supreme Court, who was also on the SCOTUS list and merits appointment to the Fifth Circuit. That would definitely be a bigly move. Of course, if some grand bargain is planned is where two other Texans are named to the Fifth Circuit openings and Willett is held in reserve for the next Supreme Court vacancy, I’ll take that artful deal.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/trumps-first-court-nominees-look-very-promising-says-saf-300453437.html" type="external">Second Amendment Foundation</a> also approves of the list:</p>
<p>President Donald Trump’s first round of federal court nominees “looks very promising,” and provides strong evidence that the president is determined to fulfill one of his most important campaign pledges, the Second Amendment Foundation said today.</p>
<p>“We will fully vet each nominee,” said SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb, “but at this point, it appears that Donald Trump is fulfilling his commitment to bring balance to the federal courts by nominating judges who adhere to the constitution rather than try to reinvent it to fit their own political agendas.”</p>
<p>In perhaps the best sign, the left-wing <a href="http://www.pfaw.org/press-releases/pfaw-statement-on-trumps-slate-of-judicial-nominees/" type="external">People for the American Way</a> sees a vast right wing conspiracy at work:</p>
<p>“This slate of nominees is extremely troubling and sends a clear message that Donald Trump intends to appoint judges who will use their positions to shift the law dramatically in favor of corporations and the wealthy at the expense of ordinary people. Two of the nominees to circuit court seats have already appeared on the list of judges hand selected by far-right groups to be elevated to the Supreme Court; the records of other circuit court nominees on this list show that they’re in the same mold. We know that Donald Trump is looking for judges who will let him advance his extreme agenda….”</p>
<p>Keep in mind, Democrats can’t stop these nominees, they can only slow things down. Democrats having removed the filibuster in 2013 for lower court nominations opened the door for Trump to fill these seats quickly,&#160; <a href="" type="internal">Dems’ Nuclear Option will allow Trump to fill over 100 court vacancies quickly</a>.</p>
<p>Republican Sen. John Cornyn persuasively explained&#160; <a href="" type="internal">The History of Democrat Deceit on Judicial Filibusters</a>:</p>
<p />
<p>I hope that Trump moves will all due speed to fill as many of those 100+ vacancies as possible. If for some reason Democrats regain control of the Senate in 2018, the window of opportunity will have been missed.</p> | Trump begins counter-packing federal courts, Dems can’t stop him thanks to Reid Rule | true | http://legalinsurrection.com/2017/05/trump-begins-counter-packing-federal-courts-dems-cant-stop-him-thanks-to-reid-rule/ | 2017-05-08 | 0 |
<p>THURSDAY, Sept. 28, 2017 — A single genetic mutation just a few years back gave the <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Zika-virus/" type="external">Zika virus</a> the ability to cause severe neurological birth defects like microcephaly, a new study in mice suggests.</p>
<p>Scientists have known about the Zika virus since 1947, when it was discovered in a monkey from the Zika Forest in Uganda. At that point, it was only linked to mild symptoms.</p>
<p>It wasn’t until the Zika epidemic of 2015 in Central and South America that Zika became known as a cause of microcephaly, a devastating condition in which a newborn’s brain and skull are severely underdeveloped.</p>
<p>How did that happen?</p>
<p>One particular genetic change, which likely occurred in 2013, boosted Zika’s ability to damage the neural stem cells that serve as building blocks for a fetus’ developing brain, Chinese researchers report.</p>
<p>“The evidence suggests this particular mutation somehow increased the ability of the virus to get into these neural progenitor cells,” said Dr. Joseph McCormick, regional dean at the University of Texas School of Public Health in Brownsville. McCormick wasn’t involved in the new study.</p>
<p>This discovery is disturbing because it suggests that the virus could have more unwelcome surprises in store for humanity, said <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Michael_Osterholm/" type="external">Michael Osterholm</a>, director of the University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy.</p>
<p>“The mutation that potentially caused this health outcome in humans is occurring in a virus where additional mutations could still occur, which could bring us other new health challenges,” said Osterholm, who had no role in the research.</p>
<p>Zika is transmitted primarily by infected mosquitoes. It can also be spread by having sex with an infected person.</p>
<p>The Chinese team, whose first author is Ling Yuan of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, compared three current Zika strains against an older strain isolated in Cambodia in 2010.</p>
<p>The three current strains killed all lab mice exposed to it, producing a series of neurological symptoms. On the other hand, the 2010 strain only killed about 17 percent of mice.</p>
<p>Comparing the strains, researchers found a critical mutation that altered a key protein in the protective coating of newer Zika viruses. This single change greatly enhanced Zika’s ability to infect, damage and destroy human precursor brain cells, they said.</p>
<p>An evolutionary analysis revealed that this change likely arose sometime in 2013, just a few months before an explosive outbreak of Zika in French Polynesia. That timing coincides with the first reports linking Zika to microcephaly and Guillain-Barre syndrome, a neural disorder that causes muscle weakness and paralysis in adults.</p>
<p>“They’ve concluded it looks like the contemporary virus is more virulent than its ancestors,” said Dr. Richard Temes, director of the Center for Neurocritical Care at North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset, N.Y. “When patients are infected, it’s more likely to lead to neurological disease than the former strains.”</p>
<p>Although the analysis “is in many ways a very good explanation of what happened,” it needs to be both confirmed and expanded upon, Osterholm said. Research on animals does not always produce the same results in humans.</p>
<p>McCormick agreed. For example, he said, the conclusions leave open the possibility that a genetic trait in some humans might leave them more vulnerable to the threat posed by this Zika mutation.</p>
<p>“Clearly a lot of people got infected with this, and a lot more pregnant women got infected than had microcephalic children,” McCormick said. “Is there a human side of this that may make some people with the right genetic background more susceptible to this particular mutation?”</p>
<p>The findings were published Sept. 28 in the journal Science.</p>
<p>More information</p>
<p>For more on Zika, visit the <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/zika/index.html" type="external">U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention</a>.</p>
<p>Copyright © 2017 HealthDay. All rights reserved.</p> | Study: 2013 genetic change may have made Zika more severe | false | https://newsline.com/study-2013-genetic-change-may-have-made-zika-more-severe/ | 2017-09-29 | 1 |
<p>Investing.com – The dollar gained against the yen in early Asia on Monday as investors kept a close eye on political developments in the US from the likelihood of tax cuts passed by Congress this year and the ongoing special counsel investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election.</p>
<p>changed hands at 112.71, up 0.46%, while traded at 0.7593, down 0.26%. was last quoted down 0.25% to 1.1866.</p>
<p>The , which measures the greenback’s strength against a trade-weighted basket of six major currencies, was last quoted down 0.17% to 92.81.</p>
<p>This week, interest rate reviews in Australia and Canada will be closely watched.</p>
<p>Overnight, the dollar ended lower on Friday as investors weighed concerns over heightened political uncertainty in the U.S. against growing optimism that U.S. Senate Republicans would be able to pass a tax overhaul bill.</p>
<p>The dollar came under pressure following reports that former national security adviser Michael Flynn is prepared to cooperate the special counsel probe into alleged links between the Trump campaign and Russia during last year’s election.</p>
<p>Flynn pleaded guilty Friday morning to lying to the Federal Bureau of Investigation about his communications with the Russian ambassador to the U.S. in December 2016.</p>
<p>The index later pared some of its losses after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Republicans had the votes to pass a sweeping tax-overhaul bill after last-minute negotiations to address concerns about the bill’s impact on the federal deficit, healthcare and property taxes.</p>
<p>The Trump administration has said its tax cuts will generate growth and spark inflation, which investors hope will prompt a faster pace of monetary tightening by the Federal Reserve.</p>
<p />
<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> | Forex Dollar Gains Against Yen In Early Asia In Light Data Day | false | https://newsline.com/forex-dollar-gains-against-yen-in-early-asia-in-light-data-day-2/ | 2017-12-03 | 1 |
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<p>MIAMI — A taxi driver is suspected of robbing a Colorado tourist of $800 following a night at a Miami nightclub.</p>
<p>Miami-Dade police say the incident happened about 3:30 a.m. Sunday when 29-year-old Anthony Will of Denver, Colorado, hailed a Yellow Taxi Cab outside the club near downtown Miami.</p>
<p>Will told investigators he asked the driver to take him to the apartment he was staying at near Zoo Miami, south of the city.</p>
<p>The incident report says Will told the driver to drop him near the apartment complex. He told investigators that as he was getting the $70 fare together, the driver got angry, jumped out of the cab and attacked him. He says the driver beat him up and took $800 from him.</p>
<p>A search is on for the driver.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | Police say Miami taxi cab driver robbed, beat passenger | false | https://abqjournal.com/974712/police-say-miami-taxi-cab-driver-robbed-beat-passenger.html | 2 |
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<p>Lake Braddock 45, Mills Godwin 36</p>
<p>Loudoun County 86, Stafford 54</p>
<p>Norfolk Academy 47, Colonial Beach 36</p>
<p>Northside 73, George Wythe-Richmond 53</p>
<p>Parry McCluer 53, Gate City 22</p>
<p>Patrick County 58, Bassett 19</p>
<p>Rural Retreat 62, Marion 59</p>
<p>South Lakes 60, Mercyhurst Prep, Pa. 40</p>
<p>TJ-Alexandria 57, Patriot 55</p>
<p>Wakefield 40, Seton School 39</p>
<p>Lake Braddock 45, Mills Godwin 36</p>
<p>Loudoun County 86, Stafford 54</p>
<p>Norfolk Academy 47, Colonial Beach 36</p>
<p>Northside 73, George Wythe-Richmond 53</p>
<p>Parry McCluer 53, Gate City 22</p>
<p>Patrick County 58, Bassett 19</p>
<p>Rural Retreat 62, Marion 59</p>
<p>South Lakes 60, Mercyhurst Prep, Pa. 40</p>
<p>TJ-Alexandria 57, Patriot 55</p>
<p>Wakefield 40, Seton School 39</p> | Saturday's Scores | false | https://apnews.com/amp/30c9565827aa4999b416c2ea833ce0ab | 2017-12-31 | 2 |
<p><a href="" type="internal" /> SAA soldier and tank from previous battles to liberate Jobar (Photo: Facebook)</p>
<p>Vanessa Beeley <a href="" type="internal">21st Century Wire</a></p>
<p>As we pulled into the gates of the REAL Syria Civil Defence in Damascus, 200 meters from the Ein Tarma frontlines in the eastern suburbs of Damascus, the battle raged.&#160;</p>
<p>After the liberation of Qaboun, Ein Tarma and Jobar remain, eerie lunar landscapes, scarred, looming buildings, crumbling into the ground that has been pounded by Syrian Arab Army (SAA) bombardments. As in East Aleppo, the various NATO member state and Gulf state brigades of extremists, led by Nusra Front go to ground, inhabiting the network of tunnels that run beneath Jobar and Ein Tarma and stretch as far as the Old City of Damascus. This fact alone, makes the cleansing of these areas particularly precarious. Any heavy duty bombing risks shock waves passing through the tunnels and damaging structures in the historic Old City of Damascus. A fact, explained to me by a volunteer “civilian” solider in the Syrian Army.</p>
<p>Contrary to the western media propaganda, the REAL Syria Civil Defence is on the frontlines in Damascus and across Syria. Western media and the Al Qaeda affiliated White Helmets claim that the RSCD are safely tucked away in Syrian Government held areas. However, these headquarters are in the midst of the battles for the liberation of Ein Tarma and Jobar.</p>
<p>We arrived two days ago, on the 7th August just after the targeting of two SAA tanks directly outside the entrance to the RSCD centre. Other vehicles were also smouldering in the street outside.&#160;Failaq Al-Rahman brigade [very loosely affiliated with the Free Syrian Army], working with Nusra Front had targeted the training tower just before we arrived, causing minor structural damage. We were told to quickly enter the safety of the main building in order to avoid sniper fire from the terrorist factions and continuing mortar fire into the two brigade yards, in front of the buildings.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal" /> Recent sniper fire on the walls of the RSCD headquarters opposite Ein Tarma, Eastern Damascus (Photo: Vanessa Beeley)</p>
<p>Despite Russian ultimatums that all, so called “moderates” separate from the designated terrorist factions, ISIS and Nusra Front – Al Rahman brigade had refused to distance itself from the more &#160;powerful Nusra Front. The Syrian Arab Army 4th Division was attacking Ein Tarma as we sat inside the RSCD building. There was the sound of heavy gunfire being exchanged and the constant hum of mortars and missile fire with the inevitable window rattling as missiles hit target around us.</p>
<p>This is routine for the members of the RSCD, their centre and their volunteer crew have been systematically targeted and murdered since the terrorist occupation of Jobar and the surrounding areas began early on in the Syrian conflict.</p>
<p>We were told by the RSCD colonel that the SAA 4th division tanks had been targeted and destroyed by “thermal rockets”. According to Al Masdar News:</p>
<p>“Among the weapons used by Failaq Al-Rahman were machine-guns, snipers, hell cannons, guided anti-tank missiles and rocket launchers”</p>
<p>Questions must surely be asked, how these terrorist and extremist factions are receiving armoury supplies despite the claims that the CIA has withdrawn supply to its proxies in Syria.</p>
<p>Video footage from Failaq Al Rahman is included in Al Masdar’s report <a href="https://mobile.almasdarnews.com/article/footage-rebels-capture-syrian-soldier-alive-east-damascus-seven-killed-action/" type="external">here</a>. One of the 4th division soldiers, who had been badly injured, was captured and a reported seven were killed in action.</p>
<p>“In response, the SAA’s 4th Mechanized Division – heavily assisted by the 105th and 106th Brigades of the Republican Guard – intensified their shelling of Ayn Tarma, Douma, Zamalka and Jobar. Airstrikes were also called in to hammer insurgent-held villages in the East Ghouta, some of which are controlled by Jaish Al-Islam and Hay’at Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS).”</p>
<p>The rain of explosive bullets and mortars into civilian areas of Damascus, particularly Bab Touma, has been intense the last three days. As always, the terrorist response to SAA attacks is to target innocent civilians. The air strikes from Sryian jets and the firing of ground to ground thermobaric missiles has increased the last three nights and we appear to be in the final stages of an offensive to finally cleanse Jobar and Ein Tarma of its terrorist infestation.</p>
<p>As I write this short report, Syrian jets are roaring overhead, the windows of the hotel are rattling with the blasts that are only 1km away from us.</p>
<p>When the SAA is successful, Syrian children &#160;and civilians in Damascus will once again be able to walk the streets of their city and go to school without fear of random and lethal mortars claiming yet more young lives in this vicious and brutal war against the fabric of Syrian society that has been waged by US, UK, EU, Gulf state funded and armed mercenaries and terrorists.</p>
<p>The Syrian army is the Syrian people and their lives are being lost fighting a senseless war against externally imposed terrorist armies. They are fighting under sanctions, with old equipment, they are fighing in punishing conditions against an enemy that is, often, better armed &amp; equipped than they are..thanks to the US and UK coalition. They are winning this war because they fight for their people and for their country, above all for the right to maintain their way of life and their secular state and to determine their own future without foreign meddling.</p>
<p>The NATO state, illegal, proxy war of intervention &amp; “regime change” was lost the minute it began, thanks to these heroes and their courageous allies.</p>
<p>The following <a href="https://www.facebook.com/KinanaAllouchePage/videos/1445344965502730/?hc_ref=ARTv6gdgSMu6ztB_QtbUtbNvPo8nzsYmbJIiw1VsfleCzTE5tPnMR7UROC-MBta4xIg&amp;pnref=story" type="external">video</a> shows the final words from an SAA officer,&#160;&#160;Rafe’ Wajih al Shelly. He was fatally injured in the battle for Ein Tarma but still found the strength to say these last, brave words to his comrades, minutes before he died. A fitting testament to the infinite courage of these soldiers:</p>
<p>“Praise be to God for safety my friends</p>
<p>It is important to realize that this victory is from god</p>
<p>The other good thing is that the crawler was not damaged and no one was injured</p>
<p>We demand that we be martyrs</p>
<p>We know that separation from close people is difficult</p>
<p>We are all brothers&#160;</p>
<p>We must believe in the words of God:</p>
<p>You will only suffer what God has chosen for you</p>
<p>Our destiny is one, we can not change it with weakness or escape from fighting</p>
<p>Bless you with victory”</p>
<p>SEE ALSO:&#160; <a href="" type="internal">The REAL Syria Civil Defence, Saving Real Syrians, NOT Oscar Winning White Helmets, Saving Al Qaeda</a></p>
<p>SEE MORE SYRIA NEWS AT:&#160; <a href="" type="internal">21st Century Wire Syria Files</a></p>
<p>SUPPORT 21WIRE –&#160;SUBSCRIBE &amp; BECOME A MEMBER @&#160; <a href="https://21wire.tv/membership/plans/" type="external">21WIRE.TV</a></p> | Vanessa Beeley: Syrian Army Battle for Liberation of Jobar and Ein Tarma, Damascus from Nusra Front Occupation | true | http://21stcenturywire.com/2017/08/09/syria-the-saa-battle-for-liberation-of-jobar-and-ein-tarma-damascus-from-nusra-front-occupation/ | 2017-08-09 | 4 |
<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p>
<p />
<p>A high-mountain yurt for hikers wanting to escape the heat of lower elevations is available for the first time this summer in the high country near Taos.</p>
<p>The yurt at Bull of the Woods Meadow is 24 feet in diameter and accommodates up to 10 persons. This yurt has two futon couches/bunks which fold out for two double beds on the bottom and a full futon on top. Four additional mattresses may be placed on the floor for full occupancy. Water is provided during the spring, summer and fall seasons.</p>
<p>The yurt is situated to provide access to Wheeler Peak and Gold Hill trails. The yurt is at the low point along the ridge between Gold Hill and Wheeler Peak (the highest point in New Mexico) and provides access to above tree-line terrain.</p>
<p>Information on renting the yurt, availability and prices are posted at southwestnordiccenter.com.</p>
<p />
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | A hike in northern NM leads to a yurt | false | https://abqjournal.com/434459/a-hike-in-northern-nm-leads-to-a-yurt.html | 2014-07-24 | 2 |
<p>BEIRUT (Reuters) - The Syrian government said on Thursday that a U.S. military presence in Syria represented an “aggression” against Syrian sovereignty, and vowed to free the country from any “illegitimate” foreign presence.</p>
<p>The Syrian Foreign Ministry statement was a response to a speech by U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Wednesday in which he signalled that U.S. forces would stay in parts of Syria indefinitely.</p>
<p>“The American military presence on Syrian land is illegitimate and represents a blatant breach of international law and an aggression against national sovereignty,” the statement said.</p>
<p>Syria would continue its “relentless war against terrorist movements with their different names until every inch of Syrian soil is cleansed” and would work with “the same determination” to free Syria of any “illegitimate foreign presence”.</p>
<p>Tillerson signalled an open-ended military presence as part of a broader strategy to prevent Islamic State’s resurgence, pave the way diplomatically for the eventual departure of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and curtail Iran’s influence.</p>
<p>The United States has around 2,000 military personnel in Syria, deployed as part of the U.S.-led coalition’s campaign against Islamic State. The Syrian Foreign Ministry statement said the government was not in need of U.S. dollars “stained with the blood of Syrians”.</p>
<p>Reporting by Dahlia Nehme; Editing by Kevin Liffey</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>DHAHRAN, Saudi Arabia (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia’s King Salman opened a summit of Arab leaders on Sunday by condemning an old foe, Iran, without making any reference to missile strikes by Western powers on Syrian government targets over a suspected gas attack a week ago.</p> Saudi Arabia's King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud attends during the opening of 29th Arab Summit in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia April 15, 2018. Bandar Algaloud/Courtesy of Saudi Royal Court/Handout via REUTERS
<p>Regional powerhouses Saudi Arabia and Iran have been locked in a decades-long struggle for supremacy that is being waged in proxy wars in several countries, including Yemen and Syria.</p>
<p>“We renew our strong condemnation of terrorist acts carried out by Iran in the Arab region, and we reject its blatant interference in the internal affairs of Arab countries,” King Salman said in the eastern Saudi city of Dhahran, without giving specifics. Iran denies the charges.</p>
<p>King Salman made no mention of Saturday’s missile launch by the United States, Britain and France against three alleged chemical weapons facilities in Syria. The Syrian government denies using - or possessing - chemical weapons and said the strikes were an act of aggression.</p> FILE PHOTO: Saudi's Foreign Minister Adel Al-Jubeir attends the Arab Foreign meeting in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia April 12, 2018. REUTERS/Faisal Al Nasser
<p>Saudi Arabia and its allies expressed support for the strikes on Saturday, but Iraq and Lebanon have condemned them. Other countries like Jordan and Kuwait refrained from taking a position, instead renewing calls for a political solution to the multi-sided war which has killed at least half a million people in the past seven years.</p>
<p>Military help over the past three years from Russia and Iran, which also backs Lebanon’s Hezbollah group and Shi’ite Muslim militias in Iraq, has allowed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to crush the rebel threat to topple him.</p>
<p>Saudi Arabia, which takes over the rotating chair of the Arab summit from Jordan, announced that the current gathering would be named the “Quds (Jerusalem) Summit”, a reference to U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision last year to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.</p>
<p>King Salman said Saudi Arabia was donating $200 million to support the Palestinians, including $50 million for the U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA).</p> ARAB RIFT
<p>Qatar did not send a senior official to the summit in a sign that its 10-month dispute with Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt is still a long way from being resolved.</p> Slideshow (8 Images)
<p>The four countries severed diplomatic and transport ties with Doha in June 2017, accusing it of supporting terrorism. Doha denies the charges and says the boycott is an attempt to impinge on its sovereignty.</p>
<p>The Qatari delegation is being headed by Doha’s permanent representative to the Arab League, Saif bin Muqaddam al-Buainain, Saudi’s state news agency said, without elaborating.</p>
<p>Most of the 22 other countries are represented by heads of state or government. Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani headed Qatar’s delegation at last year’s summit in Jordan.</p>
<p>Sheikh Tamim returned to Doha on Saturday from a U.S. trip where he met Trump. Trump publicly sided with the Saudis and Emiratis early in the crisis but is now pushing for a resolution to restore Gulf Arab unity and maintain a united front against Iran.</p>
<p>Ahead of the summit, the four boycotting nations said their demands - including closing the Al Jazeera television station and reducing ties with Iran - were “a necessary basis” for a resolution to the crisis with Qatar.</p>
<p>Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir said on Thursday the crisis would not be discussed at the meeting, Al Arabiya reported.</p>
<p>Writing by Maha El Dahan and Stephen Kalin; Editing by Ghaida Ghantous and Sonya Hepinstall</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>BUDAPEST (Reuters) - Tens of thousands of Hungarians protested in Budapest on Saturday against what organizers said was an unfair election system that gave Prime Minister Viktor Orban a landslide victory at the polls after a “hate campaign” against immigrants.</p> People attend a protest against the government of Prime Minister Viktor Orban in Budapest, Hungary, April 14, 2018. REUTERS/Bernadett Szabo
<p>Orban won a third straight term in power in Sunday elections after his anti-immigration campaign message secured a strong majority for his ruling Fidesz party in parliament, giving him two-thirds of seats based on preliminary results.</p>
<p>In a Facebook post before the rally, organizers called for a recount of ballots, free media, a new election law, as well as more efficient cooperation among opposition parties instead of the bickering seen in the run-up to the vote.</p>
<p>The protest was among the biggest in Hungary in recent years, similar in size to a mass rally prompted by Orban’s plan to tax internet use four years ago and a pro-government demonstration called by Orban supporters shortly before the election.</p>
<p>Fidesz received 49 percent of national party list votes and its candidates won 91 of 106 single-member constituencies, most of them in rural areas. Leftist opposition candidates carried two-thirds of the voting districts in Budapest.</p>
<p>There was a similar split between ages, with support for Orban’s Fidesz at 37 percent among voters below 30, rising gradually to 46 percent among those older than 50, according to a survey by think tank Median published earlier this week.</p> People attend a protest against the government of Prime Minister Viktor Orban in Budapest, Hungary, April 14, 2018. REUTERS/Bernadett Szabo
<p>The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe has said the election did not offer opposition parties a level playing field amid a host of problems marring a vote that nonetheless generally respected fundamental rights.</p>
<p>In their Facebook post, the rally’s organizers said: “Fidesz’s election system and the government’s hate campaign have pushed the majority into a one-third (parliamentary) minority.”</p>
<p>Protesters marched from the Opera House, a 19th century Neo-Renaissance palace on a majestic downtown avenue, to Parliament by the Danube River, waving Hungary’s tricolor flag and the European Union flag, accompanied by whistles and horns blaring.</p>
<p>As demonstrators filled a large square outside Parliament, many were still walking on main roads leading there, chanting: “We are the majority.”</p>
<p>Organizers of the event estimated the size of the crowd at over 100,000 people, which briefly took on a festival-like atmosphere as a pop singer took the stage to perform an opening song blasting Orban’s “pseudocracy.”</p>
<p>“Viktor Orban has forgotten where he came from,” Ors Lanyi, one of the organizers told the crowd, which responded with loud boos upon hearing the prime minister’s name.</p> OPPOSITION ‘PATHETIC’
<p>In contrast to Orban’s closing rally last week in his native Szekesfehervar, where the overwhelming majority of supporters were middle-aged and elderly people, the Budapest protest attracted many people from younger generations.</p> Slideshow (7 Images)
<p>“We are disappointed and I think lots of us are disappointed with the election results, which, I think, were not clean,” said 26-year-old Palma, who declined to give her surname.</p>
<p>Palma, who came to the protest with a friend, said she believed the Hungarian election system gave an unfair advantage to Orban’s ruling Fidesz party. However, she was also displeased with opposition parties.</p>
<p>“They are pathetic,” she said. “It is terrible that they are so weak, unable to reach a compromise and they kill each other instead of joining forces for us.”</p>
<p>Nationalist Jobbik and the Socialists are the biggest opposition groups in parliament.</p>
<p>In the election campaign Orban projected himself as the defender of Hungary’s Christian culture against Muslim migration into Europe, an image which resonated with millions of voters, especially in rural areas.</p>
<p>But the opposition’s poor showing was at least partly of its own making as rival candidates split the anti-government vote in five districts in Budapest, where preliminary results showed a slim Fidesz victory.</p>
<p>“Zero, zero, zero,” 29-year-old Dia Szenasi said about the opposition, adding that all leftist parties should have joined forces to have a better chance of ousting Orban.</p>
<p>Reporting by Gergely Szakacs; Editing by Toby Chopra</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - A Russian bid for the United Nations Security Council to condemn U.S., British and French air strikes on Syria over a suspected chemical weapons attack failed on Saturday after only China and Bolivia joined Russia to vote in favor of a draft resolution.</p> Russian Ambassador to the United Nations Vasily Nebenzya speaks after Members of the United Nations Security Council voted against a Russian resolution condemning 'aggression' against Syria by the U.S. and its allies during an emergency meeting on Syria at the U.N. headquarters in New York, U.S., April 14, 2018. REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz
<p>The 15-member council met on Saturday, at Russia’s request, the fifth time it has met on Syria since a suspected deadly poison gas attack in the Syrian town of Douma a week ago. The United States, France and Britain fired 105 missiles overnight in retaliation, targeting Syria’s chemical weapons program.</p>
<p>“Why didn’t you wait for the outcome of the investigation you called for?” Russian U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said after the vote. He accused the United States, France and Britain of “demonstrating a blatant disregard for international law.”</p> United States Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley and Karen Pierce, UK Ambassador to the United Nations vote against a Russian resolution condemning 'aggression' against Syria by the U.S. and its allies during an emergency United Nations Security Council meeting on Syria at the U.N. headquarters in New York, U.S., April 14, 2018. REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz
<p>“I hope hot heads will cool down and that will be it,” he told reporters.</p>
<p>International investigators from the global chemical weapons watchdog are in Syria and were due to start their inquiry on Saturday into the suspected toxic gas attack. Russia and Syria have said there was no evidence of a chemical weapons attack.</p>
<p>The United States, France and Britain defended their military action as legal during the Security Council meeting.</p> FILE PHOTO: Members of the United Nations Security Council attend a meeting on Syria at the U.N. headquarters in New York, U.S., April 13, 2018. REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz
<p>“We are confident that we have crippled Syria’s chemical weapons program. We are prepared to sustain this pressure, if the Syrian regime is foolish enough to test our will,” U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said.</p>
<p>“If the Syrian regime uses this poison gas again, the United States is locked and loaded,” Haley said.</p>
<p>During an address to the Security Council, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged all states “to show restraint in these dangerous circumstances and to avoid any acts that could escalate matters and worsen the suffering of the Syrian people.”</p>
<p>Eight countries voted against the Russian-drafted text on Saturday, while Peru, Kazakhstan, Ethiopia and Equatorial Guinea abstained. A resolution needs nine votes in favor and no vetoes by Russia, China, France, Britain or the United States to pass.</p>
<p>The council failed on Tuesday to approve three draft resolutions on chemical weapons attacks in Syria. Russia vetoed a U.S. text, while two Russian-drafted resolutions failed to get a minimum nine votes to pass.</p>
<p>France, the United States and Britain planned to put forward a new draft resolution aimed at dismantling Syria’s chemical weapons program, wiping out terrorism, demanding a ceasefire across Syria and finding a political solution to the conflict, French U.N. Ambassador Francois Delattre told the council on Saturday.</p>
<p>Reporting by Michelle Nichols; editing by Jason Neely, David Gregorio and Jonathan Oatis</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will on Sunday try to tackle an escalating dispute over a oil pipeline project that threatens to undermine his political and economic agenda.</p> FILE PHOTO: Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks during a press conference at the end of the VIII Summit of the Americas in Lima, Peru April 14, 2018. REUTERS/Guadalupe Pardo
<p>Kinder Morgan Canada Ltd ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=KML.TO" type="external">KML.TO</a>) wants to almost triple the capacity of its Trans Mountain pipeline from oil-rich Alberta to the Pacific province of British Columbia, which strongly opposes the idea on environmental grounds.</p>
<p>Trudeau - who says the expansion will benefit the economy and needs to proceed - is due to hold a emergency meeting at 10 am ET (1400 GMT) with the premiers of both provinces.</p>
<p>“This is not about punishing British Columbians, this is not about hurting Canadians, this is about bringing forward a project in the national interest,” he told reporters in Peru late on Saturday before returning to Ottawa.</p> Slideshow (2 Images)
<p>“We will do it in such a way that doesn’t seek to further polarize or raise the temperature in this debate.”</p>
<p>Although Trudeau’s Liberal government could invoke emergency powers to ensure the project goes ahead, that would most likely anger voters in British Columbia and cost the Liberals support in a federal election in October 2019.</p>
<a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=KML.TO" type="external">Kinder Morgan Canada Ltd</a> 17.24 KML.TO Toronto Stock Exchange -0.26 (-1.49%) KML.TO
<p>But Trudeau is under increasing pressure from the business community and opposition politicians to take action amid fears the dispute could hit already flagging foreign investment.</p>
<p>“In the absence of a swift resolution to this issue, foreign and domestic investors will be left to question whether Canada is a suitable place to invest,” said John Manley, President of the Business Council of Canada and a former Liberal finance minister.</p>
<p>Both the federal and Alberta governments have suggested they could take a stake in the project.</p>
<p>“There are enough determined parties that a solution will be reached. It won’t be easy - it’s not an easy issue, none of this is,” a senior government official said ahead of the meeting.</p>
<p>British Columbia premier John Horgan told reporters on Saturday he wanted to protect his province against “the catastrophic consequences” of a pipeline leak.</p>
<p>He wants Ottawa to refer the matter to the Supreme Court but the Liberals are not interested, saying it is already clear the federal government has jurisdiction over the project.</p>
<p>Horgan’s office says he plans to speak to reporters at 11 am, suggesting he will not be talking for long to Trudeau and Alberta premier Rachel Notley. Trudeau is set to face the media at 1 p.m.</p>
<p>Reporting by David Ljunggren; Editing by Nick Zieminski</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> | Syrian government: U.S. military presence in Syria is act of aggression Saudi condemns Iran amid Arab divisions over Syria strikes Tens of thousands of Hungarians protest against Orban landslide Russia fails in U.N. bid to condemn U.S.-led strikes on Syria Canada's Trudeau set for emergency summit on pipeline crisis | false | https://reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-usa/syrian-government-us-military-presence-in-syria-is-act-of-aggression-idUSKBN1F70YL | 2018-01-18 | 2 |
<p>There's one number in the news quite a bit recently–11 million. It's the estimated number of immigrants living in the US illegally–and it's the most cited statistic in the immigration reform debate. But how did we even get to that figure? Who are the 11 million? Is it even the best number to use?</p>
<p>And it's a number that Jeffrey Passel has tracked probably more than anyone else. He's a senior demographer at the Pew Hispanic Center. To reach 11 million, he crunched government data and used a formula.</p>
<p />
<p>A photo of Joaquin, Gloria Mejia's youngest son. He is a US citizen, while Mejia remains an immigrant living in the US without proper documentation. (Photo: Adrian Florido)</p>
<p>"The total number of immigrants, minus the number of immigrants here legally, is the number here without authorization," he said.</p>
<p>Sounds simple, but it's not. In fact, 26 years ago, when Ronald Reagan signed an amnesty for 3 million immigrants, there was much disagreement over how to calculate the number. Many people argued there were three to four times that many immigrants without authorization living in the country.</p>
<p>Pew's formula uses Labor Department survey data that includes workers' country of origin to estimate the total number of immigrants in the country. It subtracts the number admitted legally based on federal immigration statistics. Then it makes some statistical adjustments to reach the 11 million estimate.</p>
<p>"Today there's a much broader agreement about how many people we're talking about and about who we're talking about," Passel said.</p>
<p>So then, let's accept that 11 million figure as the number of people here without documents. That's more than the total population of Greece, by the way. But who are they?</p>
<p>Some of what the Passel has found is probably no surprise. About six million of the 11 million are Mexicans. Sixty percent are men. A majority live in large states like California, Texas, Illinois, and New York.</p>
<p>But more than four million immigrants without legal status now live in the Midwest and the South–with states like Georgia and Oklahoma seeing this population rise fast. More of the US now has a stake in the immigration debate.</p>
<p>"It's part of, I think, the demographic underpinnings of what's turned this into a national debate instead of a local debate," Passel said.</p>
<p>There are also hundreds of thousands of Salvadorans, Guatemalans, Chinese, Koreans and Filipinos. Some entered legally, didn't plan on staying–but did.</p>
<p>"Forty percent entered the country through a port of entry, and then just overstayed their visas," said Ben Winograd, a former attorney at the American Immigration Council, based in Washington DC.</p>
<p>And if you look harder at the 11 million, another picture emerges–one of families. The majority of undocumented immigrants, both men and women, live with their families. So under one roof, there can be a mix of legal status: A dad without papers, a daughter who's a citizen, an older brother who's not.</p>
<p>Families like that of Gloria Mejia can show how complicated it can get. On a recent afternoon she was picking her 8-year-old son Joaquin up from school in San Diego.</p>
<p>Mejia is undocumented, but her son is a citizen. She said her being undocumented has hurt her children.</p>
<p>"It makes me sad that I can't help them more," she said.</p>
<p>Even Joaquin, her only child who's a US citizen, has been affected.</p>
<p>He wanted to join a soccer team. But the team would travel to tournaments outside California, and Mejia would need to help chaperone. But she's afraid to travel, and risk deportation, so she told her son no.</p>
<p>"That example you've given is so perfect. That you can't travel across states to participate in a soccer tournament," said Michael Fix, a senior vice president of the Migration Policy Institute. "It may mean that a mother is less likely to go to a PTA conference."</p>
<p>Michael Fix is with the Migration Policy Institute. Research shows, he says, that children who are US citizens–but whose parents are undocumented, in the shadows–are set back cognitively, socially and educationally.</p>
<p>So, when we think about the estimated 11 million people here illegally, demographer Jeff Passel says it's important to also think about the 4.5 million US citizen children with undocumented parents.</p>
<p>"Instead of 11 million people we're talking more about 16 million," Passel said.</p>
<p>That's a considerably larger number than the 11 million we so often hear, but Passel said it might be just as important.</p> | 11 Million and Growing: Breaking Down the Number of Undocumented Immigrants in the US | false | https://pri.org/stories/2013-05-10/11-million-and-growing-breaking-down-number-undocumented-immigrants-us | 2013-05-10 | 3 |
<p>Kayleigh McEnany brought her abrasive style to CNN, but she has moved on to dance to Donald Trump’s tune before a different type of camera. Clearly, the president despises the traditional written and televised media. Thus, what he and McEnany did next should have come as no surprise, but it did.</p>
<p>No, the former CNN contributor has not signed on with Dancing With The Stars alongside&#160;third-line actors and fallen politicians. This is worse. She became the paid talking head on the Donald Trump show. So far, it is not clear whether Trump’s re-election campaign or the Republican National Committee (RNC) is footing the bill for the almost-state-owned medium. Apparently, the president wants to confuse his 33 percent base with propaganda versus reality by exploiting her history as part of the talking media.</p>
<p>McEnany became the RNC’s national spokesperson.&#160;RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel released a <a href="https://www.gop.com/kayleigh-mcenany-named-rnc-spokesperson/" type="external">statement</a> about her:</p>
<p>‘Kayleigh will be an integral part of our party’s ongoing commitment to promoting the Republican message to Americans across the country. Her wealth of experience will be invaluable to the RNC as we continue to support President Trump and build on our majorities in Congress as we head into 2018.’</p>
<p>The RNC claimed that the former CNN contributor will appear on TV and radio. Although McEnany is supposed to speak for the RNC, it is hard to separate her from As The Trump World Turns, formally entitled Team Trump.&#160;After all, someone plastered his name all over the screen behind her.</p>
<p>McEnany appeared on ABC’s The View periodically as the conservative voice. The new RNC spokeswoman announced on Twitter Saturday that she was leaving CNN, and by the next day was hosting Trump World&#160;and hawking the president’s personal Facebook page. CNN did not &#160;fire her. Instead, she asked to be released from her contract with them.</p>
<p>The new addition said she was “excited to be joining the RNC” in its <a href="https://www.gop.com/kayleigh-mcenany-named-rnc-spokesperson/" type="external">statement</a>:</p>
<p>‘I am excited to be joining the RNC at such an important and historic time in our country. I’m eager to talk about Republican ideas and values and have important discussions about issues affecting Americans across this country.’</p>
<p>Team Trump appeared on the president’s Facebook page and its own page Sunday morning for the first time. McEnany hyped the employment report released Friday, according to the <a href="http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/kayleigh-mcenany-joins-republican-national-committee-as-spokesperson/article/2630829" type="external">Washington Examiner</a>:</p>
<p>‘President Trump has clearly steered the economy back in the right direction.’</p>
<p>Only in Trump World.</p>
<p />
<p><a href="https://twitter.com/TeamTrump/status/894199731320127488" type="external">Featured Image via Screen Grab</a>.</p> | Former CNN Contributor Joins ‘Team Trump’ & Infuriates All Of America (VIDEO) | true | http://bipartisanreport.com/2017/08/07/former-cnn-contributor-joins-team-trump-infuriates-all-of-america-video/ | 2017-08-07 | 4 |
<p />
<p>Image source: The Motley Fool.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Last week's biggest winner on the New York Stock Exchange is also one of its biggest victors over the past two months. Shares ofPier 1 Imports(NYSE: PIR)soared 27.46% last week after the company posted blowout financial results.</p>
<p>We can't really call this performance a surprise. The stock had popped 17% higher a week earlier in anticipation of Wednesday afternoon's quarterly report. The stock has now more than doubled since the end of October, skyrocketing 101% in that brief time.</p>
<p>It was a great quarter if you knew where Pier 1 was coming from. Net sales of $475.9 million for its fiscal third quarter were nearly flat with the $478 million it posted a year earlier. The results were the handiwork of having 33 fewer stores this time around, largely offset by a 1.8% uptick in comps.</p>
<p>Posting positive comps could be a game changer. Pier 1's same-store sales had clocked in with a decline of 4.2% a during the second quarter, and all indications were that the new fiscal period kicked off in September with another down month. However, by mid-November, Pier 1 was announcing positive store-level trends through October, and that has carried through into November. Pier 1's profit of $0.22 a share for the quarter blew past the $0.13 analysts were expecting.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>Shares of Pier 1 hit a new 52-week high on Thursday. The stock is trading at its highest levels since the summer of last year. Pier 1 stock has been a wild one, trading as low as $0.10 in 2009, when the company seemed on the brink of declaring bankruptcy -- only to bounce back when it peaked in the low $20s in 2013.</p>
<p>The positive comps may not last. Pier 1's guidance for the holiday quarter calls for same-store sales to fall in a range between a dip of 1% and a gain of 1%. The retailer could be taking a conservative tack. It was initially eyeing negative comps for the third quarter, with earnings coming in no higher than $0.15 a share. However, the trend turned positive after Pier 1's initial remarks. The cautious guidance here could be based on how early December trends are playing out.</p>
<p>Pier 1 continues to make headway in cyberspace. Online sales have risen 28% over the past year and now account for a fifth of its net sales.</p>
<p>It's not all necessarily calm on the Pier 1 waterfront. CEO Alex Smith is stepping down next month, and last week Pier 1 announced that board chairman Terry London will step in as interim president and CEO. Some activists are concerned with the leadership transition, but with the stock rolling -- more than doubling now since the start of last month -- it's hard to question Pier 1's moves these days.</p>
<p>10 stocks we like better than Pier 1 Imports When 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=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.fool.com%2Fmms%2Fmark%2Fe-foolcom-sa-bbn-dyn%3Faid%3D8867%26source%3Disaeditxt0010449%26ftm_cam%3Dsa-bbn-evergreen%26ftm_pit%3D6312%26ftm_veh%3Dbbn_article_pitch&amp;impression=67817709-38bc-48bf-81f3-57648baf21c5&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">10 best stocks Opens a New Window.</a> for investors to buy right now... and Pier 1 Imports 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=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.fool.com%2Fmms%2Fmark%2Fe-foolcom-sa-bbn-dyn%3Faid%3D8867%26source%3Disaeditxt0010449%26ftm_cam%3Dsa-bbn-evergreen%26ftm_pit%3D6312%26ftm_veh%3Dbbn_article_pitch&amp;impression=67817709-38bc-48bf-81f3-57648baf21c5&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&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 Nov. 7, 2016</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFBreakerRick/info.aspx" type="external">Rick Munarriz Opens a New Window.</a> has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services <a href="http://www.fool.com/shop/newsletters/index.aspx?source=isiedilnk018048&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">free for 30 days Opens a New Window.</a>. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that <a href="http://www.fool.com/knowledge-center/motley.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">considering a diverse range of insights Opens a New Window.</a> makes us better investors. 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;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p> | Can Pier 1 Imports Keep Going After Last Week's 27% Pop? | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/12/18/can-pier-1-imports-keep-going-after-last-week-27-pop.html | 2016-12-18 | 0 |
<p />
<p />
<p />
<p /> DYAN RUIZ, PRODUCER: Leaders of organizations opposed to U.S. military presence from throughout Asia and around the world met at a Conference in Manila, Philippines, this summer.
<p />
<p />CONFERENCE DELEGATES: The people united will never be defeated!
<p />
<p />RUIZ: They say the U.S. military is responsible for grave human rights violations and environmental destruction that go unpunished.
<p />
<p />The International Conference on the U.S. Pivot to Asia-Pacific, U.S. Militarism, Intervention and War was attended by nearly 60 delegates from 13 countries, such as South Korea, Japan, Australia, and the Philippines. The secretary general of Bayan, a Philippine progressive political organization and a lead organizer of the conference, was among those who decried this newest wave of U.S. militarization of Asia.
<p />
<p />RENATO REYES JR., BAYAN SECRETARY GENERAL: It's high time that the people in Asia be allowed to determine their own course and to chart own direction and their own foreign policy free from any dictates of the United States.
<p />
<p />RUIZ: Despite the support of their own respective governments, the delegates see U.S. military intervention as a violation of their countries' sovereignty. Every Philippine administration has been beholden to the U.S. and permits their military presence, despite a prohibition in the Philippine Constitution. The current President Benigno Aquino administration is no different.
<p />
<p />BARACK OBAMA, U.S. PRESIDENT: …&#160;engage in training together, work on a range of regional issues together, all of which is consistent with the announced pivot by the United States back to Asia, and reminding everybody that in fact the United States considers itself and is a Pacific power.
<p />
<p />RUIZ: Many see the U.S. military's shift of forces to Asia as a counter to China's growth as a world power both economically and militarily. Threats from North Korea also come into play. The U.S. plans include sending 70,000 troops to the Asia-Pacific region and 60&#160;percent of the U.S. Navy. And of course, economic interests are also at the forefront of the U.S. pivot.
<p />
<p />When former secretary of state Hillary Clinton announced the "pivot" to Asia she said, "Harnessing Asia's growth and dynamism is central to American economic and strategic interests" and is a "key priority for President Obama."
<p />
<p />U.S. military presence is an entrenched part of Philippine history. In 1898, the Philippines became a U.S. territory and remained so for decades.
<p />
<p />Here's former Philippine Army major and professor Dante Simbulan.
<p />
<p />MAJ. DANTE SIMBULAN, ARMED FORCES OF THE PHILIPPINES: When World War&#160;II broke out, we were not yet independent. As a colony of the U.S., naturally we were a target of the Japanese.
<p />
<p />RUIZ: Manila and other parts of the Philippines were obliterated and an estimated 1&#160;million Filipino civilians died.
<p />
<p />Former three-time Philippine congressman and current president for the progressive Bayan-Muna Party, Satur Ocampo, says the U.S. maintained their presence and influence well after they gave the Philippines formal independence in 1946.
<p />
<p />SATUR OCAMPO, PRESIDENT BAYAN-MUNA PARTY, FORMER CONGRESSMAN: They retained their colonial domination of the Philippines by maintaining United States bases until 1991. But even after that, they negotiated a Visiting Forces Agreement that enabled them since 2002 to undertake joint military exercises enabling America forces to stay in the Philippines for a short period.
<p />
<p />RUIZ: Americans have a history of dodging investigation and prosecution for alleged crimes committed in the Philippines over their 115 years of military presence in the country. Here are some of the most recent abuses.
<p />
<p />REYES: What we've seen in the past, we had a rape victim back in 2006 where the main suspect was not even put in a Philippine jail despite having been convicted by a local court. And eventually they were able to reverse the ruling and spirited him away back to the United States.
<p />
<p />We have a case, a recent case last year of a Filipino fisherman who was killed when his fishing boat was rammed by a U.S. Navy patrol boat, and nobody was held accountable for that because the U.S. merely settled with the family and gave some sort of undisclosed amount.
<p />
<p />Then you have a case wherein a Filipino translator was found dead in a facility, in a Philippine facility occupied by American soldiers. And this case is very curious, since the local authorities were saying he committed suicide, but there were suspicions that foul play was involved.
<p />
<p />It's very hard. It's very hard to hold American soldiers accountable.
<p />
<p />RUIZ: In the past year, the U.S. Navy has been responsible for large-scale environmental destruction. This year, a minesweeper called the USS Guardian was grounded on a protected marine park, severely damaging part of the Tubbataha Reef. Last year, the U.S. Navy was involved in the dumping of toxic waste in Subic Bay near the decommissioned American base.
<p />
<p />Being home to U.S. military bases for many years, the Philippines knows all too well how the presence of soldiers impacts women in nearby communities. Sister Mary John, former chairperson of a women's rights organization, Gabriela, and current chairperson of the Women Crisis Center tells us what she's seen.
<p />
<p />SISTER MARY JOHN MANANZAN, COFOUNDER, GABRIELA &amp; BOT WOMEN CRISIS CENTER: This used to be the rest and recreation center for the American soldiers. I mean, we have seen a lot of prostitution happening, and of course rape, and of course a lot of single mothers left afterwards.
<p />
<p />RUIZ: It's difficult to say how many rapes American soldiers have committed in the Philippines, because nearly all women do not come forward with allegations.
<p />
<p />When Americans troops are in the country, they train the Armed Forces of the Philippines. The Philippine military has been involved in hundreds of cases of targeted killings and disappearances of community organizers and activists. This is according to organizations such as Human Rights Watch. Human rights abuses in the Philippines was discussed at an adjoining conference and is something the President of the U.S. National Lawyers Guild wants Americans to bear in mind.
<p />
<p />AZADEH SHAHSHAHANI, NATIONAL LAWYERS GUILD PRESIDENT: This is our taxpayer money that's actively being spent on U.S. military personnel coming here, collaborating with the Philippines' military in joint military exercises and, you know, possibly some other activities. And this is where, you know, we here at the conference have been learning about grave human rights violations that are being committed to this day, and including torture, disappearances, extra-judicial executions. And it seems that's there's complete impunity for the military.
<p />
<p />RUIZ: Here are some of the other delegates.
<p />
<p />REV. CHANGWEON JANG, EXEC. DIR., ASIA MULTICULTURAL COMMUNICATION CENTER, SOUTH KOREA: We don't want no war. Yankee, go home. Yankee, go home!
<p />
<p />DENIS DOHERTY, NATIONAL COORDINATOR, AUSTRALIAN ANTI-BASES CAMPAIGN COALITION: We want to unite with everyone across the region to oppose military bases. In Australia, we have been fighting against U.S. bases since the '60s.
<p />
<p />SUNG-HEE CHOI, GANGJEONG VILLAGE INTERNATIONAL TEAM, JEJU ISLAND, SOUTH KOREA: So how critical it would be if this war base is built in this small island. It totally destroys people's lives there, not only environment.
<p />
<p />RUIZ: Despite the collateral damage, many support the U.S. military presence in the Philippines and the recent negotiations for more troops. Reasons include China's rise and claim over an area west of the Philippines. Many believe that if tensions over the disputed waters and islands escalate, the U.S. will be on the side of the Philippines, a notion Renato dismisses.
<p />
<p />REYES: The U.S. has tremendous economic interests in China. The U.S. has a big investments in China. The U.S. has a big debt, owes a lot of debt, to the tune of $1.2&#160;trillion to China. So it's not really likely they're going to war with China in the near future. But since the tension is there, they kind of have exploited that situation for their own interests.
<p />
<p />RUIZ: After over a decade long bloody war on terror in Iraq and Afghanistan, Asia is becoming the new battleground for America's armies. The U.S. pivot to Asia may be less visible to the American public, but the conference delegates from this region are not blind to its destruction.
<p />
<p />This is Dian Ruiz for The Real News Network.
<p />
<p />[Produced by Dian Ruiz and Joseph Smooke.]
<p />
<p />End
<p />
<p />DISCLAIMER: Please note that transcripts for The Real News Network are typed from a recording of the program. TRNN cannot guarantee their complete accuracy. | Will the US Military's "Asia Pivot" Escalate Human Rights Violations? | true | http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option%3Dcom_content%26task%3Dview%26id%3D31%26Itemid%3D74%26jumival%3D10661 | 2013-09-03 | 4 |
<p>Michael Dwyer/AP Photo</p>
<p />
<p>Democrats’ chances of keeping control of the Senate in 2014 don’t look great. FiveThirtyEight polling guru Nate Silver <a href="http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/fivethirtyeight-senate-forecast/" type="external">recently predicted</a> that “Republicans are now slight favorites to win at least six seats and capture the chamber,” and the Washington Post‘s <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/wp/2014/03/31/why-republicans-can-be-even-more-optimistic-about-taking-the-senate/" type="external">Monkey Cage blog</a> gives the GOP an 80 percent chance of taking the Senate in 2014. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) isn’t up for election this year. But the liberal darling is throwing her name—and her fundraising mojo—behind an effort to preserve the Dems’ majority.</p>
<p>Warren has already raised $1.2 million this election season for 22 Senate candidates, including Sens. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), and Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), according to Warren’s political operation. That’s a lot of dough. “Most members of Congress are not capable of raising that much for their colleagues…She’s a rock star,” says Viveca Novak, the editorial director of the Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks the influence of money on politics. And in late March, the Massachusetts senator expanded her 2014 efforts even further, joining up with the <a href="http://boldprogressives.org/about/" type="external">Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC)</a>, a liberal PAC, to endorse two lucky Senate candidates: Rick Weiland, who is running to replace outgoing Democratic Sen. Tim Johnson of South Dakota, and Rep. Bruce Braley, who is vying to take the place of retiring Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa).</p>
<p>Landing a Warren endorsement is great news for candidates without a lot of name recognition at the national level,&#160;says John Halpin, a senior fellow at the liberal Center for American Progress. Weiland, the South Dakota candidate, says Warren’s endorsement has been “extremely helpful” so far, adding that after Warren and the PCCC sent out their fundraising pitch, “there was quite a spike [in donations] in the first couple of days.” (The Weiland campaign does not yet have final fundraising numbers for the initial Warren-PCCC push.)</p>
<p>Officials with the Braley campaign say the same thing. The campaign couldn’t give out fundraising details, but an Iowa Democrat familiar with Braley’s campaign says, “Let me put it this way. There’s a reason why the [Warren] endorsement was rolled out before the March 31 fundraising deadline.”</p>
<p>Warren’s office says that the senator is spending so much time fundraising for her colleagues “because she believes it is critical for Democrats to maintain control of the Senate.” But the back-scratching is good for Warren’s political future, too—whether or not she ever runs for president. “I see mixed motives that are not incompatible,” says Ross Baker, a professor of political science at Rutgers University. “The hero’s wings she wins for campaigning for congressional progressives can be pinned on again in a future presidential effort. It is a win-win for her.”</p>
<p>Warren’s involvement could also help Democrats running in 2014 by raising party enthusiasm, Baker says. “You get a real progressive hero like Elizabeth Warren involved and she can basically amp up the motivation of the party, and people on the left,” he argues. Only about <a href="http://www.fairvote.org/research-and-analysis/voter-turnout/" type="external">40 percent</a> of Americans go to the polls on off years, as opposed to <a href="http://www.fairvote.org/research-and-analysis/voter-turnout/" type="external">60 percent</a> during presidential-election years. But “as popular as she is, it will take more than Elizabeth Warren’s energy to stem the tide,” he jokes. He adds that if the stars align for Dems in other ways as well—if support for Obamacare increases, and GOP candidates continue to make offensive comments about rape, for example—the push by Warren and the PCCC could help “change the atmosphere in November.”</p>
<p>PCCC’s association with Warren goes way back. The group pushed President Obama to appoint her as head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. (Obama ended up appointing Richard Cordray to run the agency instead.) It backed her run for Senate in 2012, and sells bumper stickers that read, “I’m from the Elizabeth Warren wing of the Democratic Party.” But this is the first time the group and the senator have jointly endorsed candidates. PCCC and Warren “definitely…plan on endorsing more [candidates] together in the coming months,” says Adam Green, the group’s cofounder.</p>
<p>It’s not a one-way relationship. Although PCCC benefits from its association with Warren, the relationship gives her access to its email list of nearly a million progressive Dems who are potential Warren donors.</p>
<p>Green hopes that the Warren-PCCC alliance will have resonance beyond 2014 by helping drag the Democratic party away from the center. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) supports progressive candidates in deep-blue states, but tends to back more centrist Dems in red states. The Warren-PCCC strategy turns this logic on its head, moving to the left, not right, to lure voters, out of a belief that many Americans view policies like preserving the social safety net and regulating Wall Street not as “fringe things, [but] mainstream things that a lot of people want,” Halpin says. If the tactic pans out in 2014, Green says, it could become a new model going forward for national Dems.</p>
<p>Halpin says if the Warren-PCCC model succeeds, it could develop into something similar to the tea party movement, a “long-term…grassroots strategy to take over a party.” But don’t compare Warren to the tea party’s Alaskan darling, Halpin says. “She doesn’t strike me as a Sarah Palin going around beating people down or saying who’s a true conservative and who’s not.”</p>
<p /> | Elizabeth Warren, Kingmaker? | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2014/04/elizabeth-warren-pccc-senate-democrats/ | 2014-04-08 | 4 |
<p>Adam Smith (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)</p>
<p>Name: Adam Smith</p>
<p>Age: 33</p>
<p>Occupation: Communications director</p>
<p>Identify as: Gay</p>
<p>What are you looking for in a mate? I’m looking for a guy who likes and laughs at: himself, my bad jokes, politics and dancing (by both of us).</p>
<p>Biggest turn-off: Weird hang-ups about masculinity</p>
<p>Biggest turn-on: A sense of humor, preferably with a beard attached</p>
<p>Hobbies: Playing bocce, watching “30 Rock” reruns, hanging out with friends, traveling when I can.</p>
<p>Describe your ideal first date: We have plenty of time to talk and get to know each other. Start with a drink or two at some dark bar and then grab dinner and talk about the new season of “Broad City.”</p>
<p>Favorite TV show: “30 Rock”</p>
<p>Celebrity crush: Dolly Parton</p>
<p>One obscure fact about yourself: As a teenager, I competed in public speaking tournaments and attended a national tournament for it once.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE TOP 20 LGBT SINGLES</a></p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">2016 Most Eligible Singles</a> <a href="" type="internal">Adam Smith</a></p> | MOST ELIGIBLE SINGLES: Adam Smith | false | http://washingtonblade.com/2016/02/08/most-eligible-singles-adam-smith/ | 3 |
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<p>The iShares MSCI France ETF (NYSEArca: EWQ), the largest France exchange traded fund trading in the U.S., saw some departures prior to Sunday’s first round elections in France. Selling EWQ before the election has proven to be be a poor idea as the ETF is surging. EWQ’s post-election pop has brought its year-to-date to over… <a href="https://www.etftrends.com/2017/04/what-frances-election-between-macron-le-pen-means-for-etfs/" type="external">Click to read more at ETFtrends.com. Opens a New Window.</a></p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p> | What France’s Election Between Macron, Le Pen Means for ETFs | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/04/26/what-france-s-election-between-macron-le-pen-means-for-etfs.html | 2017-04-26 | 0 |
<p>RIVERSIDE, Calif. (AP) — They are safe for now and, according to authorities, they are relieved.</p>
<p>But the 13 children, aged 2 to 29, rescued from what was described as nothing less than a torture chamber will have years of therapy ahead, experts say, as they learn to live in a world that, until a week ago, they never really knew.</p>
<p>Since arresting David and Louise Turpin earlier this week, authorities said they have learned the children were confined to the house, chained to furniture, starved and often deprived the use of a toilet. Some of the children were so detached they didn’t understand the concept of a police officer or medicine.</p>
<p>“You don’t need to learn what a police officer is from going to school, you learn that from just being out in the world,” said Patricia Costales, chief executive of The Guidance Center, a Long Beach, California-based nonprofit that provides mental health therapy to thousands of children.</p>
<p>“To not even know something like that really speaks to how incredibly controlled their environment was. They’re going to experience a culture shock even apart from the trauma they have undergone,” said Costales, a licensed clinical social worker and therapist who has treated kidnap victims, some held for years.</p>
<p>The parents of 13 children and young adults have plead not guilty in a California court to numerous charges that they tortured and abused the siblings for years. (Jan. 18)</p>
<p>The Turpin siblings, seven adults and six children, likely need years of therapy, psychological experts said, adding that if possible it would be best to keep them together.</p>
<p>The youngest should have the easiest road to recovery, Costales said, but added she is optimistic that over time all could eventually learn to lead relatively normal lives.</p>
<p>“Their brains are still adapting, they’re still forming, they’re still developing their understanding of the world,” she said of the younger children. “But someone who has experienced these things for 20-some years of their life will have a lot of learning to do about what relationships are like, what the world is like, how they’re supposed to be treated.”</p>
<p>Even being separated from their parents, who are now in jail on torture, child abuse and other charges, could be unsettling initially to some of the children, said Jessica Borelli, a clinical psychologist and professor of psychology and social behavior at University of California, Irvine.</p>
<p>“When we come into this world, our attachment figures are our primary sources of safety and security, no matter how abusive they are,” she said. “That impulse or that draw to be back with the people who are supposed to keep you safe is incredibly strong, and that is what has to be overridden to get out of an abusive situation.”</p>
<p>Police were summoned to the Turpin home in Perris, a city of about 70,000 people 60 miles southeast of Los Angeles, on Sunday after the couple’s 17-year-old daughter jumped out of a window and called 911. She had planned the escape for two years and fled with a sibling who became too scared and turned back, Riverside County authorities said.</p>
<p>The fact that she carried out such a courageous act, Borelli said, shows she could play a leadership role in helping her siblings recover.</p>
<p>“To me, that is a sign she has something inside of her that is really healthy,” she said. “One of the things that happens with really prolonged abuse like this is the instincts about self-protection and the desire to protect oneself are totally disrupted — but she has it. So, I think she might be someone who can help.”</p>
<p>When deputies arrived at the home they found a 22-year-old chained to a bed. The house reeked of human waste and evidence of starvation was obvious, with the oldest sibling, a 29-year-old woman, weighing only 82 pounds, said Riverside County District Attorney Mike Hestrin.</p>
<p>The children were tethered to beds with chains and padlocks as punishment and allowed to do little but write in journals, authorities said.</p>
<p>David Turpin, 56, and Louise Turpin, 49, have pleaded not guilty to multiple counts of torture, child abuse, dependent adult abuse and false imprisonment dating to 2010, when the family moved to California from outside Fort Worth, Texas. David Turpin also pleaded not guilty to performing a lewd act on a child under age 14.</p>
<p>Each is held on $12 million bail.</p>
<p>David Turpin had worked as an engineer for both Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman. Louise Turpin identified herself as a housewife in a 2011 bankruptcy filing.</p>
<p>The family led a nocturnal existence and slept all day, which kept them largely out of sight from neighbors in their tight-knit suburban-styled community.</p>
<p>Authorities have given no motive for the parents’ behavior, which Hestrin called “depraved.”</p>
<p>Abbey Kanzer, a clinical psychologist at the Center for Victims of Torture in St. Paul, Minnesota, said recovery can take years but there is hope in even the most horrific cases.</p>
<p>“The hope for treatment is to find a way so the trauma becomes a contained part of what happened to them,” she said. “It becomes part of their story, but not their complete story.”</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Rogers reported from Los Angeles</p>
<p>RIVERSIDE, Calif. (AP) — They are safe for now and, according to authorities, they are relieved.</p>
<p>But the 13 children, aged 2 to 29, rescued from what was described as nothing less than a torture chamber will have years of therapy ahead, experts say, as they learn to live in a world that, until a week ago, they never really knew.</p>
<p>Since arresting David and Louise Turpin earlier this week, authorities said they have learned the children were confined to the house, chained to furniture, starved and often deprived the use of a toilet. Some of the children were so detached they didn’t understand the concept of a police officer or medicine.</p>
<p>“You don’t need to learn what a police officer is from going to school, you learn that from just being out in the world,” said Patricia Costales, chief executive of The Guidance Center, a Long Beach, California-based nonprofit that provides mental health therapy to thousands of children.</p>
<p>“To not even know something like that really speaks to how incredibly controlled their environment was. They’re going to experience a culture shock even apart from the trauma they have undergone,” said Costales, a licensed clinical social worker and therapist who has treated kidnap victims, some held for years.</p>
<p>The parents of 13 children and young adults have plead not guilty in a California court to numerous charges that they tortured and abused the siblings for years. (Jan. 18)</p>
<p>The Turpin siblings, seven adults and six children, likely need years of therapy, psychological experts said, adding that if possible it would be best to keep them together.</p>
<p>The youngest should have the easiest road to recovery, Costales said, but added she is optimistic that over time all could eventually learn to lead relatively normal lives.</p>
<p>“Their brains are still adapting, they’re still forming, they’re still developing their understanding of the world,” she said of the younger children. “But someone who has experienced these things for 20-some years of their life will have a lot of learning to do about what relationships are like, what the world is like, how they’re supposed to be treated.”</p>
<p>Even being separated from their parents, who are now in jail on torture, child abuse and other charges, could be unsettling initially to some of the children, said Jessica Borelli, a clinical psychologist and professor of psychology and social behavior at University of California, Irvine.</p>
<p>“When we come into this world, our attachment figures are our primary sources of safety and security, no matter how abusive they are,” she said. “That impulse or that draw to be back with the people who are supposed to keep you safe is incredibly strong, and that is what has to be overridden to get out of an abusive situation.”</p>
<p>Police were summoned to the Turpin home in Perris, a city of about 70,000 people 60 miles southeast of Los Angeles, on Sunday after the couple’s 17-year-old daughter jumped out of a window and called 911. She had planned the escape for two years and fled with a sibling who became too scared and turned back, Riverside County authorities said.</p>
<p>The fact that she carried out such a courageous act, Borelli said, shows she could play a leadership role in helping her siblings recover.</p>
<p>“To me, that is a sign she has something inside of her that is really healthy,” she said. “One of the things that happens with really prolonged abuse like this is the instincts about self-protection and the desire to protect oneself are totally disrupted — but she has it. So, I think she might be someone who can help.”</p>
<p>When deputies arrived at the home they found a 22-year-old chained to a bed. The house reeked of human waste and evidence of starvation was obvious, with the oldest sibling, a 29-year-old woman, weighing only 82 pounds, said Riverside County District Attorney Mike Hestrin.</p>
<p>The children were tethered to beds with chains and padlocks as punishment and allowed to do little but write in journals, authorities said.</p>
<p>David Turpin, 56, and Louise Turpin, 49, have pleaded not guilty to multiple counts of torture, child abuse, dependent adult abuse and false imprisonment dating to 2010, when the family moved to California from outside Fort Worth, Texas. David Turpin also pleaded not guilty to performing a lewd act on a child under age 14.</p>
<p>Each is held on $12 million bail.</p>
<p>David Turpin had worked as an engineer for both Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman. Louise Turpin identified herself as a housewife in a 2011 bankruptcy filing.</p>
<p>The family led a nocturnal existence and slept all day, which kept them largely out of sight from neighbors in their tight-knit suburban-styled community.</p>
<p>Authorities have given no motive for the parents’ behavior, which Hestrin called “depraved.”</p>
<p>Abbey Kanzer, a clinical psychologist at the Center for Victims of Torture in St. Paul, Minnesota, said recovery can take years but there is hope in even the most horrific cases.</p>
<p>“The hope for treatment is to find a way so the trauma becomes a contained part of what happened to them,” she said. “It becomes part of their story, but not their complete story.”</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Rogers reported from Los Angeles</p> | Experts: Shackled children face long road to recovery | false | https://apnews.com/94400beb080c4aebbc1680443adf350e | 2018-01-19 | 2 |
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<p>Josh Chavez, 29, of Portales, couldn’t even remember the names of the two books he checked out of the library and lost, but he’s not likely to forget being hauled off to jail by Roosevelt County sheriff’s deputies last month for failing to pay the fines, the <a href="http://www.pntonline.com/news/library-22702-titles-land.html" type="external">Portales News-Tribune</a> reported.</p>
<p>Chavez was arrested Sept. 21 on a contempt warrant for not fulfilling an arrangement he’d made with Portales Municipal Court to pay $124.24 in overdue fees and replacement costs for the two books he’d lost, the News-Tribune said.</p>
<p>“I think it’s a little far-fetched,” Chavez told the paper. “I was going to make the payment and I never thought going to jail was going to be the outcome.”</p>
<p>The contempt of court warrant, signed by Judge Frederick Arnold, listed the charge as “failure to pay library fines” and set Chavez’s bond amount at $624.24, the News-Tribune said.</p>
<p>Chavez said he was in jail only a couple of hours before his family helped him post bond, and when he went before Arnold the next day he was given a choice either to direct his bond toward his fines — a $500 penalty for contempt of court and $124.24 for the library fines — or stay in jail, the paper reported.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Portales Library Director Denise Burnett said she hadn’t been aware of Chavez’s arrest, which was the first such arrest she was aware of, the News-Tribune said.</p>
<p>“The books should have been returned. At any point along this process, if those books would have been returned, nothing would have happened,” Burnett said.</p>
<p>Court records show that the two books in question were “Knife of Dreams” by Robert Jordan and “Straken” by Terry Brooks, the News-Tribune said.</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | 6:10am — Portales Man Jailed Over Unpaid Library Fines | false | https://abqjournal.com/9549/610am-portales-man-jailed-over-unpaid-library-fines.html | 2 |
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<p>Miss Major Griffin-Gracy at San Francisco Pride in 2012. (Photo by Quinn Dombrowski; courtesy Wikimedia Commons)</p>
<p>There will be a screening of “Major!” a new documentary film about the pioneering elder black transgender activist, Miss Major Griffin-Gracy. It will take place on April 4 from 6-9 p.m. in Room 210A, Morgan State University Student Center, 1700 East Cold Spring Lane in Baltimore.</p>
<p>“Miss Major’s life and work are a testament to the urgency of justice for trans folk like Alphonza Watson, who was murdered in Baltimore on March 23,” said the Rev. Cedric A. Harmon, executive director for Many Voices: A Black Church Movement for Gay and Transgender Justice, the group that organized the event.&#160; The documentary is being presented in conjunction with the Women’s and Gender Studies Program of Morgan State University.</p>
<p>“At 76-years-old she is still helping communities across the country realize a world where hate crimes towards folks like Alphonza do not happen and where systemic conditions of poverty and discrimination are combated head-on. It is within these conditions that violence so often festers,” Harmon said.</p>
<p>“The gathering will be more than a film screening,” he adds. “It will also be a chance for the Baltimore community to reflect on justice for some of the most marginalized people in our nation: low-to-no income black transgender and gender-variant folk.&#160; The film also argues that trans justice must go hand-in-hand with criminal justice reform.”</p>
<p>The screening is free and will be followed by a discussion.&#160; For more information, email <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a>.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Alphonza Watson</a> <a href="" type="internal">Baltimore</a> <a href="" type="internal">Cedric A. Harmon</a> <a href="" type="internal">Major!</a> <a href="" type="internal">Many Voices: A Black Church Movement for Gay and Transgender Justice</a> <a href="" type="internal">Maryland</a> <a href="" type="internal">Miss Major</a> <a href="" type="internal">Miss Major Griffin-Gracy</a> <a href="" type="internal">Morgan State University</a> <a href="" type="internal">trans</a> <a href="" type="internal">transgender</a></p> | Screening of ‘Major!’ at Morgan State | false | http://washingtonblade.com/2017/03/29/screening-major-morgan-state/ | 3 |
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<p>As we were entering Politicon a couple months ago, we passed David Frum and I introduced him to Randy Bryce. I didn't have to say anything more than his name before Frum asked if they could get together in Washington to speak and asked if Randy would appear in a movie that was being shot about him. He was excited, very excited; he knows how to read the zeitgeist. A couple nights ago Randy and I were leaving a restaurant when we ran into Al Franken. "Al," I said, "let me introduce you to Randy Bryce." Franken got so excited, he couldn't stop talking and he invited Randy to come visit him in Washington and offered to write a contribution check for his campaign. Nice! He also knows how to read the zeitgeist.</p>
<p>But it isn't always that way. Also at Politicon I ran into a Republican Party TV personality, Bill Kristol, whose dad, Irving, was known as the "grandfather of neoconservatism." I offered to introduce him to Randy too-- don't ask why why; I have no idea-- and he smugly demurred and launched into the silliest Beltway nonsensical perspective I've ever heard on the race-- every hackish truism about why Randy has no chance against the sitting Speaker of the House, pure backward-facing DC punditry. He apparently lost any ability to read the zeitgeist-- if he ever had it to begin with.</p>
<p>See that little graphic up top? That's the current polling margin of victory of Randy over Ryan after one positive line is read from both their biographies. And Randy is just getting started to introduce himself to voters in the southwest Wisconsin district that stretches from the suburbs south of Milwaukee into Racine and Kenosha, across notorious Waukesha County, over to Janesville and almost as far as Beloit on the Rock River, a Democratic stronghold Ryan had the Republican legislature gerrymander out of the district to protect himself.</p>
<p>Anyway, what those numbers in the graphic say is that Bill Kristof is wrong-- Randy Bryce can beat Paul Ryan. It won't be easy and Randy will never match the $11,150,271 war-chest Ryan reported to the FEC on June 30. But Randy doesn't need to match him to beat him. He just needs enough to get his message out. Ryan can spend $11 million or $20 million or $40 million; it won't matter if Randy has what he needs to effectively communicate his message and his vision. And so far, that's going great. His introductory video has people across the district talking about the possibility that Bill Kristol can't grasp.</p>
<p>This week, Blue America is pitching in with a contest. We're giving away a guitar signed by all the members of Green Day to one person who contributes to Randy's campaign here at the <a href="https://secure.actblue.com/contribute/page/notrump.nokkk?refcode=CnL&amp;recurring=12&amp;tandembox=show" type="external">NoTrump.NoKKK.NoFascistUSA page</a>-- any amount.</p>
<p>When I sat down to write this letter 190 people had contributed $3,933. That's an average of $20.70-- and that's how a grassroots campaign works. Randy isn't sucking up to special interests for big PAC checks. He's been clear, for example, that he's taking no money from Big Oil or from Wall Street.</p>
<p>This is how he contrasted himself with Paul Ryan right from the very beginning of his campaign: "Speaker Ryan," he wrote, "lost touch with us years ago, focusing more on power and political party then on the people of our communities. And we see it in his actions in DC everyday:"</p>
<p>--Instead of fighting for a Single Payer Health Care system that will ensure that all of us can be healthy and receive treatment, Speaker Ryan is working on taking health care away from up to 32 million Americans, while giving huge tax cuts to billionaires and millionaires.</p>
<p />
<p>And the description of himself is like a description of all of us and all of our families: "I’m a father and a son. I’m a veteran and a cancer survivor. I’m a working person and have spent my career building and growing Southeastern Wisconsin with my own two hands. So ask yourself this: who do you trust to fight for you, your family and our communities-- someone who has been working the iron for the past 20 years; or Paul Ryan, who has been in Washington, DC for the past 20 years, working for Wall Street and the big corporations."</p>
<p>If you go to the <a href="https://secure.actblue.com/contribute/page/notrump.nokkk?refcode=CnL&amp;recurring=12&amp;tandembox=show" type="external">NoTrump.NoKKK.NoFascistUSA page</a> and contribute to Randy's campaign, you'll be automatically entered in the contest for the signed Green Day guitar. The real prize, though, is not an autographed guitar; it's repealing and replacing Paul Ryan. The guitar is nice; helping to save our country from Paul Ryan and his cronies and campaign donors is much, much nicer. Don't you agree? Please give what you can.</p> | Still Time To Contribute To Randy Bryce And Win The Green Day Guitar | true | http://crooksandliars.com/2017/09/still-time-contribute-randy-bryce-and-win | 2017-09-27 | 4 |
<p>Tea Party Patriots protest ABC News infomercial on socialized health care</p>
<p>More than 900 Tea Party groups nationwide will hold protests Wednesday against ABC News' one-sided, supportive presentation of the Obama administration's plan for a nationalized health care system.</p>
<p>Called "Questions for the President: Prescription for America," the special edition of "Primetime" airing Wednesday at 10 p.m. on ABC News will feature President Obama, speaking from the White House, touting the Senate Health, Education and Labor Committee's proposed legislation for a government takeover of U.S. health care.</p>
<p>The hour-long special will not include arguments from experts who disagree with the costly legislation's intents to reduce individual freedoms in making medical decisions and to limit access to affordable, quality health care. Rather, Obama will answer questions about his vision for socialized health care from a panel of Americans selected by ABC News.</p>
<p>"ABC News has shown extreme bias in coordinating with the Obama administration to broadcast this special without presenting both sides of this serious issue," said Everett Wilkinson, Chairman for the South Florida Tea Party and grassroots organizer. "This program is essentially an infomercial for socialized health care, and every American deserves to learn the truth about this legislation through fair and balanced journalism."</p>
<p>Tea Party Patriots will gather outside ABC News stations Wednesday to call for more objective journalism and to protest Obama's stance on nationalized health care. Citizens are encouraged to bring signs, and those who cannot attend are asked to boycott the ABC News program.</p>
<p>To locate an ABC News affiliate near you, see http://abc.go.com/site/localstations.html.</p>
<p />
<p>For more about the Senate HELP Committee's health care legislation, see <a href="http://nogovernmenthealthcare.com." type="external">http://nogovernmenthealthcare.com</a> <a href="http://nogovernmenthealthcare.com." type="external">.</a></p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Florida Tea Party Patriots Continue Fight Against Socialized Health Care</a>July 7, 2009In "Conservative Blogs"</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">SFTP to protest at Wexler's health care forum only open to union members</a>August 18, 2009In "Conservative Blogs"</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">SEIU Attack Tea Party Patriot In St. Louis</a>August 8, 2009In "Conservative Blogs"</p> | June 24th ABC Protests | true | http://libertyfederation.org/june-24th-abc-protests/ | 2009-06-23 | 0 |
<p>Jennifer Henry, 28, has been working in schools as a tutor, teacher and program director since she was 15. She taught high school history for four years, founded and ran a non-profit program in California’s Bay Area and will graduate in May from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management.</p>
<p>Confident, articulate and knowledgeable about curriculum standards and the needs of at-risk students, Henry is poised for an easy entry into philanthropy or the non-profit world. But that wouldn’t fulfill her desire to be with students. What Henry wants is to become a principal.</p>
<p>“I’ve done everything a principal does,” claims Henry, citing recruiting and supervising a team of 40 teachers at six different schools, designing a curriculum for the 200 students participating in her program, and working with a board of directors.</p>
<p>Despite her interest and strong background, however, Henry is not qualified to be a CPS principal. She lacks the requisites for the state’s so-called Type 75 certificate (a master’s degree in education and required courses in school administration), and she lacks additional requirements imposed by the Chicago Board of Education (including six years of teaching and/or administrative experience).</p>
<p>All that is about to change, however, with the debut of a new program called New Leaders for New Schools, which is setting up shop in Chicago and New York City to recruit, train and qualify non-traditional candidates to run schools.</p>
<p>In Chicago, New Leaders has forged a partnership with the Board of Education and National-Louis University. When Henry completes the year-long program here, she will have not only a Type 75 certificate, but also the experience of having worked for a year under the tutelage of one of Chicago’s leading principals.</p>
<p>New Leaders is starting small. About 15 to 20 individuals — 8 to 10 in Chicago and 8 to 10 in New York — will begin training in June. But it has big backers and big plans, both nationally and here in Chicago. National foundations, the Chicago Public Education Fund and CPS already have committed to fund the effort, which hopes to grow to 500 participants in 16 cities by 2006. And CPS has agreed to waive its requirement for six years of experience.</p>
<p>“We’re looking for a whole new kind of principal,” School Board President Gery Chico said at a March press conference announcing the program. “I am betting on Jennifer Henry.” Chico also cited the program as an example of ongoing CPS efforts to improve Chicago schools. “This program shows that the light bulb is still on.”</p>
<p>Aspiring principals who complete the program will be available for hiring by local school councils and for direct appointment by CPS where warranted, according to Chico. “Just 10 of these new principals can affect 10,000 students’ lives,” he notes. “They set the tone at their schools.”</p>
<p>Principals for America?</p>
<p>The idea of training non-educators to become principals through a full-time, year-long “residency” is the brainchild of Jonathan Schnur, former education adviser to former Vice President Al Gore, and a group of students and faculty members at Harvard University’s schools of education and business. To Schnur and his colleagues, the need to give aspiring principals more “real-world” training was clear, and the prospect of recruiting talented individuals from outside education was tantalizing.</p>
<p>Having graduated from Princeton University withTeach for America founder Wendy Kopp, Schnur saw that non-educators could become effective teachers. Then, his work with former Education Sec. Richard Riley, who advocated a national network of principal centers, convinced him of the need for improved training. Meanwhile, the school principalship was becoming a national focus. Rising school enrollments, combined with rising principal retirements, were starting to cause shortages. And school reform groups and foundations increasingly saw how principals could make or break efforts to improve public education.</p>
<p>With an appealing model and exquisite timing, Schnur has had little trouble attracting national foundation support for New Leaders, including funding from the Broad Foundation in Los Angeles, Silicon Valley’s New Schools Venture Fund and the Boston-based venture philanthropy New Profit, Inc.</p>
<p>In addition to the residency experience, New Leaders will provide participants with:</p>
<p>Two months of full-time course work during the summer at National-Louis and at an as-yet-unnamed school of education in New York City.</p>
<p>A month of follow-up training after school ends in June 2002.</p>
<p>Job placement assistance.</p>
<p>Two years of ongoing support and training on the job.</p>
<p>CPS will pay participants a salary of at least $45,000 plus benefits during the residency. In return, participants must pledge to work at least three years in CPS.</p>
<p>To qualify, applicants must have at least a bachelor’s degree and two years of teaching or “school-based professional experience,” such as running a non-profit education organization. As with Teach for America, they do not have to have state certification as a teacher or principal, nor a degree in education.</p>
<p>So far, about 330 individuals, roughly half from Chicago and half from New York, have applied, most of them after learning about the venture through word-of-mouth recruitment, according to Schnur. They include candidates from higher education, business and the military. CPS also will recruit candidates from inside the school system, according to its agreement with New Leaders. Applications both to go through the program and to serve as a mentor principal will be accepted through April 24.</p>
<p>Unusual welcome mat</p>
<p>While reform organizations outside Chicago generally see the city as hostile territory, New Leaders is getting a warm welcome.</p>
<p>Last November, schools CEO Paul Vallas was quoted in the Daily Southtown as supporting New Leaders and alternative certification for principals. “I can see two or three different alternative certification programs down the road,” he said.</p>
<p>Andy Wade, executive director of the Chicago School Leadership Development Cooperative, which works closely with local school councils and parent groups, says his group initially had some concerns about accountability and about adapting the model to accommodate Chicago’s LSC structure. “Was the quality of principals coming out of this program going to be the same or better than the traditional route?” asked Wade. “But they listened to our questions, and they answered them pretty well.”</p>
<p>In March, the Chicago Public Education Fund committed $600,000 over the next two years, a grant second only to the $1 million from the Broad Foundation. The Chicago money will help pay for the training, estimated to cost $36,000 per participant. The Chicago fund also supports LAUNCH, a similar but less extensive program aimed at CPS employees who already have their Type 75 certificates.</p>
<p>While New Leaders has influential backers, putting the pieces together has not been easy. It had some difficulty finding a university willing to take on an alternative training program that could compete with existing offerings. The application process has been extended twice as New Leaders looks for exceptional candidates. The local leadership spots have yet to be filled. And the benefits of the residency experience are still theoretical; actual benefits will depend on what schools allow participants to do and how participants are treated by assistant principals, local school councils, teachers and parents.</p>
<p>For teachers and administrators who have worked to meet current CPS requirements on their own time and with their own money, the creation of this expensive program—a total of $100,000 per candidate and the waiver of some CPS requirements—may come as an unwelcome surprise.</p>
<p>At a more fundamental level, some educators question whether someone without deep familiarity with academic standards and other issues can lead a school. “If you lack some of that knowledge, you will indeed have a clearer vision, but you may not know what you’re looking at,” says Barbara Radner, a DePaul University professor who has worked extensively in schools.</p>
<p>Mike Klonsky, executive director of the Small Schools Workshop at the University of Illinois at Chicago, welcomes the program and has been working with it. “This is a whole different mode of principal leadership development,” he says. “It really focuses on leadership for school change, not just managing the status quo.”</p>
<p>Jennifer Henry, for one, is raring to go. “I am ready, personally and professionally, to do the job of a principal,” she said before the Chico press briefing. “But without this program, I was finding it hard to get back into public education.”</p>
<p>Additional information on New Leaders is online at www.nlns.org or from the main office in New York City (646) 424-0900.</p> | Chicago, NY welcome new breed of principals | false | http://chicagoreporter.com/chicago-ny-welcome-new-breed-principals/ | 2005-07-27 | 3 |
<p><a href="" type="internal" />Hi, I’m Pastor Pillow!</p>
<p>Sorry, I don’t mean to disturb you—oh my, you’re not wearing any clothes. Nor are you. The whole lot of you, in fact.</p>
<p>Goodness, that’s a load of tattoos. I can’t tell, that concentration of ink on your left thigh, is that Tamil or a pod of sperm whales practicing Krav Maga? Oh, my Lord, that’s an even bigger—</p>
<p>Um, sorry if I appear frazzled. I was in the elevator just now, and this man named <a href="https://usatthebiglead.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/ray-rice-cartoon.jpg?w=1000" type="external">Ray</a> seemed to be having difficulty with his narcoleptic girlfriend. Twas a ball of confusion, truly. You see, I’m looking for the University of Phoenix Stadium Prayer Chapel. You wouldn’t happen to know—</p>
<p>This is the prayer chapel? Oh, I see. Yes, it’s hard to make out the altar for all the naked men in-between. Although I do see a man in a hooded sweatshirt over there. Good thing he’s an old white man, or I might have taken him for a ne’er-do-weller—not that I think any of you strapping young, hard-as-rock black men are up to anything untoward.</p>
<p>As you may be aware, your Commissioner, who is, I might add, a full-fledged Platinum member of Cubic Zirconium Cathedral Ministries, asked me to address both teams with a traditional, ecumenical pre-Super Bowl prayer service.</p>
<p>Thank the Lord there’s no such thing as an atheist Islamic nose tackle! What’s that? Nose guard? How ever do they come up with these position names? Thank God true Christians only have to be worried about the missionary position.</p>
<p>Anyway, if you could all just join hands and form a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prolate_spheroid" type="external">prolate spheroid</a> around the room—or what I like to call a Pigskin Circle. Ha-ha!</p>
<p>Please bow your heads with me—and no peeking, since, for goodness sake, most of you aren’t wearing any clothes. Don’t want any gay thoughts popping up this close to the big game.</p>
<p>Also, haven’t you read <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+9" type="external">what happened to Noah’s son Ham</a> when he beheld his father’s nakedness?! What’s become of football players nowadays—it’s all some kind of Turkish bathhouse exercise! Anyway, let us pray…</p>
<p>Our Father Who Art Monk in Heaven,</p>
<p>Hallowed be Thy Name—though occasionally deflated be thy Game Ball.</p>
<p>Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven.</p>
<p>Give us this day our daily bread—and have mercy upon us, Lord, for all the idiotic Doritos commercials unto which we are about to be exposed.</p>
<p>And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us—and please especially forgive the trespasses of those gridiron stars <a href="http://images.christianpost.com/full/65824/adrian-peterson.jpg" type="external">whom we really need</a> back in our fantasy football starting lineups.</p>
<p>Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. And right there, let me pause for a moment. Now, there’s your normal everyday evil, like choosing New York-style pizza over Chicago deep dish. Then there’s real evil: like <a href="http://www.christianpost.com/news/katy-perry-plays-with-magic-and-witchcraft-in-salem-massachusetts-shares-photos-124309/" type="external">that Satanic witch</a> who’s about to take the stage during halftime and encourage all of your daughters <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAp9BKosZXs" type="external">to make out with one another</a>—which might be perfectly legal in a common law democracy but wouldn’t get very far in Calvin’s Geneva.</p>
<p>Hey you, quarterback. Yeah, you with the rolling eyes and the Brazilian runway wife! I don’t know what kind of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osculum_infame#mediaviewer/File:Osculum_infame.jpg" type="external">Osculum infame</a> lesbianism they’re accustomed to in Mardi Gras South America, but here north of the equator we keep our lips clear of same-sex cherry ChapStick.</p>
<p>By the way, this is probably a perfect moment to take a two-minute time out and encourage y’all to buy stock in my new company, Pastor Pillow Pneumatical Pomade. Just last week, following a prodigious Fourth Offering, we acquired the rights to the <a href="https://www.google.com/shopping/product/5816820466401079394?q=hair+pomade&amp;biw=2144&amp;bih=1056&amp;bav=on.2,or.r_cp.r_qf.&amp;bvm=bv.85076809,d.cWc&amp;tch=1&amp;ech=1&amp;psi=tODMVNLIG6a0sATyp4LQAw.1422713012824.5&amp;ei=vuDMVLW1DbPLsASyuoGIDA&amp;ved=0CKkBEKYrMAA" type="external">Oribe Gold Pomade</a> brand. In all seriousness, just look at <a href="http://cache2.asset-cache.net/gc/71644728-jimmy-johnson-a-former-nfl-coach-and-current-gettyimages.jpg?v=1&amp;c=IWSAsset&amp;k=2&amp;d=OCUJ5gVf7YdJQI2Xhkc2QGKAZ%2BUVtEBKPEWqTYDXZmRfSPWITnxtggyh1RIZv%2FoP" type="external">this headshot of former Super Bowl-winning coach and Fox football broadcaster, Jimmy Johnson</a>. He’s a Pastor Pillow Pomader, as well as a full-fledged CZM member—and the star of our 30-second Super Bowl XLIX spot. Plus, we have cute Dalmatian puppies!</p>
<p>PASTOR PILLOW POMADE! MAKES YOUR HAIR PARACLETE PERFECT!</p>
<p>Now where was I? Oh yes. But deliver us from evil. For Thine is the Kingdom and the Power and the Glory. Forever and ever. Amen.</p>
<p>Now where is that Mr. Wilson? I wanted to let him know that in the middle of the night, the Spirit of the Lord came upon me and filled me with the knowledge that he is being set up for yet another comeback victory against those haughty New England Deflatriots.</p>
<p>Also, is that Coach Carroll? He owes me back tithes from several years ago when he was with the Trojans…Hey, Pete!</p>
<p>…</p>
<p>Please open your hymnals to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KSOMA3QBU0" type="external">No. 796</a>.</p>
<p>So you wanna play with magic Boy, you should know what you’re falling for</p>
<p>Behold, the Christian Right Weekly Round-Up!</p>
<p>…</p>
<p>5. Even Christian Right Media Believes in the Power of the Mammary Gland, via Christian Post: <a href="http://www.christianpost.com/news/katy-perrys-father-says-hes-always-proud-of-daughter-despite-once-calling-her-devils-child-133207/" type="external">“Katy Perry’s Father Says He’s ‘Always Proud’ of Daughter Despite Once Calling Her ‘Devil’s Child’”</a></p>
<p>Hi, I’m the editor-in-chief of the Christian Post. I have to promote articles. I know a good b@@b—or two—when I see them.</p>
<p>Boom, boom, boom</p>
<p>For the first time ever, a Super Bowl halftime show includes a performance by a Pastor’s Kid (or P.K. as we say in the God Bidnez) of not one but two pastors! And that bodes well for fundie Christian publications everywhere, because:</p>
<p>We want to shun, we want to hate Yet we want a taste of décolletage</p>
<p>Seriously, have you noticed how many of these anti-Perry articles show a picture of the pretty, busty singer? Well, um… I mean… How else are we gonna…</p>
<p>Oh, for God’s sake, just quote the pop star’s momma pastor:</p>
<p>“Satan’s assault on our youth is relentless, and they can’t fight against it alone,” Mary Hudson, Perry’s mother, wrote in Charisma magazine.</p>
<p>Lord. Then there’s Minnesota right-wing talk show host Paul Ridgeway and fellow radio talking head Jan Markell. Seriously now, <a href="https://soundcloud.com/thecolu-mn/radio-hosts-katy-perry-deals-with-satan-beyonce-is-a-demon" type="external">they’re just genuinely concerned</a> “how the occult and paranormal are saturating the culture and the Church.”</p>
<p>Wouldn’t it be grand one of these years if the National Football League did us all a favor and just put someone on the halftime stage who doesn’t even have boy’s and girl’s parts? Maybe next year <a href="https://cdn2.bigcommerce.com/server4900/364bb/products/110136/images/76879/287706__35696.1411188643.500.500.jpg?c=2" type="external">Alf</a> will sing a few ditties so we can all stop worrying about the demonic takeover of our nation.</p>
<p>…</p>
<p>4. Read the Study for Yourself: Americans Are Ignorant, over at Public Religion Research Institute: <a href="http://publicreligion.org/research/2015/01/prri-rns-ahead-of-super-bowl-nearly-three-in-ten-americans-support-lifetime-ban-for-football-players-who-commit-domestic-violence/http:/publicreligion.org/research/2015/01/prri-rns-ahead-of-super-bowl-nearly-three-in-ten-americans-support-lifetime-ban-for-football-players-who-commit-domestic-violence/" type="external">“Survey | Ahead of Super Bowl, Nearly Three-in-Ten Americans Support Lifetime Ban for Football Players Who Commit Domestic Violence”</a></p>
<p>The Public Religion Research Institute seems legitimate. It is a member of the American Association for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR), the American Political Science Association (APSA), and the American Academy of Religion (AAR). Until someone speaks up and tells me otherwise, I’m going to take its recent January 2015 survey about the average American sports fan seriously. And that survey reveals the following (which we should have known anyway, <a href="http://i.cdn.turner.com/si/multimedia/photo_gallery/1208/zubaz-sports/images/zubaz-qbs.jpg" type="external">because Zubaz</a>):</p>
<p>“About 1-in-4 (26%) Americans and 27% of self-described sports fans say that God plays a role in determining which team wins a sporting event. About 7-in-10 Americans (71%) and sports fans (69%) disagree.”</p>
<p>My Fellow One-Quarter Americans, you have no idea how much relief you just brought to Tom Brady and Russell Wilson.</p>
<p>As an aside, 1 in 5 Americans are opposed to “a professional sports team signing a gay or lesbian athlete.” Nearly 20% of individuals in our nation—individuals who, sadly, are vested with the authority to vote—are less intelligent than an <a href="https://www.plantant.com/supplierimages/image.php/aspidistra-elatior-cast-iron-plant-1000403519-1403717549.jpg?width=1000&amp;height=1000&amp;image=/public/supplierimages/plants/1000403519-1403717549.jpg" type="external">aspidistra</a>.</p>
<p>…</p>
<p>3. Packers QB and Theologian Aaron Rodgers Gets It, so says Christianity Today: <a href="http://www.christianitytoday.com/gleanings/2015/january/blessed-are-super-bowl-stars.html" type="external">“Blessed are the Super Bowl Stars?”</a></p>
<p>Listen, God might not be playing Vegas bookie during the Super Bowl matchup between the New England Patriots and the Seattle Seahawks, but God most definitely&#160; “rewards faithful athletes with good health and success.”</p>
<p>Case in point the retired Minnesota Vikings defensive star who I knew as a child, a longtime holder of one major NFL record, who in his 50s had to use a walker to move about even inside his home. A God-fearing man who…um…well, nevermind.</p>
<p>Would you like to know who’s my all-time favorite pigskin theologian?</p>
<p>I’ll give you a hint. It’s not Tim Tebow, who once went on record as stating that his “God-given athletic ability” was enough for him to “do the job as a quarterback in the NFL.”</p>
<p>Nope, my favorite metaphysical thinker in the NFL is Aaron Rodgers, quarterback of the Green Bay Packers, which lost its bid for a Super Bowl appearance in the recent NFC Championship Game:</p>
<p>“I don’t think God cares a whole lot about the outcome. He cares about the people involved, but I don’t think he’s a big football fan.”</p>
<p>As opposed to the idiotic remarks by Seattle Seahawks QB Russell Wilson, who thinks God <a href="http://www.cbssports.com/nfl/eye-on-football/24980950/aaron-rodgers-i-dont-think-god-cares-about-football-game-outcomes" type="external">set up the dramatic comeback</a> of his team against the Packers to propel the Seahawks to the Super Bowl.</p>
<p>Then again, I guess God technically did “set up” the victory, considering the Big Bang and all. But I somehow don’t think the Telos of the Universe is the conclusion of SB XLIX.</p>
<p>BTW: Quarterback does not equal Civilization Visionary.</p>
<p>…</p>
<p>2. That Katy Perry, Shemittah Be Good, Shemittah Be Bad, via Charisma News: <a href="http://www.charismanews.com/opinion/48073-a-shemittah-year-mandate-throw-jezebel-down" type="external">“A Shemittah Year Mandate: Throw Jezebel Down!”</a></p>
<p>I’ve read the Bible cover to cover a number of times, formally studied the Good Book in more than one credible institution of higher education, and even grew up in a charismatic Evangelical church—yet still I have no blasted idea what this article is about:</p>
<p>“In this Shemittah year, it is crucial that a bold, uncompromising order of messengers begin to emerge in the spirit of Elisha to preach repentance and an inspirational kingdom gospel that will catalyze a remnant.”</p>
<p>The author of this drivel is Rob Winters. He lives in Glendale, Arizona. Presumably he is a citizen of the United States of America and is allowed to vote for elected leaders in our nation.</p>
<p>I’m guessing he went to the polls on November 4, 2014, and helped elect the Republicans to a majority in the 114th U.S. Congress.</p>
<p>What were you doing that day?</p>
<p>…</p>
<p>1. Hardees Hard-on Hamburgers, at Charisma News: <a href="http://www.charismanews.com/opinion/48079-carl-s-jr-super-bowl-ad-uses-naked-woman-to-sell-hamburgers" type="external">“Carl’s Jr. Super Bowl Ad Uses Naked Woman to Sell Hamburgers”</a></p>
<p>Holy crap! If it’s not bad enough that Katy Perry, the halftime entertainment during Super Bowl XLIX, has a delicious body and large breasts, so does everyone else ever featured in a Hardee’s ad.</p>
<p>But, as we indicated above: Hi, I’m the editor-in-chief of Charisma News. I have to promote articles. I know a good b@@b—or two—when I see them.</p>
<p>And homeschooled, 14-year-old Christians everywhere aren’t complaining. I mean, after all, they get to see a photo of sexy Kate Upton in this article, whose author is shocked—UDDERLY SHOCKED—that a company would use “sex to sell fries.”</p>
<p>By the way, don’t be offended that Hardee’s uses sex to sell—be offended that anyone would spend money on its garbage fast food. I would much rather my child see a picture of a naked human being than ingest fast food offal. You know, the body being <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Corinthians+6:19-20" type="external">a temple of the Holy Spirit</a> and all.</p>
<p>…</p>
<p>That’s a wrap!</p>
<p>Please open your hymnals to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGJuMBdaqIw" type="external">No. 526</a>.</p>
<p>Do you know that there’s still a chance for you ’Cause there’s a spark in you?</p>
<p>…</p>
<p>Progressives, the November Elections are— <a href="http://mycountdown.org/fullpage.php?group=my%20countdown&amp;countdown=My%20Countdown&amp;widget_number=3010&amp;text1=Election%20Day%20Nov%204th,%202014&amp;text2=Make%20Your%20%27Purple%20Vote%27%20Count%20%21&amp;timezone=GMT&amp;event_time=1415059200&amp;img=&amp;cp3_Hex=&amp;cp2_Hex=993CF3&amp;cp1_Hex=000000&amp;hbg=0&amp;fwdt=400" type="external">damn, you missed it</a>. It’s too late. While we Progressives sat around drinking craft beer, more than <a href="" type="internal">one-third of our fellow fundamentalist countrymen</a>&#160;rushed to the polls and elected <a href="http://www.vikingword.com/human-beings-creators-of-lean-cuisine-the-114th-united-states-congress/" type="external">the most idiotic group of human beings ever yet to rule a superpower</a>.</p>
<p>But don’t worry. We’ll get another shot to right the Good Ship Civilization <a href="http://www.7is7.com/otto/countdsamp.html" type="external">on Tuesday, November 8, 2016</a>. Hopefully our Little Blue Planet will still be alive and kicking by then. And hopefully we can all get off our Balaam’s asses this time and find a voting booth.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Christian Right Weekly Round-Up: Pastor Pillow Lives Inside Me</a></p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Christian Right Weekly Round-Up: Saturday in the Courtroom with Adolf</a></p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Christian Right Weekly Round-Up: Pastor Pillow Lives to See 100!</a></p>
<p>0 Facebook comments</p> | Christian Right Weekly Round-Up: Pastor Pillow, Katy Perry & the Super Bowl Pre-Game Prayer Pomade Extravaganza | true | http://forwardprogressives.com/christian-right-weekly-round-pastor-pillow-katy-perry-super-bowl-pre-game-prayer-pomade-extravaganza/ | 2015-02-01 | 4 |
<p>You created an economy that is so unstable that the bankruptcy of a few big firms would mean worldwide catastrophe.</p>
<p>Your policies lost the world $10 trillion on stock markets in the last month alone.</p>
<p>You’ve started a worldwide recession/depression that will go on for years.</p>
<p>So for a punishment we’re giving you $20 billion in bonuses.</p>
<p>No, this is not a Saturday Night Live gag. It’s what will happen this year in the good old U S of A. It’s all spelled out nicely on Bloomberg.com. The <a href="" type="internal">article</a> by Christine Harper and Serena Saitto starts off by explaining that Merrill Lynch will hand out $6.7 billion in bonuses even though it has lost money for five straight quarters and saw its stock fall in value by 70%. (The company also sold itself off to the Bank of America.) $13 billion is being set aside at Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. Even some employees at Lehman Brothers will be given big fat end of the year envelopes even though the company has gone bankrupt.</p>
<p>Merrill Lynch is actually raising bonuses this year by a couple of thousands. They’ve laid off 3,000 people so even though the pot is smaller there’s more for the survivors to feast on. The average bonus will be well over 100K. The better off Wall St. companies will be giving twice that amount.</p>
<p>You see this is what is expected on Wall Street. If you want to keep your “talent” you have to reward them. Otherwise they will go to …..hmmm. The hedge funds are shedding jobs by the thousands. The investment banks are now bank holding companies and laying off like mad. Foreign companies can’t use them. Ah…if they don’t get the bonuses the talent will undoubtedly run off to big careers managing homeless shelters.</p>
<p>The article quotes Bill Coleman at the Massachusetts software firm Salaries.com as saying that Wall St. has created such an “obscene” standard of compensation that the big shots really believe “it’s hard to live on just a half million dollars a year.” This does not appear to be much of an exaggeration. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York reported securities-industry employees averaged $400,000 a year in salary alone last year.</p>
<p>But how can the banks pay out so much money? Oh, I forgot, the US treasury is sending $700 billion into the banks to prop them up and hundreds of billions more to keep them “liquid”. (as if bankers lived in deserts and were in constant danger of dehydration.)</p>
<p>This actually doesn’t have to happen. These flat world whiz kids have literally wrecked the world economy. We’re just at the beginning of the collapse. It’s funny how they are afraid to use the word “recession”. The word “recession” was invented so they wouldn’t have to use the word “depression”. Depression itself was in its day a non-threatening alternative for the older term for business bust, a “panic”. Heck, why not just call it a “reverse upwards boom”?</p>
<p>The idea of basing world business on trillion feet high mountains of sliced and swapped debt is horse manure. We need completely new thinking, ideas for government owned banks to lend out money to worker-community corporations that actually produce things. There’s hundreds of thousands of people out there with the technical and financial education to create such a system. They’ll be happy to do the work and you won’t have to pay them half a million apiece.</p>
<p>In the meantime, here’s a proposal. Some artist needs to come up with an angry vulgar graphic that can be emailed by the thousands to the Wall St. companies and to Congress along with a short sweet message in 50 size font:</p>
<p>“Not a cent of Wall Street bonuses this year. Not on my dime. Let those con artists feast on white bread and margarine. Use the billions to keep people in their homes.”</p>
<p>STANLEY HELLER has started a website with the grand goal over reaching the average person by talking about economics in plain everyday language. It’s <a href="http://www.EconomicUprising.8k.com" type="external">www.EconomicUprising.8k.com</a> Contribute ideas at <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a></p>
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<p>&#160;</p> | Wall Street Bonus Madness | true | https://counterpunch.org/2008/10/30/wall-street-bonus-madness/ | 2008-10-30 | 4 |
<p>A steady drumbeat of poll numbers over the last ten days had shown a comfortable four to five point lead, on average, for accused child molester Roy Moore over Democrat Doug Jones in Tuesday’s special election to replace Jeff Sessions as U.S. Senator from Alabama.</p>
<p>Until yesterday.</p>
<p>Fox News’ polling is far less partisan than their news reporting, and it dropped a bombshell into the mix showing a double digit 50%-40% lead for Doug Jones. A Monmouth University poll followed which, while varying according to turnout modelling, is generally being pegged at a 46%-46% tie. Emerson University polling, often unreliable, has Moore leading by 9%.</p>
<p>Our method here at CounterPunch of averaging all polls in the last ten days without adjustments and including undecided voters has more accurately called two major elections (2016’s U.S. Presidential and 2017’s UK General) than other well-known poll aggregators. That method currently shows a 2.6% lead for Moore over Jones.</p>
<p />
<p>Those numbers may well be on target, even perhaps underestimating how committed GOP Alabamans are to the conviction that diddling kids is less bad than snuffing out their lives in the womb.</p>
<p>While the numbers in my polling methodology provide a strong guide, I have never felt slavishly tied to them, as when it was clear to me that Clinton was in more trouble in Michigan than polls allowed there ahead of November 2016.</p>
<p>In this case, I also think the polling average has it wrong. Some pollsters have done better than others at calling special elections since November 2016. Likely voter models, in my view, that assume Democrats are more motivated to vote than Republicans in Alabama today display the same kind of insight as pollsters who were more accurate in certain contests involving, for instance, Bernie Sanders, Donald Trump, Jeremy Corbyn (UK), and the recent Virginia election.</p>
<p>Taking, then, the average of better recent pollsters (without getting bogged down in the details of each decision to include or exclude by pollster and while rejecting Gravis’ late change in methodology) produces a 2% lead for Jones.</p>
<p />
<p>It’s always dangerous to pick and choose numbers, which is why I’ve included the unmolested numbers above. But the heart of the argument comes down to voter turnout modelling.</p>
<p>For a more in-depth argument on&#160;one&#160;of the particular issues, I’m weighing, see Nate Silver’s article of yesterday <a href="https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/what-the-hell-is-happening-with-these-alabama-polls/" type="external">here</a>&#160;on especially the differences between automated calling, traditional calling, and online polling. In essence, I’m going with a particular way of reading the Survey Monkey data because it fits at larger pattern of what I take to be the better way of handling likely voter modelling in situations where one side is more enthusiastic than the other (trust what voters are saying they will do, but&#160;do&#160;make reasonable adjustments for a variety of demographics in the population and with respect to recent previous elections).</p>
<p>In short, I’m going with a choice among numbers that matches what makes best sense of the narrative and a hard look at differences under the hood in dealing with data.</p>
<p>Doug Jones to win by 2%.</p> | Are Polls Showing a Win for Accused Molester Roy Moore Accurate? | true | https://counterpunch.org/2017/12/12/are-polls-showing-a-win-for-accused-molester-roy-moore-accurate/ | 2017-12-12 | 4 |
<p>Egypt's King Tutankhamun was embalmed in an unusual way, including having his penis mummified at a 90-degree angle, in an effort to combat a religious revolution unleashed by his father, <a href="http://www.livescience.com/40925-king-tuts-death-spontaneous-combustion.html" type="external">a new study suggests</a>.</p>
<p>The pharaoh was buried in Egypt's Valley of the Kings without a heart (or a replacement artifact known as a heart scarab); his penis was mummified erect; and his mummy and coffins were covered in a thick layer of black liquid that appear to have resulted in the boy-king catching fire.</p>
<p>These anomalies have received both scholarly and media attention in recent years, and a new paper in the journal Études et Travaux by Egyptologist Salima Ikram, a professor at the American University in Cairo, proposes a reason why they, and other Tutankhamun burial anomalies, exist. [ <a href="http://www.livescience.com/42296-king-tut-photos.html" type="external">See Photos of King Tut's Mummy &amp; His Burial</a>]</p>
<p>The mummified erect penis and other burial anomalies were not accidents during embalming, Ikram suggests, but rather deliberate attempts to make the king appear as Osiris, <a href="http://www.livescience.com/25738-abydos.html" type="external">the god of the underworld</a>, in as literal a way as possible. The erect penis evokes Osiris' regenerative powers; the black liquid made Tutankhamun's skin color resemble that of Osiris; and the lost heart recalled the story of the god being cut to pieces by his brother Seth and his heart buried.</p>
<p>Making the king appear as Osiris may have helped to undo a religious revolution brought about by <a href="http://www.livescience.com/39349-akhenaten.html" type="external">Akhenaten</a>, a pharaoh widely believed to be Tutankhamun's father, Ikram said.</p>
<p>Akhenaten had tried to focus Egyptian religion around the worship of the Aten, the sun disc, going so far as to destroy images of other gods. Tutankhamun was trying to undo these changes and return Egypt back to its traditional religion with its mix of gods. &#160;</p>
<p>Ikram cautions that her idea is speculative, but, if correct, it would help explain some of the <a href="http://www.livescience.com/28484-king-tut-curse-turns-90.html" type="external">mysteries surrounding Tutankhamun's mummification</a> and burial.</p>
<p>Tutankhamun's erect penisTutankhamun's <a href="http://www.livescience.com/19943-egyptian-mummy-disease-scans.html" type="external">mummified penis</a> eventually broke off from his body after the mummy was discovered, at one point leading to media speculation that it had been stolen.</p>
<p>Ikram has yet to encounter another Egyptian mummy buried with an erection. "As far as I know, no other mummy has been found thus far with an erect penis," she told LiveScience in an email.</p>
<p>The imagery of King Tutankhamun's erect penis has a connection to the god Osiris, Ikram said. "The erect penis evokes Osiris at his most powerfully regenerative moment, and is a feature of 'corn-mummies,' the quintessential symbols of rebirth and resurrection," she writes in her paper. Corn-mummies were nonhuman artificial mummies created in later periods in honor of Osiris. They were made of a mix of materials, including grain.</p>
<p>Tut on fireEvidence revealed in a recent documentary suggests that literally Tutankhamun's mummy <a href="http://www.livescience.com/40925-king-tuts-death-spontaneous-combustion.html" type="external">went up in flames</a>, something apparently brought about by the large amount of black oils and resins applied to his body.</p>
<p>The embalmers applied an abnormally large amount of this black goolike material to Tutankhamun's body for the time period in which he lived and they also applied it to the pharaoh's coffins. In October 1925, Howard Carter, an archaeologist who led the team that discovered the tomb in 1922, wrote, "the most part of the detail is hidden by a black lustrous coating due to pouring over the coffin a libation of great quantity."</p>
<p>Using large amounts of this black liquid, which turned King Tut's skin a blackish color, may have been a deliberate attempt to depict the pharaoh, as literally as possible, as Osiris.</p>
<p>"The mass of oils and resins applied to Tutankhamun's body might also allude to the black color associated with Osiris as lord of the land of Egypt, dark with the rich soil of the inundation, and the source of fertility and regeneration," Ikram writes in the paper. &#160;</p>
<p>A missing heart Another mysterious anomaly is the absence of the pharaoh's heart and lack of a heart scarab to serve as a replacement. "This organ was a key component for the successful resurrection of the body," Ikram wrote, noting that in Egyptian mythology, the heart was said to be weighed against the feather representing the god Maat to determine if one was worthy of resurrection. [ <a href="http://www.livescience.com/28116-image-gallery-mummy-evisceration-techniques.html" type="external">See Images of Egyptian Mummification Process</a>]</p>
<p>The absence of Tutankhamun's heart or heart scarab does not appear to be the result of theft, she noted, but, instead, may be an allusion to a famous story in the legend of Osiris when his body was cut apart by his brother Seth and the god's heart was buried.</p>
<p>A cut typically used to remove a mummy's internal organs was unusually "brutal" and large on King Tut, Ikram noted, another allusion, perhaps, to Seth’s butchery of Osiris.</p>
<p>Other pieces of evidence also point to Osiris. For instance, the burial chamber's north wall shows King Tut as Osiris through its decoration.</p>
<p>"Tutankhamun is shown as a fully fledged Osiris — not simply a wrapped mummy," Ikram noted. "This representation of the king as Osiris is unique in the <a href="http://www.livescience.com/28044-valley-of-the-kings-gallery.html" type="external">Valley of the Kings</a>: Other tombs show the king being embraced by Osiris or offering to him."</p>
<p>Full circleIn a sense, Ikram's idea, if it is correct (Ikram is careful to note that her idea is speculative), brings the investigation of Tutankhamun’s mummy full circle. It was Carter who first noted the pharaoh was being depicted as Osiris.</p>
<p>"[P]erhaps Carter's emphasis in his notes during the unwrapping and examination of the mummy is more correct than even he thought: the king was indeed being shown as Osiris, more than was usual in <a href="http://www.livescience.com/41675-tombs-hidden-in-valley-of-kings.html" type="external">royal burials</a>," Ikram writes in her paper.</p>
<p>Tutankhamun, and/or those who embalmed him, may have been pressured to do this in reaction to the failed religious revolution attempted by his father.</p>
<p>"One can speculate that at this delicate historical/religious time, it was thought that the usual modes for the transformation of the king were not sufficient, and so the priest-embalmers prepared the body in such a way so as to literally emphasize the divinity of the king and his identification with Osiris," Ikram writes.</p>
<p>Follow us <a href="https://twitter.com/LiveScience" type="external">@livescience</a>, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/livescience" type="external">Facebook</a> &amp; <a href="https://plus.google.com/+livescience/posts" type="external">Google+</a>. Original article on LiveScience.</p> | King Tut’s Erect Penis Points To Ancient Religious Struggle | false | http://nbcnews.com/science/science-news/king-tuts-erect-penis-points-ancient-religious-struggle-n3666 | 2014-01-03 | 3 |
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<p><a href="" type="internal" />BOSTON — Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick and U.S. Interior Secretary Sally Jewell say a large area off the coast is being opened for commercial wind energy leases.</p>
<p>The officials say the proposed area is more than 742,000 acres, or more than 1,160 square miles. That’s larger than the area of Rhode Island and will nearly double the federal offshore acreage available for commercial-scale wind energy projects.</p>
<p>The area is about 12 miles offshore, south of Martha’s Vineyard, and will be auctioned as four leases.</p>
<p>So far the government has awarded five commercial wind energy leases off the Atlantic Coast, including Cape Wind in Nantucket Sound off Massachusetts and an area off Delaware. Two competitive leases also have been awarded in the Massachusetts-Rhode Island area and Virginia.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | More ocean off Massachusetts open for wind energy | false | https://abqjournal.com/416828/more-ocean-off-massachusetts-open-for-wind-energy.html | 2 |
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<p>MINNEAPOLIS (AP) _ These Minnesota lotteries were drawn Wednesday:</p>
<p>Daily 3</p>
<p>2-1-5</p>
<p>(two, one, five)</p>
<p>Gopher 5</p>
<p>17-18-28-30-36</p>
<p>(seventeen, eighteen, twenty-eight, thirty, thirty-six)</p>
<p>Estimated jackpot: $1.03 million</p>
<p>Lotto America</p>
<p>04-30-38-47-48, Star Ball: 3, ASB: 2</p>
<p>(four, thirty, thirty-eight, forty-seven, forty-eight; Star Ball: three; ASB: two)</p>
<p>Estimated jackpot: $17.23 million</p>
<p>Mega Millions</p>
<p>Estimated jackpot: $306 million</p>
<p>Northstar Cash</p>
<p>08-09-11-12-20</p>
<p>(eight, nine, eleven, twelve, twenty)</p>
<p>Estimated jackpot: $30,000</p>
<p>Powerball</p>
<p>03-09-16-56-60, Powerball: 3, Power Play: 3</p>
<p>(three, nine, sixteen, fifty-six, sixty; Powerball: three; Power Play: three)</p>
<p>Estimated jackpot: $337 million</p>
<p>MINNEAPOLIS (AP) _ These Minnesota lotteries were drawn Wednesday:</p>
<p>Daily 3</p>
<p>2-1-5</p>
<p>(two, one, five)</p>
<p>Gopher 5</p>
<p>17-18-28-30-36</p>
<p>(seventeen, eighteen, twenty-eight, thirty, thirty-six)</p>
<p>Estimated jackpot: $1.03 million</p>
<p>Lotto America</p>
<p>04-30-38-47-48, Star Ball: 3, ASB: 2</p>
<p>(four, thirty, thirty-eight, forty-seven, forty-eight; Star Ball: three; ASB: two)</p>
<p>Estimated jackpot: $17.23 million</p>
<p>Mega Millions</p>
<p>Estimated jackpot: $306 million</p>
<p>Northstar Cash</p>
<p>08-09-11-12-20</p>
<p>(eight, nine, eleven, twelve, twenty)</p>
<p>Estimated jackpot: $30,000</p>
<p>Powerball</p>
<p>03-09-16-56-60, Powerball: 3, Power Play: 3</p>
<p>(three, nine, sixteen, fifty-six, sixty; Powerball: three; Power Play: three)</p>
<p>Estimated jackpot: $337 million</p> | MN Lottery | false | https://apnews.com/amp/83e99ee1a77e485583aec38fbff5a811 | 2017-12-28 | 2 |
<p />
<p>*Updated on Monday to include Amazon corporate holiday figures. The original story was published on 12-22-15.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) did an about face on many levels this year. Not only did the company post two back-to-back quarters of profits, but the e-commerce giant is also shaking up the retail, shipping and entertainment world like never before. Although Amazon declined to discuss its success, FOXBusiness.com highlighted what will likely be an amazing year for the company and its shareholders.</p>
<p>This season was a record breaker for Prime, according to a company update which was released on Monday December 28. More than 3 million new members, globally, joined the service [which offers free shipping among other things], during the third week of December alone. Over 200 million more items shipped for free this season. And more Prime members are using their mobile devices to shop more than doubling this holiday in the U.S.</p>
<p>Shoppers bought a little bit of everything according to Amazon. Best sellers during the season included Simply Orange Juice, Bounty Paper Towels and Haribo Gold-Bears. As for same-day delivery, Kindle Paperwhite, Cards Against Humanity and Fitbit Charge (NYSE:FIT) were the most popular items.</p>
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<p>&#160;</p>
<p>Amazon shares have advanced more than 110% this year after a 22% tumble in 2014. This performance has earned the retail giant a spot as one of the S&amp;P 500's top stocks of 2015 right behind rival Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX). Compare that to the performance of the major market averages which are struggling to break-even.</p>
<p>The so-called smart money is taking notice. In November, Soros Fund Management, the hedge fund run by Billionaire George Soros, disclosed a new stake in Amazon.com with 77,877 shares. Meanwhile Omega Advisors, run by Lee Cooperman, disclosed a 35,800 stake, according to SEC filings.</p>
<p>It's hard to believe that a company with a market value of over $300 billion and a stock price approaching $700 per share is not consistently profitable. However that's the case with Amazon and that has been a bone of contention for some investors over the past few years. That said, the company turned a profit in 2Q and 3Q of 2015. Although the company is expected to post a $0.52 loss for the full year, analysts predict it will earn $1.88 for fiscal 2016.&#160;Revenues are rising nicely at a clip of about 20%+ a quarter. For the year sales are expected to hit a whopping $107 billion.</p>
<p>The world’s largest online retailer, which began selling only books, now sells just about everything. The company has become so influential in the world of retailing it essentially set the tone for the holiday shopping season of 2015 by rolling out deals in early November vs. waiting until Black Friday. Rivals including Walmart (NYSE:WMT) and Target (NYSE:TGT) scrambled to keep up.&#160;An early check of retail sales shows Amazon killed it grabbing 39% of the market compared to many of its rivals, according to data compiled by Slice Intelligence provided to FOXBusiness.com.</p>
<p>As mentioned, Amazon Prime, which offers various delivery options, as well as video streaming, for a flat annual fee of $99+ is going gangbusters. In a recent FOX Business Network interview Marshall Cohen, Chief Industry Analyst at the NPD Group, said “Twenty-four percent of households are utilizing Amazon Prime, with another 30% that are potential for growth opportunity."</p>
<p>Amazon.com ( <a href="" type="internal">AMZN</a>) appears to be building its own air-delivery network, an indication that the e-commerce titan seeks to bypass United Parcel Service ( <a href="" type="internal">UPS</a>) and others that have been bogged down by an onslaught of packages.</p>
<p>In early December, the &#160; <a href="http://www.seattletimes.com/business/amazon/amazon-in-talks-to-lease-20-jets-to-launch-air-cargo-business/" type="external">Seattle Times Opens a New Window.</a> reported that Amazon has begun negotiations to lease 20 Boeing ( <a href="" type="internal">BA</a>) 767 jets. The report adds more fuel to speculation that Amazon, which already runs a same-day shipping service in select cities, will take a bigger role in the delivery of its packages by handling air freight. That could spell trouble for shipping giant FedEx (NYSE:FDX) as well.</p>
<p>Amazon's foray into the content business has been a big hit. Amazon Studios scored an Emmy for its original programming "Transparent" starring Jeffrey Tambor as a transgender mother. The role recently earned him a Golden Globe nomination. Those awards will be announced on January 10, 2016.</p>
<p>On Monday December 28 Amazon said its original historical series, The Man in the High Castle, was the most watched TV season on Prime Video this holiday season.</p>
<p>Amazon's stock ascent has made founder and CEO Jeff Bezos even wealthier. In December he became the world's 4th richest person according to <a href="http://www.forbes.com/billionaires/list/#version:realtime" type="external">Forbes Real Time Ranking.</a> His net worth is nearing a cool $60 billion.</p> | Amazon's Amazing Year Pumped Up By Prime | true | http://foxbusiness.com/2015/12/16/amazon-amazing-year-from-worst-to-first.html | 2016-06-14 | 0 |
<p />
<p>There are many terms used to describe energy stocks these days -- "stable" definitely isn't one of them. Even the higher-quality companies in the industry, the integrated majors, have suffered as the drop in oil and gas prices has tempered expectations and caused an unbridled amount of uncertainty in the sector. Because the integrated model has exposure to the entire oil and gas value chain, though, many of these integrated majors have been able to navigate the energy downturn better than others.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Lucrative returns from integrated oil and gas companies have been well known over the years. Integrated energy companies, such as ExxonMobil , can weather the cyclical forces of the commodities market and still pay handsome dividends. The stability and income features make them a great place to invest over the long term.</p>
<p>Of course, as Fools, we want to buy these companies during weakness in commodity cycles -- which is exactly what we have today. So let's take a hard look at one of the biggest names in the industry to see if an opportunity exists for us Fools.</p>
<p>Global leader in oil and gas E&amp;PAs of year-end 2014, ExxonMobil has a reserve life of 17-plus years. With a reserve base of 92 BOEB, the company has positioned itself for the long term. It continues to exceed reserve replacement of 100%, meaning the company has been able to add to its reserve base. The company has exceeded 100% for 21 straight years, with the current reserve replacement standing at 104%.</p>
<p>Source:ExxonMobil company presentation.</p>
<p>Being a low-cost producer in a commodity business is essential to long-term success. Over the years,ExxonMobil has proved it can operate at a high level as a low-cost producer and still generate excess free cash flow. ExxonMobil's cost per barrel from 2009 to 2013 of $22 is one of the lowest in the industry. Also,ExxonMobil E&amp;D costs are less than $10 BOEB, making the company one of the lowest in the industry.</p>
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<p>Source:ExxonMobil company presentation.</p>
<p>Vertical integration provides stability and durable moatIn addition to ExxonMobil's prowess in the E&amp;P space, the company has a refining capacity of 6.3 million barrels per day. This capacity makes it the largest refiner in the world and allows it to integrate with the lubricant and chemical business. The businesses in the chemical segment of the company, normally less cyclical than E&amp;P segments, are No. 1 or No. 2 in the industry.</p>
<p>Source: ExxonMobil company presentation.</p>
<p>Its vertical integration across the entire supply chain offers customers incredible value. The ability to leverage strategic partnerships with vertical integration and supply chain expertise gives it substantial scale advantages over its competitors. ExxonMobil's return on average capital employed has trounced peers since 2010.</p>
<p>Proven shareholder-friendly and competent management teamManagement has been extremely shareholder-friendly, having returned $15.1 billion to shareholders in the form of dividends and share repurchases in the past year alone. Overall, management has repurchased 14% of the shares outstanding since 2010. Don't' expect this to continue, however, asExxonMobil is tapering buybacks at the moment to buffer liquidity in this low commodity environment. Additionally, management has been able to generate returns on invested capital of over 17% the past five years, proving its ability to allocate capital effectively.</p>
<p>Source: ExxonMobil company presentation.</p>
<p>Management has increased the dividend from $1.74 to $2.88 per share since 2010 and issued dividends to investors for 33 straight years. I expect management to continue to be shareholder-friendly regarding dividends. It's also staying focused in the current depressed environment, reducing capex in 2016 by 25%.</p>
<p>Bottom lineHistorically, investors have flocked to integrated energy companies because they're stable dividend payers. Recent share price volatility has certainly rattled many investors in these names. But I still think that the investment thesis for integrated oil and gas companies holds true. Even with the advent of alternative energy sources, global growth in emerging countries will continue to drive oil and gas demand for years to come.</p>
<p>As one of the most iconic and profitable companies in the world,ExxonMobil has positioned itself to last the test of time (or as long as the world needs fossil fuels). The company benefits tremendously from the vertical integration model and has one of the largest O&amp;G reserve bases in the world. In addition, ExxonMobil's scale of operations allows it to operate as one of the lowest-cost producers in the industry.</p>
<p>Despite the risks in the highly cyclical O&amp;G industry, the market seems to be aware of its relative strength. Case in point:XOM's valuation doesn't look especially appealing in this high-quality business, as it trades at an FCF yield of 4.36% (using a three-year average of FCF, which comes to approximately $15 billion).</p>
<p>All in all, because of the company's size and valuation, shares are unlikely to make you rich at current levels. However, its integrated business model provides stability and a dividend yield of 3.56%. Fossil fuel dependence is unlikely to dissipate overnight, so as long as the company continues to generate excess free cash flow to cover a hearty dividend payout, thenExxonMobil is a buy-and-hold company. My preference, however, is to wait for an even larger margin of safety.</p>
<p>The article <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2016/02/29/is-exxonmobil-a-buy-and-hold-forever-company.aspx" type="external">Is ExxonMobil a Buy-and-Hold-Forever Company? Opens a New Window.</a> originally appeared on Fool.com.</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/LukasNeely/info.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">Luke Neely Opens a New Window.</a> has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of ExxonMobil. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services <a href="http://www.fool.com/shop/newsletters/index.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">free for 30 days Opens a New Window.</a>. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that <a href="http://wiki.fool.com/Motley?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">considering a diverse range of insights Opens a New Window.</a> makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/Legal/fool-disclosure-policy.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>
<p>Copyright 1995 - 2016 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/help/index.htm?display=about02" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p> | Is ExxonMobil a Buy-and-Hold-Forever Company? | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/02/29/is-exxonmobil-buy-and-hold-forever-company.html | 2016-03-27 | 0 |
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<p>FILE - In this Jan. 27, 2015, file photo, House Select Committee on Benghazi Chairman Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., demands answers of witnesses from the State Department and the CIA, as it holds its third public hearing to investigate the 2012 attacks on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, where a violent mob killed four Americans, including Ambassador Christopher Stevens, on Capitol Hill in Washington. Sidney Blumenthal will testify in closed session June 16, 2015, about frequent emails he sent about Libya when Hillary Rodham Clinton served as secretary of state. Blumenthal worked in the White House under President Bill Clinton and is a longtime friend and adviser to the Clinton family. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)</p>
<p>WASHINGTON - The chairman of a House panel investigating the deadly 2012 attacks in Benghazi, Libya, complained Tuesday that his committee should have received emails between Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton and a longtime Clinton confidant long ago.</p>
<p>The confidant, Sidney Blumenthal, testified in a closed session before the House Benghazi committee Tuesday morning about frequent emails on Libya he sent to Clinton when she served as secretary of state. Blumenthal worked in the White House under President Bill Clinton and is a longtime friend and adviser to the Clinton family.</p>
<p>The committee announced Monday night that it had received roughly 60 new emails totaling 120 pages from Blumenthal. The emails are between Clinton and Blumenthal and were not previously produced to the committee or released to the public, a committee spokeswoman said.</p>
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<p>"I will leave it to you to figure out whether there was a failure to produce on the former secretary's part or a failure to produce on the Department of State's behalf," Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., told reporters before the start of Tuesday's hearing. "But clearly the committee should have gotten this information sooner."</p>
<p>Blumenthal's role in sending the near-monthly missives emerged when nearly 350 pages of emails about the 2012 attacks on the U.S. diplomatic post in Benghazi were publicly released last month. The attacks killed four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens.</p>
<p>His testimony comes days after Clinton formally kicked off her presidential campaign on Saturday.</p>
<p>"Given the volume and frankly the details of the correspondence between this witness and former Secretary Clinton, it's important for the committee to probe the depth, breadth and frankly the reliability of that information that he passed on," Gowdy said.</p>
<p>State Department spokesman Alec Gerlach said the department has worked to make public all of the emails received from Clinton.</p>
<p>"We provided the committee with a subset of documents that matched its request and will continue to work with them going forward," Gerlach said in an email. "Secretary (John) Kerry has been clear that the State Department will be both transparent and thorough in its obligations to the public on this matter."</p>
<p>Blumenthal offered a flood of advice and intelligence to his former boss, sending frequent emails about the growing unrest in Libya to the personal email account Clinton continued to use as a government employee. The correspondence, which covered everything from warring Middle Eastern factions to political strategy, was absorbed by Clinton, who often forwarded the messages to aides.</p>
<p>Clinton's earlier efforts to hire Blumenthal, who has spent nearly two decades working for the Clinton family, as a State Department employee were rejected by White House aides. Those aides feared that Blumenthal's role spreading harsh attacks against Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential primaries would cause discomfort within the Obama administration.</p>
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<p>Rep. Lynn Westmoreland, R-Ga., said he and other committee members want to know the depth of Blumenthal's involvement in Libya policy, why he had the information and who gave it to him.</p>
<p>The five Democrats on the Benghazi panel said their Republican colleagues were no longer interested in discovering facts about Benghazi, but merely were trying to prove that Clinton "engaged in some sort of conspiracy" over the attacks.</p>
<p>Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., the senior Democrat on the panel, said Blumenthal's deposition was the latest example of how the committee "has strayed far from investigating the Benghazi attacks and is now focused like a laser on attacking Secretary Clinton in her run for president."</p>
<p>Cummings called it a "travesty" that the committee has spent more than $3.5 million on what he called a "partisan fishing expedition with no end in sight."</p>
<p>Blumenthal was willing to testify yet was served with a subpoena by armed marshals, Cummings said. He called the subpoena, issued by the panel's chairman, Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., "abusive" and difficult to understand.</p>
<p>A federal judge has ordered the State Department to release batches of Clinton's email correspondence from her time as the nation's top diplomat every 30 days starting on June 30.</p> | Clinton confidant to testify before House Benghazi panel | false | https://abqjournal.com/599554/clinton-confidant-to-testify-before-house-benghazi-panel.html | 2 |
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<p />
<p>Image source: Getty Images.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Shares of PIMCO High Income Fund (NYSE: PHK) are down by about 10% as of 11:00 a.m. EST after the closed-end fund slashed its monthly distribution by 22%.</p>
<p>PIMCO High Income Fundhas maintained a sky-high yield primarily by paying out an unsustainable distribution. In its fiscal 2016 year, the fund paid out $149 million in distributions despite earning just $94 million in net investment income, or operating income.</p>
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<p>Investors haven't seemed to care about paying steep prices for a lofty dividend, as the closed-end fund continuously trades at one of the largest premiums to net asset value, or book value. The only problem is that with each distribution, PIMCO High Income Fund's asset base and earnings power erode.</p>
<p>After today's decline, shares are trading at a premium of 36% to net asset value.</p>
<p>PIMCO High Income Fund's latest distribution cut may have better aligned its payouts with recurring earnings, but it may not have been deep enough. Morningstar estimates suggest that the fund is generating about $0.062 per share every month in income, well below its new distribution rate of roughly $0.08 per share each month.</p>
<p>10 stocks we like better than PIMCO High Income Fund When 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=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.fool.com%2Fmms%2Fmark%2Fe-foolcom-sa-bbn-dyn%3Faid%3D8867%26source%3Disaeditxt0010449%26ftm_cam%3Dsa-bbn-evergreen%26ftm_pit%3D6312%26ftm_veh%3Dbbn_article_pitch&amp;impression=0a63bae7-5df0-4e4e-8f68-ca85e6015532&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">10 best stocks Opens a New Window.</a> for investors to buy right now... and PIMCO High Income Fund 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=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.fool.com%2Fmms%2Fmark%2Fe-foolcom-sa-bbn-dyn%3Faid%3D8867%26source%3Disaeditxt0010449%26ftm_cam%3Dsa-bbn-evergreen%26ftm_pit%3D6312%26ftm_veh%3Dbbn_article_pitch&amp;impression=0a63bae7-5df0-4e4e-8f68-ca85e6015532&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&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 January 4, 2017</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFValueMagnet/info.aspx" type="external">Jordan Wathen Opens a New Window.</a> has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. 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;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p> | Why PIMCO High Income Fund Dropped 10% Today | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/02/02/why-pimco-high-income-fund-dropped-10-today.html | 2017-02-02 | 0 |
<p>BERLIN/FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Tens of thousands of German industrial workers downed tools on Tuesday in support of trade union IG Metall's demands for a 6 percent pay rise and a right to the first new cut in weekly working hours since the 1980s.</p> FILE PHOTO: A sign showing the name of German truck maker Daimler is pictured at the IAA truck show in Hanover, September 22, 2016. REUTERS/Fabian Bimmer/File Photo
<p>Workers have been staging such warning strikes since last week, a common tactic in sectoral wage negotiations in Germany. About 33,000 workers took part on Tuesday, including 10,000 at Mercedes maker Daimler AG ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=DAIGn.DE" type="external">DAIGn.DE</a>), taking the total to 425,000 since last week.</p>
<p>With Europe's largest economy steaming ahead and unemployment at a record low, Germany's biggest trade union is confident of winning a significantly better deal for around 3.9 million workers in the metal and engineering sectors.</p>
<p>IG Metall said it would decide next Friday, after the current round of wage talks, whether to escalate the dispute into 24-hour strikes.</p>
<p>"The proposal that the employers have made is far from fair," IG Metall chief Joerg Hofmann told a news conference in Frankfurt. "An offer of a 2 percent wage rise is more like a provocation."</p>
<p>IG Metall is demanding that workers should be able to cut their weekly hours to 28 from 35 if they need to care for children, elderly or sick relatives and get the right to return to work full-time after two years.</p>
<p>The union said it had beefed up its strike war chest by 84 million euros last year thanks to membership dues that rose 2 percent to 561 million euros.</p>
<a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=DAIGn.DE" type="external">Daimler AG</a> 65.12 DAIGn.DE Xetra -0.08 (-0.12%) DAIGn.DE SHA_p.DE SIEGn.DE BMWG.DE OSRn.DE
<p>"We have plenty of staying power," said treasurer Juergen Kerner. "Our strike coffers are well filled."</p>
<p>Flash strikes also took place on Tuesday at Schaeffler ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=SHA_p.DE" type="external">SHA_p.DE</a>), Bosch Rexroth [ROBG.UL], ZF Friedrichshafen [ZFF.UL], Siemens ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=SIEGn.DE" type="external">SIEGn.DE</a>), BMW ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=BMWG.DE" type="external">BMWG.DE</a>) and Osram ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=OSRn.DE" type="external">OSRn.DE</a>).</p>
<p>In the northern state of Lower Saxony, employers' association NiedersachsenMetall said a third round of negotiations had ended on Tuesday without a result.</p>
<p>"We've offered the trade union alternative solutions but unfortunately we're not seeing much movement from the other side yet," said NiedersachsenMetall head Volker Schmidt.</p>
<p>Roman Zitzelsberger, head of IG Metall in the southwestern state of Baden-Wuerttemberg, told striking workers at the gates of Daimler's factory in the town of Sindelfingen, near Stuttgart: "The economy is booming because the employees like those here at Daimler do good work every day."</p>
<p>"So 6 percent is appropriate and we won't be fobbed off with 2 percent."</p>
<p>Employers reject the demands to cut hours unless working time for others could be increased temporarily as well. They argue that workers in Germany's industrial sector already have shorter weeks than their peers in other countries and worry that reducing their hours further would hurt German competitiveness.</p>
<p>Reporting by Michelle Martin in Berlin and Georgina Prodhan in Frankfurt; Writing by Michelle Martin; Editing by Peter Graff</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Inflation will fall in Turkey as soon as interest rates are lowered, President Tayyip Erdogan said on Saturday, ahead of a central bank meeting next week where economists expect the bank to raise rates.</p> FILE PHOTO: Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan waves during a news conference in Bulgaria, March 26, 2018. REUTERS/Stoyan Nenov/File Photo
<p>A self-described "enemy of interest rates", Erdogan has repeatedly called for lowering borrowing costs.</p>
<p>"As soon as we lower interest rates, the presidential system will bring that, inflation will fall," Erdogan said in a live interview with broadcaster NTV.</p>
<p>Erdogan this week called for snap presidential and parliamentary elections on June 24. The executive presidency sought by Erdogan and narrowly endorsed in a referendum last year will go into effect following those elections.</p>
<p>Reporting by Ali Kucukgocmen; Writing by David Dolan; Editing by Gareth Jones</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>LA PAZ (Reuters) - Bolivia will manufacture and market lithium batteries along with German company ACI Systems GmbH, which will invest $1.3 billion in the project, the country's manager of the lithium deposits told the Bolivian state radio on Saturday.</p> FILE PHOTO - Deposits of lithium brine are seen at the lithium pilot plant of Llipi at the Uyuni salt lake in the Potosi Department, Bolivia, November 29, 2017. Picture taken in November 29, 2017. REUTERS/David Mercado
<p>Along with Argentina and Chile, Bolivia is part of South America's so-called "lithium triangle," one of the largest global reservoirs of the key mineral for the production of car batteries.</p>
<p>&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;"The German company ACI Systems has been selected as the strategic partner," Juan Carlos Montenegro, head of state-owned company Bolivian Lithium Deposits, or YLB by its Spanish initials, told Patria Nueva radio.</p>
<p>He said the joint venture deal will be inked as soon as possible so that operations can begin in about 18 months.</p>
<p>&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;Bolivia has almost a quarter of the world's lithium resources.</p>
<p>Reporting by Daniel Ramos; Editing by Chris Reese</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>NEW YORK (Reuters) - The U.S. Commerce Department has granted ZTE Corp's ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=000063.SZ" type="external">000063.SZ</a>) ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=0763.HK" type="external">0763.HK</a>) request to submit more evidence after the agency banned American companies from selling to the Chinese technology firm, a senior Commerce official said on Saturday.</p> FILE PHOTO - Visitors pass in front of the Chinese telecoms equipment group ZTE Corp booth at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, February 26, 2018. REUTERS/Sergio Perez/File Photo
<p>The U.S. Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security, or BIS, this week banned American companies from selling to ZTE for seven years, saying the Chinese company had broken a settlement agreement with repeated false statements. The action was sparked by ZTE's violation of an agreement that was reached after it was caught illegally shipping U.S. goods to Iran.</p>
<p>According to Commerce regulations, there is no appeals process, but the agency has "exercised discretion" to let ZTE present additional evidence through an "informal procedure," the senior official said.</p>
<p>The Wall Street Journal first reported the decision by Commerce to allow more evidence.</p>
<p>ZTE, in a statement on Friday, called the initial decision "unacceptable" and said it could cause damage to both the company and its partners.</p>
<p>It is unclear whether the decision to accept more evidence would provide a chance for resolution between U.S. regulators and the company.</p>
<p>This week's U.S. action, first reported by Reuters, could be devastating to ZTE since American companies are estimated to provide 25 to 30 percent of the components used in ZTE's equipment, which includes networking gear and smartphones.</p>
<a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=000063.SZ" type="external">ZTE Corp</a> 31.31 000063.SZ Shenzhen Stock Exchange -- (--%) 000063.SZ 0763.HK
<p>The ban is the result of ZTE's failure to comply with an agreement with the U.S. government after it pleaded guilty last year in federal court in Texas to conspiring to violate U.S. sanctions by illegally shipping U.S. goods and technology to Iran.</p>
<p>The company paid $890 million in fines and penalties, with an additional penalty of $300 million that could be imposed.</p>
<p>As part of the agreement, Shenzhen-based ZTE promised to dismiss four senior employees and discipline 35 others by either reducing their bonuses or reprimanding them, senior Commerce Department officials told Reuters. But the Chinese company admitted in March that while it had fired the four senior employees, it had not disciplined or reduced bonuses to the 35 others.</p>
<p>Under terms of the ban, U.S. companies cannot export prohibited goods, such as chip sets, directly to ZTE or via another country, beginning immediately.</p>
<p>The U.S. action against ZTE is likely to further exacerbate current tensions between Washington and Beijing over trade. After the United States placed export restrictions on ZTE in 2016 for Iran sanctions violations, China's Ministry of Commerce and Foreign Ministry criticized the decision.</p>
<p>Reporting by Ginger Gibson in Washington and Karen Freifield in New York; Editing by Matthew Lewis</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>LONDON (Reuters) - Canadian gaming company The Stars Group Inc ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=TSGI.TO" type="external">TSGI.TO</a>) said on Saturday it had agreed to buy Sky Betting and Gaming from owners CVC Capital Partners and Sky PLC ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=SKYB.L" type="external">SKYB.L</a>), in a deal worth $4.7 billion.</p>
<p>It had been expected that private equity firm CVC, 80 percent owner of the online betting site Sky Bet, would list the company publicly. In February, Reuters reported that CVC had picked investment banks to lead an initial public offering.</p>
<a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=TSGI.TO" type="external">Stars Group Inc</a> 37.36 TSGI.TO Toronto Stock Exchange +0.74 (+2.02%) TSGI.TO SKYB.L
<p>But on Saturday The Stars Group announced a deal that it said would create the world's largest publicly-listed online gaming firm.</p>
<p>"The acquisition of Sky Betting and Gaming is a landmark moment in The Stars Group's history," its chief executive officer Rafi Ashkenazi said.</p>
<p>The deal comprises $3.6 billion in cash and the rest in newly-issued shares, the Toronto-based group said.</p>
<p>British media company Sky said it would receive around 425 million pounds ($595 million) in cash, as well as shares worth around 145 million pounds, in exchange for its 20 percent stake in Sky Bet.</p>
<p>Reporting by Andy Bruce; Editing by Ros Russell</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> | German strikes spread to Daimler, union mulls escalation Inflation will fall as soon as rates lowered, Turkey's Erdogan says Bolivia to invest in billion-dollar lithium deal with ACI Systems U.S. regulator permits China's ZTE to submit more evidence Canada's Stars Group snaps up Sky Bet for $4.7 billion | false | https://reuters.com/article/us-germany-wages/german-strikes-spread-to-daimler-union-mulls-escalation-idUSKBN1F51OJ | 2018-01-16 | 2 |
<p>KANSAS CITY, Mo. — <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Cole_Hamels/" type="external">Cole Hamels</a> is used to a ton of run support in his <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Texas_Rangers/" type="external">Texas Rangers</a> starts this season.</p>
<p>The Rangers had scored 29 runs in his first three starts since coming off the disabled list. They had averaged 9.29 runs per nine innings in his eight starts.</p>
<p>But one run was sufficient Saturday night.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Shin-Soo-Choo/" type="external">Shin-Soo Choo</a>‘s opposite-field single with one out in the ninth inning scored pinch runner <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Joey-Gallo/" type="external">Joey Gallo</a> and gave the Rangers a 1-0 victory over the <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Kansas-City-Royals/" type="external">Kansas City Royals</a>.</p>
<p>Hamels, who got a no-decision, and Danny Duffy matched up in a pitcher’s duel.</p>
<p>“We were both having really short innings so we were kind of building off that and getting through the game, and all of a sudden, you look up and it is the eighth inning, it is the ninth inning,” Hamels said.</p>
<p>“Duffy is a tremendous pitcher. He was making good pitches, getting good outs, and it was up to me to go out and match him. It was kind of nice to be able to do that.”</p>
<p><a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Jonathan_Lucroy/" type="external">Jonathan Lucroy</a> led off the ninth with a single and Gallo ran for him. Delino DeShields’ sacrifice bunt advanced Gallo to second. Choo, who was mired in a 4-for-33 skid, singled to left on Duffy’s next pitch, getting Gallo home.</p>
<p>“Obviously the run scored on those 130-foot hits, but there could have been so many more base runners,” Duffy said. “I didn’t look back at the two singles in the ninth, but obviously it was pretty weakly hit so I’m guessing that I executed pretty well. On paper those beat us, but our team kept us in the game.”</p>
<p>Duffy (5-6) permitted one run on five hits over 8 1/3 innings. He struck out four and walked none.</p>
<p>The only batter to reach base off Duffy after <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Mike_Napoli/" type="external">Mike Napoli</a>‘s leadoff triple in the second was <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Carlos_Gomez/" type="external">Carlos Gomez</a> twice until the run in the ninth.</p>
<p>Gomez singled in the fifth, but Duffy picked him off. Gomez had a one-out fly ball single to right in the eighth, but was soon erased when Rougned Odor grounded into a double play.</p>
<p>The Rangers asked for a crew chief review on Napoli’s triple that landed high off the right-field fence. After an 88-second review, the call stood.</p>
<p>“I knew the ball hit the rail. We wanted to make sure it didn’t ricochet off a fan, which would have been a home run,” Rangers manager <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Jeff-Banister/" type="external">Jeff Banister</a> said. “We didn’t want to leave a run off the board at that point.”</p>
<p>Hamels was just as good as Duffy. He worked out of a bases-loaded jam in the fourth. The next hit off Hamels was Lorenzo Cain’s two-out single in the sixth.</p>
<p>Hamels was removed after Whit Merrifield’s two-out double in the eighth on his 99th pitch.</p>
<p>Jose Leclerc replaced Hamels and struck out Jorge Bonifacio to end the inning. Hamels extended his scoreless-inning streak to 21 innings, the longest active streak in the American League.</p>
<p>Hamels allowed four hits, one walk and five strikeouts over 7 1/3 innings. Leclerc (2-2) picked up the victory.</p>
<p>“Both pitchers were at their top of their game. Both pitchers were throwing the ball extremely well,” Royals manager <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Ned_Yost/" type="external">Ned Yost</a> said. “Two jam shots. Lucroy hit the ball that kind of dunked into right field and then the bunt. Choo’s ball that he fisted on a changeup and dumped into left.”</p>
<p>After Leclerc walked Lorenzo Cain on four pitches to lead off the ninth, Alex Claudio replaced him. Claudio fell behind in the count 3-0 to <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Eric_Hosmer/" type="external">Eric Hosmer</a> before striking him out and got <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Salvador-Perez/" type="external">Salvador Perez</a> to ground into a game-ending double play.</p>
<p>“This really stinks because Duff pitched so well,” said Hosmer, who went 0-for-4 to end his 16-game hitting streak. “And we just couldn’t get a run for him.”</p>
<p>The Royals (44-45) have lost five straight while the Rangers (45-45) have won five of their last six games. The Rangers have won 12 straight over the Royals dating to last season.</p>
<p>NOTES: Royals RHP Nathan Karns will undergo thoracic outlet syndrome season-ending surgery Wednesday. <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Manager_Ned_Yost/" type="external">Manager Ned Yost</a> is optimistic Karns will be ready to go in spring training. … Rangers RHP Keone Kela threw off the mound Saturday for the first time since going on the disabled list. He went on the disabled list July 3 with shoulder stiffness. … Royals 3B Cheslor Cuthbert will begin a minor league rehab assignment Monday with Triple A-Omaha. He is on the disabled list with a left wrist sprain. … The Rangers sent minor league infielder Yeyson Yrizarri to the White Sox in exchange for international slot compensation. Yrizarri, 20, hit .258 with seven home runs in 82 games with two Class A clubs this season. … RHPs Yu Darvish of the Rangers and <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Ian_Kennedy/" type="external">Ian Kennedy</a> of the Royals are the Sunday probables for the series finale.</p> | Texas Rangers defeat Kansas City Royals on Shin-Soo Choo's RBI single in ninth | false | https://newsline.com/texas-rangers-defeat-kansas-city-royals-on-shin-soo-choo039s-rbi-single-in-ninth/ | 2017-07-16 | 1 |
<p>California state Senators Toni Atkins (D) and Scott Wiener (D) introduced SB 179 Thursday. The bill would add a third "gender" option to state documents such as driver's licenses and birth certificates for those who do not identify as male or female. The bill would also make it easier for one to change state documents to reflect one's current gender identity.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.latimes.com/politics/essential/la-pol-ca-essential-politics-updates-california-democrats-propose-adding-1485465341-htmlstory.html" type="external">The Los Angeles Times</a> reports:</p>
<p>[SB 179] would remove the requirement that an individual obtain a sworn statement from a physician certifying medical treatment for gender transition. It also would create a process for people younger than 18 to apply for a change of gender on their birth certificate.</p>
<p>As LGBTQIA activists praise the development, Senator Wiener proudly stated:</p>
<p>"As the LGBT community — but especially the trans community — is under assault in this country, California needs to go in the opposite direction and embrace the trans community and support the trans community and modernize these laws."</p>
<p>This is a controversial move. In November, a Coloradan was denied a passport because they didn't identify as either gender. According to <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/01/26/california-lawmakers-want-third-gender-option-on-ids.html" type="external">Fox News</a>: "Government lawyers argued that moving beyond two gender choices on federal documents would hamper officials' ability to verify identities and backgrounds because they rely on state documents including drivers' licenses and birth certificates with only male and female gender options."</p>
<p>Setting aside the minuscule portion of the population who have genetic disorders, everyone is either biologically male or female. Every human male, whether or not they take estrogen and are surgically altered to appear female, has XY chromosomes. The opposite applies to human females. Regardless of feelings, DNA dictates that human beings are either male or female. Official documents should reflect that.</p>
<p>As stated above, the federal government relies on the accuracy of driver's licenses, birth certificates, and other state documents for national security purposes. Discrepancies between state documents and passports, for example, could be exploited by individuals with nefarious purposes.</p>
<p>The state Senators who proposed this legislation are following in the footsteps of national Democratic leaders, who would rather placate their constituents in order to get votes than keep them safe. Just as the Democratic Party holds hands with Black Lives Matter, which has driven police officers away from proactive policing, resulting in crime spikes across the country, the California state legislators are placing the accumulation of power above the safety of their constituents.</p> | California Legislators Propose Non-Binary Option on State Documents, Bringing Up National Security Concerns | true | https://dailywire.com/news/12891/california-legislators-propose-non-binary-option-frank-camp | 2017-01-27 | 0 |
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<p>News anchor Liz Wahl just quit her job at the Russia Today (RT). The state-owned television network has often been accused of covering up anything that might cast the Russian government in an unfavorable light.</p>
<p>Wednesday, Wahl explained that as the granddaughter of Hungarian refugees who fled the Soviet Union, she could no longer “be a part of a network that whitewashes the actions of Putin.”</p>
<p>“I am very lucky to have grown up here in the United States,” Wahl said. “I am the daughter of a veteran,my partner is a physician at a military base, where he sees everyday the firsthand accounts of the ultimate prices that people pay for this country.”</p>
<p>More than her comments about America, however, Wahl said that her biggest complaint with the network is their active white-washing of president Vladimir Putin’s actions.</p>
<p>“That is why personally I cannot be part of a network that is funded by the Russian government that whitewashes the actions of Putin. I am proud to be an American and believe in disseminating the truth. And that is why after this newscast I am resigning,” Wahl concluded.</p>
<p>Watch the video of Wahl quitting on the air below.</p>
<p>(M.B. David; image via Russia Today)</p> | RT Anchor Quits On The Air, Says She Can’t ‘Whitewash’ Putin For State Media | true | http://politicalblindspot.com/rt-anchor-quits-on-the-air-says-she-cant-whitewash-putin-for-state-media/ | 2014-03-05 | 4 |
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<p>ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. - An Albuquerque father charged with two felonies for taking his daughter against a court order last weekend bonded out of jail on Monday.</p>
<p>But police still haven't found the child, And they are continuing to work with other law enforcement agencies to try get her back to her mother, who has custody, said officer Tanner Tixier, a police spokesman.</p>
<p>Abelino Lopez, 50, was charged Saturday with felony child abuse and custodial interference, according to a state court website. He allegedly violated a court order and took his child, Arianna Lopez, who is six or seven, over the weekend.</p>
<p>Lopez was booked into jail Sunday and was released Monday after posting a portion of his $20,000 bail, according to jail records.</p>
<p>Tixier said Lopez has family in Roswell and Bakersfield, Calif., and detectives are checking with authorities in those cities to see if Arianna is there.</p>
<p>KOB-TV has reported that Abelino Lopez told them that Arianna is with his relatives in California.</p>
<p>Tixier said Abelino Lopez hasn't talked to police and they can't confirm if that is accurate.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | Father out of jail, but daughter still missing | false | https://abqjournal.com/584109/father-out-of-jail-but-daughter-still-missing.html | 2 |
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<p>(Screenshot via YouTube.)</p>
<p>“Orphan Black” star Jordan Gavaris has come out as gay.</p>
<p>In an interview with <a href="http://www.vulture.com/2017/06/jordan-gavaris-explains-it-all.html" type="external">Vulture</a>, Gavaris, who plays Sarah’s gay brother Felix in the sci-fi series, explained he had never publicly come out because no one had asked.</p>
<p>“I guess that’s where I’m at in terms of coming out publicly: I had this position when I started on the show that it shouldn’t matter. And I believe that. I hope that one day, the world gets to a place where you don’t need to politicize your sexuality any more than someone needs to politicize their race — that we can just act and we can exist in this Zeitgeist, telling stories about one another. And that no one’s afraid, maybe, to come out,” Gavaris continued.</p>
<p>The 27-year-old explained he felt awkward coming out to his parents at 19 because it was a confession that he wanted to be sexual.</p>
<p>“At 19 I thought it was gross. I was like, ‘Oh my god, this is gross. I have to tell them this thing and now they’re going to know that I’m interested in these guys and I want to date these guys and I want to sleep with these guys. This is so weird. Now they know I’m sexually active,'” Gavaris says.</p>
<p>Gavaris went on that he understands being gay will cost him acting parts but he says that other roles will open up for him.</p>
<p>“This is a tricky thing to say and I’ve never actually said it out loud before, but I do believe that jobs will be lost and I do believe jobs will be gained. Maybe not even for the right reasons. There’s been a lot of conversation in the industry about hiring openly gay actors for gay parts, and I think that’s really important. But frankly, I’m not interested in doing any kind of work where I couldn’t bring myself in totality to the character,” Gavaris says.</p>
<p>“Orphan Black” airs its final season on Saturdays at 10 p.m. on BBC America.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Jordan Gavaris</a> <a href="" type="internal">Orphan Black</a> <a href="" type="internal">Vulture</a></p> | ‘Orphan Black’ star Jordan Gavaris comes out as gay | false | http://washingtonblade.com/2017/06/15/orphan-black-star-jordan-gavaris-comes-gay/ | 3 |
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<p>AUSTIN, Texas (AP) _ The winning numbers in Friday morning's drawing of the Texas Lottery's "Pick 3 Morning" game were:</p>
<p>4-3-9, Sum It Up: 16</p>
<p>(four, three, nine; Sum It Up: sixteen)</p>
<p>AUSTIN, Texas (AP) _ The winning numbers in Friday morning's drawing of the Texas Lottery's "Pick 3 Morning" game were:</p>
<p>4-3-9, Sum It Up: 16</p>
<p>(four, three, nine; Sum It Up: sixteen)</p> | Winning numbers drawn in 'Pick 3 Morning' game | false | https://apnews.com/amp/64f7932a986a41d981f48fa12ab4bcd1 | 2018-01-05 | 2 |
<p />
<p />
<p />
<p>On Sunday, John Oliver focused his attention on <a href="" type="internal">Puerto Rico’s paralyzing debt crisis</a>and the fast-approaching May 1 deadline looming over the island to repay $72 billion—an amount the island’s governor announced last June could not be repaid and was therefore crippling Puerto Rico’s economy. The ongoing crisis has affected many of Puerto Rico’s 3.5 million people and shut down schools across the island, while members of <a href="" type="internal">Wall Street</a> have profited along the way.</p>
<p>In recent months, a growing number of politicians, including Sen. Elizabeth Warren, have called on the US government to provide economic relief and the opportunity for Puerto Rico to restructure its debt. One of the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/28/opinion/lin-manuel-miranda-give-puerto-rico-its-chance-to-thrive.html?_r=1" type="external">most outspoken defenders of Puerto Rico</a> has been Lin-Manuel Miranda, the creator and star of the Broadway musical “Hamilton.” On Sunday, the newly-minted Pulitzer Prize winner appeared on Last Week Tonight to continue his plea for help, this time with a new rap song in hopes that members of Congress will rescue the island. It’s a brilliant performance, so be sure to watch above.</p>
<p /> | Lin-Manuel Miranda Raps a Powerful Plea to Save Puerto Rico From Its Debt Crisis | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2016/04/lin-manuel-miranda-puerto-rico-john-oliver-hbo/ | 2016-04-25 | 4 |
<p>The media and sports radio establishment of Boston are calling for the head of All-World baseball player Barry Bonds.</p>
<p>In an interview with the Boston Globe, Bonds was asked a cream puff question about whether he would consider finishing his career in Beantown. Bonds shook his head and said, “Boston is too racist for me. I couldn’t play there. That’s been going on ever since my dad (Bobby) was playing baseball. I can’t play like that. That’s not for me, brother.” When the reporter countered that the racial climate has changed in Boston, Bonds responded, “It ain’t changing. It ain’t changing nowhere.”</p>
<p>Boston is a city that treasures its image as a liberal enclave of elite universities and tweedy baseball poets so Bonds’s words have gone over like a 4th of July Picnic in Fallujah. He has been roundly criticized including winning the “Just Shut Up” award from ESPN radio. By calling on Bonds to “just shut up” the media is just doing what pitchers have been perfecting all season: avoiding confrontation with the six-time MVP. To be clear, it is not like Boston has cornered the market on bigotry. Every city has its stories of both racism and resistance. Yet Boston’s history is particularly nasty. The most violent anti-busing demonstrations in America were not in Birmingham or Biloxi but Boston. In 1989, when Charles Stuart, a wealthy white businessman murdered his pregnant wife, he told police that a “Black guy” did it. The police believed him without a whisper of doubt. They launched a vicious manhunt, fanning out through housing projects and sweeping the streets. State politicians whipped up a further frenzy by calling for reinstatement of the death penalty. When Stuart committed suicide after his brother blew the whistle, all police spokeswoman Margot Hill could say without shame was, “(Stuart) took advantage of the environment he was in. He knew exactly what he was doing.” It is precisely what Ms. Hill calls “the environment” that has found expression in the world of sports. The Boston Red Sox were the last team in major league baseball to integrate. They waited so long to sign African-Americans, that the hockey team, the Bruins, actually beat them to it. The Sox removed their color line in 1959 twelve years after Jackie Robinson broke through with the Brooklyn Dodgers. They begrudgingly brought marginal infielder Pumpsie Green up from the minors. But it didn’t have to be Pumpsie.</p>
<p>In April 1945 the Red Sox held a private tryout at Fenway Park for Robinson himself. With only management in the stands, someone yelled “Get those niggers off the field,” and the door was shut. In 1949, the Red Sox laughed off the chance to sign Bonds’s godfather, the legendary Willie Mays, who would go on to hit more career home runs than all but one man before him and awe crowds with his speed and defense. As Juan Williams reports, “One of the team’s scouts decided that it wasn’t worth waiting through a stretch of rainy weather to scout the black player.” That decision killed the possibility that Mays and Ted Williams might have played in the same outfield.</p>
<p>In the 1950s, as teams immeasurably strengthened themselves by signing players like Mays, Henry Aaron, Ernie Banks, Don Newcombe, Roy Campanella, Elston Howard, and others, the Red Sox stood pat with an all white hand. (The next time you hear a Boston fan complain about “The Curse of the Bambino”, correct them that their “Curse of the Racism” has had a much more adverse effect.)</p>
<p>As the Civil Rights Movement blossomed, New England’s Black baseball fans would root for integrated clubs over their own home team. In other words, they practiced their own form of ABB – Anybody but Boston.</p>
<p>Therefore unlike other cities, such as New York and Chicago, where rooting for an integrated team actually helped advance people’s consciousness and challenge racist ideas, the Red Sox were proudly planting themselves on the wrong side of history. In the 1950s, if you were young and black, Fenway park was about as safe a space as Bull Connor’s back yard.</p>
<p>But the racism in the Boston sports scene didn’t stop at the Green Monster. During the 1950s and 1960s Boston was treated to the most successful run in the history of team sports with the NBA’s Celtics winning 11 championships in 13 seasons. The mainstay of that team was a player of immense skill, unselfishness, and leadership: Bill Russell. Russell won five MVPs to go with his 11 rings. In 1967 he became the first African American coach of a pro team. In 1974 he was elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame, and in 1980 the country’s basketball sports writers voted him “The Greatest Player in the History of the NBA.”</p>
<p>Russell also felt a deep desire to resist racism. Once in Marion, Indiana, he had been given the key to the city only to be refused service that evening in his hotel’s dining room. Russell went to the mayor’s home, woke him up, and returned the key.</p>
<p>His fierce pride (which the media called “a bad attitude”) mixed about as well with Boston fans as a John Ashcroft sing along at the Apollo Theater. The result was that the greatest player in Boston team sports history was the target of a constant campaign of racial harassment. When Russell tried to move from his home in the Boston suburb of Reading to a new home across town, neighbors filed a petition trying to block the move. When that failed, other neighbors banded together to try to purchase the home that Russell wanted to buy, said Tom Heinsohn, a close friend of Russell’s who played with him from 1956 to 1964. Once, vandals broke into Russell’s home and defecated on his bed. Heinsohn said two white sportswriters from Boston told him they wouldn’t vote Russell the league’s most valuable player because he was Black.</p>
<p>Russell’s achievements during his days in Boston, from 1956 to 1969, drew national acclaim but never won locals fans’ hearts the way later Boston sports heroes did, from hockey player Bobby Orr to baseball player Carl Yastrzemski to basketball player Larry Bird. Despite all the rings, the Boston Garden averaged 8,406 fans during Russell’s playing career, thousands short of a sellout. “We always sold out on the road, but rarely when we played at home,” said Satch Sanders, who played with the Celtics from 1960 to 1973. By contrast, the Celtics teams led by Larry Bird in the 1980s sold out the 14,890-seat Garden for 662 straight games, from 1980 to 1995. “I didn’t play for Boston,” he once said, “I played for the Celtics.” Another time he called Boston a “Flea Market of Racism.”</p>
<p>Despite this mountain of evidence, Bonds is being told to “shut up.” The few Boston writers, who to their credit have chosen to actually engage with what Bonds is saying, like the Globe’s Bob Ryan have argued that “there may be a bad history, but it has gotten much better.” Has it? Last fall, WEEI Boston Sports Radio host John Dennis, after looking at a photo of a gorilla that had escaped from the Franklin Park Zoo and lurked near a bus stop, said the animal was “probably a Metco gorilla waiting for a bus to take him to Lexington.” Dennis was referencing the Metco program, under which more than 8,000 children of color from Boston and Springfield have attended suburban schools over the past 37 years. Despite an outcry, he was neither fired nor disciplined.</p>
<p>And to think, Bonds dares say out loud that the Boston sports scene is racist. No wonder ESPN wants him to “shut up.” I guess the truth hurts.</p>
<p>DAVE ZIRIN can be reached at <a href="mailto:[email protected]." type="external">[email protected].</a> His sports writing can be read at <a href="http://www.edgeofsports.com/" type="external">edgeofsports.com</a>.</p> | "A Flea Market of Racism" | true | https://counterpunch.org/2004/06/23/quot-a-flea-market-of-racism-quot/ | 2004-06-23 | 4 |
<p>Last Friday Joaquin Luna put on a white shirt and black tie—the same ones he wore every Sunday at the church he attended. The eighteen-year-old high school senior then kissed family members, went into the bathroom of his mother’s house in south Texas, and shot and killed himself.</p>
<p>According to his family, Joaquin was suffering from emotional and psychological distress related to his unauthorized immigrant status. Since the age of six months, when his family crossed the U.S.-Mexico boundary and settled in Mission, Texas, 40 miles north of Ciudad Miguel Alemán, just on the Mexican side of the international divide, Joaquin had lived in the United States as an “illegal.” He had become increasingly anxious as his graduation approached, and limited life prospects, given his unauthorized status, became apparent.</p>
<p>Before taking his life, Joaquin penned a note, one which The Guardian of London reported “spoke of his desperation at what he felt to be the wall blocking out his <a href="" type="internal" /> future and preventing him from attaining his dreams. . . . A wall reserved for undocumented immigrants in America.”</p>
<p>His despair became especially apparent in the wake of the U.S. Senate’s failure to pass the DREAM ACT. Had five Democratic senators who opposed the legislation voted differently, and had the Obama White House made the necessary efforts to bring about such a reversal, unauthorized residents who came to the United States as children and complete a bachelor’s degree or two years in the military would be eligible for a “path to citizenship.” The bill’s defeat in Dec. 2010 has blocked such a path, at least for the time being.</p>
<p>Still, “DREAMers”—activist students who are unauthorized immigrants—continue to organize, often taking courageous actions in the process. These range from publicly “outing” themselves to engaging in civil disobedience in recalcitrant legislators’ offices and presenting themselves as “illegals” to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials. Joaquin’s suicide, says his family, was motivated by his desire to further this struggle. It is one made increasingly necessary in a politically brutal climate marked by record-breaking numbers of deportations and detentions of non-citizens, and an ever-growing immigrant policing apparatus in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands and beyond.</p>
<p>What and who is responsible of any particular death is a complicated matter. As Angus Wright illustrates in his brilliant book, <a href="" type="internal">The Death of Ramón González: The Modern Agricultural Dilemma</a>, one’s quality of life and timing of death in a world of profound and myriad forms of inequality is inextricably linked to processes and relationships tied to geography, history, and their attendant social injustices.</p>
<p>Racism, sexism, and imperialism—among other unjust systems predicated on domination and subjugation—lead to premature death for countless disadvantaged individuals across the globe, while often causing profound psychological and emotional damage. So, too, does the “Juan Crow” system that denies “illegal” immigrants in the United States many basic rights and protections regardless of if they arrived as children or how long they have been present in the country.</p>
<p>It is this system—and those that uphold it—that killed Joaquin Luna. May he rest in peace.</p>
<p>Joseph Nevins teaches geography at Vassar College. He is the author of <a href="" type="internal">Dying to Live: A Story of U.S. Immigration in an Age of Global Apartheid</a>&#160;(City Lights Books, 2008) and&#160; <a href="" type="internal">Operation Gatekeeper and Beyond: The War on “Illegals” and the Remaking of the U.S.-Mexico Boundary</a>&#160;(Routledge, 2010).</p> | Who Killed Joaquin Luna? | true | https://counterpunch.org/2011/12/01/who-killed-joaquin-luna/ | 2011-12-01 | 4 |
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<p>The Apple <a href="" type="internal">iPhone</a> 5 is to soon be put into production and a range of prototypes with larger four-inch screens have been spotted, according to a Foxconn worker.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Speaking to Apple blog 9to5mac.com, the unnamed but "reliable" source has stated that Apple is returning to its usual June/July release date for the next iPhone, despite the 4S only appearing in October.</p>
<p>"We received word from a reliable source at Foxconn in <a href="" type="internal">China</a> that the iPhone 5, as it is currently being called, is now gearing for production," 9to5mac said. "The source said various devise are also floating around (they vary slightly from one another), so it is impossible to tell which one will be the final."</p>
<p>The source at Foxconn - which is responsible for the production of the iPhone and <a href="" type="internal">iPad</a> ranges - claims that the prototypes all feature a screen size of at least four inches, up from the 3.5-inch of the iPhone 4S.</p>
<p>Also, it is claimed that the iPhone 5 prototypes do not have a teardrop-shaped design, but they all differ aesthetically from the current iPhone 4S.</p>
<p>If Apple is gearing up for production of a new iPhone already, then the device will be available in the summer; the iPhone 4S was at a similar development stage in the late spring of 2011 and was released around five months later.</p>
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<p>Following a similar time scale would see the iPhone 5 - which would technically be the sixth iPhone model - released around June, five months from now.</p>
<p>The International Business Times UK is doubtful that the next iPhone is already so close to production, but 9to5mac claims that its Foxconn source is reliable and correctly announced in the summer of 2011 that Apple was developing an iPhone 4S and not a 5 - this turned out to be true.</p>
<p>Does the iPhone need a bigger screen, and will you be annoyed if Apple releases a new smartphone just eight months after the last one? Answer in the comments below.</p> | Foxconn Worker States Summer Release for iPhone 5 | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2012/01/26/foxconn-worker-states-summer-release-for-iphone-5.html | 2016-03-03 | 0 |
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<p>Rio Rancho-based veterans assistance organization Heroes Walk Among Us (HWAU) partnered with Danlar Towing of Albuquerque to get a Raton veteran and his wife into better housing recently.</p>
<p>A Vietnam Army veteran and his wife were living in a leaky, substandard, 6-by-8-foot pull trailer, and contacted HWAU founder Shane D'Onofrio for help after learning of the group's Wheels4Vets program.</p>
<p>HWAU has a Craig's List ad that invites people to donate old recreational vehicles.</p>
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<p>Heroes Walk Among Us will pick up the RVs, refurbish them and use them to house veterans in need.</p>
<p>The group received a 34-foot Itasca motor home in good condition, except that the brakes didn't work and the parts needed to fix them were no longer being made, D'Onofrio said. So, the RV would have to be towed to Raton.</p>
<p>D'Onofrio said he called a dozen Albuquerque-area towing companies to ask for help, but was met with refusals.</p>
<p>Then he called Danlar, and General Manager Chris Chavez agreed to help immediately.</p>
<p>"It kind of blew my mind," D'Onofrio said of Chavez's willingness.</p>
<p>Danlar employee Rex Thurman, a 21-year-old Army veteran, ended up driving the tow truck.</p>
<p>"Knowing I was a veteran, Chris came to me to see if I would be interested in doing the job," said Thurman. "I immediately accepted."</p>
<p>Thurman delivered the RV on Oct. 2.</p>
<p>"The approximate 450-mile roundtrip task encompassed the entire day and, coincidently, the 34-foot motor home was delivered to an Army infantry veteran by another," a news release said.</p> | Heroes, towing company partner to deliver RV to vet | false | https://abqjournal.com/280509/heroes-towing-company-partner-to-deliver-rv-to-vet.html | 2013-10-13 | 2 |
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<p>Periodization of the various versions of capitalism is tough academic work, and what follows is not meant to diminish the importance of those kinds of projects.</p>
<p>However, this essay argues that when we focus our energies on the specific adaptations of capitalism we can develop a tendency to miss the forest for the trees. That is, when we focus on what is unique about specific periods of capitalism, we can overlook what has remained constant throughout the various periods of capitalism—what makes capitalism, capitalism. We should instead, I suggest, focus on both the forest and the trees in order to develop and take advantage of the specific contradictions and resources produced during a specific period that can be utilized for radical change—radical change aimed at moving us beyond the current system entirely.</p>
<p>In “ <a href="" type="internal">The Rise of the Servant Society</a>,” Michael J. Thompson’s otherwise impressive and original piece published in the Winter 2016 issue of New Politics, he argues that whatever we want to call this most recent period of capitalism, it is one characterized by the predominance of the servant. By this Thompson means two things: First, “that new forms of labor in advanced post-industrial society, as well as new pressures for consumption, are leading to new forms of service labor that are increasingly directed by and toward the needs of the wealthy. Second, and as a consequence of the new pressures for consumption, a new kind of culture and consciousness is emerging that is increasingly docile in political terms” (27). He then asserts that it is “the legitimacy of the basis of the system” that is unique to the contemporary period (27). Thompson concludes by criticizing the post-work perspective of some recent left scholarship, instead suggesting that a redemocratized conception of labor and wealth is a more realistic response to the peculiarity of the servant society.</p>
<p>Theorizing the Capitalistic Mentality</p>
<p>While I will not argue that Thompson’s claim about the emergence of the servant society and the servant mentality is an inaccurate characterization of the current state of affairs, I do want to show that the servant mentality is actually an evolution of a deeper, more fundamental capitalistic mentality that transcends the various periods of capitalism and is itself rooted in the capitalist mode of production. This mentality—representing the generalizable psycho-social characteristics that correspond to a particular social system, in this case capitalism—has a number of characteristics, including alienation, predominance of the profit-motive and the drive for accumulation, commodity fetishism including the commodification of persons (through labor and otherwise), possessiveness, the pervasive inability to see exploitative wage labor as anything other than freely contracted employment (the identification of exploitation with freedom), the increasing identification of quality with quantity, and the corollary dominance of an instrumentalized rationality at the expense of critical self-reflection and social criticism. Most destructive though is the normalization of hypercompetitiveness (and the resultant castigation of genuine cooperation and solidarity). All of the elements of the capitalistic mentality, of which there are probably others I have not listed here, are tied to the hyperindividualization of the capitalist subject.</p>
<p>These are aspects of capitalist society that mostly were initially theorized by Marx himself in the nineteenth century, mostly in his Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, but many are maintained up through Capital: Volume 1. They were expanded upon by Western Marxists and the Frankfurt School thinkers in the early and mid-twentieth century.</p>
<p>Capitalism has always included these psycho-social elements because they are not only produced by this particular mode of production, but have been exacerbated by the ruling classes to maintain this system. Competitive labor markets and mass production technologies alienate workers from their potentially creative labor and their fellow workers. Workers begin to perceive themselves and their labor (the central component of their species-being or human nature) as commodities to be bought and sold. Humanity is dehumanized through the process of the commodification of life experience. Eventually the goal of “success” becomes identical to accumulating things and wealth, not humane experiences of creativity, spontaneity, and cooperative solidarity.</p>
<p>What is new about the kind of consumption that Thompson describes? Thompson presents little evidence for the idea that things have significantly changed in recent years. As described in works from Marx to Thorstein Veblen’s The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899) up through the first-generation Frankfurt School, it seems that this pressure for consumption has been present since the early development and spread of capitalism and has increased fairly consistently over the past two centuries. The pressures seem to be qualitatively similar across time, though varying in intensity. Furthermore, what is new about labor being directed by and toward the needs of the wealthy? Thompson tells us what is new about the form, but he doesn’t connect it to what is old about this process. It is this short-shrifting of what has not changed within the period of post-industrial capitalism that causes Thompson to miss the forest for the trees in both his diagnosis of the servant society and, more problematically, the left politics appropriate to countering it.</p>
<p>Thompson argues that the rise of the servant society coincides with a new form of social power founded on the idea of “oligarchic wealth” (29). Oligarchic wealth is a social power “that grants individuals power over the labor of others and the power to control and direct that labor toward their own ends and interests. But it is also a kind of wealth that allows elites to use resources that could otherwise be employed for common goods” (29). He argues that a shift toward a democratic concept of wealth (“democratic wealth”) is the inverse of this emergent oligarchic social power and would deploy resources toward common purposes and projects. Again, I want to ask, how is this oligarchic conception of wealth new? This seems to be the kind of social power that has been present since capitalism became the dominant socio-economic system of the world. Capitalism has always—perhaps with a few exceptions like the emergence of the social welfare state in the West after World War II—guided labor and resources toward the goals and interests of the wealthy.</p>
<p>Thompson concludes by arguing, “The material agent of social change is therefore not made through the nature of work, but through the nature of demands. Without a shattering of the basic alienation that constitutes what I have called here the culture and mentality of the servant society, no viable radical political agency can be restored to working people” (32).</p>
<p>While he is certainly right to emphasize demands as well as the nature of work, it seems theoretically unclear why demands matter to the exclusion of the nature of work. Both seem to matter. Additionally, there is a third, broader dimension I would add to these two foundations of a potentially radical consciousness, and that is the nature of how people spend their time when they aren’t working (including “free-time” and the quality and quantity of time spent consuming),1 which would allow for the wider inclusion of the psychological problems produced by a consumeristic capitalist society. Thompson is simply thinking too small when he situates the potential for radical change in the shattering of the servant society; we need a broader, deeper shattering—a shattering of capitalism itself.</p>
<p>Reclaiming a Truly Radical Realism</p>
<p>Despite my agreement with Thompson’s thesis that it is absolutely crucial to get society to think in terms of democratic wealth instead of individual or private wealth, his narrow focus on the servant society undermines precisely that possibility. Based on the deeper conception of the capitalistic mentality presented above, it is capitalism itself that fundamentally interferes with the capacity of most people for thinking in terms of democratic wealth as opposed to private wealth. This is not a particular feature of neoliberalism nor of the servant society, though these problems are certainly becoming more severe in recent years. My argument for this can again be traced back to arguments made by Frankfurt School thinkers, like Erich Fromm, but also more recently in the superb work of the late Ellen Meiksins Wood.2 Capitalism is an inherently undemocratic process. This is quite obvious and not something that I think Thompson would necessarily disagree with. What is undertheorized in his argument, though, is how the undemocratic nature of capitalism produces an undemocratic capitalistic mentality that, until superseded, will undermine the popular emergence of a new way of thinking connected to his idea of democratic wealth.</p>
<p>If I do not see my fellow citizens or residents as inherently worthy of a considerable basic share of the social product to begin with, why would I be able to simply switch from my private conception of wealth to a more democratic one? Such a shift would require a radical change in the heart of humanity, to use an updated version of Fromm’s older phraseology.3 Such a shift on a mass societal scale is not only inconsistent with the servant society, but it is more fundamentally inconsistent with the capitalistic mentality and the capitalist mode of production more broadly.</p>
<p>While Thompson may find the grand theorizing associated with post-work imaginings misguided and unhelpful, he is empirically off-base to eschew them as summarily as he does. These imaginaries are absolutely crucial given the massive increase in automation of recent years (which is only likely to increase into the future). He mentions Uber in his article as a prime example of the servant society, but is Uber really fundamentally different from taxi services, which have existed in various forms for a century? Plus, Google and Uber have both made substantial progress on self-driving vehicles that would make the labor of a driver in any context, including trucking, completely obsolete. Labor is increasingly menial and precarious, largely due to automation. Recent studies have suggested that 40 percent of all jobs are either already susceptible to automation (partial or full) or will be by 2050.4 New jobs will be created of course, but even if unemployment were only to increase by half or a quarter of that 40 percent, society will still more rapidly descend into what Rosa Luxemburg would surely recognize as “barbarism”—so long as one’s ability to live an even somewhat comfortable life remains tied to one’s labor, whether industrial, service/servant, or intellectual.5</p>
<p>Thompson does not, however, focus his analysis and critique of the servant society through to the foundational traits of capitalism, but instead focuses on the massive inequality it (re)produces and on which this new era of capitalism is based. However, the concept of the capitalistic mentality challenges us to ask what kind of consciousness, culture, or social psychology allowed this (acceptance of) massive inequality to emerge in the first place?</p>
<p>The capitalistic mentality provides a rather clear answer: The same kind of capitalistic thinking that allows for exploitation to become justified and normalized—becoming identified with freedom itself—is the root of the justification and normalization of the massive amounts of inequality and eventually the servant economy itself. If capitalistic societies have largely accepted exploitation, why should we be at all surprised that they would also accept massive amounts of inequality and atomized, app-based servitude?</p>
<p>In order to adequately resist the most pernicious aspects and consequences of the servant society, which should be understood as the manifestation of more fundamental dimensions of capitalism, we must oppose and resist capitalism in toto. This does not require that we abandon reformism, but rather it demands that we radicalize reformism so that it is aimed at these core aspects of capitalist society, not just the most recent manifestations. While pursuing reforms, if they are to have a real chance at success, we must never lose sight of the larger enemy—capitalism itself.</p>
<p>The Crucial Importance&#160;of Social Psychology</p>
<p>In fairness to Thompson, I want to reiterate the real value of his piece for New Politics last year. Thompson reminds us of the crucial importance of examining the intersection of base and superstructure, where social psychology, and indeed consciousness itself, are (re)produced. Psychology is the mechanism by which capitalism becomes embedded in—and actually creates—who we are as people. Unless we resist both the psychological manifestations of capitalism and its material conditions, including those specific to the current period of capitalism, it is highly unlikely that any reforms that do occur will make substantial progress toward an emancipated, democratic, socialist society. Thompson’s essay, and his oeuvre more broadly, should be applauded for taking seriously the importance of consciousness and culture as they relate to the economic system—even if I disagree with the narrowness with which he approaches these concerns in “The Rise of the Servant Society.”&#160;</p>
<p><a href="/filter/tips" type="external">More information about formatting options</a></p> | The Capitalistic Mentality and the Politics of Radical Reform | true | http://newpol.org/content/capitalistic-mentality-and-politics-radical-reform | 4 |
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<p>A solid rebound in the home improvement market is lifting results for both of the industry's biggest players right now. In addition, Home Depot (NYSE: HD) and Lowe's (NYSE: LOW) each project that these economic conditions will power years of strong sales and profit growth ahead.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Yet Home Depot has its smaller rival beat in many of the key metrics that investors care most about.</p>
<p>Home Depot snatched <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/2016/08/16/record-earnings-for-home-depot-inc-as-profitabilit.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">more than its fair share of the growing housing market Opens a New Window.</a>last quarter. Comparable-store sales improved by 5%, outpacing Lowe's 2% boost. This isn't just a short-term performance gap, either. Home Depot's comps were 7% last year, compared to 5% for Lowe's.</p>
<p><a href="http://ycharts.com/companies/HD/revenues_ttm" type="external">HD Revenue (TTM)</a> data by <a href="http://ycharts.com" type="external">YCharts Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>
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<p>That success helps explain how Home Depot's total revenue growth is beating Lowe's over the last five years -- even though its store count isn't expanding nearly as quickly. The retailer is earning higher revenue the hard way: through increased customer traffic and higher average spending at its existing locations.</p>
<p>Both companies' earnings are trending solidly higher. Net income at Lowe's is up 14% over the past six months, while Home Depot's is up 11%. Zoom out, though, and you'll see that there's no contest between profitability at these two retailers. Since the housing market recovery began, Home Depot has more than doubled its net margin to 8% of sales, while Lowe's remains below 5%.</p>
<p><a href="http://ycharts.com/companies/LOW/profit_margin_ttm" type="external">LOW Profit Margin (TTM)</a> data by <a href="http://ycharts.com" type="external">YCharts</a>.</p>
<p>Home Depot's management is much more efficient with its cash allocation. Return on invested capital, at 26%, is twice Lowe's figure. Meanwhile, CEO Craig Menear and his executive team project that ROIC will hit 35% by fiscal 2018 -- right around the time that Home Depot is expected to cross $100 billion in annual sales.</p>
<p><a href="http://ycharts.com/companies/LOW/cash_operations_ttm" type="external">LOW Cash from Operations (TTM)</a> data by <a href="http://ycharts.com" type="external">YCharts</a>.</p>
<p>Cash flow is a closer call between these giants, yet Home Depot still comes out ahead. The company is producing close to $10 billion of free cash a year, up 53% since 2011, while Lowe's comparable metric has improved by 41% to reach $5.5 billion.</p>
<p>Income investors might prefer a Home Depot investment, thanks to the retailer's heftier dividend commitment. Management targets returning 50% of earnings each year to shareholders through quarterly dividends, while Lowe's promises just 35%.</p>
<p><a href="http://ycharts.com/companies/LOW/dividend" type="external">LOW Dividend</a> data by <a href="http://ycharts.com" type="external">YCharts</a>.</p>
<p>There's a drawback to that heftier payout, though. Home Depot had to forego several annual dividend increases during the worst of the housing market crisis, while Lowe's pushed its dividend slightly higher. Still, the housing giant remains a dividend powerhouse, even if it can't claim an unbroken streak of payout raises like Lowe's can.</p>
<p>Both companies are bullish on their prospects over the next few years. Lowe's told investors recently that a "favorable macroeconomic backdrop" should power strong sales and profit gains in the coming quarters. The company expects to manage 4% comps for the full year, just as they initially projected back in February.</p>
<p>Home Depot provided more detail on its thinking in a recent investor presentation that showed that spending on home improvement -- while up sharply since 2010 -- is still far below its long-term average. Other key metrics, including higher household formation, an aging stock of housing, and rising home prices, all currently point in the same direction, toward more growth in the industry.</p>
<p>As a result, Home Depot not only believes it will log another year of 5% comps and double-digit earnings growth in 2016, but it also sees a fundamentally stronger business forming over the next few years. Expansion <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2016/03/15/5-must-see-slides-from-home-depot-incs-investor-pr.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">deeper into the professional contractor and maintenance and repair segments Opens a New Window.</a> should help. And so will Home Depot's market-thumping e-commerce gains. The online business grew 19% last quarter to 6% of sales. Those numbers should improve further as it rolls out delivery of e-commerce sales directly from its network of 2,000 stores.</p>
<p>Given those preferable financial and operating trends, I believe the slight premium that investors are being charged for Home Depot's stock (21 times expected earnings compared to 19 times for Lowe's) is well worth it.</p>
<p>A secret billion-dollar stock opportunity The world's biggest tech company forgot to show you something, but a few Wall Street analysts and the Fool didn't miss a beat: There's a small company that's powering their brand-new gadgets and the coming revolution in technology. And we think its stock price has nearly unlimited room to run for early in-the-know investors! To be one of them, <a href="http://www.fool.com/mms/mark/ecap-foolcom-apple-wearable?aid=6965&amp;source=irbeditxt0000017&amp;ftm_cam=rb-wearable-d&amp;ftm_pit=2667&amp;ftm_veh=article_pitch&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">just click here Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFSigma/info.aspx" type="external">Demitrios Kalogeropoulos Opens a New Window.</a> owns shares of Home Depot. The Motley Fool recommends Home Depot. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services <a href="http://www.fool.com/shop/newsletters/index.aspx?source=isiedilnk018048&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">free for 30 days Opens a New Window.</a>. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that <a href="http://www.fool.com/knowledge-center/motley.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">considering a diverse range of insights Opens a New Window.</a> makes us better investors. 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;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p> | 5 Reasons to Buy Home Depot Inc. Stock Over Lowes Right Now | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/08/30/5-reasons-to-buy-home-depot-inc-stock-over-lowes-right-now.html | 2016-08-30 | 0 |
<p>MAINZ, Germany — Catching the last surviving Nazi war criminals isn't easy. In the past, officials have had to dig through piles of yellowing and dusty documents, and even then the suspects often claim they never saw the atrocities being carried out around them.</p>
<p>But now investigators, prosecutors and judges are able to rely on a new technological tool — one that allows them to essentially travel back in time to see for themselves.</p>
<p>German experts have constructed a detailed digital model of Hitler's Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp, where more than 1.1 million people were murdered during World War II.</p>
<p>Using virtual-reality googles, investigators can now walk around the camp in the shoes of former SS soldiers, analyzing the terrain through the eyes of the suspect.</p>
<p>"The model can be used in trials to counter the objection of suspects who claim that they did not witness executions or marches to gas chambers from their vantage point," said Jens Rommel, head of Germany’s federal office for the investigation of Nazi war crimes.</p>
<p>The digital camp has been rendered in harrowing detail by experts from Bavaria’s State Criminal Office (LKA). It allows investigators wearing the VR goggles to even climb the watchtowers and observe how prisoners would have been moved around the 15-mile camp.</p>
<p>"Because the former crematoriums and other installations had been completely destroyed, we had to remodel them with the help of old construction plans," according to 43-year-old Ralf Breker, a forensics software developer at the LKA who helped build the model.</p>
<p>He calls it "a tool with extraordinary added value."</p>
<p>Breker and his team first visited the camp in 2013 and have used a variety of sources to reconstruct what is perhaps the most infamous site of the Nazi extermination program. The same year, forensics experts scanned the site with lasers, capturing parts of the fence, watchtowers and barracks.</p>
<p>His team combined the 3-D model with aerial photographs for greater accuracy, and the camp can be viewed in both winter and summer weather conditions.</p>
<p>In the future, Breker hopes to advance the technology so that two or more people can wear the virtual-reality googles and see each other inside the camp.</p>
<p>The computer simulation is designed to help prosecute the last remaining officials complicit in the Nazi's Final Solution — the murder of 6 million Jews and other persecuted groups.</p>
<p>Rommel, the head Nazi hunter, leads a team of six judges and prosecutors responsible for finding these suspects and bringing them to court. His team applauds the technology, which is used to scrutinize the suspects' claims of innocence once in court.</p>
<p>In the past four years, Rommel's team has found 30 Auschwitz suspects and handed their cases over to the courts. They have also submitted the details of three cases from the Majdanek death camp and eight from the concentration camp at Stutthof.</p>
<p>He said they have at least a dozen other cases currently in the pipeline that they soon hope to bring to prosecution.</p>
<p>For Breker, who often encounters chilling murder scenes during his day job, building the Auschwitz-Birkenau model was "one of the most difficult tasks" he has experienced.</p>
<p>"The legacy [of the camp] and my encounter with the site of mass killings was very encumbering," he said.</p> | Germany Uses VR Model of Auschwitz-Birkenau to Catch Nazis | false | http://nbcnews.com/news/world/germany-uses-vr-model-auschwitz-birkenau-catch-nazis-n660716 | 2016-10-08 | 3 |
<p>( <a href="https://www.naturalnews.com/" type="external">Natural News</a>) In a stunning statement that adds further weight to many of the questions raised by Natural News and other independent media leaders — the only remaining&#160;real journalists&#160;in America — Clark County Sheriff Joseph Lombardo publicly affirmed his belief that Stephen Paddock did not act alone.</p>
<p>“…[H]e had to have some help at some point,” Sheriff Lombardo is now quoted as saying by&#160; <a href="https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/862496/Las-Vegas-shooter-motive-killer-mass-murderer-Stephen-Paddock-Marilou-Danley-FBI-gun" type="external">the UK Express</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://naturalnews.com/" type="external">Natural News</a>&#160;and other independent media outlets have been the only investigative journalists in the country to ask real questions that expose the gaping holes in the “official” narrative of what happened at the Mandalay Bay massacre. Websites like&#160; <a href="http://sgtreport.com/" type="external">SGTreport.com</a>,&#160; <a href="http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/16-unanswered-questions-about-the-las-vegas-shooting-that-the-mainstream-media-doesnt-want-to-talk-about" type="external">TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com</a>&#160;and&#160; <a href="http://www.thedailysheeple.com/" type="external">The Daily Sheeple</a>&#160;have detailed the ludicrousness of the official story with articles like “ <a href="https://www.naturalnews.com/2017-10-02-lone-gunman-theory-of-las-vegas-shooter-is-complete-nonsense-stephen-paddock.html" type="external">MISSION IMPOSSIBLE: Official story of Las Vegas shooting unravels; physical impossibility of lone gunman senior citizen makes narrative ludicrous</a>.” Michael Snyder has also published, “ <a href="http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/16-unanswered-questions-about-the-las-vegas-shooting-that-the-mainstream-media-doesnt-want-to-talk-about" type="external">16 Unanswered Questions About The Las Vegas Shooting That The Mainstream Media Doesn’t Want To Talk About</a>.”</p>
<p>Now, Sheriff Lombardo echoes that very story in saying, “Maybe he was a superhuman who figured this out all on his own but it would be hard for me to believe that.”</p>
<p>This statement affirms exactly&#160; <a href="https://www.naturalnews.com/2017-10-02-lone-gunman-theory-of-las-vegas-shooter-is-complete-nonsense-stephen-paddock.html" type="external">what I wrote on Natural News</a>&#160;just two days ago, saying, “The only way he could have carried out this shooting is if he were transformed into a human superweapon through a magic wand. I’m calling this ‘Mission IMPOSSIBLE’ because of the physical impossibility of a retired, untrained senior citizen pulling this off.”</p>
<p>The fact that law enforcement is now supporting the contention that Stephen Paddock did not act alone throws a curve ball to the FBI, which claims they somehow pulled of a miraculous investigation that cleared Paddock of ties to international terrorism groups, all in a record time of less than twelve hours. The astonishing speed of the FBI’s announcement confirms they are lying, of course. The FBI can barely complete an office memo in 12 hours, much less conduct an exhaustive investigation into international terrorism in that time frame.</p>
<p>Informed Americans, already suspicious of the FBI’s involvement in allowing Hillary Clinton to get away with committing multiple felony crimes via destruction of her classified emails, are now beginning to wonder whether the FBI is now actively covering up the truth about the Las Vegas Mandalay Bay shooting.</p>
<p>To date,&#160; <a href="https://www.naturalnews.com/2017-10-02-five-things-that-just-dont-add-up-about-the-las-vegas-mass-shooting.html" type="external">dozens of eyewitnesses have gone public</a>&#160;with their belief that multiple shooters were involved, spraying them with gunfire from multiple directions. Earlier today, a caller to the Michael Savage show offered intimate details into her harrowing escape under fire — (and unlike Hillary Clinton, this woman was actually under real sniper fire) — where she was forced to hide while others were gunned down all around her. According to this caller, a second gunman firing a distinctive “low-sounding” gun was walking through the crowd, spraying gunfire in every direction while approaching her concealed position.</p>
<p>You can hear her detailed audio description at&#160; <a href="https://michaelsavage.com/2017/10/04/audio-survivor-tells-savage-she-heard-multiple-shooters/" type="external">MichaelSavage.com.</a>&#160;In her own words:</p>
<p>There was somebody walking in the crowd, spraying their guns back and forth and shooting people, and he was getting closer. The shots would stop, the officer got up and walked out, and I heard his radio because I was right there, and we heard, “We have active shooters,” and then my officer who was protecting me said, “Where is he? Where is he? Do you see him? Is he behind us? Do you have a visual?</p>
<p>It sounded like somebody was actually walking from the crowd, from west to east, through the crowd and shooting, because everybody was going one direction, because there was no way out. Then they would stop, and there would be higher pitches, and then no sound, and then the sound would start again, and they were on top of each other… they sounded at the same time, and the one that was lower kept getting closer sounding to us… I’m thinking, Oh my God, it sounds like there’s somebody on the ground that is shooting… Mandalay Bay was on our right, and the girl that was standing right beside me got shot straight in her stomach, and how did this bullet come straight down and make a left turn and hit her in the stomach?</p>
<p>In addition to the audio testimony detailed above, the Courier Mail (Australia) interviewed Brian Hodge, who said he was staying at the room next door to the alleged shooter Stephen Paddock.&#160; <a href="http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/las-vegas-shooting-queensland-eyewitness-to-mandalay-attack/news-story/17c907f4046f30ccfedf831e27e93cc8" type="external">Via the Courer Mail</a>:</p>
<p>Australian Brian Hodge, who previously worked at Jupiters Casino on the Gold Coast, claimed he was staying in the room next to the shooter on level 32 at the Las Vegas resort.</p>
<p>There were multiple people dead and multiple shooters. I was just hiding waiting for police to come get us… My floor is a crime scene. They killed a security guard on my floor.</p>
<p>Using the word “they,” Brian Hodge is referring to the multiple shooters, not the police. This is yet another gripping testimony that adds weight to the evidence that multiple shooters were involved.</p>
<p>The FBI, of course, maintains the “lone gunman” theory, almost invoking the same cover-up logic ripped right out of the assassination of JFK. Yet numerous eyewitnesses on the ground continue to speak up with testimonies and firsthand accounts of&#160;multiple shooters.</p>
<p>Few Americans are aware that the FBI actively plots a wide assortment of domestic terrorism scenarios in the United States for the purpose of recruiting targeted individuals into taking part in the plot, then arresting them as “terrorists.” Remarkably, this shocking reality was&#160; <a href="https://www.naturalnews.com/035849_domestic_terror_plots_fbi.html" type="external">documented by none other than the New York Times in 2012</a>, which detailed the FBI’s terrorism “sting” operations while asking whether it is appropriate for the FBI to be engaged in the plotting, planning and pseudo-execution of such mass terrorism crimes.</p>
<p>Natural News has also covered the ongoing domestic terrorism plots that are schemed up by the FBI:</p>
<p>From 2011:&#160; <a href="https://www.naturalnews.com/034325_fbi_entrapment_terror_plots.html" type="external">FBI ‘entrapment’ tactics questioned in web of phony terror plots and paid informants</a></p>
<p>From 2012:&#160; <a href="https://www.naturalnews.com/035757_FBI_terror_plots_false_flag.html" type="external">FBI nabs five mastermind geniuses after teaching them how to blow up a bridge in Cleveland</a></p>
<p>From 2015:&#160; <a href="https://www.naturalnews.com/048781_FBI_terror_plots_government_propaganda.html" type="external">The FBI is amazingly good at halting terror plots dreamed up by the FBI</a></p>
<p>In 2013, the Kansas City City documented yet another astonishing story about the FBI ginning up its own mass murder terrorism plots, then inserting some hapless (often&#160;homeless) person into the driver’s seat just in time to be arrested and charged as a terrorist. That Kansas City Star article, authored by Ian Cummings, is entitled, “ <a href="http://www.kansascity.com/news/local/crime/article135871988.html" type="external">FBI undercover stings foil terrorist plots — but often plots of the agency’s own making</a>.”</p>
<p>This pattern and history of the FBI dreaming up mass terrorism plots in the United States brings up the obvious question: Was the Mandalay Bay shooting actually schemed up by the FBI in an attempted sting operation gone bad? And is the FBI now attempting to cover its tracks to avoid the massive backlash that would ensue if the truth about such a monumental failure were learned? There’s no evidence yet to suggest the FBI planned this attack, of course, but the criminality of former FBI head James Comey — combined with the FBI’s current suspicious behavior and suspicious cover-up — have many people beginning to ask a whole new question:&#160;Is the FBI somehow complicit in this heinous crime?</p>
<p>(For the record, I personally know several retired FBI agents who are outstanding individuals, and many agents within the FBI are determined, courageous, pro-America patriots who would never go along with such a nefarious plot. However, as with any federal agency, there are also other sub-groups within the FBI who abuse their power and operate with no such ethics. And there’s no denying the FBI was recently headed by a traitor and criminal cover-up artist named James Comey.)</p>
<p>The FBI, of course, is withholding critical evidence, just as they did following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, after which the U.S. government seized all security video tapes and held them in perpetuity, making sure the public would never see them.</p>
<p>Among the evidence items currently being covered up by the FBI and hidden from the public:</p>
<p>Until the federal government starts sharing more details with the public, the real journalists of America — the independent media — will continue to ask legitimate, thoughtful questions about the tragic event that took the lives of 58 innocents. What We the People won’t stand for us being lied to yet again by an incompetent bureaucracy that seems to have been increasingly infiltrated by anti-American operatives who deliberately hide or destroy evidence in order to run their political narratives about the actual motivations behind the shooting.</p>
<p>Not only has America now arrived in an extremely disturbing moment in history where it’s no longer safe to attend an outdoor concert, but most of us have also&#160;lost any remaining faith in the FBI&#160;to tell the truth. (That credit goes to James Comey, a professional liar and deep state operative who covered up the crimes of Hillary Clinton and Obama regime officials such as Loretta Lynch.)</p>
<p>We pray for the victims of this shooting, and we honor the efforts of local law enforcement, first responders, and all the spontaneous heroes who helped save lives and shield the innocent. Now, we must get to the bottom of what happened,&#160;why&#160;it happened, and learn how to stop these dangerous,&#160; <a href="https://www.naturalnews.com/2017-10-04-breaking-las-vegas-shooter-stephen-paddock-was-taking-psychiatric-medications-that-increase-killing-behavior-by-45.html" type="external">heavily medicated individuals</a>&#160;before they strike again. And no, the answer does not involve stripping all the&#160;law-abiding citizens&#160;of America their Second Amendment rights.</p>
<p>Read&#160; <a href="http://shootings.news/" type="external">Shootings.news</a>&#160;for more updates as this saga unfolds.</p>
<p>Courtesy of <a href="https://www.naturalnews.com/2017-10-04-breaking-law-enforcement-says-las-vegas-shooter-did-not-act-alone-new-details.html" type="external">Natural News</a></p>
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<p /> | Bombshell: Law enforcement says Las Vegas shooter “did not act alone” … new details | true | http://dcclothesline.com/2017/10/06/bombshell-law-enforcement-says-las-vegas-shooter-did-not-act-alone-new-details/ | 0 |
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<p>Earnings at U.S. automakers are expected to decline in the next two years as negative pricing and lower production weigh on North America results, Goldman Sachs said, downgrading the sector to "cautious" from "neutral".</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Major automakers posted September U.S. sales that were slightly lower than a year ago, despite big consumer discounts, as pickup truck volumes fell for both General Motors Co and Ford Motor Co .</p>
<p>"The US auto cycle peaked in 2015 and is currently being held at a plateaued level by increasing OEM incentives," analysts David Tamberrino and Mariel Kennedy wrote in a note.</p>
<p>The analysts said they expected seasonally adjusted annualized rate (SAAR) to hold steady from current levels into next year, followed by a gradual decline.</p>
<p>The brokerage downgraded Tesla Motors Inc to "neutral" from "buy" and cut its price target to $185 from $240.</p>
<p>The analysts said any delay in the timeline for the launch of the electric carmaker's much-hyped Model 3 would hurt shares. They also cited Tesla's deal to buy SolarCity Corp as a concern.</p>
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<p>"Combination of Tesla and SolarCity ��� two high growth, high cash burn businesses, creates a higher risk entity," the analysts wrote.</p>
<p>Tesla's shares were down 2.65 percent at $202.93 in premarket trading on Thursday.</p>
<p>The analysts were neutral on Detroit carmakers Ford and GM, saying dividend yields are a cushion and not at risk over the next 12 months.</p>
<p>Shares of both companies were untraded premarket.</p>
<p>The brokerage downgraded auto part suppliers Lear Corp and BorgWarner Inc . Lear's rating was cut to "sell" from "neutral", while BorgWarner was downgraded to "neutral" from "buy".</p>
<p>However, the brokerage said suppliers who had more international profit exposure could see earnings hold up longer, maintaining a "buy" rating on Lear's rival Delphi Automotive Plc .</p>
<p>(Reporting by Shashwat Awasthi in Bengaluru; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila)</p> | Goldman sees U.S. auto sales entering slow lane, downgrades sector | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/10/06/goldman-sees-us-auto-sales-entering-slow-lane-downgrades-sector.html | 2016-10-06 | 0 |
<p>Journal Article - Quarterly Journal: International Security</p>
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<p>Although previous studies have examined U.S. public support for the use of military force in particular historical cases, and have even made limited comparisons among cases, a full comparison of a large number of historical episodes in which the United States contemplated, threatened, or actually used military force has been missing. An analysis of U.S.public support for the use of military force in twenty-two historical episodes from the early 1980s through the Iraqwar and occupation (2003–05) underscores the continuing relevance of Bruce Jentleson’s principal policy objectives framework: the objective for which military force is used is an important determinant of the base level of public support. The U.S.public supports restraining aggressive adversaries, but it is leery of involvement in civil-war situations. Although the objective of the mission strongly conditions this base level of support, the public is also sensitive to the relative risk of different military actions; to the prospect of civilian or military casualties; to multilateral participation in the mission; and to the likelihood of success or failure of the mission. These results suggest that support for U.S.military involvement in Iraqis unlikely to increase; indeed, given the ongoing civil strife in Iraq, continuing casualties, and substantial disagreement about the prospects for success, the public’s support is likely to remain low or even decline.</p>
<p /> | Victory Has Many Friends: U.S. Public Opinion and the Use of Military Force, 1981-2005 | false | http://belfercenter.org/publication/victory-has-many-friends-us-public-opinion-and-use-military-force-1981-2005 | 2018-10-07 | 2 |
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<p>The scam was orchestrated by “Ghanaian and Turkish organized crime rings” and a Ghanaian attorney, a statement said. Several suspects have been arrested, though others remain at large.</p>
<p>Raids led to the recovery of 150 passports from 10 countries and visas from the U.S., India, South Africa and the European Schengen zone.</p>
<p>In Washington, State Department spokesman Mark Toner said no one was able to enter the United States illegally using a counterfeit visa obtained at the fake embassy.</p>
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<p>“This was a criminal, fraud operation masquerading as a fake U.S. embassy,” he told reporters.</p>
<p>It was not clear how many people were defrauded by the fake embassy, which charged $6,000 for its services.</p>
<p>Those running the operation were able to bribe corrupt officials “to look the other way,” the State Department said. Ghanaian officials said Monday they were still collecting information and were not prepared to comment.</p>
<p>“This is a shocker,” said one Ghanaian official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to journalists about the case.</p>
<p>Toner said the fraudsters obtained Ghanaian and other passports with expired U.S. visas that were either lost or stolen. Using them as a prototype, they then produced counterfeit visas.</p>
<p>But, as Toner stressed, “It’s very, very hard to counterfeit U.S. visas these days,” including numerous security features such as biometric information to prevent fakes from being used.</p>
<p>To the best of the State Department’s knowledge, he said, no one had even been caught at the U.S. border attempting to enter the country with such a document.</p>
<p>“Frankly, the counterfeit visas were pretty poor quality,” he said, claiming that people who obtained them must have realized they weren’t going to be able to use them to get into the U.S.</p>
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<p>The State Department learned of the fraud operation earlier this year, he said. Ghana acted on information that the U.S. provided.</p>
<p>Those involved in the scheme would drive “to the most remote parts of West Africa” to find visa applicants and transport them to Accra, the State Department said. They also used fliers and billboards to lure victims from Ghana, Ivory Coast and Togo.</p>
<p>Victims would be taken for appointments at the fake embassy, which featured an American flag and photo of President Barack Obama. The fake consular officers were Turkish.</p>
<p>The scheme also used satellite locations including a dress shop. An industrial sewing machine is suspected to have been used to bind fake passports.</p>
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<p>Associated Press writers Bradley Klapper in Washington and Robbie Corey-Boulet in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, contributed to this report.</p> | Fake US embassy in Ghana shut down after ‘about a decade’ | false | https://abqjournal.com/902658/fake-us-embassy-in-ghana-shut-down-after-about-a-decade.html | 2 |
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<p>Published time: 10 Nov, 2017 06:09Edited time: 10 Nov, 2017 06:13</p>
<p>Russia and the US are as yet unclear on whether a bilateral meeting between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump will take place at the APEC summit. While the White House says there are scheduling conflicts, Moscow says it may be still viable.</p>
<p>DETAILS TO FOLLOW</p> | White House and Kremlin send conflicting signals on Putin-Trump meeting at APEC | false | https://newsline.com/white-house-and-kremlin-send-conflicting-signals-on-putin-trump-meeting-at-apec/ | 2017-11-10 | 1 |
<p>Since the fall of the Berlin Wall the European-along with the much weaker American-left has been in a crisis that has challenged its very identity. In fact, this profound crisis predated the events of 1989; it was in full swing by the time the Wall tumbled in good part because of the ineptitude and moral bankruptcy of at least part of this left. Still, with the events of 1989 and 1990, a period that began in the late 1860s and early 1870s and entered its political salience in the 1880s came to a close. A political manifestation and social formation that defined the very idea of progressivism in the advanced industrial societies for exactly one century collapsed. Some would say that the radicalism of this period, its revolutionary potential to transform capitalism, ended with the tragedy of 1914. After all, it was then that the left realized that its internationalism and perceived universal class solidarity had lost its primacy to the much more powerful sentiment of particularistic nationalism. The left's innocence was most certainly lost by the early fall of 1914. Others would date the crisis from the end of World War I, the events of 1918, which already pointed toward the coming of Stalinism in the Soviet Union and National Socialism in Germany.</p>
<p>Still others see the death of a progressive alternative in the internecine battle between social democrats and communists that contributed to-though it wasn't responsible for-fascism's triumph, particularly in Germany. The Hitler-Stalin pact, the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956, a replay of that in Czechoslovakia twelve years later, the Sino-Soviet altercations, the war between China and Vietnam, the Cambodia fiasco with all its implications- there were plenty of sobering experiences for the progressive project in Europe. And yet, it was none of these political events that initiated the fundamental transformation that was to be completed in 1989. It was really a conjuncture of social, economic, generational, and cultural shifts that changed the very identity of the left over the last twenty-five years. At least in this instance, I will argue for the primacy of economy and society over politics.</p>
<p>I argue that there have been four periods in the history of the left since World War II that have affected the position of the left today. American developments will be mentioned only when they were essential contributors to the shaping of the left in all advanced industrial societies. Although it is evident that "the left," as commonly understood, was predominantly a European phenomenon throughout the late nineteenth century and all of the twentieth century, the United States did contribute significantly to this political formation precisely in the postwar period.</p>
<p>The Orthodox Period: 1945-1968I have called the first era the orthodox period because it witnessed a continuation, by and large, of the left's ideological and political topography s...</p>
<p /> | The European and American Left since 1945 | true | https://dissentmagazine.org/article/the-european-and-american-left-since-1945 | 2018-10-04 | 4 |
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<p>Lobo basketball fans might want to remember what they saw, and who they saw, during halftime of Thursday night’s North-South All-Star basketball game. One of the fans came out of the stands to partake in a dunk contest — and he might also be wearing UNM cherry-and-silver someday. Jamuni McNeace, a 6-foot-9 post from Allen, Texas, visited New Mexico’s campus Thursday. McNeace told the Journal that the Lobos said they’d like him to redshirt his freshman season. McNeace, who said he only started playing basketball two years ago, expects to redshirt wherever he goes. McNeace is a former club teammate of both Eldorado’s Cullen Neal and La Cueva’s Bryce Alford. He is expected to take an official visit to UNM in the fall. “I’m thinking about the school,” the rising senior said. “I kind of like the Pit.” He said he had a scholarship offer from Utah, and is also being recruited by West Virginia, Colorado and North Texas.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | All-Star game dunker visits UNM | false | https://abqjournal.com/241178/all-star-game-dunker-visits-unm.html | 2013-08-02 | 2 |
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<p>He was a gentle and kind soul whose 90 years were filled with hard work, an honest lifestyle, and his favorite activity, traveling across America visiting 49 states.</p>
<p>He will be remembered for the twinkle in his eye, always being there in time of need for his children and grandchildren, and the patriarch of a close knit Christian family.</p>
<p>Paul L. Fontaine.</p>
<p>He had a warm smile, a quick wit and became a friend to all who came into contact with him.</p>
<p>Paul was born in Lowell, Mass., on Sept. 1, 1923. He graduated from Ware High School at 16 and then joined the Civilian Conservation Corps until he turned 18.</p>
<p>He joined the U.S. Army serving in World War II from 1943-1946. Paul was a member of the 1007 Engineer Battalion working in India building bridges and highways to Burma and China.</p>
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<p>He was an employee of the United States Postal Service, retiring after a 30-year career. Paul and Eleanor resided in Massachusetts and Florida, and became residents of New Mexico in 1974 when he retired from the postal service.</p>
<p>Paul leaves behind Eleanor, his dedicated and loving wife of 67 years, and all of his five children: Bruce and his wife Gail of Rio Rancho; Mark and his wife Dianna of Tallahassee, Fla.; June of Edgewood; Keith and his wife Georgia of Albuquerque; and Mary Joy and her husband David of Rio Rancho. Paul has 13 grandchildren and 16 great grandchildren.</p>
<p>Paul received professional loving attention in his final days from Presbyterian Hospice and Comfort Keepers. The family will be forever grateful for their loving concern and care.</p>
<p>Paul’s arrangements are being handled by the Cremation Society of New Mexico and his family and friends will be holding a Celebration of Life in the near future.</p> | OBITUARY: Paul L. Fontaine | false | https://abqjournal.com/421923/paul-l-fontaine.html | 2 |
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<p>Coalition fighter jets on Thursday <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/05/civilians-die-isil-attacks-aleppo-homs-170518151433809.html" type="external">struck a convoy of militiamen</a>advancing inside a protected “deconfliction zone” north-west of the southern town of At Tanf, the military alliance said in a statement.</p>
<p>The US, which is leading an air campaign in <a href="" type="internal">Syria</a> targeting groups such as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS), said the convoy’s advance had posed a threat to US and US-backed Syrian rebel forces&#160;in the area.</p>
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<p>“This brazen attack by the so-called international coalition exposes the falseness of its claims to be fighting terrorism,” a Syrian military source told state media on Friday, confirming that&#160;the bombing had killed “a number of people” and caused material damage.</p>
<p>Russia, which launched its own air campaign in September 2015 in support of Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad, called the strike “a breach of Syrian sovereignty”.</p>
<p>“Such actions that were carried out against the Syrian armed forces … [are] completely unacceptable,” Gennady Gatilov, Russia’s&#160;deputy foreign minister, was quoted as saying by state-run RIA Novosti on Friday.</p>
<p>A member of the US-backed Syrian rebel forces told the Reuters news agency that the convoy comprised Syrian and Iranian-backed militias and was headed towards the Tanf base,&#160;&#160;where US special forces operate and train Free Syrian Army rebels.</p>
<p>Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), said at least eight people had been killed in the attack.</p>
<p>“Most of the killed belong to militias loyal to the Syrian regime and are not Syrians,” he told the DPA news agency.</p>
<p>SOHR, a UK-based monitor tracking developments in Syria’s long-running conflict via a network of contacts on the ground, also said that four military vehicles carrying pro-government forces and their allies were destroyed in the strike.</p>
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<p>Tanf is part of a region known as the Badia, which consists of vast, sparsely populated desert territory that stretches all the way to the Jordanian and Iraqi borders and was declared a military priority by Syria’s foreign minister earlier in May.</p>
<p>Two months of US-backed rebel advances against ISIL fighters have allowed them to secure swaths of territory in the Badia, alarming the Syrian government and its allies.</p>
<p>But rebel sources had warned last week that the Syrian army and Iranian-backed militia <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/05/syria-army-moves-area-rebels-evicted-isil-170515043533965.html" type="external">moved hundreds of troops with tanks</a>to the town of Sabaa Biyar, which is in the Badia, and is near the strategic Damascus-Baghdad highway.</p>
<p>That highway was once a major weapons supply route for Iranian weapons into Syria.</p>
<p>A Western intelligence official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters that Thursday’s strike sent a strong message to Iranian-backed militias that have been spearheading the advance that they would not be allowed to reach the Iraq border from Syria.</p>
<p>The US-led coalition did not signal it would cede ground around Tanf.</p>
<p>“Coalition forces have been operating in the At Tanf area for many months training and advising vetted partner forces engaged in the fight against ISIS,” according to a statement by the US-led military alliance.</p>
<p>US officials said an agreement existed with Russia on a so-called “deconfliction” area around Tanf, meant to avoid an accidental clash of forces.</p>
<p>The statement by the US-led coalition acknowledged a zone but did not offer any details about it, other than to say it was still active.</p>
<p>“The agreed upon deconfliction zone agreement remains in effect,” the statement said.</p>
<p>In April, the US army <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/04/us-missiles-syria-170407013424492.html" type="external">fired dozens of cruise missile strikes</a>at the Syrian government-held Shayrat airbase a Syria’s Shayrat airbase,&#160;in retaliation for a suspected chemical weapons attack on a rebel-held town that killed scores of civilians.</p>
<p>At the time, the strikes were described as a one-off measure to deter any future chemical weapons use.</p>
<p>Syria’s civil war began in 2011 after mass protests against Assad’s rule and has killed hundreds of thousands of people and driven half the country’s population from their homes.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/05/syria-russia-condemn-led-strike-pro-assad-forces-170519080857161.html" type="external">SOURCE</a></p> | US is once again the airforce of ISIS, striking Syrian forces in their own country | true | http://hangthebankers.com/us-airforce-of-isis-striking-syrian-force/ | 2017-05-19 | 0 |
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<p>LOS ANGELES — Former UFC heavyweight champion Brock Lesnar has informed the mixed martial arts promotion that he is retired from competition.</p>
<p>The UFC confirmed Lesnar’s decision Wednesday.</p>
<p>The decision doesn’t affect Lesnar’s professional wrestling career, where he has spent most of the past five years.</p>
<p>He returned from a 4 1/2-year MMA absence last July to beat Mark Hunt at UFC 200, but the result was overturned after Lesnar failed two doping tests. He was subsequently suspended from competition for a year by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, which administers the UFC’s doping policy.</p>
<p>Lesnar’s decision to retire means he has been removed from USADA’s drug-testing pool, which monitors the fighters year-round.</p>
<p>If Lesnar decides to return to competition, he would have to serve the remaining five months of his suspension.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | Brock Lesnar tells UFC he is retired from competition | false | https://abqjournal.com/950421/brock-lesnar-tells-ufc-he-is-retired-from-competition.html | 2017-02-15 | 2 |
<p>A new study, presented at the Pediatric Academic Societies annual meeting and to be published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, examines trends in diabetes rates in children.&#160; According to <a href="http://www.philly.com/philly/health/topics/HealthDay687474_20140503_Kids__Diabetes_Rates_Up_Dramatically_in_8_Years__Study_Finds.html" type="external">HealthDay</a>, the research team found that, in eight years, there has been a dramatic rise in diabetes in children: an increase of 21 percent for type 1 diabetes and an increase of 30.5 percent for type 2 diabetes.</p>
<p>Understanding the reason for this trend is complicated, because the causes for the two types of diabetes are different.&#160; <a href="http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/diabetes.html" type="external">Medline Plus</a> describes diabetes as a disease in which a person’s blood glucose, or blood sugar, levels are too high. &#160;Glucose comes from the foods people eat. &#160;Insulin is a hormone that helps the glucose get into the cells to give them energy. &#160;Having too much glucose in the blood can be damaging.&#160;&#160; Over time, it can damage the eyes, kidneys, and nerves. &#160;Diabetes can also cause heart disease, stroke and even the need to remove a limb.</p>
<p>With type 1 diabetes, the body does not make insulin. &#160;With type 2 diabetes, the more common type, the body does not make or use insulin well. Without enough insulin, the glucose stays in the blood.&#160; Pregnant women can also get diabetes, called gestational diabetes.</p>
<p>For type 2 diabetes, the researchers theorize that the trends seen could be related to the obesity epidemic. &#160;The <a href="http://www.cdc.gov/healthyyouth/obesity/facts.htm" type="external">Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)</a> estimates that, in the last 30 years, the proportion of children that are obese has more than doubled.&#160; In fact, as of 2010, one-third of children and adolescents were overweight or obese, according to the CDC.</p>
<p>For type 1 diabetes, the causes are unclear.&#160; It is likely that something has changed in the environment, either in the U.S. or elsewhere in the world.&#160; As a result, more youth are developing type 1 diabetes and they may be developing it earlier in their lives.&#160; More research is needed to understand the cause of this trend as well as how to curb it.</p>
<p /> | Study: Diabetes rates skyrocket in kids and teens | false | http://natmonitor.com/2014/05/04/kids-diabetes-rates-up-dramatically-in-eight-years-researchers-say/ | 2014-05-04 | 3 |
<p>Flickr/World Affairs Council of Philadelphia</p>
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<p>The bad news just keeps coming for GOP presidential contender Mitt Romney. As <a href="" type="internal">I first reported on Wednesday</a>, Romney’s 2008 campaign chief in New Hampshire, Bruce Keough, has rejected the Romney campaign’s entreaties to return for the 2012 race. Now, two more Romney alums from 2008—his California political director and state finance co-chairman—have jumped ship.</p>
<p>The Orange County Register <a href="http://www.ocregister.com/articles/-299332--.html" type="external">reports</a> that Mike Schroeder, a former chair of the California Republican Party, has said he’s not reprising his role as Romney’s California political director this time around. Schroeder blasted Romney’s 2008 campaign as “one of the most brain-dead campaigns I’ve seen. I was planning 15 months in advance, but their planning window for events was five days. That meant they didn’t focus on California until five days before the primary.” Schroeder also told the OC&#160;Register that Romney’s support for universal health-care in Massachusetts will be a major liability in challenging the president on his own health-care reform effort.</p>
<p>The other southern California GOPer to bail on Romney is Scott Baugh, the OC’s GOP chairman. (Baugh’s group, you might remember, made headlines when a member of the OC GOP sent around an email <a href="http://totalbuzz.ocregister.com/2011/04/18/obama-chimp-photo-gop-boss-wants-action-now/51747/" type="external">depicting Obama</a> as a chimpanzee, a move Baugh condemned.) Baugh said he wasn’t supporting any particular candidate, but instead was “busy building the party and preparing to support whomever the nominee might be.” He added, “I don’t have a candidate and that’s true of a lot of us. This is the latest I’ve ever gone without picking a candidate.”</p>
<p>The defections don’t seem to be hurting Romney too much with voters—at least for now. A <a href="http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0511/54327.html" type="external">pair of New Hampshire polls</a> surveying GOPers in the Granite State put Romney far ahead of the GOP field, with double-digit leads in both polls. Romney also <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/post/afternoon-fix/2011/05/04/AFPU0OqF_blog.html" type="external">won the backing</a> of former New Hampshire House speaker Doug Scammon and his wife, who’d both supported Rudy Giuliani in 2008.</p>
<p /> | Uh Oh, Mitt: More Key Campaigners Ditch Romney | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2011/05/mitt-romney-2012-california-schroeder/ | 2011-05-06 | 4 |
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<p>Anti-gay activists at the Supreme Court. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)</p>
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<p>After the Supreme Court ruled in favor of same-sex marriage nationwide, Rowan County Clerk Kim Clerk shut down marriage operations in her office, citing her religious objections as an Apostolic Christian. Couples seeking to marry in Rowan County filed a lawsuit against her and U.S. District Judge U.S. District Judge David Bunning issued a preliminary injunction in their favor — although Davis continues to resist giving marriage licenses at her office.</p>
<p>On the same day she petitioned the Supreme Court for a stay on the order, Bunning refused to extend a temporary stay on his order set to expire on Monday. Also on Friday, the Kentucky-based Morehead News reported Rowan County Attorney Cecil Watkins referred a charge of official misconduct to state officials.</p>
<p>In a 40-page filing to the Supreme Court, attorneys for Davis ask U.S. Associate Justice Elena Kagan, who’s responsible for stay requests in the Sixth Circuit, to halt the order requiring her to give marriage licenses to all couples regardless of sexual orientation. Kagan can decide the matter on her own, or refer to issue to the entire court.</p>
<p>Jonathan Christman, an attorney with the social conservative Liberty Counsel, argues the court must grant a stay because requiring Davis to issue even one marriage license to a same-sex couple would violate her religious conscience irrevocably.</p>
<p>“It is comparable to forcing the religious objecting nurse to perform an abortion, the religious objecting company or non-profit to pay for abortions or abortion-related insurance coverage, the religious objecting non-combatant to fire on an enemy soldier, or the religious objecting state official to participate in or attend the execution of convicted prisoner,” the filing says. “Ordering Davis to authorize and approve a SSM license is the act that violates her conscience and substantially burdens her religious freedom — an act which cannot be undone.”</p>
<p>But this argument has failed in previous stay requests before lower courts. At the district court level, Bunning refused a stay pending appeal on his order requiring Davis to issue marriage licenses, although he issued a temporary stay. A three-judge panel on the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals subsequently denied her a stay after Davis appealed the order against her to the appellate court.</p>
<p>Doug NeJaime, a law professor at the Williams Institute, University of California, Los Angeles, predicted the Supreme Court would follow suit.</p>
<p>“I do not think the Supreme Court is likely to get involved with this case,” NeJaime said.&#160;“There is no legal basis on which the county clerk’s office is not issuing marriage licenses.”</p>
<p>it remains to be seen what action Davis will take if a stay is denied once again. Despite the previous absence of a stay, her office has defied court orders and continued to deny marriage licenses to same-sex couples.</p>
<p>The stay request is arguably the first opportunity for the U.S. Supreme Court to weigh in on the intersection of LGBT rights and religious liberty. In 2014 Hobby Lobby decision, the Supreme Court ruled a closed-held for-profit company under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act could deny health coverage to employees that covers birth coverage and abortion.</p>
<p>But legal experts say the response from the Supreme Court on the stay request won’t a good predictor of the high court’s views on when religious objections should win out over LGBT rights.</p>
<p>Nan Hunter, a lesbian law professor at Georgetown University, said a variety of things will go into the Supreme Court’s decision on the stay other than the arguments in the case.</p>
<p>“Many factors other than the merits influence a court’s decision on whether to grant a stay, so I would not place a great deal of weight one way or another on how the Court responds to this request,” Hunter said.</p>
<p>NeJaime also said the response to the stay request won’t be a good indication of the Supreme Court’s thinking.</p>
<p>“Because this is such a clear case, I don’t think it gives us much of a window into how the justices might approach a range of issues at the intersection of religious liberty and LGBT equality,” NeJaime said.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Doug NeJaime</a> <a href="" type="internal">Kentucky</a> <a href="" type="internal">Kim Davis</a> <a href="" type="internal">Nan Hunter</a> <a href="" type="internal">Rowan County</a> <a href="" type="internal">same-sex marriage</a></p> | Ky. clerk seeks Supreme Court relief against marriage order | false | http://washingtonblade.com/2015/08/28/ky-clerk-seeks-supreme-court-relief-against-marriage-orderky-clerk-relief-from-supreme-court-against-marriage-orderky-clerk/ | 3 |
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<p>Blackstone (NYSE:BX) is reportedly scouring the tech world for potential partners to join the private-equity firm’s battle in the bidding war over PC maker Dell (NASDAQ:DELL).</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>According to The Wall Street Journal, any technology company that joins the bidding group would likely be involved on both a strategic and financial front and could be looked to provide an equity stake, debt financing or a combination of the two.</p>
<p>It’s not clear which technology companies Blackstone, the world’s largest private-equity firm, is in talks with.</p>
<p>The report comes as Blackstone executives visit Dell’s Round Rock, Texas, headquarters this week to kick off due diligence on the struggling PC maker. Blackstone launched its bid, valued at more than $14.25 a share, last month as an alternative to the $13.65-a-share offer from Dell CEO and founder Michael Dell and Silver Lake Partners.</p>
<p>Dell’s largest outside shareholder, Southeastern Asset Management, currently plans to roll its 8.4% stake into the Blackstone offer, the Journal reported.</p>
<p>Southeastern has opposed the Silver Lake bid, saying in an open letter on Tuesday that the management group’s proxy “fails to make the case” for shareholders to accept the $24.4 billion bid.</p>
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<p>It’s still not clear whether or not Michael Dell will join the Blackstone bid, the Journal said.</p>
<p>Blackstone has also sought to recruit potential replacements for the current CEO, reportedly including Oracle (NASDAQ:ORCL) President Mark Hurd and former Compaq CEO Michael Capellas, who is now a director at Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO).</p>
<p>In addition to the Blackstone bid, the Silver Lake group is facing competition from billionaire investor Carl Icahn, who has proposed acquiring up to 58% of Dell for $15 a share.</p>
<p>Shares of Dell inched up 0.35% to $14.24 in premarket trading on Wednesday.</p> | Blackstone Searches for Tech Partner in Dell Dance | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2013/04/10/blackstone-searches-for-tech-partner-in-dell-dance.html | 2016-03-06 | 0 |
<p>The crisis in Flint has people around the nation concerned about lead in drinking water. The small city in Michigan, where the majority of residents are black and many are poor, has become a symbol of <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/22/us/a-question-of-environmental-racism-in-flint.html?_r=0" type="external">environmental racism</a>.</p>
<p>In Flint, the lead came from water pipes that were corroded by polluted water. &#160;In Chicago, the concern stems from some 400,000 lead water service lines. That is more lead water lines than any other U.S. municipality, according to city officials. Eighty percent of Chicago’s properties have a lead pipe leading from the iron water mains that run under the streets straight into homes.</p>
<p>While Chicago officials say they are complying with federal health regulations and the city’s water is safe, a class-action <a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-lead-pipes-lawsuit-met-20160218-story.html" type="external">lawsuit filed earlier this year</a> seeks to force the city to replace its lead water service lines. &#160;As Chicago rips up water mains across the city to upgrade its aging infrastructure, experts say the chance of lead seeping into water increases.&#160; Because they tend to live in older housing stock with older water lines and plumbing, low-income people of color are at highest risk of lead contamination, which causes lowered IQ’s and learning disabilities.</p>
<p>The possibility of lead seeping into a home’s tap water will always be a risk unless the lead pipes and plumbing components are replaced entirely. But replacing the city’s water lines is an expensive and complicated proposition. Property owners would have to share the cost because each pipe is jointly owned by&#160;them and the city.</p>
<p>Long before Flint prompted national fear of lead-contaminated water, Madison, Wis., replaced its lead water service lines, which were outlawed by the federal government in 1986.</p>
<p>Chicago could learn from the city’s experience.</p>
<p>Learning from Madison’s example</p>
<p>Madison began replacing all of its lead service lines in 2001 and over 11 years completed the removal of all 8,000 known lead pipes in the city.</p>
<p>But at the outset of the project there was&#160;skepticism in the media about whether the city’s pipes actually posed a threat.</p>
<p>“The dangers associated with lead poisoning from pipes are so remote and so far down the list of public health risks that spending $20 million in private and public money for this purpose seems irresponsible,” declared the Wisconsin State Journal’s editorial board in 1999.</p>
<p>Chemical engineer Abigail Cantor argued that the dangers were real. She was a consultant assigned to help the Madison Water Utility comply with the federal government’s Lead and Copper Rule. Created by the EPA in 1991, the rule requires public water systems to control lead and copper in water and monitor corrosion of their pipes.</p>
<p>Cantor was hired to test the effect of various chemical water treatments. Ultimately, none of them were viable for Madison.</p>
<p>“So I said there are no other options,” Cantor recalled, “if you could get rid of the lead in the water system then that’s the answer.”</p>
<p>The water utility agreed that the pipes needed to be replaced, but in the months that followed, city leaders debated how to pay for the project, particularly the portion that would be billed to private property owners.</p>
<p>Robin Piper, who at the time worked at the water utility’s finance department and is now the chief administrative officer of the city agency, said the first plan was to raise rates for all utility customers. But since only a minority of the customers had lead pipes, Madison’s Public Service Commission struck down this idea.</p>
<p>“It would set a bad precedent in their mind that we were providing a benefit to the property owners that wasn’t available to the rest of our customers,” Piper explained.</p>
<p>In the end, an unexpected solution presented itself: Since the mid-1990s, cellular service providers like AT&amp;T had been leasing space for their antennas on the water utility’s tanks and towers. The rents—about $400,000 per year— were kept in a fund that had added up to $4 million by the early 2000s.</p>
<p>“We were surprised when we found out that there was that much,” said Piper.</p>
<p>The water utility used the money to compensate customers for half the cost of replacing their end of the pipe, capping the subsidy at $1,000 per property. Then, the City Council passed an ordinance requiring homeowners to replace their lead service lines. On average, replacing pipes cost homeowners $1350 each, of which an average of&#160;$675 was reimbursed. The project cost the city some $15 million total.</p>
<p>Looking back, Sue Bauman, who was mayor of Madison between 1997 and 2003, does not recall much public disagreement about replacing the pipes, just the debate about how to pay for it. The city’s plumbing contractors also offered discounts to property owners who decided to get rid of their ends of the service lines at the same time as the water utility worked on its ends in a neighborhood.</p>
<p>“It all went pretty smoothly,” she said.</p>
<p>If the average cost of replacing a lead pipe in Chicago were comparable to Madison’s, the city could be looking at a $750 million bill for a similar replacement project on its end alone. However, local plumbers&#160; <a href="http://chicagotonight.wttw.com/2016/02/18/chicago-s-lead-pipes-what-you-need-know" type="external">have estimated</a> that replacing lead pipes could be as high as $20,000 for some properties.</p>
<p>“I’m glad I’m not facing that issue, I can’t imagine being mayor of Chicago,” Bauman said.</p>
<p>Problems with testing in Chicago</p>
<p>The City of Chicago tests 50 homes for lead in drinking water every three years; most are in communities where the <a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/watchdog/ct-chicago-lead-pipes-water-testing-met-20160226-story.html" type="external">risk of lead contamination is low</a>, according to the Chicago Tribune. In April, the Chicago Department of Public Health&#160; <a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/watchdog/ct-lead-water-testing-met-20160404-story.html" type="external">announced</a> that it would be testing tap water for lead where child lead poisoning cases had occurred, as well as <a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-cps-lead-water-emanuel-met-20160427-story.html" type="external">in some schools</a>. However, this approach does nothing to prevent lead poisoning in the first place.</p>
<p>The city’s water is treated with orthophosphates, chemicals that over time create a protective deposit coating inside the lead pipes. However, any disruption to the ground or water mains in the area (through construction, for example) can cause the pipes to lose this coating, allowing lead to leach directly into drinking water. Since the city is in the midst of a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/18/us/chicago-inaugurates-costly-plan-to-replace-aged-water-mains.html?_r=0" type="external">10-year plan</a> to replace 900 of its 4,000 miles of water mains, lead service lines, which carry water from the mains into people’s homes, are being disturbed in many neighborhoods.</p>
<p>Lead water pipes were recognized as a <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2509614/" type="external">cause of lead poisoning</a> by the late 1800s, and by the 1920s, some cities were restricting their use. But lobbying by the lead industry effectively countered critics and extended the life of lead, despite evidence of the public health hazard. Lead water pipes weren’t outlawed until decades later. Chicago actually required the use of lead pipes to connect homes to city water until 1986, when the federal ban was enacted.</p>
<p>The Department of Water Management assures citizens that Chicago’s drinking water meets federal requirements for lead concentration, but in 2013, Miguel Del Toral, an EPA worker who&#160;later <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/flint-water-epa_us_56e97a6be4b0860f99db2295" type="external">helped expose</a> the crisis in Flint, published a <a href="https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/wp-content/uploads/2015-10/documents/lead-service-lines-study-20130723.pdf" type="external">study</a> that paints a starkly different picture.</p>
<p>The city is in compliance based on the EPA’s testing protocol – checking the first liter of water that comes out of the tap in the morning for lead particles. In most cases, however, the protocol fails to reveal the peak concentration of lead in the water, Del Toral explained. He and his team found that sometimes peak lead content did not appear until the tap had run for several minutes.</p>
<p>Though lead particles can be sifted out of water with store-bought filters, the only permanent solution to the public health hazard is replacing all the lead water pipes in the city, Del Toral said during a recent talk with residents in Chicago’s Pilsen neighborhood.</p>
<p>However, replacing all the lead service lines might not immediately solve the problem of high lead content in the water. Cantor cautions that the pipe-replacement strategy, just like orthophosphate treatment, is not necessarily a “silver bullet.”</p>
<p>Cantor conducted new tests in Madison in the years after pipe replacement and found that some homes continued to have lead in the tap water. This is because lead particles build up in scale deposits inside water mains. And, even when both the mains and service lines are replaced, the scales can continue to linger in a home’s plumbing and take years to flush completely.</p>
<p>Cities of every size have the same three risk factors that cause lead to show up in the drinking water, she explained:&#160; lead pipes and plumbing parts; chemical and biological build up in water systems that capture lead particles; and the biological instability of the water, which can cause corrosion and lead release like it did in Flint.</p>
<p>The prospect of proactively replacing lead water lines entirely, instead of continuing the strategy of monitoring and treating water to prevent corrosion, is gaining some traction nationally.&#160; Senate Democrats have <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/congress-flint-water_us_5717d895e4b0479c59d6d6f2" type="external">introduced legislation</a> that would inject billions in federal funding into water infrastructure and lead relief programs, including a tax credit for homeowners to remove lead.&#160; The EPA is also <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/lead-pipes-everywhere_us_56a8e916e4b0f71799288f54" type="external">considering</a> changes to the Safe Drinking Water Act’s lead rules to encourage public water systems to replace lead pipes.</p>
<p>“It’s not a simple problem and there’s not a simple approach, but we’ve got to clean our water systems. We’ve got to get rid of the lead source, and we’ve got to have biologically stable water,” said Cantor. “If we do those three things, we’ve got a lower potential for any of these problems.&#160; But we’ve got a long way to go.”</p> | To remove lead pipes, Chicago can learn from Madison’s example | false | http://chicagoreporter.com/to-remove-lead-pipes-chicago-can-learn-from-madisons-example/ | 2016-05-02 | 3 |
<p />
<p>Check out the <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/12/AR2008101202333.html?hpid=topnews" type="external">new ABC/WaPo poll</a>. Obama’s up 10, which is not really new, but the internals are devastating for McCain.</p>
<p>Overall, Obama is leading 53 percent to 43 percent among likely voters, and for the first time in the general-election campaign, voters gave the Democrat a clear edge on tax policy and providing strong leadership.</p>
<p>McCain has made little headway in his attempts to convince voters that Obama is too “risky” or too “liberal.” Rather, recent strategic shifts may have hurt the Republican nominee, who now has higher negative ratings than his rival and is seen as mostly attacking his opponent rather than addressing the issues that voters care about. Even McCain’s supporters are now less enthusiastic about his candidacy, returning to levels not seen since before the Republican National Convention.</p>
<p>Conversely, Obama’s pitch to the middle class on taxes is beginning to sink in; nearly as many said they think their taxes would go up under a McCain administration as under an Obama presidency, and more see their burdens easing with the Democrat in the White House.</p>
<p>Josh Marshall adds a <a href="http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/236564.php" type="external">couple more points</a>:</p>
<p>On who’s the stronger leader: Obama 54%, McCain 40%. Who better understands the economic problems people in this country are having: Obama 58%, McCain 28%. Given that McCain’s entire campaign is based on his leadership credentials and that we’re in the throes of an historic economic crisis, I don’t know which of those two numbers are more devastating for McCain.</p>
<p /> | Polling Gets Even More Decisive | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2008/10/polling-gets-even-more-decisive/ | 2008-10-13 | 4 |
<p>One of the TV trucks under tarps in Kabul, Afghanistan&lt;a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/sigarhq/15429624960/"&gt;Special IG for Afghanistan Reconstruction&lt;/a&gt;/Flickr</p>
<p />
<p>In <a href="http://www.sigar.mil/pdf/special%20projects/SIGAR-15-09%20IL.pdf" type="external">August 2011</a>, the State Department purchased broadcast trucks for Afghan TV stations, for $3.6 million (206 million Afghanis), to help them tape live sporting events, like “buzkashi, soccer, cricket, and other sports.” ( <a href="http://www.afghan-web.com/sports/buzkashi.html" type="external">Buzkashi</a>, Afghanistan’s national sport, translates to “goat grabbing” where horse-mounted players drag a headless goat carcass towards opposing goals.)</p>
<p>But no one has been able to watch any goat carcasses filmed by those trucks in the past two years, because those trucks didn’t show up until late July. And now, they’re sitting around under tarps, unused—because the State Department could cancel the contract whenever it wants.</p>
<p />
<p>John Spoko, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), sent Secretary of State John Kerry a <a href="http://www.sigar.mil/pdf/special%20projects/SIGAR-15-09%20IL.pdf" type="external">letter</a> demanding an explanation for the delayed TV trucks on Friday.</p>
<p>According to the letter, in addition to the late delivery, the price of the television trucks “more than tripled” since the original order date. And, one of the trucks “was damaged in transit.” As of September, the trucks are still sitting under tarps as the SIGAR staff waits for the State Department to accept delivery.</p>
<p>Spoko claims that, because the trucks were delivered so late, the State Department may elect to end the contract and take the trucks back. After the late delivery, the tripled unit cost and several contract modifications, Spoko is wary of how aboveboard this deal really is: “If this information is accurate, it suggests that something is seriously wrong with the way this contract was managed.”</p>
<p>Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that SIGAR had “teamed up” with State to purchase the trucks. SIGAR is investigating the arrangement. It was not involved in it.</p>
<p /> | We Spent Millions so Afghans Could Film Live Sports With Headless Goat Carcasses—And Screwed It Up | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2014/10/afghanistan-tv-truck-deal-went-wrong/ | 2014-10-24 | 4 |
<p>Recently, a new way to get your message heard on Twitter is by “Thunderclapping”. The idea that was created and headlined by the product development studio&#160; <a href="http://www.de-de.com/" type="external">De-De</a>&#160;utilizes Twitter as a basis for the new product.</p>
<p>“Twitter is a wonderful way to say something, but it’s a difficult way to be heard…This is a way to break through that.” says Hashem Bajwa, De-De’s CEO.</p>
<p>In essence, the technology dubbed <a href="https://www.thunderclap.it/" type="external">Thunderclap</a>&#160;encourages anyone who is plugged in to repeat the same message all at the same time in hopes of creating mass attention to a specific cause.&#160;The way it works: A user promotes their cause by inviting others to a link that, if authorized, will allow their message to be tweeted from the invited’s own personal accounts. From there, the message creates a wave on a “simultaneous scale” that will, if done right, be seen by millions of Twitter users.</p>
<p>The new technology holds potential to be an extremely effective PR tool and politicians and organizations have apparently noticed. This, along with the company being a stem off of Droga5 (the widely popular ad agency that was associated with the “Get out the Vote” campaign in 2008) made it no surprise when De-De teamed up with Jeanne Shaheen and Glen Beck. The two figures were the first to participate in a Thunderclap virtual war or “social media duel” that, on Tuesday, challenged Shaheen and Beck to get the most people on board with their Thunderclap. Condensing their causes to 140 character messages, Shaheen went with “Let’s create jobs by bringing the Shaheen-Portman bipartisan energy efficiency bill to the floor” while Beck promoted “#RestoringLove is the next step in the movement of peace and freedom. Be a part of history and help restore America.”</p>
<p>With Matt Taibbi’s debut&#160; <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/national-affairs/help-matt-taibbi-stand-up-for-wall-street-reform-20120530" type="external">Thunderclap</a>&#160;reaching 4.2 million social media users, the use of the Thunderclap could be a rising trend in social media and technology. This being said, I can’t help but be concerned with the overwhelming Twitter congestion that could result by many of those equipped with high self esteem and a message.</p>
<p>Are you on board with the idea of Thunderclap?</p> | Thunderclap: A New Form of "Crowd Speaking" | false | https://ivn.us/2012/07/25/thunderclap-a-new-form-of-crowd-speaking/ | 2012-07-25 | 2 |
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<p>ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. - The Kitchen Creations cooking school for people with diabetes begins two new series - one in English, another in Spanish.</p>
<p>The free classes help people learn how to prepare delicious meals and manage their blood sugar levels. Dietitians Patrick West, Ruth Baldwin and Teresa Marroquin-Elizondo will teach them.</p>
<p>The English classes will be from 9 a.m. to noon Feb. 6, 13, 20 and 27 at Presbyterian Healthplex. The Spanish classes will be 9 a.m. to noon Feb. 5, 12 and 26, March 5 at First Choice Community Healthcare South Valley Center.</p>
<p>To sign up, call the Bernalillo County Cooperative Extension Office at 505-243-1386.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | Diabetes cooking classes to begin | false | https://abqjournal.com/344381/diabetes-cooking-classes-to-begin.html | 2 |
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<p>Last month, the main concern in Tripoli was getting your hands on a sheep to slaughter, as tradition requires on Eid al-Adha (feast of the sacrifice). Libyan sheep were 25 dinars a kilo (around $27), about twice the price before the revolution, and many families were only able to afford an imported Turkish animal, cheaper but considered inferior.</p>
<p>Though life felt normal by day, at night things were much less settled, and there were regular incidents with armed groups. Most were clashes between the armed inhabitants of some districts and&#160;thuwar&#160;(revolutionaries) from the town of Zintan, whose brigade was decisive in the liberation of the capital, alongside those from Tripoli itself, Misrata, and other western Libyan towns such as Yefren, Jadu and Rujbane. After most of the Misrata brigade left to fight in Bani Walid&#160;( <a href="" type="internal">1</a>) and Sirte, and other brigades went home, the Zintan, with 1,200&#160;men, were the biggest organised military force still in the capital. It was they who took the area around Tripoli’s international airport (including Gaddafi’s biggest palace and his security brigade) in August, after three days of fighting, and the National Transition Council (NTC) put them in charge of security within a 25km radius of the airport.</p>
<p>Their leader, Mukhtar al-Akhdar, is a charismatic figure to the rebels of the Jebel Nafusa. He has been involved in every battle since March. Before the war, he was director of a small company that hired chauffeur-driven vehicles to oil companies. His only soldiering experience was military service in the 1980s, when, like many young Libyans of his generation, he served in the forces sent into northern Chad. Al-Akhdar takes his mission seriously and was proud to explain that the NTC’s president, Mustapha Abdeljalil, who had moved into premises in Tripoli occupied by the former Islamic Call University, had personally entrusted him with the external security of this site (which lies in the zone for which he is responsible).</p>
<p>Monday 7&#160;November was a big day for al-Akhdar, since he was expecting the first commercial flight into Tripoli since the conflict (Turkish Airlines from Istanbul), but he was still more concerned with the events of the previous night. An altercation between Zintan&#160;thuwar&#160;and youths from the Hay al-Andalus neighbourhood had got out of hand: both sides had received reinforcements, with pick-up trucks and heavy weapons, and al-Akhdar had had to negotiate with the heads of the local military councils&#160;( <a href="" type="internal">2</a>) to prevent a major clash.</p>
<p>Incidents of this kind, some of which had claimed lives (especially among the militia of the self-proclaimed military governor of Tripoli and former jihadist Abdel Hakim Belhaj), had been on the increase. The Zintan&#160;thuwar&#160;are the focus of the dissatisfaction of many residents of Tripoli, who regard them as thieving and undisciplined and feel that they should leave the city. Al-Akhdar admitted that there had been incidents: “My&#160;thuwar&#160;aren’t saints. Some of these incidents were due to the consumption of contraband alcohol, which is getting more common in Tripoli.” He said he had ordered his company commanders to take action, expelling the culprits if necessary.</p>
<p>A few hours later, he was in the huge park around Gaddafi’s palaces (bombed by Nato) and tents, for a party hosted by the Organisation for National Concord (ONC), a charity set up in August that already has more than 5,000 members. Women and children who fled the towns and villages that had supported Gaddafi when his regime fell, had been invited. Over traditional dishes, ONC members from coastal towns and from among the&#160;thuwar&#160;expressed diverging views. Those from the towns felt it was time for the&#160;thuwar&#160;to leave Tripoli and join the national army; the&#160;thuwar&#160;felt they were still needed to provide “security” and thought Abdel Hakim Belhaj was orchestrating a propaganda campaign against them.</p>
<p>The&#160;thuwar&#160;feel they won the war, and do not see why they should place themselves under the command of army generals who were part of the Gaddafi regime, or opponents of the regime who have returned from exile. According to al-Akhdar, everything will have to be negotiated — ranks, pay, back pay for eight months’ service, jobs or scholarships for those who do not want to enlist. He intends to defend his men’s and tribe’s interests in the race for power, influence and access to resources (oil in particular) in Libya.</p>
<p>For al-Akhdar, there is no question of leaving Tripoli, and leaving the field open to Belhaj (who is said to have no more than 300&#160;men). Everyone at the feast agreed: they see Belhaj as a jihadist who aspires to political power and has no local support. He is known as “the rubber stamp man” and is said to have arrived in Tripoli, without taking part in the fighting, with a team from Al Jazeera and a rubber stamp naming him as military governor of Tripoli. Nobody wants to have anything to do with his sectarian vision of Islam, which they see as alien to local tradition, nor with his protector, the emir of Qatar, whom they accuse of interfering in Libyan affairs. By contrast, Abdeljalil enjoys unanimous support for his upright character, as a man of law, his ability to listen and his declared aim of defending Libya’s traditional and Muslim identity.</p>
<p>But there is little sign of national concord. Few show concern for the inhabitants of towns and villages that have suffered reprisals for having supported the Gaddafi regime. Cars with Sirte or Bani Walid number plates are stopped; their passengers are questioned and searched, and sometimes have their possessions confiscated. A member of the Warfalla tribe from Bani Walid who had taken refuge with relations in an area of Tripoli where the population are mostly Warfalla — and where graffiti homages to Gaddafi appear on the walls nightly — told me his house was looted by&#160;thuwar&#160;from Misrata in October. “We will never forget. We will bide our time and wait to take our revenge.” If the suffering of those on the losing side is not acknowledged, and nothing is done to protect them, it hard to see how the “national reconciliation” the NTC’s political leaders evoke can be achieved in the near future, when the NTC has no real control over the&#160;thuwar.</p>
<p>I headed south towards Zintan. The first town on the road, al-Aziziya, is the stronghold of the Warchafana, a major tribe who supported Gaddafi, more or less actively, until August and are regarded as “last-minute” revolutionaries&#160;( <a href="" type="internal">3</a>). Once it reached the mountains of the Jebel Nafusa, the road passed close to the villages of Riyayna, which symbolise the divisions: al-Riyayna al-Sharqiyya (Riyayna East) joined the insurgents early; al-Riyayna al-Gharbiyya (Riyayna West) supported Gaddafi to the end. Riyayna West was a ghost village, with burned-out houses and looted shops; in Riyayna East, life had returned to normal. Slogans praising the Zintan were everywhere, hastily painted on top of (and barely covering) those praising tribes on the losing side.</p>
<p>Eventually we reached Zintan, seat of the military council for the western region of Libya, which played a major role in coordinating operations in the Jebel Nafusa and prepared the assault on Tripoli. Zintan has a population of only 35,000 but more than 3,000&#160;thuwar,&#160;making it the most militarised town in Libya. According to al-Akhdar, 1,800 Zintan&#160;thuwar&#160;had been deployed to the region’s seven largest oil sites, and to Ubari, where they were negotiating the disarmament of the Touareg. It was near Ubari that the Zintan captured Gaddafi’s son Seif al-Islam, on 20&#160;November; they took him back to Zintan and were refusing, as of late November, to hand him over to the NTC.</p>
<p>Al-Akhdar said: “We can’t compete with Misrata, which has over 12,000&#160;thuwarfor a population of 300,000, but our concerns are different. We did not want to go with the Misratans to besiege and attack Bani Walid. We want to maintain good relations with the Warfalla, who have been our allies and good neighbours for a long time. The people of Misrata wanted revenge on the Warfalla for besieging their town; the Warfalla have been their rivals for a long time. And we were the best able to protect the oil wells, since we come from a Bedouin background and we are familiar with the desert regions as far as Ubari. Other people living in Tripolitania don’t know those areas and don’t venture into them.”</p>
<p>These words recall the distinction drawn by the historian Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406) between the values of the Bedouin and of city dwellers. The Zintan regard the Tripolitans as servile, hypocritical and arriviste, and see themselves as free, courageous and frank; the Tripolitans respect the courage and esprit de corps of the Zintan, but feel their values and customs will be unsuited to city life once peace has returned.</p>
<p>The rise in the number of armed confrontations is due to the militarisation of society and the retreat into primary identities&#160;( <a href="" type="internal">4</a>) at least as much as to the omnipresence of weapons. Local leaders are reluctant to recognise these tribal clashes as such and prefer to talk of isolated incidents, which they blame on “fifth columnists” or “Gaddafist sleeper cells” trying to foment division among the “Libyan people”. The official discourse, summed up by the slogan “No to tribalism, No to regionalism”, which has appeared recently on posters and banners across Tripoli, is little more than a pious wish&#160;( <a href="" type="internal">5</a>).</p>
<p>In Tripoli, Belhaj, who has the support of Qatar and Al Jazeera and whose men, natives of the capital, are ideologically trained and disciplined, could be tempted to present himself as an alternative to the “undisciplined” Bedouin, at the risk of provoking violence. There is also a risk that the tribes and regions that supported the Gaddafi regime, now defeated and humiliated, will be driven to increasing violence by their desire for revenge.</p>
<p>So, after eight months of a conflict that western leaders are still reluctant to describe as a civil war, the protection of the civilian population — Nato’s justification for joining in the war — is still far from assured. The triumphalism of the coalition leaders congratulating themselves on “their” victory after the fall of Sirte and the death of Gaddafi reveals their profound lack of interest in the “Libyan people”, though they have never stopped claiming the bombing was to protect them. But the deteriorating security situation and the number of armed confrontations in Tripolitania could soon remind them that military victory in a civil war means nothing in itself, and is no guarantee of the civilian population’s safety.</p>
<p>Patrick Haimzadeh was a diplomat at the French embassy in Tripoli from 2001 to 2004. He is the author of&#160;Au cœur de la Libye de Kadhafi&#160;(Inside Gaddafi’s Libya), Jean-Claude Lattès, Paris, 2011</p>
<p>Notes.</p>
<p>( <a href="" type="internal">1</a>) Bani Walid is the stronghold of the Warfalla, the largest tribe in Tripolitania, most of whom supported Gaddafi.</p>
<p>( <a href="" type="internal">2</a>) There are officially 53&#160;local military councils in Tripoli.</p>
<p>( <a href="" type="internal">3</a>) Between 10 and 12&#160;November, at least 17 people were killed and several dozen wounded in clashes involving heavy weaponry between members of the Warchafana and a militia from the coastal town of Zawiya.</p>
<p>( <a href="" type="internal">4</a>) The towns that played a major role in the revolution all have their own newspapers and TV stations (Libya has a total of 14 stations). Like the major tribes, they all also have a Facebook page.</p>
<p>( <a href="" type="internal">5</a>) One of the priority objectives of the Free Officers Movement, led by Gaddafi, after the 1969 revolution was the official suppression of tribalism. Concrete measures were taken, but these had little effect and remained in place for only a few years before Gaddafi decided to make the tribes a pillar of his political power once more. See Patrick Haimzadeh, “How to make Libya work after Gaddafi”,&#160;Le&#160;Monde.</p>
<p>This article appears in the excellent Le Monde Diplomatique, whose English language edition can be found at&#160; <a href="http://www.mondediplo.com/" type="external">mondediplo.com.</a>&#160;This full text appears by agreement with Le Monde Diplomatique. CounterPunch features two or three articles from LMD every month.</p> | Libya Still Under Arms | true | https://counterpunch.org/2011/12/13/libya-still-under-arms/ | 2011-12-13 | 4 |
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<p>Keanu Reeves in a scene from “John Wick: Chapter 2.” (Courtesy of Niko Tavernise/Lionsgate)</p>
<p>If you didn’t catch 2014’s surprise action hit “John Wick,” launching Keanu Reeves right into a Liam Neeson-style career rebirth, it’s OK. Peter Stormare is here to explain “John Wick” to you at the beginning of “John Wick: Chapter 2.” Playing a Russian gangster, he serves as a connection to the prior film, wherein retired assassin Wick killed everyone in sight while avenging his dog. In fairness, the dog was really cute. Stormare serves as an audience proxy, a fan of Wick’s. “He killed three men in a bar with pencil!” Stormare exclaims. And in the way that every character recognizes him on sight, uttering “John Wick,” it’s like they all saw the first movie too.</p>
<p>Writer Derek Kolstad and director Chad Stahelski are back for the sequel alongside Reeves, brewing up more of that uniquely Wickian magic. The screenplay is once again taciturn, nearly wordless; Wick speaks infrequently, in monosyllables (perfect for Reeves’ stoner intonation), and new co-star Ruby Rose doesn’t utter a word. But the film is noisy, speaking in the whine of motorcycles, rumbling engines, gunshots, knife swipes and text message alerts announcing a bounty on John Wick’s head.</p>
<p>Like its predecessor, “John Wick: Chapter 2” is a symphony of violence, a ballet even, and the visuals are abstracted to the surreal. The camera doesn’t cut often, eschewing the rapid-fire editing typical for this genre. In long takes, it methodically follows Wick as he works, smashing and stabbing and shooting. He is talented, but it is work he detests; he’s compelled by his reputation and his skill set into action. Reeves plays the autopilot assassin with a haunted despondency. His skills are remarkable (you gotta see him with a pencil), but he limps and heaves and bleeds. His hurt, inside and out, is all over his face.</p>
<p>Ruby Rose in a scene from “John Wick: Chapter 2.” (Courtesy of Niko Tavernise/Lionsgate)</p>
<p>He’s a simple man with a simple life. All he needs are his house, car and dog. Mess with that, mess with him. In the first film, he avenged his dog; now, it’s his house, filled with all the memories of his late wife. It’s a fascinating role for Reeves’ resurgence, and Stahleski and Kolstad play perfectly to his strengths: his quiet, Zen-like power, his just-deadpan-enough line readings that have inspired unintentional giggles throughout his career.</p>
<p>The surreal, stylized orgy of violence reaches its climax in a deliciously meta art exhibit, a hall of mirrors, making for a self-reflective wink at the notion of the mediated image. John Wick’s murderous actions are reflected and refracted at him, and our pleasure in this carnage, our culpability, is reflected on ourselves. The moments where it isn’t pleasurable are when it escapes the fantasy world and shows us something too real. Admittedly, it’s a bit queasy to watch John Wick shoot up a party, even if it is selectively at balaclava-clad bad guys.</p>
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<p>Where “Chapter 2” stumbles is in its plotting. The beauty of the first film was in the simplicity of story married to Reeves’ quiet persona and performance. Avenge the dog – that’s it. This film involves sibling rivalries, long cons, pawns, bounties and double crosses. It ends, then ends, and ends again, extending the exercise far beyond its welcome. It should have taken a note from its star and kept it simple, stupid.</p>
<p />
<p>RATED: R (for strong violence throughout, some language and brief nudity)</p>
<p>WHEN: Opens today</p>
<p>WHERE: Cottonwood, Winrock 16, Starlight Cinema 8 (Los Lunas), Premiere (Rio Rancho), Regal Santa Fe Stadium 14 (Santa Fe)</p>
<p /> | ‘John Wick: Chapter 2’ a cinematic symphony of violence | false | https://abqjournal.com/945649/action-2.html | 2 |
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<p>That’s my conclusion from two news items. The first is from the U.S. Census Bureau, which announced a baby “bust” last fall. The census shows that, in 95 percent of counties across the United States, the share of the population younger than 18 was smaller than in 2000.</p>
<p>There are now more households with dogs than children.</p>
<p>The other piece of evidence is a book published this month from feminist author and blogger Jessica Valenti: “Why Have Kids?” A new mother herself at 33, she looks at the unhappiness among parents with young children and asks this very relevant question: Why do it?</p>
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<p>According to interviews, Valenti concludes that it’s the chasm between the idealized parental life and reality that causes so much woe. Americans glorify the mother alone at home raising kids.</p>
<p>It may be tempting to tut-tut Valenti and tell her that she’ll get used to the lack of adult conversation and the jobs that require either 24/7 commitment or unemployment, with nothing in between. But her perspective may well spring not so much from her phase of life as from our time in history. Or, as we’ve begun to say about this economy that refuses to improve, her complaint is the new normal.</p>
<p>Raising children well has become increasingly difficult. I blame it on my generation – those of us who have teenagers, as I do, and older kids. Instead of banding together to wrest better policies from government and employers – or to create strong communities to assist one another – we’ve indulged ourselves in divisive “mommy wars.” We have bickered about which is better, attachment parenting or free-range? Stay-at-home mothers or moms with paychecks? Opting out or having it all?</p>
<p>In 1996, we heard that it takes a village to raise a child, and we looked the other way.</p>
<p>Now, Americans are having fewer children. In 2007, according to the census, the average number of births per American woman was 2.1. That’s just enough to hold the population steady. Last year, however, the birthrate fell to 1.9, the lowest in decades.</p>
<p>Have we decided that it’s too difficult to go on – at least in the United States? France is still reporting somewhat higher birthrates. Perhaps the French crèche system of universal day care – which, by the way, supports an employment rate of 80 percent among French mothers – has a lot to do with providing young families with the resources they need to feel happy and hopeful enough to keep having children.</p>
<p>The reasons for the decreasing U.S. birthrate are many. The financial crisis of 2008 made parents fearful of another bill. The annual cost of center-based day care for an infant in 35 states is higher than a year’s in-state tuition and fees at a four-year public college.</p>
<p>Wages have been falling for 40 years, which means that many household budgets require two, three or more jobs. Forget about quality family time with that schedule. One New Jersey town recently hired soccer coaches because it could no longer count on parents having the leisure to volunteer. Not only will we have fewer kids in the future, but it looks like we can forget about fielding a team for the World Cup!</p>
<p>We could reverse these trends, if we believed that saving the species were important enough. We could fight for better policies. Or we could accept the situation and look on the bright side: It will be a lot easier to navigate store aisles without all those annoying baby strollers.</p>
<p>Anne Michaud is interactive editor for Newsday Opinion and a member of the Newsday editorial board. Email: <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a>. Distributed by MCT Information Services</p> | A Birth Rate Headed to Zero | false | https://abqjournal.com/135445/a-birth-rate-headed-to-zero.html | 2012-10-04 | 2 |
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>In his seven years as CEO of Chicago Public Schools, Arne Duncan has taken on a host of urban education policy challenges to varying degrees of success.</p>
<p>In this second installment in a three-part series, Catalyst examines the Secretary of Education nominee’s efforts around principal leadership and special education.</p>
<p>Principals and leadership</p>
<p>In 2004, Duncan raised the eligibility bar for principal candidates, adding such hurdles as completing a portfolio of their experiences and skills in management and instructional leadership. After the new rules went into effect, the number of candidates on the principal eligibility list shrank from about 500 names to 350.</p>
<p>Duncan also created 24 area instructional offices to provide oversight and support for principals; the offices have often been led by former school principals. However, the strategy has had mixed results. A 2006 analysis by Catalyst found that reading, math and science scores rose in each of the district’s 17 elementary school areas, but the areas comprised of schools in the poorest communities on the South and West sides <a href="/news/index.php?item=2100&amp;cat=23" type="external">made the least progress.</a> Duncan set up a new Office of Principal Preparation and Development in 2003, to craft a systemwide strategy for finding and recruiting new school leaders and providing ongoing training. The office was created just as CPS faced the prospect of significant principal turnover; in 2004, the district revealed that half of principals were set to retire <a href="/news/index.php?item=1235&amp;cat=23" type="external">within the next four years.</a></p>
<p>In 2007, the turnover hit full force. CPS found itself with a <a href="/news/index.php?item=2177&amp;cat=30" type="external">record number of principal vacancies</a>: 120 principals gave notice that they planned to retire. The previous year, 70 principals had retired. CPS had more than enough candidates to fill the vacancies; at the time, 490 candidates had met the eligibility requirements.</p>
<p>CPS continued its recruiting efforts, setting its sights on recruiting more candidates from outside Chicago. Yet to date, that effort has borne little fruit. Only a handful of candidates from outside the city have joined Chicago’s principal ranks.</p>
<p>More recently, CPS began taking other steps to improve principal quality. Last year, for the first time, new principals got week-long leadership training and personal coaches—retired principals and principals from elsewhere who were brought to support rookies. The district also sent principals at so-called turnaround schools to train at the University of Virginia.</p>
<p>CPS is now considering a form of merit pay for principals, tying part of their salary to test scores, attendance and in high school, the number of freshmen on-track to graduate. There’s also a proposal to get rid of the current graduated pay scale, under which principals earn salaries of $118,000 to $160,000, based on the size of their school. The proposal calls for a flat salary of $125,000.</p>
<p>The Office of Principal Preparation is now reviewing the principal eligibility process, with an eye toward revamping it early next year.</p>
<p>Special education</p>
<p>One area where there was no improvement or reform under Duncan was special education, long a trouble spot for CPS. Performance continues to be dismal. Fewer than 25 percent of elementary students receiving special education services met state standards last year; less than 10 percent of those in high school did.</p>
<p>Half of high school students with learning disabilities drop out; only a third of those who graduate enroll in college, most in two-year programs, according to 2007 data.</p>
<p>The average performance gap on state tests between students in special education and those who aren’t is 45 points—a gap that has widened during Duncan’s tenure and that is higher than the statewide average.</p>
<p>Overall, about 12 percent of CPS students receive special education services (11 percent in elementary schools; 16 percent in high schools). In some high schools, as many as <a href="/news/index.php?item=2061&amp;cat=23" type="external">one in three students are in special education.</a></p>
<p>A court order requires Chicago to “mainstream” special education students in regular education classes as much as possible. CPS has made some strides in making sure special education students are included in regular classes, but the district has also been aggressive in trying to get the courts to lift the order, says Rod Estvan, who directs the education program for Access Living, a disability rights advocacy group, and formerly a monitor for the court. The order expires in 2010.</p>
<p>The district also has peeled away investment in special education services. Two years ago, after some adjustments, CPS cut some $12 million from special education, mostly eliminating individual aides for students. District officials maintained that some aides had lingered at schools long after their special education students left.</p>
<p>Advocates urged Duncan to redirect those savings to underserved special education students who were not performing well.</p>
<p>African-American students continue to be overrepresented among students diagnosed with learning or behavioral disabilities, a problem that has not been addressed by Duncan’s administration.&#160;</p>
<p>Before he took over, CPS was using a process to cut down on the number of unnecessary special education referrals, and keep in check representation of minority children. In recent years, however, many schools have stopped using the procedure, and some parents have complained that schools that maintain the practice use it <a href="/news/index.php?item=2441&amp;cat=30" type="external">to deny services to disabled children</a>.</p> | Duncan’s track record, part 2 | false | http://chicagoreporter.com/duncans-track-record-part-2/ | 2008-12-18 | 3 |
<p />
<p>Volkswagen's long-struggling Spanish division Seat said it may return to profit this year for the first time since 2008 and stay there through 2018, benefiting from demand for new and redesigned models.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Cost cuts and sales of models with higher trim levels helped Seat increase first-half operating profit to 93 million euros ($104 million) from 52 million a year earlier, its best-ever six-month result.</p>
<p>The new Ateca, Seat's first sport-utility vehicle being rolled out across Europe this year, will help second-half sales and volume should grow further in 2017 thanks to revamped versions of the Leon and Ibiza models and the launch of the Arona, another SUV, Chief Executive Luca de Meo told Reuters.</p>
<p>The Ateca, competing with models from rivals including Renault and Hyundai Motor &lt;005380.KS&gt; in the fast-growing compact SUV segment, has attracted 21,000 orders this summer with many customers new to the brand, de Meo said.</p>
<p>"It changes the game for us, it gives us completely different credibility" on profitability, the CEO said in an interview on Friday at the Paris auto show.</p>
<p>"If we have a bit of luck and markets don't collapse, I see the next three years as profitable years."</p>
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<p>Seat last year narrowed its operating loss to 10 million euros from 127 million in 2014, according to Volkswagen's (VW) annual report.</p>
<p>VW, which bought Seat in 1986 to increase its exposure to the then fast-growing Spanish market, has long tried to overcome the losses caused by under-utilized capacity at Seat's Spanish factory in Martorell.</p>
<p>It has cut management and manufacturing costs and shifted production of Audi's Q3 SUV to Martorell.</p>
<p>De Meo said Seat may offer an electric car by about 2020 as parent VW pushes zero-emission technology across the 12-brand group.</p>
<p>(Editing by Ruth Pitchford)</p> | VW's Seat seeks return to profit with new models, cost cuts | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/09/30/vw-seat-seeks-return-to-profit-with-new-models-cost-cuts.html | 2016-09-30 | 0 |
<p>The White House will propose granting legal status to 1.8 million young immigrants who came to the U.S. illegally as children, in return for $25 billion for border security, including President Trump’s proposed wall on the southern border.</p>
<p>The proposal, an outline of which was delivered to members of Congress by White House officials Thursday, marks a major step for the administration —&#160;committing to legalizing a much larger group than Republican conservatives have previously been willing to consider.</p>
<p>The proposal would set up a 10- to 12-year path to citizenship for the so-called Dreamers.&#160;</p> | White House to back legalizing 1.8 million 'Dreamers' | false | http://latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-essential-washington-updates-white-house-to-back-legalizing-1-8-1516919120-htmlstory.html | 2018-01-25 | 3 |
<p>The School Board’s new formula for distributing federal Title I funds focuses entirely on the poverty level of a school’s student population, not its neighborhood. It also broadens the definition of poverty in a way that includes more Hispanics. And it seeks to minimize wide variations in funding from one school year to the next.</p>
<p>Under the old formula, a school’s poverty rate was determined by a combination of two factors: the number of children in the school who were eligible for free and reduced-price lunches and the number of children in the surrounding community whose parents received Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) benefits. Each factor was given equal weight.</p>
<p>Under the new formula, a school’s AFDC count is based on its student enrollment, not the neighborhood. As a result, schools that are located in high-poverty communities but enroll relatively few low-income students (mainly magnet schools) no longer receive Title I funds. On the flip side, schools with large proportions of low-income students that are located in better-off communities now are eligible.</p>
<p>Also, the new formula favors free-lunch counts over AFDC counts, 60 percent to 40 percent. Proponents of this modification argue that free-lunch counts are more likely to include students from low-income households that choose not to apply for public aid or, due to immigration status, do not qualify.</p>
<p>Finally, the new formula eliminates one factor that brought substantial increases or decreases to schools as their poverty rates fluctuated from one year to the next. Under the old formula, there were three levels of funding: Schools with a poverty rate of at least 75 percent got $829 per low-income student; those with 58.5 percent to 74 percent got $593, and those with 54 percent to 58.4 percent got $296. Thus, a school that went from 75 percent to 74 percent could lose well over $100,000.</p>
<p>The new formula establishes a sliding scale: For every 1 percent increase in a school’s poverty rate, the per-pupil rate jumps $15. It begins at $300 per pupil for schools with a poverty rating of 56 percent and climbs to $900 for schools with a poverty rating of at least 94 percent.</p>
<p>The reason for the scale is that schools with higher concentrations of poverty are deemed to need more money to produce the same academic results as schools with fewer poor students.</p> | Old, new formulas | false | http://chicagoreporter.com/old-new-formulas/ | 2005-07-25 | 3 |
<p>(Screenshot via YouTube.)</p>
<p>Demi Lovato revealed her crushes in the entertainment industry during “Who’d You Rather?” on “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” on Monday. While she had a couple top picks, Rihanna was Lovato’s clear favorite.</p>
<p>Lovato, 25, picked Rihanna over the likes of&#160;Harry Styles, Zac Efron, Milo Ventimiglia, Drake, Rita Ora, Chance The Rapper and Kristen Stewart.</p>
<p>However, Stewart was also a contender for Lovato who chose the actress over Niall Horan, Michael B. Jordan and Nick Jonas.</p>
<p>“Call me Kristen,” Lovato says.</p>
<p>In her 2016 documentary “Simply Complicated,” Lovato <a href="" type="internal">shared</a>that she is interested in both men and women.</p>
<p>Watch Lovato pick her celebrity crushes below.</p>
<p />
<p><a href="" type="internal">Demi Lovato</a> <a href="" type="internal">Ellen DeGeneres</a> <a href="" type="internal">Kristen Stewart</a> <a href="" type="internal">Rihanna</a> <a href="" type="internal">The Ellen DeGeneres Show</a></p> | Demi Lovato wants to date Rihanna | false | http://washingtonblade.com/2018/01/16/demi-lovato-wants-date-rihanna/ | 3 |
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<p />
<p>In his address to Congress, President Barack Obama quoted a letter that Senator Ted Kennedy wrote him after he learned he was soon to die. It’s worth reading the whole note:</p>
<p>May 12, 2009</p>
<p>Dear Mr. President,</p>
<p>I wanted to write a few final words to you to express my gratitude for your repeated personal kindnesses to me – and one last time, to salute your leadership in giving our country back its future and its truth.</p>
<p>On a personal level, you and Michelle reached out to Vicki, to our family and me in so many different ways. You helped to make these difficult months a happy time in my life.</p>
<p>You also made it a time of hope for me and for our country.</p>
<p>When I thought of all the years, all the battles, and all the memories of my long public life, I felt confident in these closing days that while I will not be there when it happens, you will be the President who at long last signs into law the health care reform that is the great unfinished business of our society. For me, this cause stretched across decades; it has been disappointed, but never finally defeated. It was the cause of my life. And in the past year, the prospect of victory sustained me-and the work of achieving it summoned my energy and determination.</p>
<p>There will be struggles – there always have been – and they are already underway again. But as we moved forward in these months, I learned that you will not yield to calls to retreat – that you will stay with the cause until it is won. I saw your conviction that the time is now and witnessed your unwavering commitment and understanding that health care is a decisive issue for our future prosperity. But you have also reminded all of us that it concerns more than material things; that what we face is above all a moral issue; that at stake are not just the details of policy, but fundamental principles of social justice and the character of our country.</p>
<p>And so because of your vision and resolve, I came to believe that soon, very soon, affordable health coverage will be available to all, in an America where the state of a family’s health will never again depend on the amount of a family’s wealth. And while I will not see the victory, I was able to look forward and know that we will – yes, we will – fulfill the promise of health care in America as a right and not a privilege.</p>
<p>In closing, let me say again how proud I was to be part of your campaign- and proud as well to play a part in the early months of a new era of high purpose and achievement. I entered public life with a young President who inspired a generation and the world. It gives me great hope that as I leave, another young President inspires another generation and once more on America’s behalf inspires the entire world.</p>
<p>So, I wrote this to thank you one last time as a friend- and to stand with you one last time for change and the America we can become.</p>
<p>At the Denver Convention where you were nominated, I said the dream lives on.</p>
<p>And I finished this letter with unshakable faith that the dream will be fulfilled for this generation, and preserved and enlarged for generations to come.</p>
<p>With deep respect and abiding affection,</p>
<p>Ted</p>
<p>It really is too bad that Kennedy won’t be at the signing ceremony. And, yes, I am assuming there will be one.</p>
<p>You can follow David Corn’s postings and media appearances via <a href="http://www.twitter.com/davidcorndc" type="external">Twitter</a>.</p>
<p /> | Ted Kennedy’s Letter to Barack Obama | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2009/09/ted-kennedys-letter-barack-obama/ | 2009-09-10 | 4 |
<p>By Jocelyn NoveckAssociated PressPublished: 1/05/06Excerpt:</p>
<p>The word "reportedly" in the [Boston] Globe headline was commendable, said Al Tompkins of the Poynter Institute, a journalism school based in St. Petersburg, Fla. Many headlines, he noted, went too far because they allowed "no wiggle room..."The error, said Tompkins, was that "we took what appeared to be good information ... and added a level of certainty that it did not warrant." Besides the headlines that went too far, many lead paragraphs dropped any attribution for news that the miners were safe. <a href="http://www.theeagle.com/stories/010506/nation_20060105010a.php" type="external">More of this article...</a> <a href="http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&amp;ned=us&amp;ie=UTF-8&amp;q=%22Al+Tompkins%22+Poynter&amp;btnG=Search+News" type="external">Search Google News for more quotes by Al Tompkins...</a></p>
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<p /> | Getting the mine story straight | false | https://poynter.org/news/getting-mine-story-straight | 2006-01-06 | 2 |
<p />
<p>President Obama’s arrival in the Oval Office hasn’t stopped at least one controversial Bush-era counterterrorism tactic: aerial attacks on suspected Taliban militants by the missile-armed Predator drones that soar over the Hindu Kush day and night. If anything, such attacks have only increased in frequency. (Read David Case’s Mother Jones‘ piece <a href="" type="internal">here</a>.) On Monday, a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/17/world/asia/17pstan.html?ref=todayspaper" type="external">Predator destroyed</a> a house in Pakistan’s Northwest Frontier Province, reportedly killing at least 31 Taliban fighters who had gathered there.</p>
<p>The costs and benefits of deploying death from above are complex. Surely some of these guys are deserving of whatever comes their way. Problem is, many of them may not be. And besides, killing Islamist foot soldiers has comparatively little impact on the overall war effort, whereas the propaganda value for the Taliban and Al Qaeda is immeasurable. Civilian casualties are unavoidable in a war fought by remote control from 10,000 feet–and they are the perfect instrument for radicalizing populations that US and NATO forces will need to win over if they hope to meet with any success in stemming the insurgency.A new report ( <a href="http://www.civicworldwide.org/afghan_report" type="external">.pdf</a>) from the <a href="http://www.civicworldwide.org/" type="external">Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict</a>, released Tuesday, points out that there has been a 12 percent drop in Afghan support for international forces since 2007 and a 15 percent decline since 2006. The underlying cause is as universal as it is obvious: people don’t like to think of themselves as potential collateral damage. And when their family members and neighbors are killed in error, they expect an apology and compensation for their loss. All too often this does not occur.</p>
<p>From the report:</p>
<p>The international coalition in Afghanistan is losing public support, one fallen civilian at a time. Twenty billion US dollars in military expenditures each month and billions more in support operations and humanitarian aid still leaves the many civilians harmed by international troops with nothing. Since the initial US invasion in 2001, the lack of a clear, coordinated strategy to address civilian losses has been a leading source of anger and resentment toward military forces…</p>
<p>Billions of dollars are spent to win, keep and rebuild Afghan communities, but it only takes seeing one family member maltreated and ignored by military forces for a community to turn against the international effort. Victim assistance is equally critical on humanitarian grounds. In 2007 and 2008, an estimated 3,641 civilians were killed by parties to the conflict in Afghanistan. For every civilian killed, as many or more are injured, lose their homes or livelihoods. For countless Afghan families living on the margins, the loss of a breadwinner, high medical or funeral costs, or the financial burden of supporting disabled or dependent relatives can make even basic survival difficult. For each family struggling to recover from losses, there are multiplying ripple effects on Afghanistan’s continuing development and stabilization.</p>
<p /> | Civilian Casualties Undermining Afghanistan War Effort, Says Report | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2009/02/civilian-casualties-undermining-afghanistan-war-effort-says-report/ | 2009-02-17 | 4 |
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