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<p>Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) is running for president.&lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/gageskidmore/4377543217/sizes/l/in/photostream/"&gt;Gage Skidmore&lt;/a&gt;/Flickr</p>
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<p>I have a magazine story that’s <a href="/politics/2011/08/michele-bachmann-iowa-frontrunner" type="external">up on the site today</a> tracing Michele Bachmann’s political evolution from a born-again high school student to a Minnesota state senator. The headline more or less captures the thrust of the piece:&#160;“Crazy?&#160;Like a Fox.”&#160;You can call her a flake or a loon or a black helicopter Republican&#160;(as her Senate colleagues did behind her back), but Bachmann has a coherent worldview that her opponents would do well to understand—it’s what’s made her political rise possible.</p>
<p>One of the key elements of her ideology, as I’ve noted previously, was the work of <a href="" type="internal">theologian Francis&#160;Schaeffer</a>, whose film How Should We Then Live Michele and her husband Marcus watched together as Winona&#160;State University undergrads. Schaeffer’s central premise—one that Bachmann has explicitly endorsed and adopted for her own ends—is that&#160;American society has been beset by moral relativism.&#160;Rome fell because it was built on a lousy foundation—a flimsy belief system whose gods themselves were prone to vice, not virtue. A consequence of that was a willing submission to humanity’s basest impulses. Speaking amid the ruins of Pompeii, Schaeffer notes that the city was in the midst of a “cult of the phallus” just before the eruption of Mount Vesuvius.</p>
<p>Fear of moral relativism helps to explain why Bachmann embarked on her crusade to combat gay marriage and keep homosexuality out of Minnesota public schools with such fervor. Being gay wasn’t just an individual sin—it was symptomatic of a society in disarray. But&#160; <a href="" type="internal">don’t ask her</a> about any of that now.&#160;Despite persistent questioning on the subject, she’s still refusing to talk about her anti-gay views. <a href="http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/08/14/bachmann-faces-tough-questions-on-sunday-shows/" type="external">Here’s Michael&#160;Shear</a>:</p>
<p>On ABC’s “This Week,” Mrs. Bachmann was asked about a statement she made in 2006 that being gay was the equivalent of “personal bondage, personal despair, and personal enslavement.”</p>
<p>Mrs. Bachmann declined to say whether she still believed those words, saying only that “I am not running to be any person’s judge. And I give — I ascribe dignity and honor to all people, no matter who they are. And that’s how I view people.”</p>
<p>On “Meet the Press,” she gave a similar answer to the same question.</p>
<p>“I don’t judge them. I don’t judge them,” she told host David Gregory. “I’m running for the presidency of the United States.”</p>
<p>Bachmann’s best articulation of her go-to response to questions about gay issues was on “Meet the Press,” when she said, “these kind of questions aren’t what people are concerned about right now.” That’s true—unless you’re among the millions of LGBT Americans directly affected by these issues. Or, for that matter, unless you’re Michele Bachmann, who has now <a href="" type="internal">signed two pledges</a> in the last month committing her to oppose gay marriage, and who makes her leadership on the issue part of her stump speech. In essence, Bachmann is arguing that gay marriage is a really trivial issue that’s also an existential threat to the core foundation of American society, the family. Got that?</p>
<p>Anyway, <a href="" type="internal">read the piece</a> if you’ve got a minute.</p>
<p /> | Michele Bachmann Wants it Both Ways on Gay Marriage | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2011/08/michele-bachmann-wants-it-both-ways-gay-marriage/ | 2011-08-15 | 4 |
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<p>Wisconsin gun owners scored a major victory Tuesday when the <a href="http://www.jsonline.com/story/news/blogs/proof-and-hearsay/2017/03/07/court-oks-guns-madison-buses/98824034/" type="external">state Supreme Court, in a 5-2 ruling</a>, said the City of Madison’s Metro Transit agency cannot prohibit passengers from carrying firearms on city buses.</p>
<p>In the process, they also strengthened the state’s preemption statute, which prevents local governments from enacting stricter regulations than allowed under state law. The case was “remanded to the circuit court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion,” the court said.</p>
<p>The case was brought by Wisconsin Carry, Inc. and one of its members in 2014, challenging a ban on bus carry that had been adopted by Madison’s Transit and Parking Commission nine years earlier.</p>
<p>According to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, Justice Daniel Kelly wrote the majority opinion, noting that the state’s preemption statute, Act 35, prevents an agency rule from prohibiting licensed gun owners from carrying while riding on Madison buses. The city had argued that an “agency rule’ does not fall under that restriction.</p>
<p>The high court said otherwise.</p>
<p>“In the City’s reading of the statute,” Justice Kelly wrote, “the legislature&#160;made a conscious decision to withdraw firearms regulating&#160;authority from a&#160;municipality’s democratically-accountable governing&#160;body&#160;while leaving that authority entirely&#160;undiminished when exercised by the municipality’s democratically-unaccountable sub-units.”</p>
<p>Rulings at the lower court levels saw it the other way, however, so the case ended up before the state high court.</p>
<p>The case got some timely support from state Attorney General Brad Schimel, who filed an amicus brief “siding with the gun group,” the newspaper noted. Schimel and Solicitor General Misha Tseytlin contended that the bus ban conflicted with and essentially defeated the purpose of the state preemption statute, the newspaper explained.</p>
<p>This case is similar to a challenge of Washington State’s preemption law a few years ago by the City of Seattle, which tried to ban firearms in city park facilities by regulation rather than an ordinance. That case, <a href="http://caselaw.findlaw.com/wa-court-of-appeals/1584474.html" type="external">Chan v. City of Seattle</a>, was won at the trial court and unanimously at the state Court of Appeals when it was challenged by the Second Amendment Foundation, National Rifle Association, Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, Washington Arms Collectors and five individual citizens. The city lost at both levels, and when it sought review by the state Supreme Court, it was turned down.</p>
<p>Related:</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Support builds for national concealed carry legislation</a></p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Legally-armed citizens fight back, even in Chicago!</a></p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Iowa Senate offers example for other states regarding firearms</a></p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Oregon counties eye ‘Second Amendment Preservation’ ordinances</a></p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | Wisconsin Supreme Court: Bus Carry OK on Madison Metro | true | http://conservativefiringline.com/wisconsin-supreme-court-bus-carry-ok-madison-metro/ | 2017-03-07 | 0 |
<p>Jan. 25 (UPI) — Northrop Grumman has been awarded a contract for engineering services to the U.S. Army’s Hunter unmanned aircraft systems.</p>
<p>The deal, announced Wednesday by the Department of Defense, is valued at $12.5 million and is a modification to a previous contract.</p>
<p>The Army’s RQ-5 Hunter <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/drones/" type="external">unmanned aerial vehicle</a> is an intelligence community asset as it is primarily used for reconnaissance missions and has strike capabilities — the MQ-5A/B carries the GBU-44/B Viper Strike, which is a GPS-aided, laser-guided anti-tank bomb.</p>
<p>Work on the contract and funding will be determined with each order, according to the Pentagon announcement.</p>
<p>The contract between the Army and Northrop Grumman is expected to be complete by January 17, 2019.</p> | Northrop Grumman tapped to service Army’s Hunter drones | false | https://newsline.com/northrop-grumman-tapped-to-service-armys-hunter-drones/ | 2018-01-25 | 1 |
<p>Xerox Corp said Chief Financial Officer Luca Maestri will leave the company in February to join Apple Inc as corporate controller.</p>
<p>Xerox, which also said it was on track to meet its fourth-quarter forecast of adjusted earnings of 28 cents to 30 cents per share, said it had begun an external search for a new CFO.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Maestri will be with Xerox through the end of February to help manage the transition.</p>
<p>He joined Xerox as CFO in February 2011 after serving as CFO of Nokia Siemens Networks from 2008. He also worked with General Motors Corp.</p>
<p>Maestri took home $3.3 million as compensation for 2011, according to a regulatory filing.</p>
<p>He replaces Betsy Rafael who retired from Apple in October.</p>
<p>Xerox's margins have been pressured due to investments in its services business that handles anything from toll systems to Medicare and brings in more than half its revenue.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>The company said in October it would take restructuring charges as large companies tightened budgets and government had less funding for projects.</p>
<p>Xerox shares were up 1.5 percent before the bell, after closing at $7.29 on the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday.</p> | Xerox CFO to Join Apple | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2013/01/11/xerox-cfo-to-join-apple.html | 2016-03-02 | 0 |
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<p>The Friends of the Rio Grande Nature Center State Park presents the Winter Bird and Bat Festival on Jan. 11. The event will be at the Rio Grande Nature Center, 2901 Candelaria NW, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.</p>
<p>The festival will offer a speaker program focusing on habitats, migration patterns, identification and behavior of birds and bats in New Mexico. The day also will include bird and nature walks, live birds with Wildlife Rescue and activities for children.</p>
<p>The festival is free; day-use parking is $3.</p>
<p>For more information and a full schedule, check rgnc.org.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | Get in the know on birds and bats | false | https://abqjournal.com/329661/get-in-the-know-on-birds-and-bats.html | 2014-01-02 | 2 |
<p>Would God ever damn America? Is there anything we have done or could do as a nation that might court such severe judgment from an almighty, or is there a peculiar American exemption from God’s wrath? The prediction of God’s damnation for bad behavior is made in both black and white churches.</p>
<p>One authority on such matters, the Rev. Pat Robertson, didn’t think the latter when he blamed the ravaging effects of Hurricane Katrina on the Lord’s retribution against those who “shed innocent blood.” Robertson’s reference to legalized abortion cited a passage from Leviticus that the Rev. Jeremiah Wright also might have been thinking of when he sermonized: “The government … wants us to sing ‘God Bless America?’ No, no, no … . God damn America! That’s in the Bible for killing innocent people,” a reference to African-Americans sacrificed on ghetto streets.</p>
<p>While the “innocents” about whom they spoke are different, the scriptural reference seems to be the same. As Robertson put it, in a statement preserved in a video clip posted on the Internet by Media Matters: “I was reading yesterday … about what God has to say in the Old Testament about those who shed innocent blood … ‘The land will vomit you out,’&#160;” which he related to attacks “either by terrorists or now by natural disaster.”</p>
<p>Robertson, a firm ally of Republican administrations, has not always been warm to the presumed GOP presidential nominee, Sen. John McCain, although the two recently mended their strained relationship. However, in this season of pastor-baiting, McCain has his own problem, having expressed his thrill in receiving “the endorsement of Pastor John Hagee.”</p>
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<p>Hagee, citing a planned “homosexual parade,” had previously told National Public Radio that Hurricane Katrina was God’s punishment of the people of New Orleans for “a level of sin that was offensive to God.” Obviously, the almighty with whom Hagee is on intimate terms is in need of MapQuest, given that New Orleans’ gay neighborhoods were among the ones least impacted by the hurricane.</p>
<p>Hagee long has been denounced by Catholics for labeling the Vatican “The Great Whore” and blaming Hitler’s genocidal policies on his having “attended a Catholic school as a child.” A Hagee issue that has some current relevance to the Iraq disaster is his blasting of the Roman Catholic Church for sponsoring the Crusades, which “plunged the world into the Dark Ages.”</p>
<p>In a warning that imperial adventures lose some of their luster with the passage of time, Hagee wrote in his book “Jerusalem Countdown”: “The brutal truth is that the Crusades were military campaigns of the Roman Catholic Church to gain control of Jerusalem from the Muslims and to punish the Jews as the alleged Christ killers on the road to and from Jerusalem.” What will future theologians say about George W. Bush’s crusade to liberate Iraq, shedding the blood of hundreds of thousands of innocents?</p>
<p>I know what the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. would say were he alive today, for it would be consistent with his denunciation of the Vietnam War in a sermon at New York’s Riverside Church a year before his assassination. Recounting his difficulty in spreading the message of nonviolence and personal responsibility to the very ghetto youths that the Rev. Wright has worked with for four decades, King stated, “I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today: my own government.”</p>
<p>King delivered that speech the year Wright ended his six years of service in the U.S. Marine Corps and Navy, for which he received three commendations from President Lyndon Johnson, whom King was confronting. No doubt Wright was influenced by King’s oratory decrying “the cruel irony of watching Negro and white boys on TV screens … in brutal solidarity burning the huts of a poor village, but we realize that they would hardly live on the same block in Chicago. I could not be silent in the face of such cruel manipulation of the poor.” And neither could Wright</p>
<p>I respect Barack Obama’s right to repudiate his pastor’s comments, as he did, but I respect even more his refusal to throw the man overboard in a practice we witnessed all too often with the Clintons when they came under right-wing attack. Hillary did it again Tuesday, telling the right-wing Pittsburgh Tribune-Review editorial board that Wright “would not have been my pastor.” So she says, but the record shows she was there in the White House on Sept. 11, 1998, when her husband posed for a photo with the Rev. Wright and was grateful for his support in the midst of that wrath-of-Leviticus blue dress flap. Ingrate.</p> | War of the Word | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/war-of-the-word/ | 2008-03-26 | 4 |
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<p>The House of Commons’ Exiting the EU committee urged May to publish her plan soon and to give lawmakers a vote on whatever deal is concluded with the 28-nation EU. Their report was released Saturday, just days before May is to deliver her vision about Britain’s post-EU future in a major speech.</p>
<p>“This is going to be a hugely complex task and the outcome will affect us all,” committee chair Hilary Benn said. “The government needs to publish its Brexit plan by mid-February at the latest, including its position on membership of the single market and the customs union, so that it can be scrutinized by Parliament and the public.”</p>
<p>Members of the committee also warned that the task of preparing for Brexit was placing a “strain” on departments across the British government and said more staff may be required.</p>
<p>The committee is seeking a framework of the U.K.’s future trading relationship with the EU as part of the Article 50 negotiations — arguing that transitional arrangements would be needed for trade to continue if a deal wasn’t complete by 2019.</p>
<p>It acknowledged, though, that Britain’s government may not be in a position to deliver this objective, since it would also depend on the other 27 members of the EU.</p>
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<p>“The U.K.’s relationship with the EU is deep and complex, not least in terms of the legal rights of parties in both the U.K. and the EU-27,” the report said. “It would be unsatisfactory and potentially damaging to both sides were the U.K. to leave the EU with no agreement having been reached.”</p>
<p>The committee said it was important that financial service providers have confidence in the new arrangements and that the government should seek to ensure continued access to EU markets by way continuing passporting rights.</p>
<p>The principle of “passporting” allows any firm registered in one EU country to operate in any other member state without facing another layer of regulation. It allows EU exporters to ship their goods to any EU country free of tariffs.</p>
<p>Losing that freedom is a particular concern for the many foreign firms in London who use the British capital not only as a financial hub but as an entry point into the EU.</p> | Lawmakers urge British PM May to clarify Brexit intentions | false | https://abqjournal.com/927819/lawmakers-urge-british-pm-may-to-clarify-brexit-intentions-2.html | 2 |
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<p>WASHINGTON (AP) _ The winning numbers in Wednesday afternoon's drawing of the Dist. of Columbia Lottery's "DC 5 Midday" game were:</p>
<p>1-1-1-0-6</p>
<p>(one, one, one, zero, six)</p>
<p>WASHINGTON (AP) _ The winning numbers in Wednesday afternoon's drawing of the Dist. of Columbia Lottery's "DC 5 Midday" game were:</p>
<p>1-1-1-0-6</p>
<p>(one, one, one, zero, six)</p> | Winning numbers drawn in 'DC 5 Midday' game | false | https://apnews.com/amp/bf184b4261ea4c5f9a8742b032253541 | 2018-01-03 | 2 |
<p>There wasn’t much suspense in the run-up to last night’s state of the union address because President Barack Obama long ago signaled the kind of populist and heavily political speech he was going to deliver.</p>
<p>Last September, after a long hot summer of debt limit brinksmanship, he convened a joint session of Congress to deliver what was billed as <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/09/08/address-president-joint-session-congress" type="external">a “jobs” speech</a> but what was really the first salvo in the 2012 general election campaign. The proposals the president outlined that evening were not new and had previously been rejected by Congress. But that didn’t matter. They weren’t offered to start a legislative process that would result in passage of a bill that would get signed into law and would create jobs; they were offered to provide voters with a stark contrast between the parties in advance of an election year.</p>
<p>In the aftermath of the jobs speech, the president went on the road and denounced the “do-nothing” Congress in several campaign-style events in critical electoral states, even though no real effort was made by the White House to move a compromise plan through Congress. The president’s early autumn speeches were punctuated with the kind of heavily political rhetoric normally reserved for the party conventions just before presidential elections, such as when he <a href="http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2011/10/17/obama_gop_wants_dirtier_air_dirtier_water_less_people_with_health_insurance.html" type="external">said</a> the Republican plan for the country boils down to “dirtier air, dirtier water, and less people with health insurance.”</p>
<p>In early December, the president ratcheted up the rhetoric still further with <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/12/06/remarks-president-economy-osawatomie-kansas" type="external">an economic speech in Osawatomie, Kansas</a> focused on supposed reasons for the struggles of the American middle class.</p>
<p>So, it was no real surprise that during last night’s state of the union address the president hit on the same populist themes he has been pounding since Labor Day, which essentially come down to this: the nation’s economic troubles—anemic job growth today, massive federal borrowing and debt accumulation, and stagnant wage growth for the middle class—can all be traced to public policies which deliver excessive economic gains to the rich at the expense of everyone else.</p>
<p>In other words, if only the Republicans were willing to tax the rich, all would be well.</p>
<p>Predictably, that was again the central message in the president’s address last evening, as was clear when <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/warren-buffets-secretary-to-sit-with-michelle-obama-during-state-of-the-union-address/2012/01/24/gIQAAwObNQ_story_1.html" type="external">the White House announced</a> that Warren Buffett’s secretary would be the First Lady’s special guest for the evening.</p>
<p>There’s no question that the president’s populist, tax-the-rich rhetoric resonates with a segment of the electorate that has struggled economically and is all-too-willing to accept the simplistic explanation that the blame for their troubles lies with the so-called “rich.”</p>
<p>But what President Obama didn’t explain last evening—indeed, has never really explained—is how a tax hike on higher income households will help the struggling middle class.</p>
<p>Because it’s not at all obvious it would.</p>
<p>For starters, if, as the president proposes, the rich are taxed at higher rates but the government’s main entitlement programs remain entirely unreformed, the government’s deficit and debt problems will not be solved. <a href="http://www.cbo.gov/doc.cfm?index=12039" type="external">According to the Congressional Budget Office</a> (CBO), spending on Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid in 1980 was just 6.0 percent of GDP. In 2030, spending on those programs plus ObamaCare <a href="http://www.cbo.gov/doc.cfm?index=12039" type="external">is expected to reach</a> 15.2 percent of GDP (using assumptions about health cost growth that is slightly more realistic than current law). That jump in spending is the real cause of our fiscal problems. If, as the president proposes, the Bush tax cuts are allowed to expire for those with incomes above $200,000 ($250,000 for couples), that might raise revenue by about 0.4 percent of GDP per year. That’s not nearly enough to cover the explosion in entitlement spending that will occur over the coming two decades.</p>
<p>Moreover, there’s strong evidence <a href="http://american.com/archive/2011/august/obamasfollytaxingtherich" type="external">that higher taxes will hurt growth and job creation</a>, despite the claims of the president to the contrary. Among economists, it’s really a debate about how damaging higher tax rates will be to growth and job creation. There’s no real debate that such taxes are neutral in that regard.</p>
<p>But even setting aside the likely damage that would ensue from higher taxes, the president has never articulated a coherent theory about how a presumably larger government would bring about higher paying jobs for the middle class. Because there’s no evidence whatsoever that the middle class or anyone else will be better off if the government increased spending on items that the president likes to call “investments.” The president is not calling for stimulus spending to raise aggregate demand in a Keynesian sense. He long ago abandoned that line of argument. No, what he proposed last night is simply more spending on certain programs financed by higher tax collection. Thus, any benefit to the middle class would have to come from the quality of the government’s “investments.”</p>
<p>Unfortunately for the president, there’s no evidence that more governmental spending will lead to better jobs for anyone. He mentioned against last evening that job training is a central component of his program. But federal job training efforts have a four decade record of failure, and the president’s speech gave no indication that his administration has found a way to deliver services in ways that will lead to better results.</p>
<p>After the deep recession of 2008 and 2009, what the country needs more than anything else is a period of robust economic growth. That’s the only remedy that will truly help the American middle class. But in his speech last evening, the president again served up the kind of populist rhetoric that might make his most devoted followers feel better but will do nothing to address the growth deficit that threatens his presidency.</p>
<p>James C. Capretta is a fellow at the <a href="" type="internal">Ethics and Public Policy Center</a> and project director of e21’s <a href="http://www.obamacarewatch.org/" type="external">ObamaCare Watch</a>. He was an associate director at the Office of Management and Budget from 2001 to 2004.</p> | Populist Rhetoric Does Not a Plan Make | false | https://eppc.org/publications/populist-rhetoric-does-not-a-plan-make/ | 1 |
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<p>New Jersey Gov. Chris ChristieFrank Jansky/ZUMA</p>
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<p>On Wednesday, emails and text messages surrendered by&#160;a friend and former political appointee of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie revealed&#160;that <a href="" type="internal">Christie’s inner circle masterminded a massive September traffic jam</a> in Fort Lee, New Jersey, as political retribution against the city’s Democratic mayor. The <a href="" type="internal">messages</a> show gleeful Christie aides gloating&#160;that their plan had wreaked&#160;so much havoc. One text message read, “Is it wrong that I’m smiling?”</p>
<p>The messages came from David Wildstein, who was Christie’s high school buddy and, until he resigned due to suspicions about his involvement with the bridge scandal, the director of interstate capital projects for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. Wildstein divulged the messages <a href="http://www.northjersey.com/news/christie_kelly_bridge_lane_closures_emails.html" type="external">in response to a subpoena</a> from a panel of New Jersey lawmakers investigating the scandal.</p>
<p>Wildstein is <a href="" type="internal">testifying</a>&#160;under oath this afternoon about the documents before the New Jersey Assembly’s Committee on Public Works, Infrastructure, and Independent Authorities. Here are five questions lawmakers should put to him:</p>
<p>Is there any evidence that the “traffic study” ever existed? As suspicions about the Fort Lee traffic jam grew, Christie and his staff <a href="" type="internal">said repeatedly</a> that the governor believed a Port Authority traffic study had caused the whole mess.</p>
<p>In his Thursday <a href="" type="internal">press conference</a>, Christie maintained that the bridge scandal may have had its roots in a legitimate traffic study, saying, “I don’t know if this was a traffic study that morphed into a political vendetta or a political vendetta that morphed into a traffic study.”</p>
<p>Why does Christie still think his top Port Authority aide was in the dark about this scandal? On Thursday, Christie also expressed his confidence that David Samson, the Port Authority chairman, played no role in causing Fort Lee’s traffic disaster, saying:</p>
<p>Samson put out a statement yesterday that he had no knowledge of this. I interviewed him yesterday. He was one of my interviews. I am convinced that he had absolutely no knowledge of this, that this was executed at the operational level and never brought to the attention of the [Port Authority] board of commissioners…And so I sat and met for two hours yesterday with Mr. Samson—General Samson—and again, I’m confident that he had no knowledge of this, based upon our conversations and his review of the information.</p>
<p>Yet messages released on Wednesday make it clear Samson was involved in plans to close Fort Lee’s access lanes on the day of the traffic jam. When New York officials at the Port Authority reopened the lanes, reducing the traffic jam, Wildstein wrote to Kelly, “We are appropriately going nuts. Samson helping us to retaliate.”</p>
<p>Did Christie learn about the bridge plot in his mystery meeting with the Port Authority chairman? During a text message conversation in which a Christie aide and a Port Authority official planned the lane closures, the pair also tried to plan a meeting between Christie and Samson.</p>
<p>Naturally, some have&#160; <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/09/nyregion/christie-aide-tied-to-bridge-lane-closings.html?hp" type="external">speculated</a>&#160;that the subject of the meeting was the Fort Lee lane closures—which would explode Christie’s claims that he wasn’t aware of plans to close Fort Lee’s access lanes.</p>
<p>What did the traffic jam’s&#160;planners think would happen in case of an emergency? The architects of the Fort Lee traffic jam appear to have considered its potential public safety consequences.&#160;In one text message conversation that was sent once the lanes were closed, Port Authority appointee Wildstein waved away the Fort Lee mayor’s complaints about school buses getting stuck in traffic by noting, “Bottom line is he didn’t say safety.”</p>
<p>But officials in Fort Lee, including two members of the borough council and the chief of police, later reported that <a href="" type="internal">the traffic jam had slowed down emergency responders</a>—including police who were searching for a missing child. So what was the plan in case of an emergency?</p>
<p>Are there other instances in which the Port Authority and Christie staffers wielded&#160;their power for political reasons? At his Wednesday press conference, Christie claimed he knew nothing about the lane closures that brought Fort Lee to a standstill. So it wasn’t surprising that Christie denied knowing anything about other instances in which his appointees in his administration or&#160;at the Port Authority might’ve used their positions to enact political retribution.</p>
<p>The messages Wildstein&#160;surrendered illustrate a close relationship with the Christie administration. If any other Fort Lee-like incidents took place,&#160;he would know.</p>
<p /> | 5 Unanswered Questions About Chris Christie’s Bridge Scandal | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2014/01/chris-christie-bridge-fort-lee-david-wildstein-testimony/ | 2014-01-09 | 4 |
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<p>NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell denied Sunday that the league’s 32 teams are blackballing free agent quarterback Colin Kaepernick due to his political beliefs, months after the former San Francisco 49er kicked off a national debate by refusing to stand for the National Anthem.</p>
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<p>“He can’t be [blackballed] because we’re not,” <a href="http://www.mediaite.com/online/nfl-commissioner-roger-goodell-colin-kaepernick-isnt-being-blackballed/" type="external">Goodell told Opens a New Window.</a> reporters Sunday during a fan forum event at M&amp;T Bank Stadium in Baltimore. “The clubs are making those individual evaluations to make the determination whether they think he can help them win, and that’s true with any player. Obviously, everyone’s aware of the fact of his protests last year, and that’s something individual clubs will either weigh or not weigh.”</p>
<p>Kaepernick conducted his National Anthem protests to draw attention to perceived racial and social injustice in America. The 29-year-old NFL veteran has been a free agent since he opted out of his contract with the 49ers last March.</p>
<p>Kaepernick’s employment status will be decided as teams make “football decisions” about “what they think are the right ways to make their football teams better,” Goodell said.</p>
<p>“Those are decisions I don’t get involved with, decisions that rightfully belong with the club,” he added.</p>
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<p>At the same event, Baltimore Ravens owner Steve Bisciotti confirmed that his club has considered offering Kaepernick a contract. The Ravens’ starting quarterback, Joe Flacco, is currently dealing with a minor back injury.</p>
<p>“We’re very sensitive to [the situation], and we’re monitoring it and we’re still, as [Ravens general manager Ozzie Newsome] says, we’re scrimmaging it. We’re trying to figure what’s the right tact. Pray for us,” Bisciotti said, adding that the team is consulting with Ravens legend Ray Lewis and fans about the decision.</p> | Roger Goodell denies Colin Kaepernick is being blackballed by NFL | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2017/07/31/roger-goodell-denies-colin-kaepernick-is-being-blackballed-by-nfl.html | 2017-07-31 | 0 |
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<p>No. 3 <a href="/news/special_reports/coinop_congress/98mojo_400/topten.html" type="external">Bernard L. Schwartz</a> Last year’s rank: No. 1, New York, N.Y., <a href="" type="internal">$555,000</a> (with wife, Irene) Schwartz, 72, is the CEO of Loral Space &amp; Communications.</p>
<p>By the end of last summer, no fewer than 10 congressional committees and subcommittees were investigating whether the Clinton administration’s policy of allowing aerospace company Loral Space &amp; Communications to launch satellites in China had helped advance Beijing’s own missile technology research program. Following the scent, the media has focused its attention on the unfortunate object of the president’s affections, Bernard L. Schwartz, the slight, bald, septuagenarian CEO of Loral.</p>
<p>Schwartz has given Democrats $1.4 million since 1991, during the Clinton years, and was a member of the Mother Jones 400 well before he became mired in this scandal (he ranked No. 1 <a href="/news/special_reports/coinop_congress/97mojo_400/profiles.html" type="external">last year</a>). As Mother Jones reported last year, he was honored on his 71st birthday with a private White House dinner. It’s because of this access, Clinton’s critics suggest, that the president rubber-stamped Loral’s launches in China — even after Loral apparently ignored security procedures in 1996 by faxing Beijing a draft report about a Chinese rocket crash that destroyed a Loral satellite.</p>
<p>But campaign cash and personal ties are only the obvious way that Loral — and the defense industry — buys favors in Washington. An in-depth look shows that thousands of former Pentagon workers routinely go to work for arms makers and defense industry consultants upon their retirement, and confidential memos obtained by Mother Jones from such a company show how easily these cozy relationships influence legislation — and can lead to the funding of questionable projects. So while congressional investigators continue their investigation into the president’s relationship with Loral, they shouldn’t look just at Bernard Schwartz. They should also look at people like Nicholas Alexandrow.</p>
<p>Until 1996, Alexandrow, an Air Force colonel, worked at the Defense Technology Security Administration (DTSA), the Pentagon agency that reviews applications for the export of high technology to foreign countries. Alexandrow did not return phone calls from Mother Jones, but three inside sources say that his job at DTSA was to run the Technology Transfer Safeguards Program. That office is charged with ensuring that other countries, including China and Russia, do not obtain sensitive information when they launch satellites for U.S. companies. According to Peter Leitner, a senior strategic trade adviser at DTSA, both countries have taken advantage of such launches to gather details on the critical technologies needed to build and design intercontinental ballistic missiles.</p>
<p>Upon leaving DTSA, Alexandrow took a job as director of launch systems at Loral’s offices in Arlington, Virginia. One of his duties at his new post involved winning approval for Loral’s foreign launches from his former employers. As one source, who asked not to be identified, says, “When he worked for the government, he was in a regulatory position trying to make sure that things didn’t happen. Now he’s at Loral, where he’s trying to make things happen.”</p>
<p>And Alexandrow is in a good position to make things happen. “When Alexandrow calls [DTSA], his calls will be returned quickly,” says Leitner. “He’s a facilitator for Loral in terms of technical transfers, and he’ll get responses faster than an outsider would.” (Actually, when Mother Jones called DTSA in September to confirm Alexandrow’s career there, a secretary helpfully offered that just that morning Alexandrow had called into the agency several times.)</p>
<p>Just as important, says Leitner, is how the prospect of a private-sector job influenced Alexandrow while he was at DTSA: “How long before he retired did he get a job offer [from Loral]? What kind of offers were being made to him while he was still in government? And how critical was he in ensuring that our national security is being protected by the activities of that very company?”</p>
<p>Another confidential source at DTSA echoed those sentiments: “People like Alexandrow have intimate knowledge of how the process works and know all the loopholes that can help circumvent the bureaucracy. If you’re not from the DTSA, you don’t even know how to get started.”</p>
<p>Between January 1997 and July 1998, the defense industry and its executives shoveled out roughly $7 million in soft money, individual, and PAC donations, according to the <a href="http://www.crp.org" type="external">Center for Responsive Politics</a>. The No. 1 contributor was Lockheed Martin — which bought Loral’s defense division in 1996. It gave about $1 million, while Boeing was close behind at about $930,000. But defense contractors find it especially useful to hire military officials when they retire.</p>
<p>Ernest Fitzgerald, an Air Force whistleblower who was fired by President Nixon when he exposed cost overruns only to be reinstated four years later after winning a lawsuit, has watched this revolving door for years. “Military officers for the most part are forced to retire when their family expenses are at a peak. They’ve got a couple of kids in college, and they’re still paying the mortgage,” says Fitzgerald. “They won’t starve on their retired pay. But at the same time they can’t keep up their lifestyle.”</p>
<p>So they are lured into the defense industry. Here’s how he describes the process:</p>
<p>“The services see one of their management duties as placing their retired officers, just like a good university will place its graduates. And the services have the most influence with the contractors. If you’re a good, clean-living officer and you don’t get drunk at lunch or get caught messing around with the opposite sex in the office, and you don’t raise too much of a fuss about horror stories you come across, when you retire, a nice man will come calling. Typically, he’ll be another retired officer. And he’ll be driving a fancy car, a Mercedes or equivalent, and wearing a $2,000 suit, Gucci shoes, and a Rolex watch. He will offer to make a comfortable life for you by getting you a comfortable job at one of the contractors.</p>
<p>“Now, if you go around kicking people in the shins, [and] raising hell about the outrages committed by the big contractors, no nice man comes calling. It’s that simple.”</p>
<p>Back in the 1970s, revolving-door stories provoked scandal. Malcolm R. Currie, for example, worked for Hughes Aircraft, then became the Pentagon’s undersecretary of defense research and engineering under Nixon and Ford. During Ford’s term, Hughes won a $108 million contract to work on the Roland missile. In 1977, Currie went back to Hughes, where his duties included working on the Roland missile project.</p>
<p>Such apparent conflicts of interest led Congress to pass legislation requiring high-ranking officials to file a disclosure report upon leaving the Defense Department and taking an industry job that pays $25,000 a year or more. But it’s impossible to determine how fast the revolving door is now spinning because, at the request of the Pentagon, Congress quietly repealed the law in February 1996. (“It didn’t really tell us anything, and took a lot of manpower to compile,” says David Ream, director of the Pentagon’s ethics office.) Whatever public outrage the law’s recision might have prompted was absent, in part, because the media failed to report about it.</p>
<p>The Pentagon has destroyed all records kept under the law except for those for the years 1993 to 1995, as well as a summary report for 1992. Mother Jones reviewed the remaining files, located in seven large storage boxes at the National Archives, and found that between 1992 and 1995, 3,288 people from the Pentagon and the armed forces went to work for the defense industry. Of those, 2,482 were officers with the rank of colonel or higher.</p>
<p>The top destination, with 198 former military officials or Pentagon employees, was SAIC, a high-tech firm whose board of directors includes Bobby Ray Inman, former National Security Agency director, and has included former Defense Secretaries William Perry and Melvin Laird, and former CIA Directors John Deutch and Robert Gates. Next were Lockheed (168); Boeing and McDonnell Douglas, which have since merged (71); Northrop-Grumman (62); and Raytheon (56).</p>
<p>After reviewing these records, it’s easy to see why the Pentagon wanted the law repealed: The paper trail is simply too embarrassing. Lt. Gen. Gordon Fornell retired from the Air Force in 1993 and within 15 months had picked up consulting work with 10 defense-related firms, including SAIC and Cypress International. Lt. Gen. John Jaquish retired from the Air Force, where he was principal deputy assistant secretary of acquisition, on September 1, 1993. On November 1, he became a consultant to Grumman, Rockwell, and Vought. Exactly three months later he signed on with Litton and Lockheed. Adm. Huntington Hardisty, commander in chief of the U.S. Pacific Command, resigned on March 1, 1991. Within two years, Hardisty was working at six defense consulting jobs, four of which involved greasing the wheels for sales to Taiwan.</p>
<p>Confidential memorandums obtained by Mother Jones from the offices of The Spectrum Group, a consulting and lobbying firm, offer an inside look at the revolving door in action. One memo reports that the firm’s revenues have grown from just $287,648 in 1994, a year after the company was founded, to projected revenues of $2.5 million for this year.</p>
<p>A promotional brochure Spectrum sends to potential clients boasts that the firm’s “team” includes more than a dozen former admirals and generals, whose “knowledge of [Pentagon] procedures and systems is unmatched.” It goes on to quote Mark Goodfriend, CEO of a firm called Next Century Power, a Navy supplier, as saying that The Spectrum Group “was instrumental in helping secure funding and getting us into the procurement loop.”</p>
<p>Spectrum avidly seeks to curry favor on Capitol Hill. “Our ability to communicate with members of Congress through their staffs is paramount to Spectrum’s success on the hill,” reads one memo written by Larry Ayres, the company’s executive vice president for government relations and a former Army officer. “It will be my responsibility to go to staff members, introduce myself to them, inform them of what we are doing with regards to our client (whose place of business happens to be in their state or congressional district) and to stimulate their interest in the matter.” The company established a PAC last March, which quickly held fundraisers for Reps. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.), Ike Skelton (D-Mo.), Curt Weldon (R-Penn.), and Bill Young (R-Fla.), all of whom sit on the House National Security Committee, and for Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.).</p>
<p>But the memos make clear that Spectrum’s chief strength is its ties to the Pentagon. One confidential synopsis of activities performed for 19 clients shows that all but one retained Spectrum to help win access to — or contracts from — the Defense Department.</p>
<p>One memo boasts of the “outstanding personal contacts” of the firm’s employees. That would have to include Jesse Brown, who signed on with Spectrum in September 1997, just two months after he resigned as head of the Department of Veterans Affairs. The company’s agenda for a September 18, 1997, meeting shows that Brown was already exploring “Veterans Affairs Opportunities” on behalf of Spectrum.</p>
<p>As detailed by the memos, here are just a few of The Spectrum Group’s other activities:</p>
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<p>But while military brass have always advocated bigger defense budgets, after they leave the Pentagon they no longer have to worry about quality control.</p>
<p>The Sense and Destroy Armor (SADARM) munition, produced by Aerojet, is a shell that, once fired, opens up to release a pair of submunitions, which descend by parachute and use a heat-seeking sensor and microwave radar to home in on and destroy enemy armored vehicles.</p>
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<p>Some call SADARM a resounding flop and note that it is years behind schedule, is way over budget, and has suffered countless testing failures, including a problem that routinely caused the two submunitions to collide during their parachute descent. And — according to a former Pentagon employee — SADARM’s heat-seeking sensor is completely unreliable and only “dumb-ass luck” would enable the weapon to hit its target. “The sensor can’t distinguish between an armored vehicle and a barbecue grill,” says the source. “An opposing army could protect its equipment by lining hibachis up and down the road.” Aerojet, meanwhile, denies any problems with SADARM. Says spokeswoman Julie Rovegno: “There’s no problem with SADARM. The sensor technology is incredible.”</p>
<p>In 1991, the House voted to kill SADARM, but the Senate saved it. Three years later, Congress reduced its funding because the system repeatedly flunked government tests. In 1995, the General Accounting Office concluded that SADARM “did not meet operational requirements.” Despite all this, SADARM lives on. The Army requested $56.5 million for the program in the 1999 budget, and Aerojet is now trying to sell it to the Navy as well.</p>
<p>What accounts for SADARM’s survival? In part, the hard work on its behalf by the former military officers at Spectrum. According to the memos, the firm’s Stephen Loftus, a former vice admiral, is helping Aerojet develop a “strategy to gain [the Navy’s] support” for SADARM. Loftus is being assisted by Lt. Gen. Gus Cianciolo, who retired in 1992 after serving as an adviser to the Army’s procurement czar.</p>
<p /> | Heavy Metal | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/1998/11/heavy-metal-0/ | 2018-11-01 | 4 |
<p>His critics say he's lazy, eats too much, sleeps on the job and would rather spend time with a "female acquaintance" than carry out his official duties.</p>
<p>The civil servant in question is no expenses-fiddling MP, but a four-year-old rescue cat named Larry.</p>
<p>Downing Street was forced to defend its feline resident after rumors of mouse sightings at the prime minister's official dinners.</p>
<p>Larry was nowhere to be seen when a mouse appeared at a recent dinner between David Cameron and his cabinet ministers, <a href="http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jlyih3xhBoFQwGwbMpUqhWSTF47A?docId=CNG.cb1bbd63a499aba14f4911eb18b21e8e.161" type="external">Agence France Presse said</a>, leaving the PM to throw a fork at the intruder.</p>
<p>Chief mouse-catcher Larry has been neglecting his hunting duties in favor of sleeping or hanging out with a furry female neighbor, according to unnamed aides <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2061198/Downing-Street-cat-David-Cameron-forced-throw-cutlery-mice.html" type="external">cited by the Daily Mail</a>.</p>
<p>The slurs prompted speculation that Larry might be relieved of his duties - a possibility which a Downing Street spokesperson ruled out Monday, saying:</p>
<p>"Larry brings a lot of pleasure to a lot of people."</p>
<p>He added that Larry has previously shown "a very strong predatory drive" and enjoys playing with toy mice, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-15717341" type="external">said the BBC</a>.</p>
<p>Larry was brought in when a rat was spotted outside the door of the prime minister's residence during a live TV broadcast. He was chosen specifically for his hunter's instinct, honed during his early years on the streets of London.</p>
<p>He caught three mice in his first four months on the job, but his tally has since slackened off.</p>
<p>Larry might have to try harder if he wants to avoid the fate of his most famous predecessor, Humphrey, who served under Margaret Thatcher and John Major before being abruptly retired by Tony Blair, reportedly because Cherie Blair took against him.</p> | British PM stands by feline aide despite calls for his resignation | false | https://pri.org/stories/2011-11-14/british-pm-stands-feline-aide-despite-calls-his-resignation | 2011-11-14 | 3 |
<p>On September&#160;10, nearly 30,000 Chicago teachers went on strike for the first time in 25 years. This was no mere breakdown in negotiations over wages or healthcare contributions. At issue, as many have noted, was the fundamental direction of public education. The Chicago teachers asserted themselves as the first institutional force to combat what’s often called the “business model” of education reform.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, in Detroit, students and teachers returned to dramatically altered schools. Over the summer, Roy Roberts, the schools’ “emergency financial manager,” had unilaterally imposed a contract on the city’s teacher union allowing elementary school class sizes to jump from 25 to 40 students and high school classes to 61 students. These class size reforms were coupled with a 10&#160;percent pay cut for Detroit teachers.</p>
<p>While Detroit’s example is extreme, increased workloads for decreased pay are what teachers around the country — including in Chicago — are experiencing to varying degrees as the business model of education reform gains traction with policy-makers. But stretching workers past their breaking point and increasing hours while gutting compensation is nothing new. The business model of education reform is an extension of a process called lean production that transformed the US private sector in the 1980s and ’90s. In education, just as in heavy manufacturing, the greatest damage done by lean production is not done at the bargaining table, but in the destruction of teachers’ working (and students’ learning) conditions.</p> | Lean Production | true | http://jacobinmag.com/2012/09/lean-production-whats-really-hurting-public-education/ | 2018-10-06 | 4 |
<p>America spends billions of dollars to help fat people buy candy, and even stock grocery stores in the Dominican Republic. If you don't believe me, I've got the statistics to prove it.&#160;</p>
<p>(LANGUAGE WARNING)</p>
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<p>Welfare and food stamps might have been a good idea a long time ago, but we need to abolish these benefits programs. It's called "tough love."</p> | Why welfare is 'bullsh*t' and needs to be abolished | true | https://therebel.media/why_welfare_is_bullsh_t_and_needs_to_be_abolished | 2017-06-21 | 0 |
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<p>SANTA FE (AP) — An investigative reporter with The New York Times will be the new editor of the Santa Fe New Mexican.</p>
<p>The newspaper announced Monday that Ray Rivera will succeed Rob Dean, who retired earlier this month after 21 years as editor.</p>
<p>The 47-year-old Rivera is a former senior general assignment reporter and sports editor for The New Mexican.</p>
<p>He also has worked at the Washington Post, Seattle Times and Salt Lake Tribune and formerly was a senior general assignment reporter and sports editor for The New Mexican.</p>
<p>The newspaper says Rivera will be relocating to Santa Fe with his wife and three children and plans to begin work next month.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | S.F. New Mexican names new editor | false | https://abqjournal.com/224656/s-f-new-mexican-names-new-editor.html | 2 |
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<p>TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Licensed Florida nurses may soon be eligible to practice in 27 other states without the red tape of getting additional licenses.</p>
<p>A new law that goes into effect Friday allows registered nurses and licensed practical nurses who are licensed in one Compact state to practice in any of the 27 Compact states without having to obtain additional licenses. The change comes as Florida and many other states are struggling with nursing shortages.</p>
<p>State Surgeon General Dr. Celeste Philip says the law reduces "regulatory burdens on nurses with the goal of increasing patient access to quality nursing care."</p>
<p>Starting Friday, Florida will issue a multi-state license to new applicants who meet requirements. Nurses who reside in Florida and hold an active, unrestricted license will also have the option to convert from a standard Florida license to a multi-state license.</p>
<p>TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Licensed Florida nurses may soon be eligible to practice in 27 other states without the red tape of getting additional licenses.</p>
<p>A new law that goes into effect Friday allows registered nurses and licensed practical nurses who are licensed in one Compact state to practice in any of the 27 Compact states without having to obtain additional licenses. The change comes as Florida and many other states are struggling with nursing shortages.</p>
<p>State Surgeon General Dr. Celeste Philip says the law reduces "regulatory burdens on nurses with the goal of increasing patient access to quality nursing care."</p>
<p>Starting Friday, Florida will issue a multi-state license to new applicants who meet requirements. Nurses who reside in Florida and hold an active, unrestricted license will also have the option to convert from a standard Florida license to a multi-state license.</p> | Florida implements multi-state nursing license amid shortage | false | https://apnews.com/amp/0e2f7d28e6f3406a9bd0127fa3726986 | 2018-01-19 | 2 |
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<p>The No. 19 New Mexico Lobos under first-year head coach Craig Neal are embracing a new up-and-down, fast-paced offense that is generating more offense and far more possessions than at any time in recent memory.</p>
<p>The team is averaging 98.5 points per game, but while scoring and the number of possessions is up, a byproduct is the necessity for the Lobos defense to keep its focus for more possessions per game, as well.</p>
<p>UNM held Alabama A&amp;M to 52 points Nov. 9, but Neal said he was “embarrassed” by the 93 points his team surrendered to Charleston Southern.</p>
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<p>“Our goal is to hold people under 65,” Neal said Sunday.</p>
<p>That looked doable through almost three quarters of the game Sunday before Charleston Southern scored 42 points in the final 12 minutes, 10 seconds and cut what was a 31-point UNM lead in half by the final buzzer.</p>
<p>Maybe what frustrated the Lobos coaching staff the most was that much of CSU’s success came on things that UNM players should have known from pregame scouting reports.</p>
<p>The Lobos couldn’t guard lightning-quick point guard Saah Nimley, who finished with 24 points and 12 assists. The 5-foot-8 thorn in the Lobos’ side used dribble-drive penetration (a consistent priority of the Lobos regardless of opponent) to either take advantage of new hand check officiating rules and draw a plethora of fouls (he was 15-of-17 from the free-throw line) or set up an open look for a Buccaneer 3-point shooter (CSU sank 11 second-half 3-pointers Sunday).</p>
<p>“I think we’re helping way too deep,” Neal said of his defense. “And we’re giving too much space for shooters on the weak side. I think we’ve got to correct that.”</p>
<p>And because of that, UNM defenders often seemed out of control when trying to close that space on outside shooters.</p>
<p>UNM coaches warned against falling for Nimley head fakes. After all why leave your feet to try to block the shot of a generously listed 5-8 guard? Still, Hugh Greenwood fouled Nimpley twice on 3-point shot attempts, and Cullen Neal did so a third time, giving the guard nine of his game-high 17 free throws on just three plays.</p>
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<p>Merv Lindsay fouled CSU’s Matt Kennedy on a 3-point shot with 2:06 remaining, as well. Kennedy made his 3-pointer and converted the four point play, giving the Buccaneers eight made free throws on four fouls of 3-point shot attempts.</p>
<p>Essentially CSU scored 53 points via the 3-point shot – 45 on the 15 made 3-pointers and eight on free throws that were the direct result of UNM’s inability to defend the 3 without fouling.</p>
<p>Lobo forward Cameron Bairstow said defending quick guards isn’t just the responsibility of UNM’s guards.</p>
<p>“On the scouting report, we knew he (Nimley) liked to throw that lob to the big, and I thought we could have helped out later,” Bairstow said.</p>
<p>Yet with 7:42 remaining in the first half and again with 5:29 remaining in the second, Nimley penetrated into the lane, drew a Lobo post defender toward him and softly lobbed a pass to 6-8 teammate Alhaji Fullah for the alley-oop dunk.</p>
<p>“Overall, it’s on all of us to buckle down and play defense for a full 40 minutes,” Bairstow added.</p>
<p>It’s worth noting that UNM’s defense was fine for 28 to 30 minutes against a CSU squad that was averaging 101.5 points per game prior to Sunday.</p>
<p>But the Lobos’ defense called it a night when there was still plenty of basketball left to play.</p>
<p>And if the Lobos plan to extend each game by another 10 or more possessions on offense, they better be prepared to extend their defense for more possessions late in the second half, as well.</p>
<p>“I just can’t believe we gave up 57 points in a half,” Neal said. “That’s the hardest thing. We’re going to have to get back to work because we’re not going to be able to win games allowing people to score that easy.”</p>
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<p /> | UNM men’s basketball: Up-tempo offense takes toll on Lobos’ defense | false | https://abqjournal.com/304432/uptempo-offense-takes-toll-on-lobos-defense.html | 2 |
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<p>DURHAM, N.C. — Duke University removed a statue of Gen. Robert E. Lee early Saturday after it was vandalized amid a national debate about monuments to the Confederacy.</p>
<p>The university said it removed the carved limestone likeness before dawn from the entryway to Duke Chapel, where it stood among 10 historical figures. Officials discovered early Thursday that the statue’s face had been gouged and scarred and that part of the nose is missing.</p>
<p>Another statue of Lee, the top Confederate general during the Civil War, was the focus of the violent protest in Charlottesville, Virginia, that turned deadly a week ago.</p>
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<p>Duke University president Vincent Price said in a letter to the campus community that he consulted with faculty, staff, students and alumni before deciding to remove the statue.</p>
<p>“I took this course of action to protect Duke Chapel, to ensure the vital safety of students and community members who worship there, and above all to express the deep and abiding values of our university,” Price said in the letter.</p>
<p>Durham has been a focal point in the debate over Confederate statues after protesters tore down a bronze Confederate soldier in front of a government building downtown on Monday. Eight people face charges including rioting and damaging property. Days later, hundreds marched through Durham in a largely peaceful demonstration against racism before an impromptu rally at the stone pedestal where the statue stood.</p>
<p>Other monuments around North Carolina also have been vandalized since the Charlottesville protest, and calls are growing to take down a Confederate soldier statue from the campus of the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill.</p>
<p>Gov. Roy Cooper has urged the removal of Confederate monuments from public property around the state, though his goal would be difficult to achieve because of a 2015 state law prohibiting their removal. Duke is a private university and outside the scope of that law.</p>
<p>The Lee statue had stood for about 85 years between two other historical figures of the American South, Thomas Jefferson and poet Sidney Lanier, along the main entryway to the neo-Gothic church at the center of Duke’s campus. It was moved into storage at 3 a.m. Saturday and its future is undetermined, university spokesman Michael Schoenfeld told the Herald-Sun of Durham.</p>
<p>“We want people to learn from it and study it and the ideas it represents. What happens to it and where it will be is a question for further deliberation,” Schoenfeld said. The decision was supported by the university’s trustees, Schoenfeld said.</p>
<p>Duke has been affiliated since its founding with the United Methodist Church. Luke Powery, dean of Duke Chapel, said Saturday he sees the empty space formerly occupied by the Lee statue as creating a new opportunity to heal the ongoing racism problems confronting the country.</p>
<p>The gap “in many ways represents a hole in the heart of the United States and the ongoing struggles of racism, hatred and bigotry – all the things we’re seeing in our streets. We haven’t come as far as perhaps we thought we had come as a nation,” Powery said.</p>
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<p>Follow Drew at <a href="http://www.twitter.com/jonldrew" type="external">www.twitter.com/jonldrew</a></p> | Duke University removes damaged Robert E. Lee statue | false | https://abqjournal.com/1050448/duke-university-removes-statue-of-confederate-general.html | 2017-08-19 | 2 |
<p>BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — GOP Rep. Kevin Cramer of North Dakota said Thursday he won't run for the U.S. Senate, depriving Republicans of the candidate many saw as the party's best chance to unseat vulnerable Democratic Sen. Heidi Heitkamp.</p>
<p>Cramer passed up the race despite a personal appeal from President Donald Trump, citing family considerations and his current House seniority.</p>
<p>"I don't want to be away every weekend, around the country and raising money when I have a 10-year-old at home and four grandchildren," Cramer said.</p>
<p>"That, combined with the fact Energy and Commerce continues to see retirements, I continue to move up in that dais, and we have a farm bill this year that's going to require a lot of attention, and North Dakota doesn't have another member of the House. So, I think for the sake of my constituents and my family, it was the way to go."</p>
<p>Cramer has said he and his wife, Kris, met privately with Trump last week in the Oval Office.</p>
<p>"The President made a very patriotic case for me to run for the Senate seat, and told me he would be behind me 100 percent and campaign for me and with me," Cramer said.</p>
<p>Trump carried North Dakota by 36 points in 2016 and remains popular, and Cramer has been a strong supporter.</p>
<p>His decision leaves state Sen. Tom Campbell as the only declared Republican in the race. Campbell, a potato farmer in his second term in the Legislature, is not well known statewide. He has spent about $425,000 of his own money on TV ads to raise his profile since August.</p>
<p>It's not clear if he will attract the same outside money that Cramer would have. Heitkamp has already raised about $6 million.</p>
<p>Heitkamp won the seat in 2012 by a mere 3,000 votes. Her perceived political independence and personal charm has made her personally popular, but the race was still seen as a good pickup chance for Republicans — if Cramer ran.</p>
<p>"There will be some people who are disappointed," state Sen. Kelly Armstrong, who heads North Dakota's GOP party, said.</p>
<p>"We still have a strong chance of winning this election," he said. "Kevin has universal name recognition and he's very popular but Tom Campbell has been out there running for the last six months."</p>
<p>Cramer, 56, is a former state Republican director and party chairman. He ran twice for the U.S. House in the 1990s, losing to incumbent Democrat Earl Pomeroy in 1996 and 1998, before winning it in 2012.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Associated Press writer Kevin Freking contributed to this report from Washington.</p>
<p>BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — GOP Rep. Kevin Cramer of North Dakota said Thursday he won't run for the U.S. Senate, depriving Republicans of the candidate many saw as the party's best chance to unseat vulnerable Democratic Sen. Heidi Heitkamp.</p>
<p>Cramer passed up the race despite a personal appeal from President Donald Trump, citing family considerations and his current House seniority.</p>
<p>"I don't want to be away every weekend, around the country and raising money when I have a 10-year-old at home and four grandchildren," Cramer said.</p>
<p>"That, combined with the fact Energy and Commerce continues to see retirements, I continue to move up in that dais, and we have a farm bill this year that's going to require a lot of attention, and North Dakota doesn't have another member of the House. So, I think for the sake of my constituents and my family, it was the way to go."</p>
<p>Cramer has said he and his wife, Kris, met privately with Trump last week in the Oval Office.</p>
<p>"The President made a very patriotic case for me to run for the Senate seat, and told me he would be behind me 100 percent and campaign for me and with me," Cramer said.</p>
<p>Trump carried North Dakota by 36 points in 2016 and remains popular, and Cramer has been a strong supporter.</p>
<p>His decision leaves state Sen. Tom Campbell as the only declared Republican in the race. Campbell, a potato farmer in his second term in the Legislature, is not well known statewide. He has spent about $425,000 of his own money on TV ads to raise his profile since August.</p>
<p>It's not clear if he will attract the same outside money that Cramer would have. Heitkamp has already raised about $6 million.</p>
<p>Heitkamp won the seat in 2012 by a mere 3,000 votes. Her perceived political independence and personal charm has made her personally popular, but the race was still seen as a good pickup chance for Republicans — if Cramer ran.</p>
<p>"There will be some people who are disappointed," state Sen. Kelly Armstrong, who heads North Dakota's GOP party, said.</p>
<p>"We still have a strong chance of winning this election," he said. "Kevin has universal name recognition and he's very popular but Tom Campbell has been out there running for the last six months."</p>
<p>Cramer, 56, is a former state Republican director and party chairman. He ran twice for the U.S. House in the 1990s, losing to incumbent Democrat Earl Pomeroy in 1996 and 1998, before winning it in 2012.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Associated Press writer Kevin Freking contributed to this report from Washington.</p> | North Dakota GOP Rep. Cramer passes on US Senate run | false | https://apnews.com/amp/9dcb29f03de242bb98864d9b07252e91 | 2018-01-11 | 2 |
<p>By Bob Allen</p>
<p>A lawyer representing two Baptist General Convention of Texas-affiliated Christian universities asked a federal appeals court April 7 to affirm a lower court ruling that mandated contraceptive coverage in employee insurance plans violates the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.</p>
<p>East Texas Baptist University and Houston Baptist University won a case in December 2013 claiming an opt-out provision in Obamacare for qualifying religious nonprofits doesn’t adequately safeguard their religious liberty.</p>
<p>The federal government appealed the ruling, and lawyers on both sides argued the case before a three-judge panel of the 5th&#160;U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Houston.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.becketfund.org/staff-members/eric-rassbach" type="external">Eric&#160;Rassbach</a>, deputy general counsel for the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, said the universities don’t object to a requirement to notify the government they are opting out through a process called self-certification, but by doing so they trigger a process by which their employees automatically get the objectionable services through a third-party administrator.&#160;</p>
<p>Rassbach said “moral complicity” is a religious belief, not something to be decided by the courts. “That’s not the job we want courts to do,” he said. “We don’t want courts going around deciding who is morally complicit or not, from a religious point of view.”</p>
<p>United States District Judge Lee Rosenthal in Houston&#160;ruled Dec. 27, 2013, that the contraceptive mandate violated rights of the universities guaranteed by the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act.</p>
<p>Passed by Congress in 1993, RFRA prevents the government from placing a substantial burden on a person’s exercise of religion unless it is for a compelling reason and by the least burdensome means.</p>
<p>The law has been in the news in recent weeks, as states including Indiana and Arkansas considered state versions with language added to apply similar protection to disputes between individuals rather than only cases involving the state.</p>
<p>Supporters of those efforts say business owners like bakers or florists who believe homosexuality is morally wrong should not be forced to participate in same-sex weddings against their conscience. Opponents say such legislation gives businesses a license to discriminate against customers because of their sexual orientation.</p>
<p>Rassbach said the purpose of RFRA is to create “exemptions in specific little places” to generally applicable laws that unnecessarily burden a person’s religious exercise.</p>
<p>“You don’t strike down statutes using RFRA,” he said. “All you do is make little carve-outs for specific claimants.”</p>
<p>“The whole idea of RFRA is that it forces the government to make tiny exceptions for a few people who will complain about a particular rule,” he said.</p>
<p>Government attorney Adam Jed said Rassbach’s interpretation of RFRA is so broad that it could be used to nullify almost every scheme of religious accommodation.</p>
<p>“If you don’t want to work on the Sabbath and you think it’s wrong to work on the Sabbath, you raise your hand,” Jed said. “You say to your boss, ‘I don’t want to work on the Sabbath.’ The consequence may be that your boss says, ‘OK, fine. You don’t have to work on the Sabbath,’ but then assigns somebody else to work on the Sabbath.”</p>
<p>“It’s a different matter entirely to say not only is it that I’m not going to work on the Sabbath, but also I’m essentially going to sort of filibuster the process of someone substituting for me,” he said. “I’m not going to raise my hand. I’m just not going to show up for work.”</p>
<p>Rassbach commented on “the weirdness of treating churches differently than Christian universities” in implementing Obamacare.</p>
<p>Rassbach said the Baptist General Convention of Texas is automatically exempted from the contraceptive mandate because it is considered a religious employer. The BGCT controls East Texas Baptist University, Rassback said, but the school is expected to provide the coverage unless it goes through the opt-out procedure.</p>
<p>Rassbach said the easiest remedy would be to apply the same rationale for exempting churches from the requirement to institutions like colleges and hospitals that hold the same moral views.</p>
<p>Jed said doing that would shift the burden on women to sign up for a new government program to obtain contraceptive coverage.</p>
<p>“The whole point of having the contraception coverage requirement is that where there are those burdens —&#160;even burdens that may seem a little bit small to you —&#160;the result is that women don’t get necessary preventative services,” he said.</p>
<p>Previous story:</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Court strikes blow to Obamacare</a></p> | Baptist schools raise RFRA defense in federal appeals court | false | https://baptistnews.com/article/baptist-schools-raise-rfra-defense-in-federal-appeals-court/ | 3 |
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<p>MINDEN, Nev. (AP) — Former Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio will be a guest speaker at a Republican dinner in Nevada.</p>
<p>The Reno Gazette-Journal <a href="http://www.rgj.com/story/news/politics/2018/01/15/sheriff-joe-arpaio-keynote-speaker-douglas-county-gop-dinner/1034282001/" type="external">reports</a> the 85-year-old Arpaio, who recently announced he is running for the U.S. Senate, will speak at the Lincoln Reagan Dinner and Fund Raiser Feb. 18 at the Carson Valley Inn in Minden.</p>
<p>The dinner will be hosted by the Douglas County Republican Central Committee, which is the official Republican Party-affiliated organization in Douglas County, The committee says Arpaio will be the event’s guest speaker at the annual event’s VIP Reception.</p>
<p>President Donald Trump pardoned Arpaio late last August after he was convicted of criminal contempt for defying a federal judge’s order that he stop detaining immigrants simply for lacking legal status.</p>
<p>Arpaio was in office from 1993 to 2017.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Information from: Reno Gazette-Journal, <a href="http://www.rgj.com" type="external" /> <a href="http://www.rgj.com" type="external">http://www.rgj.com</a></p>
<p>MINDEN, Nev. (AP) — Former Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio will be a guest speaker at a Republican dinner in Nevada.</p>
<p>The Reno Gazette-Journal <a href="http://www.rgj.com/story/news/politics/2018/01/15/sheriff-joe-arpaio-keynote-speaker-douglas-county-gop-dinner/1034282001/" type="external">reports</a> the 85-year-old Arpaio, who recently announced he is running for the U.S. Senate, will speak at the Lincoln Reagan Dinner and Fund Raiser Feb. 18 at the Carson Valley Inn in Minden.</p>
<p>The dinner will be hosted by the Douglas County Republican Central Committee, which is the official Republican Party-affiliated organization in Douglas County, The committee says Arpaio will be the event’s guest speaker at the annual event’s VIP Reception.</p>
<p>President Donald Trump pardoned Arpaio late last August after he was convicted of criminal contempt for defying a federal judge’s order that he stop detaining immigrants simply for lacking legal status.</p>
<p>Arpaio was in office from 1993 to 2017.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Information from: Reno Gazette-Journal, <a href="http://www.rgj.com" type="external" /> <a href="http://www.rgj.com" type="external">http://www.rgj.com</a></p> | Sheriff Joe Arpaio will be keynote speaker at GOP dinner | false | https://apnews.com/03415c39ee7d43d7bc9c517673ca69e3 | 2018-01-16 | 2 |
<p />
<p />
<p>Ugh. For a man who the press will make things up about to attack, it’s a disaster to make such a remarkably stupid comment, and on top of it all, on Passover! This is the big league, and if you actually think about making a Hitler comparison, please get it right.</p>
<p>At this point, I’d say getting another press secretary is not a bad idea. <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/spicer-offends-hitler-gassing-remark-n745241" type="external">Via NBC.</a></p>
<p>White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer apologized Tuesday evening after causing a firestorm for saying that Adolf Hitler “didn’t even sink to using chemical weapons” against his own people like Syrian strongman Bashar Al-Assad.</p>
<p>Spicer, speaking from the White House podium at the daily press briefing, said that Hitler, whom he called “despicable,” did not use “the gas on his own people the same way Assad used them.”</p>
<p>He sought to clarify his remarks in three separate follow-up statements — which did little to help — and then provided a full-blown apology.</p>
<p>“To draw any kind of comparison to the Holocaust was inappropriate and insensitive,” he told NBC News.</p>
<p>He later continued, referring to the Jewish holiday of Passover, “I’m absolutely sorry, especially during a week like this to make a comparison that is inappropriate and inexcusable.”</p>
<p>The Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect called on President Donald Trump to can Spicer.</p>
<p>“Sean Spicer now lacks the integrity to serve as White House press secretary, and President Trump must fire him at once,” Steven Goldstein, the organization’s executive director, said in a statement.</p>
<p />
<p /> | true | http://tammybruce.com/2017/04/white-house-press-secretary-spicer-apologizes-after-causing-uproar-w-hitler-gaffe.html | 0 |
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<p>India’s liberal intellectuals might be unknowing participants in a grand hoax, according to Perry Anderson’s The&#160;Indian Ideology. That hoax is India’s secular democracy, which is eagerly marketed as the world’s largest and most diverse, but in reality is soiled and riven by chauvinistic politics, religious parties, a calcified caste system, and the ongoing catastrophe of Kashmir. Anderson traces India’s near-irreconcilable contradictions to its independence and Partition, offering a stunning indictment of the Indian National Congress (INC), Hindu anti-colonial leaders including Mohandas Gandhi and his political partner Jawaharlal Nehru, and British administrators.</p>
<p>Anderson describes Gandhi as “a first-class organizer and fundraiser,” though also “temperamentally in many ways an autocrat,” and for whom his peculiar brand of “religion mattered more than politics.” A talented and charismatic communicator, he helped transform INC into a Hindu-dominated popular political party, rendering India’s secularity a farce. Nehru, India’s first prime minister, was an upper-caste dandy who “had few political ideas of his own,” and could be trusted “not to challenge [Gandhi’s] authority if he chose to exercise it.” He is the one who Anderson holds chiefly responsible for using the favor of the British and its crooked electoral architecture to alienate the Muslim minority and undercut socialists, while enshrining a tradition of hereditary politics that India continues to suffer from to this day.</p>
<p>To Anderson, India is a hopelessly impoverished and divided country, rife with corruption and nepotism and bloody from communal violence and pogroms against Muslims.&#160;It is this judgment that has left Anderson contemptuous of liberal Indian intellectuals who produce glowing tributes to their country.</p>
<p>Invoking The German Ideology, Anderson takes aim at Meghnad Desai, Ramachandra Guha, Pratap Bhanu Mehta, Amartya Sen and Sunil Khilani, for their celebration of India as an exceptional nation and a thriving democracy. Pulling out short quotes from their writings and glossing over their positions and achievements only briefly, Anderson engages their work only superficially. Anderson’s critique, which originally appeared as three essays in the London Review of Books, has inspired critical letters to the editor and several responses, many of which have imputed ignorance of South Asian politics and possible Orientalism.</p>
<p>At least some of the opprobrium can be attributed to the prominence and talent of the writer. Recommending Anderson’s essays, Lorin Stein of The Paris Review <a href="http://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2012/08/03/what-we%E2%80%99re-loving-eccentrics-cult-figures/" type="external">told</a> readers to “imagine the old Encyclopedia Britannica as written by the God of the Old Testament. He lays about him with a mighty hand.”</p>
<p>Anderson, a long-time editor of the New Left Review and a leading Marxist historian and critic, has spent much of his career decrying the insular cultures and interventionist postures of post-war England and the US, and can dismiss the charges of Western condescension and ignorance. The Indian Ideology comes in the wake of Anderson’s study of interstate systems and is followed up by a <a href="http://newleftreview.org/II/83/perry-anderson-imperium" type="external">new, special issue of the New Left Review</a> in which he assesses US foreign policy and its strategists. As a historian, he analyzes politics in a more traditional sense, investigating the intersection of individuals and ideas with the state and chronicling their transformations and relationships with power. Anderson has adopted what Wallace Stevens called “a mind of winter”; detached and free of all pretensions, he interrogates the history of India’s greatest icons, their ideas, and the policies they enacted.</p> | The Poverty of Indian Ideology | true | http://jacobinmag.com/2013/12/the-poverty-of-indian-ideology/ | 2018-10-03 | 4 |
<p>(Reuters) - A consumer and public health group is pressing McDonald’s Corp to set a timeline for phasing out the routine use of medically important antibiotics in the beef and pork it serves, amid warnings that the practice fuels dangerous drug-resistant superbug infections in people.</p> A McDonald's Corp restaurant is seen in Los Angeles, California, U.S. October 24, 2017. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson
<p>The petition drive by U.S.&#160;PIRG Education Fund is the latest in a broad campaign from the World Health Organization (WHO), investors, advocacy groups, and even nuns, to pressure farmers to curb or eliminate the use of those life-saving drugs on food animals.</p>
<p>In the United States, an estimated 70 percent of antibiotics that are important to fighting human infections and ensuring the safety of invasive procedures such as surgeries are sold for use on farms.</p>
<p>Scientists warn that the use of antibiotics to promote growth and prevent illness in healthy farms animals contributes to the rise of dangerous antibiotic-resistant superbug infections, which kill at least 23,000 Americans each year and pose a significant threat to global health.</p>
<p>As the world’s biggest hamburger chain and a significant buyer of pork for its bacon and McRib sandwiches, McDonald’s has an outsize influence on farm practices.</p>
<p>“The Big Mac can make a big dent in stopping the misuse of antibiotics in our food system,” said Matthew Wellington, antibiotics program director for U.S. PIRG.</p>
<p>McDonald’s in 2016 was the first major fast-food chain to shift its U.S. chicken supply to birds raised without medically important antibiotics, its effort spurred most of its rivals and major chicken suppliers to follow.</p>
<p>McDonald’s in August said would begin curbing the use of high-value human antibiotics in its global chicken supply in 2018 and begin working on antibiotic plans for other meats, dairy cows and laying hens.</p>
<p>The company was not immediately available after normal business hours for comment.</p>
<p>The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently said sales and distribution of medically important antibiotics for food production fell 14 percent from 2015 to 2016, the first decline in year-to-year sales since the agency began collecting the data in 2009.</p>
<p>FDA said chicken accounted for 6 percent of medically important antibiotic sales, while swine and cattle came in at 37 percent and 43 percent, respectively.</p>
<p>Reporting by Lisa Baertlein in Los Angeles; Editing by Lisa Shumaker</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>(Reuters) - Hikma Pharmaceuticals Plc ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=HIK.L" type="external">HIK.L</a>) reported full-year profit and revenue largely in line with expectations, aided by strong performance in the second half of the year.</p>
<p>The company has struggled due to persistent price pressures in the U.S. market and was forced to cut revenue guidance for its generics business thrice in 2017.</p>
<p>Hikma’s problems were further compounded by a delay in the launch of its generic version of GlaxoSmithKline’s ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=GSK.L" type="external">GSK.L</a>) blockbuster lung drug Advair. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Monday asked Hikma to conduct a further clinical study evaluating the drug.</p>
<p>Hikma posted 2017 generics revenue of $615 million, surpassing its expectation of about $600 million.</p>
<p>The company, which named former Teva Pharmaceutical ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=TEVA.TA" type="external">TEVA.TA</a>) generics head Sigurdur Olafsson as its CEO in a bid to improve the business, forecast revenue from generics in 2018 to be in the range of $550 million to $600 million.</p>
<p>“We see these results as reassuring in the context of poor market sentiment and multiple headwinds to the business and would expect a positive reaction,” Morgan Stanley analysts wrote in a note.</p>
<a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=HIK.L" type="external">Hikma Pharmaceuticals PLC</a> 960.2 HIK.L London Stock Exchange +87.80 (+10.06%) HIK.L GSK.L TEVA.TA
<p>Hikma shares rose as much as 10.7 percent in early trading.</p>
<p>The Jordan-based drugmaker said earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) fell 5 percent to $468 million for the year ended Dec. 31, but was largely in line with analysts’ estimate of $469.9 million, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.</p>
<p>Revenue fell marginally to $1.94 billion, also keeping with estimates.</p>
<p>Reporting By Justin George Varghese in Bengaluru; Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty and Sunil Nair</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>PARIS (Reuters) - Bhutan has reported an outbreak of the highly pathogenic H5N1 bird flu virus among backyard birds, the Paris-based World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) said on Tuesday, citing a report from the country’s agriculture ministry.</p>
<p>The virus killed 36 out of 60 free-ranging birds reared within a temple complex in Samdrup Jongkhar. The remaining birds were slaughtered, the report said.</p>
<p>“The birds were brought from unknown sources illegally and kept within the temple complex. The disease is so far confined within the temple complex owing to strict enforcement of control measures,” the report said.</p>
<p>Reporting by Gus Trompiz, editing by Louise Heavens</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>(Reuters Health) - Insurance companies may be asking people to shell out more money for drug co-payments than the drugs actually cost, a new study suggests.</p>
<p>Generic drug co-payments in the U.S. exceeded the cost of medicines about 28 percent of the time – or for more than one in four prescriptions, researchers found.</p>
<p>Co-payments for branded drugs were higher than the medication cost about 6 percent of the time, they report in JAMA.</p>
<p>“This is money that patients could be saving if they knew about and could avoid the practice,” said lead study author Karen Van Nuys of the Schaeffer Center for Health Policy and Economics at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.</p>
<p>While some people might not notice the overpayment because their medicines cost only $5 or $10 with insurance, added costs at the drugstore could make it even harder for some low-income patients to afford their medicines and might lead them to skip doses, delay refills or stop taking drugs altogether.</p>
<p>“Particularly for patients who struggle to afford their prescription drugs, even modest savings would be helpful,” Van Nuys said by email.</p>
<p>For the study, researchers examined 2013 data on the average prices retail pharmacies get paid for filling prescriptions for people with private health insurance as well as the co-payments, or out-of-pocket fees, patients paid for their medicines.</p>
<p>Out of 9.5 million claims for prescription drugs, 2.2 million involved overpayments, the study found.</p>
<p>Altogether, the overpayments totaled $135 million, or about $10.51 per person.</p>
<p>The average overpayment was $7.69. Overpayments exceeded $10 in about 17 percent of claims.</p>
<p>For brand-name drugs, overpayments weren’t as common, but they were higher on average at $13.46, compared with average overpayments of $7.32 for generic drugs.</p>
<p>The most commonly prescribed drug, the painkiller hydrocodone with acetaminophen, involved overpayment in one-third of cases, with an average overpayment of $6.94.</p>
<p>Twelve of the 20 most commonly prescribed drugs involved overpayment rates above 33 percent.</p>
<p>Limitations of the study include the potential for pricing in 2013 to be different than what it would be today, the authors note.</p>
<p>It’s also important to recognize that using generic drugs can offer patients effective treatments at lower costs than similar brand-name alternatives, said Dr. Aaron Kesselheim, a researcher at Harvard Medical School in Boston who wasn’t involved in the study.</p>
<p>While previous research has linked high drug costs to an increased likelihood that poor people will stop taking medicines, the amount of the overpayments found in the current study might not be large enough to change patient behavior, Kesselheim said by email.</p>
<p>Cost-related non-adherence is usually more of an issue when there’s a choice “between extremely inexpensive generic drugs and extremely expensive brand-name drugs, not on average about $5 differences between co-payments and negotiated reimbursement for generic drugs,” Kesselheim said.</p>
<p>To avoid overpayments, patients should always ask the pharmacist if their costs would be lower if they paid cash instead of using their insurance, said Stacie Dusetzina, a health policy researcher at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee.</p>
<p>“Pharmacists might not be allowed to offer this information to patients due to `gag clauses’ but if patients ask, pharmacists can tell them,” Dusetzina, who wasn’t involved in the study, said by email.</p>
<p>“Several states have banned these practices and allow pharmacists to offer this information but even if you live in one of those states, you should ask,” Dusetzina added. “Patients can also use pricing tools on the internet like GoodRx.com to see what prices they could expect across a variety of pharmacies if they paid cash.”</p>
<p>SOURCE: <a href="http://bit.ly/2FAkrS1" type="external">bit.ly/2FAkrS1</a> JAMA, online March 13, 2018.</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>(Reuters Health) - Older adults who are socially isolated may not necessarily see doctors or visit health clinics more often than their peers who have close ties to many friends and family members, a research review suggests.</p>
<p>When their health takes a turn for the worse, however, older people without strong social relationships may be more likely to have long hospital stays and repeat hospitalizations, researchers report in the American Journal of Public Health.</p>
<p>“It is evident that strong social relationships (i.e., large social network, close interpersonal connection and adequate social support) are beneficial to health and wellbeing,” said Dr. Guohua Li, a researcher at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health in New York.</p>
<p>“It is less clear about the mechanisms through which social relationships affect health outcomes such as (medical complications) and mortality,” Li, who wasn’t involved in the study, said by email.</p>
<p>There are, however, many possible explanations, said Ben Lennox Kail, a sociology and gerontology researcher at Georgia State University in Atlanta who wasn’t involved in the study.</p>
<p>For starters, people with few close relationships with friends or relatives may be more likely to suffer from depression or other mental health issues than individuals with expansive social networks, Kail said by email.</p>
<p>“People who are not particularly well socially integrated may have poorer mental health or wellbeing, which may lead to poorer physical health, which may make longer hospital stays and more repeat visits more necessary,” Kail said.</p>
<p>“That said, if this were the primary explanation, we might expect to see more regular doctor’s visit – and we don’t,” Kail added.</p>
<p>Instead, it’s possible that people without friends and family to rely on might benefit more from longer hospital stays where they can get extra support from nurses, Kail said. With strong social networks, people might also have healthier habits, more reasons to leave the house and keep active, and people in their life to remind them to eat right, exercise, and take any prescribed medicine.</p>
<p>For the study, Nicole Valtorta of Newcastle University in the U.K. and colleagues examined data from 126 studies involving a total of more than 226,000 people in 19 countries. Most were from the U.S. and Canada.</p>
<p>Only one study was a controlled experiment designed to test whether social relationships directly impacted health utilization. Most of the studies examined data collected over time on outcomes like emergency room visits, doctor checkups and hospital admissions.</p>
<p>Valtorta declined to comment on the study, citing an ongoing strike over pensions at the university.</p>
<p>“The evidence is not quite there yet to indicate that increasing the quantity and/or quality of older adults’ social ties will reduce health care utilization,” said Christina Matz-Costa of the Boston College School of Social Work.</p>
<p>“That is not to say that individual or population-based interventions to strengthen social relationships and reduce loneliness do not represent important public health strategies,” Matz-Costa, who wasn’t involved in the study, said by email.</p>
<p>People experiencing health problems often seek out close friends or family for help, Matz-Costa said.</p>
<p>“When health issues arise, informal networks are often used to obtain advice, guidance and support around how to recognize and interpret their symptoms before seeking out formal care services, and those who lack informal social supports for vetting their health issues or complaints may be more likely to seek out formal services,” she said.</p>
<p>SOURCE: <a href="http://bit.ly/2tKSRf1" type="external">bit.ly/2tKSRf1</a> American Journal of Public Health, online February 22, 2017.</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> | Advocacy group calls on McDonald's to remove antibiotics from beef, pork Drugmaker Hikma's FY profit, revenue meet expectations; shares rise Bhutan reports outbreak of severe H5N1 bird flu: OIE Drug copays sometimes exceed costs Loneliness doesn’t drive seniors to see more doctors | false | https://reuters.com/article/us-mcdonalds-antibiotics/advocacy-group-calls-on-mcdonalds-to-remove-antibiotics-from-beef-pork-idUSKBN1FE1HL | 2018-01-25 | 2 |
<p>The Korean police swarmed onto the golf course in Seongju, just 300 kilometers southeast of Seoul, just before dawn on April 26. The officers pushed aside the dazed protesters and escorted a group of US Army military trailers that carried the critical parts for the THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) missile defense system.</p>
<p>The deployment of THAAD in Korea has become extremely contentious since China expressed its strong opposition. The sudden deployment of the AN/TPY-2 radar system and two missile launchers and interceptors a week before the Korean presidential election on May 9 has created even greater controversy. It looks for all the world like a bid to make deployment a&#160;fait accompli&#160;even as the liberal candidate Moon Jae-in, who is the frontrunner in several polls, suggests that the system requires further debate.</p>
<p>Although the incident did not grab the headlines around the world, it was an obvious effort to circumvent the Korean political process. It also marks a fundamental shift in Korea-US relations .</p>
<p>But that’s not all. President Donald Trump also went on to demand that Korea pay one billion dollars for the cost of the deployment, even though the Korean military is not actually purchasing the missile defense system and has agreed to deployment in the face of strong opposition.</p>
<p>President Trump went on to condemn the KORUS Free Trade Agreement, calling it a “horrible deal” and threatening to “terminate” it. Trump has linked together security issues with trade issues in an aggressive manner, hinting that the crisis might be resolved if Seoul were more accommodating in trade negotiations.</p>
<p>This mix of trade issues with security issues goes against the grain of the entire shared-values strategy that the United States has employed since the Second World War. Trump suggests, in so many words, that the military alliance is an economic exchange and that THAAD, or just about anything, can be modified or even eliminated if the price is right. Though this approach may seem like common sense to Donald Trump, the implication is that the United States military is a mercenary force whose purpose is not determined by a commitment to democracy and free markets but rather the balance in the national treasury.</p>
<p>And lo and behold, on May 1, Trump stated that he would be “honored” to meet with Kim Jong-un, the leader of North Korea, a country that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has refused to engage in discussions, despite numerous offers by the Chinese. At other times, the Trump administration has suggested that military action against North Korea was imminent.</p>
<p>Korean Politics</p>
<p>Because of all these zigzags in U.S. policy, South Koreans perceive the Trump administration as irrational, self-centered, and impulsive. The demand for a large payment for THAAD has increased Moon Jae-in’s skepticism of the system and boosted anti-American sentiment in the election. Moon is now openly critical of THAAD early deployment even in the face of conservative criticism.</p>
<p>The shift in Korean perceptions of the United States is driven by the complete lack of concern for procedure in the decision on THAAD. Acting president Hwang Kyo-ahn is not authorized to make such a critical decision. Also, former President Park Geun-hye agreed initially to THAAD without consulting with the National Assembly.</p>
<p>There has been literally no debate among legislators on THAAD. The issue is simply not a matter of a North Korean threat. China perceives THAAD as an effort to undermine its own defensive capabilities. Although experts can debate the fine points, deployment will trigger an arms race in Northeast Asia that could draw in Korea, Japan, Russia, and perhaps other nations. China currently has under 300 nuclear weapons (as opposed to the United States with almost 7,000). Worried that THAAD could neutralize this relatively small arsenal, China could increase that number to a thousand or more.</p>
<p>We do not know how the rapid deployment of THAAD was decided upon. Most likely it was an agreement reached between Kim Kwan-Jin, head of national security office in the Blue House, and Admiral Harry Harris, head of the US Pacific Command. Both are famous for their bellicose declarations and their close ties to military contractors. It seems less likely that Donald Trump was involved in the process.</p>
<p>But Donald Trump has just thrown oil on the fire with his recent comments that Korea had once been a part of China—according to Xi Jinping. He has eliminated all Asia experts from the State Department and has no one around him who has any expertise on the region. This lack of actual understanding combines with the astonishing capacity of the U.S. president to reverse himself on North Korea.</p>
<p>A New South Korean Policy?</p>
<p>A Moon administration is likely to pursue improved relations with North Korea, in contrast to the last ten years of conservative government. It will also encounter at least the same hostility that the Roh Moo-hyun administration encountered from the George W. Bush administration.</p>
<p>Moon is likely to try to bring back some version of Kim Daejung’s “sunshine policy,” which promoted diplomatic, economic, and cultural engagement with the North. Conservatives thought they’d put a stake through the heart of this engagement policy last year when they shut down the last vestige of cooperation, the Kaesong Industrial Complex, run jointly by the North and South. Such efforts to reopen dialog with North Korea will likely be combined with a push for the transfer of operational wartime control of the military to Korea over the next few years and a Korean foreign policy that is more independent of the United States.</p>
<p>In fact, Korea could well be the one of the most independent-minded of all the United States allies under a Moon administration. Obama’s “strategic neglect” of North Korea and inaction in the face of nuclear tests has caused enormous frustration for South Korea. A Moon administration could forge its own policy toward the North that would be substantially different from Washington’s.</p>
<p>North Korea is fully aware of the manner in which outside power overthrew governments in Libya and Iraq because they lacked sufficient deterrence. As a result, Pyongyang is unlikely to make any easy compromises, especially as Kim Jung-un has staked his legitimacy on the nuclear program as an assertion of national autonomy.</p>
<p>But for all the rhetoric of the need to stand up to North Korea, American engagement in Korea is in retreat. Increasingly China offers the real economic opportunities to Koreans, and Chinese language schools are popping up all over the place. By contrast, Citibank announced the closure of one-third of its branches in Korea in April, and the percentage of Americans among foreigners in Korea has declined significantly.</p>
<p>Astonishingly, in the face of threats of war with North Korea, the United States not only no longer has an ambassador to the Republic of Korea—the last ambassador Mark Lippert was asked to step down on January 19—there is not even a candidate. Korea was essentially left out of the conversation between Trump and Shinzo Abe at the White House in February and also between Trump and Chinese president Xi Jinping at Mar-a-Lago. The failure of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to have dinner with acting president Hwang Kyo-ahn when he visited Korea in March only added insult to injury.</p>
<p>Ultimately, the THAAD anti-missile system is part of a long-term relationship with the United States that dates back to the late nineteenth century. Overall, although North Korea is getting front-page coverage in the mainstream media, South Korea has not registered as a major player for the Trump administration. If steps are not taken to find common ground and engage Koreans about some other topic than the North Korean threat, there is a danger of a rise in anti-American sentiments and a corresponding drop in American influence.</p>
<p>Raekyong Lee is president of The Tomorrow, a leading progressive think tank in Seoul, Korea, dedicated to economic and security issues. He was deeply involved in the democracy movement in the 1970s and 1980s in Korea and writes frequently about international relations and politics.</p>
<p>This article originally appeared in <a href="http://fpif.org/" type="external">Foreign Policy in Focus</a>.</p> | Trump and the Rush to Deploy the THAAD Missile Defense System | true | https://counterpunch.org/2017/05/04/trump-and-the-rush-to-deploy-the-thaad-missile-defense-system/ | 2017-05-04 | 4 |
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<p>CYFD Secretary Monique Jacobson</p>
<p>Children, Youth and Families Secretary Monique Jacobson has sent letters to 740 schools throughout New Mexico along with packets of information about warning signs, fact sheets on reporting suspected abuse and neglect and posters with contact numbers.</p>
<p>Jacobson said reporting suspected abuse and neglect can sometimes include making tough judgment calls. She wants to make sure teachers and counselors have the necessary tools.</p>
<p>“Being responsible for a child is difficult. It’s complex and unpredictable. But if we pull together, we can make a positive change,” she said in her letter.</p>
<p>The statewide call center operated by the Children, Youth and Families Department receives about 20,000 reports annually that warrant further review for possible abuse or neglect. That number has escalated nearly every year since at least 2009.</p>
<p>The rate of the calls also increases when school is in session since teachers are among those who most often report suspected abuse.</p>
<p>According to state officials, more than 1,110 calls were received from school personnel about possible abuse and neglect in the first two months of the year. More than 730 of those calls were referred for further review. That amounts to nearly a quarter of all the calls received and referred for all of 2016.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>“The fact is it’s happening,” Jacobson said of abuse during a recent interview. She noted that her department is looking for more ways to increase awareness of the problem across the state.</p>
<p>Part of the effort includes putting up posters in public places that feature the faces of children and messages such as “Be the voice for child” and “It shouldn’t hurt to be a child.” The posters urge people to call #SAFE if they suspect abuse.</p>
<p>A ruling issued by the New Mexico Supreme Court in 2015 clarified a state statute that calls for “every person” to report abuse or neglect, not just those occupations that were spelled out by the law.</p>
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<p /> | Agency enlists NM schools in fight against abuse | false | https://abqjournal.com/985039/agency-taps-schools-in-fight-against-abuse.html | 2017-04-08 | 2 |
<p>The <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2016-06-14/bloomberg-politics-national-poll-june-2016" type="external">newest poll</a> from Bloomberg has frightening numbers for Donald Trump; 49% of prospective voters prefer Hillary Clinton; only 37% like Trump. And this is after the Orlando terrorist attack. 55% of voters told Bloomberg they were Never Trumpers; 43% were Never Hillary. The Bloomberg poll represents the <a href="http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/us/general_election_trump_vs_clinton-5491.html#polls" type="external">ninth consecutive</a> national survey in which Clinton led Trump, and the fourth consecutive poll with his poll numbers in the 30's.</p>
<p>The poll was conducted Friday through Monday, so it included responses after Orlando.</p>
<p>As Bloomberg <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2016-06-15/national-poll-part-2" type="external">wrote</a>, in devastating news for the Trump campaign: “Just 32 percent of Americans view the Republican Party favorably as it prepares to formally nominate Donald Trump for president, the latest Bloomberg Politics national poll shows, the lowest level recorded since the poll’s inception in September 2009.”</p>
<p>In an argument sure to revive talk of rejecting Grump as the nominee before the convention, J. Ann Selzer, who supervised the poll, stated, “This is obviously related to perceptions of Trump. This bleeds out into perceptions of the party and to other GOP politicians.” A whopping 60% of respondents thought that a Trump nomination would hurt the GOP. One out of every three GOP respondents didn’t like Trump; only 17% of Democrats felt that way about Clinton.</p>
<p>55% of voters were still bothered by Trump’s racist comments regarding Judge Gonzalo Curiel; 62% felt the same way about Trump’s insults of women; 45% were bothered by the Trump University allegations and Trump’s refusals to release his tax returns. 63% of women were Never Trumpers; over 75% of non-whites support Clinton.</p>
<p>Even among white males, Trump’s strongest demographic, he trails Mitt Romney’s numbers in 2012. Romney won 62% of the white male vote; Trump is polling at 50%.</p> | Bloomberg: Trump Down By 12 | true | https://dailywire.com/news/6618/bloomberg-trump-down-12-hank-berrien | 2016-06-15 | 0 |
<p />
<p>Dear Dr. Don,</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>I invested $156,000 held in a trust account with Franklin Templeton as suggested by my finance guy. I had to pay a 3.5% load upfront, leaving us with about $150,000. We invested in four funds. Then, we took the money out of a New Jersey tax-free fund because it wasn't doing too well. The money is now invested in three load funds. I've had this adviser for years, but since it is my parents' money I hope I did the right thing. Since we started with $156,000, we are down $10,000. I realize it costs $5,400 just to get into the funds. But the total balance is still not back to where it should be. What's your advice?</p>
<p>Thank you,</p>
<p>-Barbara Betwixt</p>
<p>Dear Barbara,</p>
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<p>My advice is for you to talk this through with your financial adviser. You need to work with someone who looks at the big picture about your finances. Even if the $150,000 represents your entire investment portfolio, there are three key areas to consider. 1.The investments need to be within the context of your individual attitude toward risk. 2.We need to know your goals for the investments. 3.And, we need to consider any possible pension or Social Security income you expect as sources of retirement income.</p>
<p>Although you might want me to say whether you're in the right funds, the problem is more complicated than just the particular funds you own.</p>
<p>When paying a 3.5% sales load on your investments to compensate your financial adviser, you hope to get it right the first time. Switching into another mutual fund with another sales load can get expensive. You might want to discuss alternate ways of paying your adviser. The basics include: a commission-based model, an asset-under-management model or paying him by the hour, possibly combined with an annual retainer. A commission-based model, such as paying an upfront sales load, can work as long as you understand that's how you're paying for investment advice.</p>
<p>Get more news, money-saving tips and expert advice by signing up for a free Bankrate newsletter.</p>
<p>Ask the adviser</p>
<p>To ask a question of Dr. Don, go to the "Ask the Experts" page and select one of these topics: "Financing a home," "Saving &amp; Investing" or "Money." Read more Dr. Don columns for additional personal finance advice.</p>
<p>Bankrate's content, including the guidance of its advice-and-expert columns and this website, is intended only to assist you with financial decisions. The content is broad in scope and does not consider your personal financial situation. Bankrate recommends that you seek the advice of advisers who are fully aware of your individual circumstances before making any final decisions or implementing any financial strategy. Please remember that your use of this website is governed by Bankrate's Terms of Use.</p> | Investing in the Right Mutual Funds for Me | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2013/12/13/investing-in-right-mutual-funds-for-me.html | 2016-03-05 | 0 |
<p>Viacom Inc. (VIAB) on Thursday reported fiscal first-quarter profit of $396 million.</p>
<p>On a per-share basis, the New York-based company said it had net income of $1. Earnings, adjusted for one-time gains and costs, came to $1.04 per share.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>The results surpassed Wall Street expectations. The average estimate of 14 analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research was for earnings of 83 cents per share.</p>
<p>The owner of Nickelodeon, MTV, Comedy Central and Paramount Pictures posted revenue of $3.32 billion in the period, which also beat Street forecasts. Seven analysts surveyed by Zacks expected $3.2 billion.</p>
<p>Viacom shares have increased 20 percent since the beginning of the year, while the Standard &amp; Poor's 500 index has climbed 2.5 percent. The stock has risen 0.5 percent in the last 12 months.</p>
<p>_____</p>
<p>This story was generated by Automated Insights (http://automatedinsights.com/ap) using data from Zacks Investment Research. Access a Zacks stock report on VIAB at https://www.zacks.com/ap/VIAB</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>_____</p>
<p>Keywords: Viacom, Earnings Report</p> | Viacom beats Street 1Q forecasts | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/02/09/viacom-beats-street-1q-forecasts.html | 2017-02-09 | 0 |
<p>ATLANTA (AP) _ The winning numbers in Wednesday evening's drawing of the Georgia Lottery's "All or Nothing Evening" game were:</p>
<p>03-04-07-08-12-16-18-19-20-21-22-23</p>
<p>(three, four, seven, eight, twelve, sixteen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three)</p>
<p>ATLANTA (AP) _ The winning numbers in Wednesday evening's drawing of the Georgia Lottery's "All or Nothing Evening" game were:</p>
<p>03-04-07-08-12-16-18-19-20-21-22-23</p>
<p>(three, four, seven, eight, twelve, sixteen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three)</p> | Winning numbers drawn in 'All or Nothing Evening' game | false | https://apnews.com/amp/f3c6f02d7db84a2f8bb881fd785866aa | 2018-01-24 | 2 |
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<p>WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama says the United States is partnering with commercial companies to build “new habitats” to try to send humans safely to Mars within two decades.</p>
<p>Obama set a goal in 2010 to send humans to Mars by the 2030s. He says the next step is to “reach beyond the bounds of Earth’s orbit.” Obama says the U.S. is collaborating on missions that will help scientists understand how long humans can live “far from Earth.”</p>
<p>He writes in an op-ed on CNN’s website that the ultimate goal is for humans eventually to stay on Mars “for an extended time.”</p>
<p>Obama is not elaborating on what it will cost or how the U.S. will pay for it. But he says it will require years of patience, testing and education.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | Obama says US working with companies to send humans to Mars | false | https://abqjournal.com/864773/obama-says-us-working-with-companies-to-send-humans-to-mars.html | 2 |
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<p>Wellness Coordinator Kathy A. Chavez, a registered and licensed dietitian at Albuquerque Public Schools, says compression-only CPR is being taught in regular health education classes in the seventh and ninth grades. It has also been taught in elementary schools.</p>
<p>Chavez, who leads the Project Heart Start effort for the schools, says so far 1,700 students and staff members have had the training: “We’re making some strides to save lives.” The goal is for the entire staff of 10,000 people and the thousands of seventh- and ninth-graders to complete the training.</p>
<p>She says she has been impressed with the students she’s observed who have participated in the training: “I was impressed with how attentive, how motivated they are. They really want to learn how to do it correctly. These children are willing to take on this responsibility. I was humbled.”</p>
<p>“Anytime, anywhere someone can have a cardiac arrest,” she explains, adding that even students can collapse and need the lifesaving technique.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Every school has an AED or automated external defibrillator and one is available at administrative sites as well, she says, adding that the nursing department is in charge of those devices.</p>
<p>She says APS will have a tent at Project Heart Start on June 22 to encourage staffers to participate in the event. She says all those who provide insurance and benefits to APS employees are also supporting the effort.</p>
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<p /> | A curriculum in saving lives | false | https://abqjournal.com/208751/a-curriculum-in-saving-lives.html | 2013-06-10 | 2 |
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<p />
<p>Patrick Wadsworth, 47, was sentenced to 27 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release in federal court on Tuesday, according to a U.S. Department of Justice press release.</p>
<p>The Daily Times reported Wadsworth was arrested on Jan. 22 for allegedly assaulting a woman in an incident that resulted in serious bodily injury on Nov. 6, 2014. He pleaded guilty to the charges on June 27.</p>
<p>Wadsworth admitted on Nov. 6, 2014, to striking the victim and causing bruising to her face, arms and knees in his home on the Navajo Reservation in San Juan County, according to the release.</p>
<p>——</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>©2016 The Daily Times (Farmington, N.M.)</p>
<p>Visit The Daily Times (Farmington, N.M.) at <a href="http://www.daily-times.com" type="external">www.daily-times.com</a></p>
<p>Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.</p>
<p>_____</p> | Sanostee man sentenced on assault charges | false | https://abqjournal.com/886293/brief-sanostee-man-sentenced-on-assault-charges.html | 2016-11-10 | 2 |
<p>FOX Business: Capitalism Lives Here</p>
<p>U.S. stock-index futures climbed on Friday as traders mulled upbeat economic data and corporate earnings.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Today's Markets</p>
<p>As of 8:37 a.m., Dow Jones Industrial Average futures rose 2 points to 15456, S&amp;P 500 futures advanced 0.5 point to 1752 and Nasdaq 100 futures rose 9 points to 3380.</p>
<p>After a couple weeks that were light in economic releases due to the government shutdown, the flow of data has picked up substantially.</p>
<p>The Commerce Department said orders for long-lasting goods rose 3.7% in September, beating expectations of a 2% jump. Excluding the transportation segment, orders fell 0.1%. The reading is a somewhat lagging indicator, but it will figure into investment banks' third and fourth quarter gross domestic product estimates.</p>
<p>Later, at 9:55 a.m. ET, the University of Michigan/Thomson Reuters gauge of consumer sentiment is released. Wall Street is expecting the indicator to have fallen slightly to 75 in late October from 75.2 earlier in the month. Economists will be looking to see how the partial government shutdown is affecting consumers ahead of the key holiday shopping season.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>On the earnings front, United Parcel Service (NYSE:UPS) revealed a bigger-than-expected increase in quarterly profits. The shipping giant is seen as an economic bellwether.</p>
<p>Procter &amp; Gamble (NYSE:PG), the blue-chip consumer products maker, met expectations on the bottom line.</p>
<p>In commodities,&#160;U.S. crude oil prices 27 cents, or 0.28%, to $97.28 a barrel. Wholesale New York Harbor gasoline fell 0.91% to $2.567 a gallon. Gold slumped 0.72% to $1,341 a troy ounce.</p>
<p>Foreign Markets</p>
<p>The Euro Stoxx 50 rose 0.09% to 3042, the English FTSE 100 climbed 0.14% 6723 and the German DAX tilted higher by 0.24% to 9003.</p>
<p>In Asia, the Japanese Nikkei 225 tumbled 2.8% to 14088 and the Chinese Hang Seng dipped 0.6% to 22698.</p> | Futures Tick Up After Goods Data Top Views | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2013/10/25/stock-futures-tick-up-ahead-goods-data.html | 2016-03-06 | 0 |
<p>The mere act of homosexual sex is an act of genocide, says former Ghana Deputy Minister Sam P. Yalley, who wants all gay men, lesbians, and bisexual and transgender people arrested and jailed.</p>
<p>“Genocide results in the extermination of the human race and if you expand the meaning of homosexuality to mean that a man cannot have a child with another man then it means that that practice would lead to the extermination of mankind and therefore for me if I am to charge anybody apart from having unnatural carnal knowledge, I would also charge him with genocide and see how he can get out of that situation,”&#160;Yalley told reporters on Wednesday.</p>
<p>“If you are a man and you are having carnal knowledge with a man how are you going to have a child?,” Yalley posited.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.citifmonline.com/index.php?id=1.287144.1.543730" type="external">Citi FM online</a>, a Ghana news site reports:</p>
<p>Sam Pee Yalley made this proposal on Citi Eyewitness News on Wednesday August 31 when he was contributing to the debate on Ghana’s stance on homosexuality which the Attorney General Martin Amidu has said is not illegal.The Attorney General’s comments sort to clarify Ghana’s position on the much talked about issue of homosexuality where he asserted that homosexual acts between two consenting adults, per Ghana’s laws, is not illegal so far as it is confined to the privacy of the partners’ bedroom.These comments drew sharp condemnation from the Moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana Rev. Prof. Emmanuel Martey who described them as “illogical and unfortunate.”</p>
<p><a href="http://www.care2.com/causes/gays-sex-is-genocide-says-former-ghana-official.html" type="external">Care 2</a> adds,</p>
<p>This follows international outrage after&#160; <a href="http://www.care2.com/causes/ghana-official-orders-gays-and-lesbians-rounded-up-arrested.html" type="external">a Ghanaian official recently called for the immediate arrest of all gays and lesbians in the nation’s Western Region</a>.</p>
<p>The Presbyterian Church of Ghana (PCG) also recently announced that it would be&#160; <a href="http://www.care2.com/causes/ghanan-church-aims-to-pray-away-the-gay.html" type="external">stepping up promotion of reparative therapy due to so-called concerns over the spread of homosexuality in the country</a>.</p>
<p>Last weekend saw Ghana’s President John Evans Atta Mills use a speech at a festival in Saltpond to urge the public to fight moral vices. He put “homosexuality and lesbianism” alongside child prostitution and drug abuse on the list of vices to be resisted.</p>
<p>Ghana has a population of about 24 million, the national language is English, and Christianity and Islam are the two major religions.</p>
<p>Tagged as: <a href="" type="internal">commit</a>, <a href="" type="internal">conversion therapy</a>, <a href="" type="internal">deputy</a>, <a href="" type="internal">Gay</a>, <a href="" type="internal">genocide</a>, <a href="" type="internal">ghana</a>, <a href="" type="internal">ghana news</a>, <a href="" type="internal">having sex</a>, <a href="" type="internal">homosexual sex</a>, <a href="" type="internal">Homosexuality</a>, <a href="" type="internal">homosexuals</a>, <a href="" type="internal">human sexuality</a>, <a href="" type="internal">lesbian</a>, <a href="" type="internal">lgbt rights in ghana</a>, <a href="" type="internal">sam</a>, <a href="" type="internal">sam p. yalley</a>, <a href="" type="internal">sex</a>, <a href="" type="internal">Sexual Orientation</a>, <a href="" type="internal">social issues</a>, <a href="" type="internal">Transgender</a></p>
<p>Friends:</p>
<p>We invite you to <a href="http://visitor.r20.constantcontact.com/manage/optin?v=001whLQo73KzGhEjdskYG07rHNy_XoDDkSBBO4INZHx6oD9kfp2yeeQAJeMQUu9oTviZa0VEl5k0rNiLifxlZsOFScMz8rVGmIaN-FFOO3GTKc%3D" type="external">sign up for our new mailing list</a>, and&#160; <a href="http://feedburner.google.com/fb/a/mailverify?uri=TheNewCivilRightsMovement&amp;amp;loc=en_US" type="external">subscribe to The New Civil Rights Movement via email</a> or <a href="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/thenewcivilrightsmovement" type="external">RSS</a>.</p>
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<p />
<p>In a high-profile defeat for Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), a federal judge ruled on Wednesday that the consumer electronics behemoth meticulously colluded with book publishers to drive up e-book prices.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>The key decision paves the way for a potentially pricey penalty and follows a non-jury trial that wrapped up on June 20. Publishers also involved in the price-fixing allegations separately settled with the U.S. Justice Department earlier this year.</p>
<p>In a ruling that paints a picture of a vast conspiracy to transform the e-book industry, U.S. District Judge Denise Cote found that the U.S. and various states proved that Apple and the book publishers “conspired with each other to eliminate retail price competition in order to raise e-book prices” and keep them above $9.99.</p>
<p>Cote ruled that “Apple played a central role in facilitating and executing that conspiracy. Without Apple’s orchestration of this conspiracy, it would not have succeeded as it did in the Spring of 2010.”</p>
<p>“Apple seized the moment and brilliantly played its hand,” the judge wrote.</p>
<p>Cote found that the evidence supported that Apple “conspired to restrain trade,” violating Section 1 of the Sherman Act and several state statutes.</p>
<p>In a statement, Apple disclosed plans to appeal Wednesday's ruling and said it did "nothing wrong."</p>
<p>"Apple did not conspire to fix ebook pricing and we will continue to fight against these false accusations," the company said. "We gave customers more choice, injecting much needed innovation and competition into the market, breaking Amazon's monopolistic grip on the publishing industry."</p>
<p>Pending the appeal, Apple faces a trial to determine damages that could be paid to the U.S. government and various states.</p>
<p>"This result is a victory for millions of consumers who choose to read books electronically," Bill Baer, assistant attorney general in charge of the DOJ's antitrust division, said in a statement.</p>
<p>The DOJ presented evidence showing prices of e-books published by companies involved in the alleged price-fixing raised prices by an average of 18%.</p>
<p>“Companies cannot ignore the antitrust laws when they believe it is in their economic self-interest to do so. This decision by the court is a critical step in undoing the harm caused by Apple’s illegal actions," Baer said.</p>
<p>In the ruling, Cote said that before Apple even met with its first publisher in mid-December 2009, it was aware of the fact that the "Big Six" of U.S. publishing wanted to raise e-book prices above the $9.99 prevailing price charged by Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) for bestsellers and newly-released hardcover books.</p>
<p>Apple "assured" the book publishers it was "willing to work with them" to boost e-book prices, Cote said.</p>
<p>"Apple and the Publisher Defendants shared one overarching interest -- that there be no price competition at the retail &#160;level," the judge wrote.</p>
<p>Shares of Cupertino, Calif.-based Apple dipped 0.04% to $422.16 Wednesday morning in the wake of the ruling, extending their 2013 slump to 21%. Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) was recently off 0.21% to $290.92.</p>
<p>In March, Cote tipped her hand that she was leaning toward deciding in favor of the U.S. by urging Apple to settle with the government.</p>
<p>That's exactly what the publishers did, agreeing to collectively pay $160 million in penalties. The publishers were Lagardere's Hachette Book Group, Pearson's (NYSE:PSO) Penguin Group, CBS's (NYSE:CBS) Simon &amp; Schuster, Macmillan and News Corp.'s (NASDAQ:NWSA) HarperCollins.</p>
<p>News Corp. recently separated itself from FOX Business parent 21st Century Fox (NASDAQ:FOXA).</p>
<p>FOX Business reporter Adam Samson contributed to this report.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p> | Judge: Apple Conspired to Hike E-Book Prices | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2013/07/10/judge-apple-conspired-to-hike-e-book-prices.html | 2016-01-29 | 0 |
<p>It isn't a household name, but the company that's at the center of a food scandal in China helps make some of the world's most popular foods, including the Big Macs and Quarter Pounders served at McDonald's locations.</p>
<p>OSI Group, a privately-held company based in Aurora, Illinois, was thrust into the spotlight this weekend when a Chinese TV station reported that one of its Shanghai plants repackaged old beef and chicken and slapped new expiration dates on them. The scare has ensnared chains including McDonald's, KFC, Burger King and Starbucks, all of which got ingredients from a unit of OSI (pronounced OH-see) in the region called Husi Food Co.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>The controversy deepened Wednesday when five workers for Husi, were detained by police. An official with China's food safety agency told the Xinhua News Agency that some of the illegal conduct it uncovered was an arrangement "organized" by Husi.</p>
<p>None of OSI's more than 50 other plants around the world have been implicated and the company noted in a statement that it was "appalled by the report and is dealing with the issue directly and quickly."</p>
<p>A representative for OSI in the U.S. declined to provide comment beyond the statement.</p>
<p>The scandal is a blemish for OSI, which began as a family-run meat market in 1909 and prides itself on its high standards. The company notes on its website that it has a "strong heritage of quality and service" and that food safety and quality assurance are "guiding principles."</p>
<p>Its business took off after Ray Kroc tapped it in the 1950s to be a beef supplier for McDonald's Corp. OSI grew alongside McDonald's as the hamburger chain expanded around the world, and even helped create the McRib.</p>
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<p>OSI doesn't have to report financial information, but according to PrivCo, which researches privately-held companies, it had $6.13 billion in sales last year. OSI also doesn't publicly disclose all of its clients, but it supplies numerous big-name chains including Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc., for which it cooks some beans and carnitas and barbacoa meats.</p>
<p>In the U.S., OSI has said it has systems in place to ensure products can be located and taken out of the system within two hours if any issues arise. Executives have said they work with an outside public relations agency to periodically stage mock crises to be prepared for real-life controversies.</p>
<p>Richard Adams, a former owner of McDonald's restaurants in Southern California who now runs a consulting firm for franchisees, said OSI closely oversees its production process in the U.S. and that he didn't know how the lapses in China occurred.</p>
<p>"They wouldn't be a McDonald's vendor if they weren't producing quality products," Adams said.</p>
<p>It's unknown how much of OSI's revenue come from China or whether it has similar safety systems there, but the company is already dealing with fallout from the controversy at its Shanghai plant.</p>
<p>Yum Brands Inc. said Wednesday it was terminating all supply agreements with OSI in China, not just at the plant in question. The company, based in Louisville, Kentucky, also said it reserves the right to take legal action against OSI, depending on results of the investigation.</p>
<p>A representative for Yum, Virginia Ferguson, noted that OSI wasn't a major supplier for the company in China, but didn't respond when asked about Yum's ties to OSI in other parts of the world.</p>
<p>Over at McDonald's, the impact on the menu seemed to be greater. A spokeswoman, Heidi Barker Sa Shekhem, said the Shanghai plant supplied products including sausage patties, ham patties, beef patties and chicken nuggets. Globally, she declined to specify how much meat and other items OSI provides McDonald's, citing competitive reasons.</p>
<p>Without providing details, McDonald's CEO Don Thompson said Tuesday the company deal with the matter "effectively, swiftly and appropriately" if the allegations prove to be true.</p>
<p>"We do feel we were a bit deceived," he said.</p> | American meat supplier in China scandal has ties to many fast-food chains | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2014/07/23/american-meat-supplier-in-china-scandal-has-ties-to-many-fast-food-chains.html | 2016-03-05 | 0 |
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<p>SANTA FE, N.M. - A Navajo Nation tribal member who lives on the Nambe Pueblo in Santa Fe County was sentenced today to 63 months in federal prison after pleading guilty in federal court in Albuquerque to assaulting his female partner with a hammer and to child abuse after he also struck a child with the hammer and another child with his fist.</p>
<p>Everett D. Williams, 26, was arrested in March 2013 and charged with assaulting his female partner causing her "serious bodily injury," the U.S. Attorney said in a news release.</p>
<p>According to the release: Williams was indicted in April 2013 and charged with one count of assault resulting in serious bodily injury, one count of assault with a deadly weapon, and two counts of child abuse.</p>
<p>"Williams assaulted the victim, a Kewa Pueblo woman, and endangered the health of two toddlers on Feb. 23, 2013, in a residence located on Nambe Pueblo," the release said. Williams "admitted to striking the victim in the head with a hammer and causing her serious bodily injury. Court filings indicate that the victim required surgery to treat a gaping wound on her forehead.&#160; While swinging the hammer at the victim, Williams missed the victim and instead struck a three-year-old child in the back.&#160; While attempting to hit the victim with his fist, Williams struck a two-year-old child above the eye," according to the news release.</p>
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<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | Navajo man sentenced for hammer assault at Nambe Pueblo | false | https://abqjournal.com/378528/navajo-man-sentenced-for-hammer-assault-at-nambe-pueblo.html | 2 |
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<p>If you’re from, say, California or Michigan, would you say you’re a Californian or Michigander first, or an American? You probably haven’t spent all that much time pondering this. But ask a Puerto Rican that question — are you a Puerto Rican or an American first — and the responses can get pretty involved.</p>
<p>At a summer leadership session in San Juan for university students, with the group <a href="https://www.profellow.com/tag/puerto-rican-minds-in-action/" type="external">Puerto Rican Minds in Action</a>, a few college students talked about their identities as Puerto Rican Americans.</p>
<p>“When someone asks me where I’m from, I just say I’m from Puerto Rico and I’m Puerto Rican,” said Nina Croatto. “But if they ask me, I say, ‘Yeah, I’m an American citizen.’ And it’s important for me to identify as that too.”</p>
<p>“Yes, I understand that, but how can I say I’m from some country that treats me differently, that treats me like a colony,” countered Roberto Nava. “It just doesn’t make any sense.”</p>
<p>“I understand your point and I respect it,” Paulina Colón said. “But being part of the US, even as a colony, I am part of it. That’s the way I see it. You need to be realistic, and be like: you’re Puerto Rican, but you’re also part of the United States. That’s the truth, that’s how it is.”</p>
<p>Four years ago, <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2012/11/07/politics/election-puerto-rico/" type="external">Puerto Ricans were asked to think about their collective identity at the ballot box</a>, to vote if they should remain a US territory, <a href="http://greengarageblog.org/17-big-pros-and-cons-of-puerto-rico-becoming-a-state" type="external">become the 51st US state</a>, or an independent country. A majority of voters wanted to end their territorial status, but <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puerto_Rican_status_referendum,_2012" type="external">they were divided</a> as to what should come next, with no clear majority when you factor in people who left that second question blank.</p>
<p>In the classroom, zero students thought Puerto Rico would be better off as a US state. But the students were also divided over the other options. Nava said Puerto Rico should cut the cord entirely from Washington. Yes, it would be a rocky economic transition, he said, “but at least we’re going to have the power, the political power as Puerto Ricans, to take control of our country and not be subordinate to another country. We are Puerto Ricans, we talk Spanish, we have our own culture, and they are taking decisions over our people.”</p>
<p>But independence would mean renouncing his US passport, losing&#160;Medicare and Medicaid, the US Post Office, possibly the US dollar.</p>
<p>“It’s difficult to imagine a country without these things that we have been living with for a long time, but c’mon, there are thousands of countries that are independent and they can survive,” Nava said.</p>
<p>There was a lot of anger in the room toward Washington,&#160;partly because of Congress’ new plan to help Puerto Rico out of its dire fiscal situation. A <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house-bill/5278/text?format=txt" type="external">&#160;bill</a> passed through the Senate on Wednesday and is now headed&#160;to President Barack Obama’s desk; he has indicated he’ll sign it&#160;into law.</p>
<p>Puerto Rico owes $2 billion to its creditors on July 1, money it doesn’t have. The bill calls for a <a href="" type="internal">seven-member oversight board to restructure</a> the island’s $70 billion debt. Only one of the board&#160;members would need to either live or work in Puerto Rico.</p>
<p>“It’s a giant slap in the face to any Puerto Rican. I think it demonstrates that the US has always had the ultimate power and that our government pretty much was worth nothing,” said Nidia Matos.</p>
<p>Matos, and many of the other students in the classroom in San Juan, attend college in the US. Matos says they’re treated as second-class citizens on the mainland.</p>
<p>“When I go over there, I’m told that I can’t speak Spanish, but when they come here, we have to accommodate their needs,” Matos said.</p>
<p>Adriana Velez concurred: “Just people asking me: ‘Do you have a green card? How did you get here? Do you have a visa?’ They don’t know our history.”</p>
<p>“I just don’t agree,” countered Croatto. “I just feel that’s crazy to feel that way. We’re practically a state. The only thing that we’re different is that we can’t vote for the president.”</p>
<p>Ignacio Pérez punched back: “As US citizens, we don’t have legitimate representation in Congress. We have a resident commissioner that we elect, we send to Congress, but he doesn’t have a vote.”</p>
<p>So what’s good about being a US territory? For one, Puerto Ricans don't have to pay US federal income tax.</p>
<p>“The US passport is actually a great thing,” said Valez. “And the chance to have our own culture, while still having great companies, US companies, I think it’s another good thing.”</p>
<p>Unsurprisingly, her comments set off another round of debate.</p>
<p>Add it all up, the time might be ripe for a change of some sort to Puerto Rico’s political status. Then again, Puerto Ricans have been debating this topic for more than a century.&#160;</p> | Young Puerto Ricans debate what it means to be Puerto Rican and American | false | https://pri.org/stories/2016-06-29/young-puerto-ricans-debate-what-it-means-be-puerto-rican-and-american | 2016-06-29 | 3 |
<p>This interview with CounterPunch co-editor Jeffrey St. Clair was filmed last week in Venice, California. If you missed part 1, please <a href="" type="internal">click here</a>.</p>
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<p>For Flash version (viewable on more computers,) click below: <a href="http://blip.tv/file/get/Ruspoli-JeffreyStClairInterviewPart2CoeditorCounterPunchPart2541.flv" type="external">Click To Play</a> play_blip_movie_142414();</p>
<p>Or for the better looking Mpeg-4 version: <a href="http://blip.tv/file/get/Ruspoli-JeffreyStClairInterviewPart2CoeditorCounterPunchPart2541.mp4" type="external">Click To Play</a></p>
<p>&#160;</p> | CounterViews | true | https://counterpunch.org/2007/01/27/counterviews-2/ | 2007-01-27 | 4 |
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<p>FILE – In this May 23, 2014 file photo, an employee of the Christie’s auction house poses for photographs with a 1958 prototype integrated circuit mounted on glass designed by Nobel Prize Physics winner Jack Kilby at Texas Instruments, at premises of the auction house in London, Friday, May 23, 2014. The prototype microchip, a historical contribution to the modern computing era, is estimated to fetch between $1,000,000 and $2,000,0000 at a June 19 sale in New York. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham, File)</p>
<p>NEW YORK — An integrated circuit that Texas Instruments engineer Jack Kilby used in 1958 to demonstrate his invention of the new technology is expected to sell for up to $2 million at auction.</p>
<p>Christie’s New York is offering the prototype, which helped create the microchip revolution, at auction Thursday. Texas Instruments is based in Dallas.</p>
<p>The auction house says the integrated circuit was built by Tom Yeargan, a member of the team that executed Kilby’s theories on bringing miniaturization to the period’s giant computers.</p>
<p>The integrated circuit is mounted on glass and enclosed in a plastic case belonging to Yeargan. It has a label signed by Kilby, who won the Nobel Prize in physics for his work. It’s accompanied by a statement by Yeargan, whose descendants are offering the circuit.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | Historic integrated circuit goes up for auction | false | https://abqjournal.com/417634/historic-integrated-circuit-goes-up-for-auction.html | 2 |
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<p>Thousands took to the streets in Baltimore last week following the funeral of 25-year-old Freddie Gray, a black man who died after his spine was nearly severed while riding in a police van. The “Baltimore Uprising” is the latest in a series of demonstrations to protest police brutality and the deaths of African-Americans at the hands of police. Crowds have come out around the country—and abroad—as part of a movement that’s now being called <a href="http://fergusonaction.com/black-spring/" type="external">Black Spring</a>.</p>
<p>Here’s a map of the latest demonstrations <a href="" type="internal">(tell us if we’ve missed any):</a></p>
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<p /> | This Map Shows the Freddie Gray Protests Across the Country | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2015/05/map-freddie-gray-protests-across-country/ | 2015-05-01 | 4 |
<p>Shares of Avon Products, Inc. (NYSE: AVP) stock closed down 10.7% on Thursday, after Avon reported its financial results for the second quarter of 2017.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>The earnings news was even worse than <a href="https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/06/12/why-avon-products-inc-stock-fell-28-in-may.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;uuid=a86d0e34-7891-11e7-8eae-0050569d32b9&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">last quarter Opens a New Window.</a>. Sales declined 3% to $1.4 billion. Operating profit margins plunged 430 basis points to 2.3%. By the time interest on the company's debt, taxes, and other expenses had been deducted, Avon ended up with a loss of $0.12 per share on its bottom line -- a huge reversal from last year's Q2 profit of $0.06 per share.</p>
<p>It probably goes without saying that investors were not pleased with the result. After all, Wall Street had told investors to expect profits of $0.07 per share from Avon. The fact that the company failed to earn any profit at all, but lost money instead, naturally had people a bit upset.</p>
<p>So upset, in fact, that it appears Avon has decided to fire its CEO. In an announcement separate from earnings, Avon revealed that after leading Avon for the past five years, CEO Sheri McCoy will be leaving the company on March 31, 2018.</p>
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<p>Avon's board has hired executive recruitment firm Heidrick &amp; Struggles to find a replacement for Ms. McCoy. No particular timeline for the search has been set, but obviously, a decision before March 31 would be ideal.</p>
<p>In the meantime, Avon will struggle on through "year two of its three-year transformation plan," aiming to "reduce costs" while simultaneously trying to find the cash to "invest in growth." So far, the company succeeded in cutting annual operating costs by $120 million last year and is targeting a reduction of $230 million this year.</p>
<p>If all goes as planned (hint: so far, things aren't going as planned), management hopes to close out the year with "low single-digits" growth in sales, a percentage point or so in "adjusted operating margin expansion," and at least a small surplus in free cash flow.</p>
<p>Here's hoping.</p>
<p>10 stocks we like better than Avon ProductsWhen 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>
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<p>*Stock Advisor returns as of August 1, 2017</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFDitty/info.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;uuid=a86d0e34-7891-11e7-8eae-0050569d32b9&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">Rich Smith 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;uuid=a86d0e34-7891-11e7-8eae-0050569d32b9&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p> | Why Avon Products Stock Sank 11% on Thursday | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/08/04/why-avon-products-stock-sank-11-on-thursday.html | 2017-08-04 | 0 |
<p>By Maher Chmaytelli and Ahmed Jadallah</p>
<p>ERBIL, Iraq (Reuters) – Voting started on Monday in an independence referendum organized by the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in northern Iraq, ignoring the threats of the Kurds’ neighbors and fears of further instability and violence across the Middle East.</p>
<p>Polling stations opened their doors at 8:00 a.m. (1.00 a.m. ET) and should close at 6:00 p.m. The final results should be announced within 72 hours.</p>
<p>The vote, expected to deliver a comfortable “yes” for independence, is not binding and is meant to give Massoud Barzani’s KRG a mandate to negotiate secession of the oil producing region with Baghdad and neighboring states.</p>
<p>“We have been waiting 100 years for this day,” said Rizgar, standing in a queue of men waiting to cast a ballot in a school in Erbil, the KRG capital.</p>
<p>“We want to have a state, with God’s help. Today is a celebration for all Kurds. God willing, we will say yes, yes to dear Kurdistan.”</p>
<p>The voting is open to all registered residents, Kurds and non-Kurds, in the Kurdish-held areas in northern Iraq aged 18 or over, according to the referendum commission.</p>
<p>The commission estimates the number of eligible voters at 5.2 million, including those living abroad and who started casting electronic ballots two days ago.</p>
<p>Voters should tick yes or no on the ballot paper asking them just one question in Kurdish, Turkish, Arabic and Assyrian: “do you want the Kurdistan Region and Kurdistani areas outside the (Kurdistan) Region to become an independent country?”</p>
<p>The referendum is held despite intense international pressure on Barzani to call it off, amid fears that it would spark fresh conflicts with Baghdad and with Iraq’s powerful neighbors, Iran and Turkey.</p>
<p>Iran declared a ban on direct flights to and from Kurdistan on Sunday, while Baghdad asked foreign to stop direct oil trading with Kurdistan and demanded that the KRG hands over control of its international airports and border posts with Iran, Turkey and Syria.</p>
<p>“We have seen worse, we have seen injustice, we have seen killings and blockades,” said Talat, waiting to cast a vote in Erbil. “God willing, we will become like the other peoples of the world. We will have freedom and have a state.”</p>
<p>Turkey threatened retaliation but has kept the Kurdish oil export pipeline that crosses its territory open.</p>
<p>Tehran and Ankara fear the spread of separatism to their own Kurds. Iran also supports Shi’ite groups who have been ruling or holding key security and government positions in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion which toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003.</p>
<p>The Iraqi Kurds say the vote acknowledges their crucial contribution in confronting Islamic State after it overwhelmed the Iraqi army in 2014 and seized control of a third of Iraq.</p>
<p>The Kurds are the largest ethnic group left stateless when Britain and France, the colonial powers which won World War One, carved up the Ottoman empire. The region’s roughly 30 million ethnic Kurds were left scattered, mainly over four countries: Iraq, Iran, Turkey and Syria.</p>
<p>All of them suffered persecution and were often denied the right to speak their language. Those in Iraq were uprooted under Saddam Hussein’s regime and suffered an attack using chemical weapons.</p>
<p>Syria is embroiled in a devastating civil war and its Kurds are pressing ahead with their own self-determination.</p> | Iraqi Kurds vote in historic independence referendum, shrugging off threats | false | https://newsline.com/iraqi-kurds-vote-in-historic-independence-referendum-shrugging-off-threats/ | 2017-09-25 | 1 |
<p>"A number of bloggers in economics and the financial sector have risen to prominence through the sheer strength of their work. Note it was not their family connections nor ties to Ivy League schools or elite banks, but rather the strength of their research, analysis and writing."&#160;-- Barry Ritholtz</p>
<p>An Ivy League degree may be impressive, but is it really worth it? There are logical arguments for and against, but a financial analysis suggests that it may not be worth it.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>In case you're not quite sure what the Ivy League is, here's a quick primer: The term came about&#160;in 1954, with the formation of the NCAA Division I athletic conference. The Ivy League today is a group of eight private colleges. Here they are, with a little info on each:</p>
<p>So why go to an Ivy League school? Well, there are a bunch of upsides to doing so. Of course, you end up with an impressive diploma -- very likely written in Latin. That can open (or help open) some career doors for you. Ivy League schools tend to have big endowments and devoted alumni and strong alumni networks that can be tapped when seeking a job. According &#160;to Christopher Ingraham in The Washington Post, U.S. Department of Education data shows that, "10 years after starting college, the typical Ivy League grad earns more than twice as much as the typical graduate of other colleges."</p>
<p>Another plus is the caliber of student you'll be in class with. Yes, if you take a geology class at an Ivy League college or a modest state school, you'll still learn much of the same stuff. But your classmates will differ. There are brilliant students and terrific professors at all kinds of schools, but on average, students at Ivy League schools will be brighter, having higher SAT scores, higher grade point averages, and so on. Workloads at Ivy League colleges (and other schools known for their rigor) can be heavier than at other colleges. For example, you might be required to read a novel per week in an English course, whereas at another college you might only read a few novels over the duration of the course.</p>
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<p>All that said, as I noted, you can do just fine at a non-Ivy college. You can take courses from excellent professors and learn a lot in the studies you pursue. You can graduate and land a good entry-level job, just as Ivy-League grads do, and can climb whatever professional ladder you want.</p>
<p>Ivy League colleges can cost a lot more than a state school, so going to one might leave you with more student-loan debt than if you'd attended a less pricey school. Here's what the Ivy League recently cost:</p>
<p>To compare, here are some state schools:</p>
<p>A last consideration is that as the years go by, where you went to college will be less and less meaningful, at least in regard to your career.</p>
<p>One way to answer the question of whether an Ivy League degree is worth it in the job market is to do a <a href="http://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-finance/112815/ivy-league-degree-worth-it.asp" type="external">rigorous analysis Opens a New Window.</a>, crunching lots of numbers. That's what Adam Browlee at Investopedia.com did. He took the average cost of a four-year degree from an Ivy League college and the corresponding costs at the average four-year non-Ivy private college and a state college and then compared that with expected starting salaries. He made a bunch of calculations, using the rather complicated method of "discounted cash flow" analysis, adjusting future expected values (such as expected earnings) so that they can be compared with current values.</p>
<p>Brownlee concludes:</p>
<p>In other words, Ivy League graduates can expect to earn a bit more in the long run than public school graduates can expect to earn, but when you factor in the cost of their education, the public school grads come out way ahead.</p>
<p>That would seem to be that, right? Conclusive evidence that an Ivy League degree isn't worth it in the job market. Not quite, though -- note that the calculations didn't factor in financial aid, and according&#160;to folks at The College Board, about two-thirds of full-time undergrads were receiving some financial aid as of the 2014-2015 school year -- and 57% of that aid was in the form of grants, with 34% being federal loans. (Of course, financial aid helps students at Ivy and non-Ivy colleges alike, so it improves the calculations for both groups.)</p>
<p>Financial aid is very present in the Ivy League, too. Here, for example, is what Harvard recently offered, according&#160;to Business Insider:</p>
<p>Here's Princeton:</p>
<p>The bottom line may be that a state school will still offer the best bang for your buck, depending on the state school and the Ivy League school you're deliberating between -- but the difference, when you factor in financial aid, may not be quite as stark.</p>
<p>So given all that, is an Ivy League degree right for you -- or your kid? Well, that all depends. Each college, Ivy League, state, or what have you, will have various strengths and drawbacks. It's best for each prospective student to do their own review of what they're looking for, what kind of setting they prefer, what kind of workload they can handle, what size school they like, and so on. Perhaps also consider your career aspirations and what you might expect to earn in the future. If you're planning to be a lawyer, for example, you'll likely have a different expected income than if you're planning to go into social work. Remember, though, that lots of undergrads don't yet know quite what they want to do after graduating, and many who do know will change their minds.</p>
<p>As you're thinking about which college to attend and studying candidates, gather financial information on each, too, so that you know what each will cost you. Then apply to a bunch of schools of interest and see what kind of financial aid packages you're offered.</p>
<p>Finally, remember that the term "Ivy League" may be overly restrictive. There are scores of top-notch, demanding colleges with solid reputations -- and quite a few are regarded in almost as much, if not the same, esteem as Ivy League schools. A few examples of those would be Stanford University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of California at Berkeley, the California Institute of Technology, Johns Hopkins University, the University of Chicago, Duke University, Georgetown University, and so on.</p>
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<p>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;uuid=e2a322e0-851c-11e7-8bf1-0050569d4be0&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p> | Is an Ivy League Degree Worth It in the Job Market? | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/08/27/is-ivy-league-degree-worth-it-in-job-market.html | 2017-08-27 | 0 |
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<p />
<p>The BigBrain atlas, produced after a five-year-effort, was hailed by neuroscientists as a technological tour de force that promises to speed discoveries in an increasingly important field. The work was reported in Friday’s edition of the journal Science.</p>
<p>“It absolutely will help us build bridges between the brain’s structure and its function,” said Dr. John Mazziotta, a University of California, Los Angeles neuroscientist who was not involved in the effort. “The more we understand the components of the machinery, the better position we’re in to understand how it works. It’s pretty hard to understand how a complex electronic device works if you don’t have a good wiring diagram.”</p>
<p>BigBrain reveals the brain’s structures with a resolution that’s 50 times better than the brain maps produced by MRI scanners. More importantly, it will make it possible for researchers, physicians and drug developers to examine the brain in a way that neither MRIs nor tissue samples on microscope slides can provide.</p>
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<p>Looking at samples under a microscope can provide a high level of detail, but it doesn’t help researchers figure out where the samples belong in the brain or see all the cells around them.</p>
<p>And MRI scans offer a global view of the brain and its large structures, but aren’t detailed enough to show how one type of brain cell may connect others elsewhere in the brain.</p>
<p>The virtual model – based on thousands of slices of an actual organ – will help researchers understand how the brain’s smallest building blocks work together to produce an array of intricate, mystifying and often amazing behaviors.</p>
<p>In neurosurgery suites across the world, the BigBrain atlas promises to allow more accurate location of brain tissues implicated in diseases such as depression, epilepsy, Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s disease. With better guides to the cells they are looking for, surgeons can implant stimulating devices more precisely, create smaller lesions to short-circuit electrical storms in the brain, and remove tumors with less collateral damage.</p>
<p>It is also a key step in unifying the far-flung communities of brain scientists around a single anatomical standard – a “reference” brain by which all variations, normal and pathological, can be described, labeled and understood.</p>
<p>“People are pretty excited about it,” said Mazziotta, who was attending a meeting of the Organization for Human Brain Mapping in Seattle, where BigBrain was presented to scientists. In a research field awash in brain images, “what was needed was a gold standard that would have microscopic resolution. This is it.”</p>
<p>The brain at the heart of the project belonged to a 65-year-old woman living in Europe who suffered no neurological disease at the time of her death and willed her remains for biomedical research.</p>
<p />
<p /> | 3-D model shows human brain in greater detail | false | https://abqjournal.com/213324/3d-model-shows-human-brain-in-greater-detail.html | 2 |
|
<p>WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump declared he’s “looking forward” to being questioned — under oath — in the special counsel’s probe of Russian election interference and Trump’s possible obstruction in the firing of the FBI director.</p>
<p>Trump said he would be willing to answer questions under oath in the interview, which special counsel Robert Mueller has been seeking but which White House officials had not previously confirmed the president would grant.</p>
<p>“I’m looking forward to it, actually,” Trump said late Wednesday when asked by reporters at the White House. As for timing, he said, “I guess they’re talking about two or three weeks, but I’d love to do it.”</p>
<p>He said, as he has repeatedly, that “there’s no collusion whatsoever” with the Russians, and he added, “There’s no obstruction whatsoever.”</p>
<p>The full scope of Mueller’s investigation, which involves more than a million pages of documents and dozens of witness interviews, is unknown. And there have been no signs that agents aren’t continuing to work on ties between Trump’s campaign and a Russian effort to tip the 2016 election.</p>
<p>President Donald Trump said he would be willing to answer questions under oath in the interview, which special counsel Robert Mueller has been seeking but which White house officials had not previously said the president would grant. (Jan. 24)</p>
<p>But now that Mueller’s team has all but concluded its interviews with current and former Trump officials, and expressed interest in speaking with the president himself, the focus seems to be on the post-inauguration White House. That includes the firing of FBI Director James Comey and discussions preceding the ouster of White House national security adviser Michael Flynn.</p>
<p>The timing and circumstances of a Trump interview are still being ironed out. But soon it will probably be the president himself who will have to explain to Mueller how his actions don’t add up to obstruction of justice. And that conversation will be dominated by questions tied to whether he took steps to thwart an FBI investigation.</p>
<p>Asked if he thinks Mueller will be fair, Trump replied: “We’re going to find out.” He then reiterated that there is “no collusion.”</p>
<p>In a potential signal of his defense, Trump suggested that he didn’t obstruct — he simply fought back against a false accusation.</p>
<p>So far, witness interviews and the special counsel’s document requests make clear Mueller has a keen interest in Comey’s May 9 firing and the contents of Comey’s private conversations with the president, as well as the ouster months earlier of Flynn and the weeks of conversations leading up to it.</p>
<p>On Thursday, a Trump attorney, John Dowd, released <a href="http://bit.ly/2naD2ZB" type="external">a document</a> confirming the White House had provided thousands of pages of documents related to Comey and “issues regarding Michael Flynn and Russia.” Those documents were among more than 20,000 pages of materials the White House has provided to Mueller as part of what Dowd’s document called “unprecedented” cooperation and transparency. Among some of the documents, Dowd noted, is material the White House considers to be covered by some kind of privilege.</p>
<p>So far, more than 20 White House officials have given voluntary interviews to Mueller. That includes eight employees in the White House counsel’s office. In addition, the document notes, about 30 people affiliated with the president’s campaign have given interviews to Mueller or congressional committees probing Russian election interference.</p>
<p>In total, the president’s campaign has provided more than 1.4 million pages of documents to Mueller. Special counsel spokesman Peter Carr declined to comment on Dowd’s document.</p>
<p>A focus on potential obstruction has been evident almost since Mueller’s appointment as special counsel. And interviews with administration officials — including White House counsel Don McGahn, former chief of staff Reince Priebus and the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner — have shown that Trump is dealing with prosecutors who already have amassed a wealth of knowledge about the events he’ll be questioned about.</p>
<p>Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who had urged Comey’s firing, was interviewed for hours last week, becoming the highest-ranking Trump administration official known to have submitted to questioning. Mueller also wants to interview former adviser Steve Bannon, who has called Comey’s firing perhaps the biggest mistake in “modern political history.”</p>
<p>The White House initially said the firing was based on the Justice Department’s recommendation and cited as justification a memo that faulted Comey’s handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation. But Trump himself said later he was thinking of this “Russia thing” and had intended to fire Comey anyway.</p>
<p>Sessions, the target of the president’s ire since he stepped aside last March from the Russia investigation, would have been able to offer close-up insight into the president’s thinking ahead of the termination. He also could have been able to speak to the president’s relationship with Comey, which Comey documented in a series of memos about conversations with Trump that bothered him.</p>
<p>In one memo, Comey described a January 2017 meeting over dinner at which he said the president asked him to pledge his loyalty. Separately, a person familiar with the conversation said this week that Trump in a meeting last year with FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe brought up McCabe’s wife’s political background following the revelation that she had accepted campaign contributions during a state Senate run from the political action committee of then-Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a close Clinton ally.</p>
<p>The Washington Post reported Tuesday night that Trump had also asked McCabe whom he voted for in the presidential race. McCabe replied that he did not vote. Trump said Wednesday he did not recall asking that question.</p>
<p>Another of Comey’s memos centered on a February conversation at the White House in which he said Trump told him he believed Flynn, the fired national security adviser, was a “good guy” and encouraged Comey to drop an investigation into him. The FBI had interviewed Flynn weeks earlier about whether he had discussed sanctions with the Russian ambassador during the transition period between the election and the inauguration. Flynn pleaded guilty in December to lying to the FBI during that interview.</p>
<p>Mueller has been investigating the events leading up to Flynn’s dismissal from the White House, including how officials responded to information from former acting Attorney General Sally Yates that Flynn had misled them by saying that he had not discussed sanctions. Despite that warning, and despite an FBI interview days after Trump’s inauguration, Flynn was not forced to resign until Feb. 13 — the night of media reports about Yates’ conversation with McGahn.</p>
<p>Mueller will likely want to know what Trump understood, before asking Comey to let the Flynn investigation go, about Flynn’s interview with the FBI — and whether he had made false statements — and about his conversation with the Russian ambassador.</p>
<p>Four people have so far been charged in the Mueller investigation, including Flynn and former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort. Flynn and former campaign foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos have pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Associated Press writers Zeke Miller and Jill Colvin contributed to this report.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Read the document from Dowd: <a href="http://bit.ly/2naD2ZB" type="external" /> <a href="http://bit.ly/2naD2ZB" type="external">http://bit.ly/2naD2ZB</a></p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Follow Eric Tucker and Chad Day on Twitter at <a href="http://www.twitter.com/etuckerAP" type="external">http://www.twitter.com/etuckerAP</a> and <a href="https://www.twitter.com/ChadSDay" type="external">https://www.twitter.com/ChadSDay</a></p>
<p>WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump declared he’s “looking forward” to being questioned — under oath — in the special counsel’s probe of Russian election interference and Trump’s possible obstruction in the firing of the FBI director.</p>
<p>Trump said he would be willing to answer questions under oath in the interview, which special counsel Robert Mueller has been seeking but which White House officials had not previously confirmed the president would grant.</p>
<p>“I’m looking forward to it, actually,” Trump said late Wednesday when asked by reporters at the White House. As for timing, he said, “I guess they’re talking about two or three weeks, but I’d love to do it.”</p>
<p>He said, as he has repeatedly, that “there’s no collusion whatsoever” with the Russians, and he added, “There’s no obstruction whatsoever.”</p>
<p>The full scope of Mueller’s investigation, which involves more than a million pages of documents and dozens of witness interviews, is unknown. And there have been no signs that agents aren’t continuing to work on ties between Trump’s campaign and a Russian effort to tip the 2016 election.</p>
<p>President Donald Trump said he would be willing to answer questions under oath in the interview, which special counsel Robert Mueller has been seeking but which White house officials had not previously said the president would grant. (Jan. 24)</p>
<p>But now that Mueller’s team has all but concluded its interviews with current and former Trump officials, and expressed interest in speaking with the president himself, the focus seems to be on the post-inauguration White House. That includes the firing of FBI Director James Comey and discussions preceding the ouster of White House national security adviser Michael Flynn.</p>
<p>The timing and circumstances of a Trump interview are still being ironed out. But soon it will probably be the president himself who will have to explain to Mueller how his actions don’t add up to obstruction of justice. And that conversation will be dominated by questions tied to whether he took steps to thwart an FBI investigation.</p>
<p>Asked if he thinks Mueller will be fair, Trump replied: “We’re going to find out.” He then reiterated that there is “no collusion.”</p>
<p>In a potential signal of his defense, Trump suggested that he didn’t obstruct — he simply fought back against a false accusation.</p>
<p>So far, witness interviews and the special counsel’s document requests make clear Mueller has a keen interest in Comey’s May 9 firing and the contents of Comey’s private conversations with the president, as well as the ouster months earlier of Flynn and the weeks of conversations leading up to it.</p>
<p>On Thursday, a Trump attorney, John Dowd, released <a href="http://bit.ly/2naD2ZB" type="external">a document</a> confirming the White House had provided thousands of pages of documents related to Comey and “issues regarding Michael Flynn and Russia.” Those documents were among more than 20,000 pages of materials the White House has provided to Mueller as part of what Dowd’s document called “unprecedented” cooperation and transparency. Among some of the documents, Dowd noted, is material the White House considers to be covered by some kind of privilege.</p>
<p>So far, more than 20 White House officials have given voluntary interviews to Mueller. That includes eight employees in the White House counsel’s office. In addition, the document notes, about 30 people affiliated with the president’s campaign have given interviews to Mueller or congressional committees probing Russian election interference.</p>
<p>In total, the president’s campaign has provided more than 1.4 million pages of documents to Mueller. Special counsel spokesman Peter Carr declined to comment on Dowd’s document.</p>
<p>A focus on potential obstruction has been evident almost since Mueller’s appointment as special counsel. And interviews with administration officials — including White House counsel Don McGahn, former chief of staff Reince Priebus and the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner — have shown that Trump is dealing with prosecutors who already have amassed a wealth of knowledge about the events he’ll be questioned about.</p>
<p>Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who had urged Comey’s firing, was interviewed for hours last week, becoming the highest-ranking Trump administration official known to have submitted to questioning. Mueller also wants to interview former adviser Steve Bannon, who has called Comey’s firing perhaps the biggest mistake in “modern political history.”</p>
<p>The White House initially said the firing was based on the Justice Department’s recommendation and cited as justification a memo that faulted Comey’s handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation. But Trump himself said later he was thinking of this “Russia thing” and had intended to fire Comey anyway.</p>
<p>Sessions, the target of the president’s ire since he stepped aside last March from the Russia investigation, would have been able to offer close-up insight into the president’s thinking ahead of the termination. He also could have been able to speak to the president’s relationship with Comey, which Comey documented in a series of memos about conversations with Trump that bothered him.</p>
<p>In one memo, Comey described a January 2017 meeting over dinner at which he said the president asked him to pledge his loyalty. Separately, a person familiar with the conversation said this week that Trump in a meeting last year with FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe brought up McCabe’s wife’s political background following the revelation that she had accepted campaign contributions during a state Senate run from the political action committee of then-Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a close Clinton ally.</p>
<p>The Washington Post reported Tuesday night that Trump had also asked McCabe whom he voted for in the presidential race. McCabe replied that he did not vote. Trump said Wednesday he did not recall asking that question.</p>
<p>Another of Comey’s memos centered on a February conversation at the White House in which he said Trump told him he believed Flynn, the fired national security adviser, was a “good guy” and encouraged Comey to drop an investigation into him. The FBI had interviewed Flynn weeks earlier about whether he had discussed sanctions with the Russian ambassador during the transition period between the election and the inauguration. Flynn pleaded guilty in December to lying to the FBI during that interview.</p>
<p>Mueller has been investigating the events leading up to Flynn’s dismissal from the White House, including how officials responded to information from former acting Attorney General Sally Yates that Flynn had misled them by saying that he had not discussed sanctions. Despite that warning, and despite an FBI interview days after Trump’s inauguration, Flynn was not forced to resign until Feb. 13 — the night of media reports about Yates’ conversation with McGahn.</p>
<p>Mueller will likely want to know what Trump understood, before asking Comey to let the Flynn investigation go, about Flynn’s interview with the FBI — and whether he had made false statements — and about his conversation with the Russian ambassador.</p>
<p>Four people have so far been charged in the Mueller investigation, including Flynn and former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort. Flynn and former campaign foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos have pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Associated Press writers Zeke Miller and Jill Colvin contributed to this report.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Read the document from Dowd: <a href="http://bit.ly/2naD2ZB" type="external" /> <a href="http://bit.ly/2naD2ZB" type="external">http://bit.ly/2naD2ZB</a></p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Follow Eric Tucker and Chad Day on Twitter at <a href="http://www.twitter.com/etuckerAP" type="external">http://www.twitter.com/etuckerAP</a> and <a href="https://www.twitter.com/ChadSDay" type="external">https://www.twitter.com/ChadSDay</a></p> | Trump ‘looking forward’ to being questioned under oath | false | https://apnews.com/22d0e52aba30468b974770e574bcfc5a | 2018-01-26 | 2 |
<p />
<p>On Jan. 27, the Internal Revenue Service launched The Earned Income Tax Credit Awareness Day, which is its annual outreach campaign aimed at helping millions of Americans take advantage of the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC).</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>According to the IRS, 20% of Americans qualify for the Earned Income Tax Credit which can be worth $464 if the worker has no children, and as much as $5,751 for those with three or more qualifying children. To be eligible, workers must have earned $49,078 or less from wages, self-employment or farm income.</p>
<p>Here’s the problem: one in five taxpayers overlook this valuable tax credit. Some miss out because their income is low enough that they aren’t required to file a tax return. So take stock, if you had a W2, but earned such a small amount that you think you needn’t file, crunch the numbers anyway--you may be pleasantly surprised.</p>
<p>Others don’t bother checking because they didn’t qualify for the credit in the past--but with many consumers’ financial situations changing, they may now qualify to take the credit on their 2011 income tax returns. With the economy in such disarray, the IRS figures that almost a third of the population has experienced dramatic shifts in their finances. It’s estimated that 20% of those who qualify don’t claim it or don’t file a tax return at all.</p>
<p>The amount you can receive via the EITC varies by income, family size, and filing status. People can see if they qualify by visiting www.irs.gov and answering a few questions using the EITC Assistant. In tax year 2010,almost 26.8 million eligible workers and families received more than $59.5 billion from the EITC. The average EITC amount last year was around $2,200.</p>
<p>Unlike most deductions and credits, the EITC is refundable. In other words, eligible people may get a refund from the IRS even if they owe no tax or had any tax withheld from wages.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p><a href="http://mailto:[email protected]" type="external">Bonnie Lee Opens a New Window.</a> is an Enrolled Agent admitted to practice and representing taxpayers in all fifty states at all levels within the <a href="" type="internal">Internal Revenue Service</a>. She is the owner of Taxpertise in Sonoma, CA and the author of Entrepreneur Press book, “Taxpertise, The Complete Book of Dirty Little Secrets and Hidden Deductions for Small Business that the IRS Doesn't Want You to Know.” Follow Bonnie Lee on <a href="" type="internal">Twitter</a> at BLTaxpertise and at <a href="http://www.facebook.com/taxpertise.bonnielee." type="external">Facebook Opens a New Window.</a>.&#160;</p> | Earned Income Tax Credit: Do You Qualify? | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2012/02/16/earned-income-tax-credit-do-qualify.html | 2016-03-22 | 0 |
<p>Paul Jay, is CEO and Senior Editor of The Real News Network. He currently lives in Baltimore, Maryland. Prior to TRNN, Jay was for ten seasons the creator and Executive Producer of CBC Newsworld's flagship debate programs, CounterSpin and FaceOff.</p>
<p>Jay has produced and directed more than 20 major documentary films including "Return to Kandahar", "Lost in Las Vegas" and "Hitman Hart: Wrestling with Shadows", a feature length documentary, that was screened in 25 major festivals and won more than a dozen awards. It's been called "one of the most acclaimed Canadian films in years" (Eye Magazine), "A tale as bizarre as Kafka and as tragic as Shakespeare" (Ottawa Citizen) and "one of the best films of 1998" (Peter Plagens, art critic for Newsweek).</p>
<p>A past chair of the Documentary Organization of Canada, Jay is the founding chair of Hot Docs!, the Canadian International Documentary Film Festival.</p>
<p /> | Paul Jay on What Drives Corporate Media and What Drive The Real News (4/8) | true | http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option%3Dcom_content%26task%3Dview%26id%3D31%26Itemid%3D74%26jumival%3D11669 | 2014-03-30 | 4 |
<p>Chile’s new president, conservative billionaire Sebastian Piñera, came in with a bang and a tsunami warning on Thursday. Just minutes before his swearing-in ceremony, a 6.9-magnitude aftershock rattled Chileans, still shaken from last month’s giant quake, and cut Piñera’s inaugural festivities short. –KA</p>
<p>BBC:</p>
<p>The 6.9-magnitude tremor was centred in O’Higgins Region, some 140km (90 miles) south of the city of Valparaiso, where the inauguration ceremony took place.</p>
<p>The National Congress building was evacuated shortly afterwards and a tsunami alert was issued.</p>
<p />
<p>Mr Pinera’s presidency ends two decades of left-wing rule in Chile.</p>
<p>The tycoon not only faces the challenge of reconstruction, but takes over from the highly-popular Michelle Bachelet, who was the country’s first woman president.</p>
<p>Ms Bachelet left office with an 84% popularity rating despite criticism of her government’s response to the 8.8-magnitude earthquake and ensuing tsunami, which left close to 500 people dead.</p>
<p><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8561340.stm" type="external">Read more</a></p> | New Chilean President Sworn In With an Aftershock | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/new-chilean-president-sworn-in-with-an-aftershock/ | 2010-03-12 | 4 |
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<p>ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — The National Weather Service has issued a <a href="http://forecast.weather.gov/showsigwx.php?warnzone=NMZ519&amp;warncounty=NMC001&amp;firewxzone=NMZ106&amp;local_place1=&amp;product1=High+Wind+Warning" type="external">high wind warning</a> for the Albuquerque and Santa Fe metro areas, the lower Rio Grande valley and the upper Tularosa basin beginning at 6 p.m. today and continuing through noon Thursday.</p>
<p>We can expect sustained northwest winds averaging 20 to 30 mph developing late this afternoon and into the evening becoming easterly or southeasterly and strengthening to 30 to 40 mph, with gusts of up to 60 mph below the canyons, the weather service said.</p>
<p>The strongest winds are expected to develop after 8 p.m. with peak gusts blowing overnight into Thursday morning.</p>
<p>A high wind warning means motorists should use caution while driving, because sudden gusts could cause loss of control of the vehicle, especially those dangerous cross-winds on north-south oriented roads, including parts of Interstate 25 between Socorro and Albuquerque to Santa Fe.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?map.x=150&amp;map.y=119&amp;site=abq&amp;zmx=1&amp;zmy=1" type="external">Albuquerque metro forecast</a> is calling for areas of blowing dust from about 9 p.m. today through noon Thursday.</p>
<p>Today’s high of 84 will drop sharply to a high of 61 on Thursday, according to the metro area forecast.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | High wind warning to take effect tonight | false | https://abqjournal.com/194661/high-wind-warning-to-take-effect-tonight.html | 2013-05-01 | 2 |
<p>For decades it has been argued that we, as a society, should focus on treating the general populace as a “resource” rather than a burden or ideological impediment. Accordingly, one step in that process would be to re-introduce (and defend and promote) the noble, altruistic and largely forgotten concept of “public service.”</p>
<p>A bold step in that endeavor would be to consider the participatory democracy that existed in Athens, circa 450 BC. The ancient Greeks took the remarkably enlightened view that if we truly trusted Democracy—if we honestly believed in the wisdom and basic decency of the common man—then we should conduct ourselves in a manner that exploited that belief.</p>
<p>Instead of conducting elections where the wealthiest, most ambitious and most calculatingly self-serving among us run for public office, we should appoint people to those positions. Not only appoint them, but do it randomly, and make it mandatory. Do it the way we select people for jury duty. Say what you will, but this arrangement would be the surest way of guaranteeing that the U.S. doesn’t devolve into a plutocracy.</p>
<p>We must ask ourselves: Do we truly believe in Democracy? Do we genuinely believe in embracing the “will of the people”? If the answer is yes, then let us not only rejoice in that belief but let us act upon it. Under a system of participatory democracy similar to that of ancient Athens, instead of receiving a jury summons, we citizens would receive a “political” summons.</p>
<p>This summons would notify us that we have been randomly selected to serve a year or two in the U.S. Congress or state legislature. We will receive a modest stipend for this service, and only an extreme hardship will permit one from avoiding it. Yes, it’s a sacrifice, but it’s a sacrifice we will all be required to make.</p>
<p>Consider the analogy to jury service. In capital cases, where the death penalty is still in play, our judicial system gives a group of twelve random citizens the power of life or death over a fellow citizen. If a group of strangers can be trusted to gather together to determine whether a person deserves to die (or spend years in prison), why can’t a random sampling of the public be trusted to pass laws that affect the general populace?</p>
<p>The Greeks had the right idea. The last thing a nominal Democracy needs—indeed, the one thing that is guaranteed to cripple and eventually destroy it—is to have a de facto “ruling class” emerge. Accordingly, the only way to prevent that from happening is to radically democratize the process.</p>
<p>Think of the total transparency that will result, and the billions of dollars that will be saved in campaign funds. Think of how a group of random citizens sent to do the “people’s business” for a period of a year or two will disappoint the lobbyists.</p>
<p>Yes, a certain amount of squirreliness and chaos will ensue, just as it does on juries. That’s to be expected. But based on my personal experience (having served on eight trials), when people are given a solemn task, they tend to rise to occasion. They tend to do their best. They try. And isn’t that the underlying premise of a democracy?</p> | How Afraid Are We? | true | https://counterpunch.org/2017/02/01/how-afraid-are-we/ | 2017-02-01 | 4 |
<p>Opening a child care business is a great way to turn a passion for children into a long-term career. You can be your own boss while helping children grow through some of their most formative years. If you are considering making profits out of playtime, here is a guide to starting your own child care business: Types of child careDifferent families prefer different child care services, and which kind you want to offer depends on your personal preference and the desired scale of your business. Family care&#160;is an arrangement in which the child goes to another&#160;home for a number of hours each day.&#160;Home care is&#160;the reverse, as the caretaker&#160;goes to&#160;the child’s home. Day care centers&#160;supervise children from different homes in one central setting, where they participate in individual and group activities to foster growth and development. Additional&#160;child care models include&#160;infant care, after school programs or pre-schools.</p>
<p>The legal detailsDepending on the type of child care you decide to pursue, you will have a few legal hurdles to jump&#160;before opening your business. If you are considering starting a day care center or family care business, license requirements pertain to&#160;your physical space, safety, fire&#160;precautions and staff-to-child ratios. You&#160;must also&#160;adhere to regulations regarding&#160;food preparation and&#160;nutrition, educational standards and record keeping. Before you put a deposit down on a building, check your local zoning laws to ensure that you can open a child care center in that space. For complete information on obtaining the appropriate license, visit your local state licensing agency.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Once you have your license in place, you have to&#160;familiarize yourself with&#160;important&#160;tax laws, regulations for employers and required insurance policies.</p>
<p>Design your business plan Your child care center should have a brand just like any other business. Before you can start buying supplies or advertising to parents, you need to figure out the key components to your business. Important considerations include deciding on the type of service, age range of the children and the size of each group. You should also decide on operating houses that correspond with the local parents’ work schedules. Once the kids are in your center, you will have to figure out which methods you believe foster development. Whether structured teaching, free play or a mix of both, a cohesive plan is essential to the success of your business and to the well-being of the children.</p>
<p>When marketing, keep in mind the desirability of low prices, a convenient location and quality care. You can advertise through newspaper ads, local television stations or on the Internet. Start advertising your center at least three months before&#160;you open, but make sure the location looks good just in case potential parents wish to visit.</p>
<p>A safe and fun centerYou will have to outfit your center or home to accommodate the particular needs of children. Child-proof the space by closely inspecting everything the kids will encounter. Any&#160;poisonous plants, potentially dangerous objects and chemical products&#160;should be removed and locked away. Stay aware of broken toys, as the damaged parts could come lose and pose a choking hazard.</p>
<p>The toys and materials your center requires will vary depending on the children’s age range. Important <a href="" type="internal">staples</a> include child-size tables and chairs, outdoor play areas and napping stations. Art materials and age-appropriate books are meaningful tools&#160;for fostering cognitive development. When it comes to&#160;educating&#160;and entertaining&#160;kids, your own creativity is the only limit.</p>
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<p>For more information on joining the industry, check out the U.S. Small Business Administration’s excellent guide on <a href="http://archive.sba.gov/idc/groups/public/documents/sba_homepage/pub_mp29.pdf" type="external">how to start a quality child care business Opens a New Window.</a>.</p> | How to Start a Child Care Business | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2012/02/09/how-to-start-child-care-business.html | 2016-03-23 | 0 |
<p>The U.S. Secret Service paid a visit to the Florida state House candidate who <a href="" type="internal">advocated for</a> President Barack Obama’s execution on Twitter.</p>
<p>Joshua Black, a Republican who is running in Florida House District 68, told the <a href="http://www.tampabay.com/blogs/the-buzz-florida-politics/gop-candidate-calling-for-obamas-hanging-gets-called-out-by-gov-called-in/2162059" type="external">Tampa Bay Times</a> that Secret Service agents had come to his home following the uproar over his comments.</p>
<p>“I’m past impeachment. It’s time to arrest him and hang him high,” read a message on Black’s campaign Twitter page Monday.</p>
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<p>“It was not a threat,” Black told the Times, asserting that the comments were a response to Obama ordering drone strikes that had killed Americans.</p>
<p>Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) also called on Black to withdraw his candidacy.</p>
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<p /> | Secret Service Visits GOP Candidate Who Advocated Obama’s Execution | true | http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/florida-gop-candidate-obama-execution-secret-service | 4 |
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<p>Contrary to popular belief, secular society’s interest in marriage is not to acknowledge love; it is to build upon that which nature has ordered by integrating male and female into the nucleus of family for life.</p>
<p>Male and female are complementary opposites. Their marriage creates a whole that is much greater than the sum of individuals, which optimally benefits the individuals, their offspring and society.</p>
<p>Nature ordains male and female to unite and form the nucleus of family (the smallest society); families unite and build communities and communities create larger societies. The health and endurance of each level of society depends on the health and endurance of the levels that precede it, so all have an interest in nurturing healthy enduring male-female unions.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Gay rights advocates believe same-sex couples are equally deserving of the title and rights of marriage. They claim it is unfair that society offers marriage to opposite-sex couples regardless of their intentions or abilities to procreate and denies marriage to same-sex couples even though some raise children.</p>
<p>Male-female couples are naturally procreative. Intentions and abilities can change and society need not inquire about either. By offering marriage to all, society achieves its interest of promoting responsible procreation, letting nature run its course, and respecting the privacy and self-determination rights of individuals.</p>
<p>Same-sex couples are naturally barren. Some use donors, surrogates and laboratories to circumvent their barrenness, but society should never encourage such circumvention.</p>
<p>Creating a child with the intent of denying that child, at any stage in life, the presence of one or both biological parents violates the most fundamental of all human rights and denies some of the most basic of human needs and desires — the right, need and desire to have a mother and father.</p>
<p>Gay rights advocates claim their quest for “Marriage Equality” is similar to quests for racial equality. I disagree.</p>
<p>Attempts to stratify humans by race clearly violate the Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection and the principle that all humans are created equal. Human is human — race is irrelevant.</p>
<p>Those marching under the “Marriage Equality” banner are not seeking social equality for things that are fundamentally equal; they are seeking social equality for things that are fundamentally unequal. Same-sex couples are not the equal of opposite-sex couples in natural form or procreative function.</p>
<p>Social equality is only virtuous when the things being equated are equal. A society that sacrifices reality for facades of equality is destined for anomie.</p>
<p>The reasoning that led the Supreme Court to strike down anti-miscegenation statutes should lead to a rebuke of those seeking to usurp marriage for same-sex couples. As much as race is irrelevant to marriage, sex is relevant. Male is male, female is female, and it takes one of each to form the natural nucleus of family.</p>
<p>In short, marriage fully integrates male and female in to the natural nucleus of family, which optimally benefits the individuals, their offspring, and society.</p>
<p>Same-sex coupling is the antithesis of marriage. It segregates the sexes, creates naturally barren relationships and fosters unnatural family formations.</p>
<p>Love may be sufficient reason for two to become a committed couple, but it is not sufficient for society to grant the two the title and rights of marriage. As far as society is concerned, love is nice but it doesn’t pay the bills.</p> | Marriage Is Not About Love | false | https://abqjournal.com/151611/marriage-is-not-about-love.html | 2012-12-07 | 2 |
<p>The Pentagon on Monday welcomed the recapture of the Iraqi city of Fallujah from ISIS, but warned of widespread booby traps and pockets of remaining jihadist resistance.</p>
<p>Iraqi forces seized the last positions in Fallujah on Sunday, establishing full control over one of the jihadists' most emblematic bastions after a month-long operation.</p>
<p>"There will be pockets of ISIL that they will encounter, we certainly know there will be significant challenges that they will face as they go through and back clear and remove that city of booby traps and IEDs [improvised explosive devices]," Pentagon spokesman Navy Captain Jeff Davis said, using an alternative acronym for the Islamic State.</p>
<p>"Not just vehicle-borne IEDs but these house-borne IEDs which are particularly nasty to try to clear," he added.</p>
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<p>A member of Iraqi counterterrorism forces walks with his weapon in Fallujah.</p>
<p>Thaier Al-Sudani/Reuters</p>
<p>Davis said the US-led anti-ISIS coalition's focus now shifts north, where the ultimate goal is to recapture Mosul, the jihadists' main Iraq stronghold.</p>
<p>The coalition is helping Iraqi troops move north from Baiji toward the town of Qayyarah, which lies around 35 miles south of Mosul on the banks of the Tigris river.</p>
<p>Iraq Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi had already declared victory in Fallujah on June 17 after ISIS defenses collapsed, with Iraqi forces facing only limited resistance in subsequent clearing operations.</p>
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<p>A member of the Shiite Badr Organization examines an item in a factory abandoned by Islamic State militants, following clashes in Fallujah.</p>
<p>Thaier Al-Sudani/Reuters</p>
<p>The fighting to get into Fallujah was initially fierce, particularly on the southern side, and Iraqi forces were supported by more than 100 US-led coalition air strikes.</p>
<p>"To some extent once [Iraqi troops] got through the hard candy shell and into the chewy center, things went much more quickly," Davis said.</p>
<p>"It was really a heavy fight along the frontline but once they penetrated in it seemed to go very quickly."</p>
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<p>A member of the Iraqi security forces looks at explosives abandoned by Islamic State militants at a school in Fallujah.</p>
<p>Thaier Al-Sudani/Reuters</p>
<p>Davis said the recapture of Fallujah would "significantly" help the security situation in Baghdad, where ISIS fighters, thought to have come from Fallujah, have carried out a string of bomb attacks in recent weeks.</p>
<p>"The loss of Fallujah will further deny ISIL access to a province that is critically important to its overall goals," he said.</p>
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<p>A fighter from the Iraqi Shiite Badr Organization holds his rifle in an underground tunnel built by ISIS fighters on the outskirts of Fallujah.</p>
<p>Thaier Al-Sudani/Reuters</p>
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<p>A view of streets in Fallujah.</p>
<p>Thaier Al-Sudani/Reuters</p>
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<p>Buildings destroyed by&#160;clashes on the outskirts of Fallujah.</p>
<p>Thaier Al-Sudani/Reuters</p>
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<p>Iraqi counterterrorism forces gather in Fallujah.</p>
<p>Thaier Al-Sudani/Reuters</p>
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<p>A military vehicle of Iraqi security forces is seen in Fallujah.</p>
<p>Thaier Al-Sudani</p>
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<p>A member of the Iraqi counterterrorism forces stands by a former ISIS weapons factory in Fallujah.</p>
<p>Thaier Al-Sudani/Reuters</p>
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<p>A member of the Iraqi security forces holds an ISIS flag, after pulling it down from a building, in Fallujah.</p>
<p>Thaier Al-Sudani/Reuters</p> | PHOTOS: Iraqi security forces retake Fallujah from ISIS militants | false | https://pri.org/stories/2016-06-28/photos-iraqi-security-forces-retake-fallujah-isis-militants | 2016-06-28 | 3 |
<p>Tripoli.</p>
<p>While serving on the House International Relations Committee from 1993 to 2003, it became clear to me that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was an anachronism. Founded in 1945 at the end of World War II, NATO was founded by the United States in response to the Soviet Union’s survival as a Communist state. NATO was the U.S. insurance policy that capitalist ownership and domination of European, Asian, and African economies would continue. This also would ensure the survival of the then-extant global apartheid.</p>
<p>NATO is a collective security pact wherein member states pledge that an attack upon one is an attack against all. Therefore, should the Soviet Union have attacked any European Member State, the United States military shield would be activated. The Soviet Response was the Warsaw Pact that maintained a “cordon sanitaire” around the Russian Heartland should NATO ever attack. Thus, the world was broken into blocs which gave rise to the “Cold War.”</p>
<p>Avowed “Cold Warriors” of today still view the world in these terms and, unfortunately, cannot move past Communist China and an amputated Soviet Empire as enemy states of the U.S. whose moves any where on the planet are to be contested. The collapse of the Soviet Union provided an accelerated opportunity to exert U.S. hegemony in an area of previous Russian influence. Africa and the Eurasian landmass containing former Soviet satellite states and Afghanistan and Pakistan along with the many other “stans” of the region, have always factored prominently in the theories of “containment” or “rollback” guiding U.S. policy up to today.</p>
<p>With that as background, last night’s NATO rocket attack on Tripoli is inexplicable. A civilian metropolitan area of around 2 million people, Tripoli sustained 22 to 25 bombings last night, rattling and breaking windows and glass and shaking the foundation of my hotel.</p>
<p>I left my room at the Rexis Al Nasr Hotel and walked outside the hotel and I could smell the exploded bombs. There were local people everywhere milling with foreign journalists from around the world. As we stood there more bombs struck around the city. The sky flashed red with explosions and more rockets from NATO jets cut through low cloud before exploding.</p>
<p>I could taste the thick dust stirred up by the exploded bombs. I immediately thought about the depleted uranium munitions reportedly being used here–along with white phosphorus. If depleted uranium weapons were being used what affect on the local civilians?</p>
<p>Women carrying young children ran out of the hotel. Others ran to wash the dust from their eyes. With sirens blaring, emergency vehicles made their way to the scene of the attack. Car alarms, set off by the repeated blasts, could be heard underneath the defiant chants of the people.</p>
<p>Sporadic gunfire broke out and it seemed everywhere around me. Euronews showed video of nurses and doctors chanting even at the hospitals as they treated those injured from NATO’s latest installation of shock and awe. Suddenly, the streets around my hotel became full of chanting people, car horns blowing, I could not tell how many were walking, how many were driving. Inside the hotel, one Libyan woman carrying a baby came to me and asked me why are they doing this to us?</p>
<p>Whatever the military objectives of the attack (and I and many others question the military value of these attacks) the fact remains the air attack was launched a major city packed with hundreds of thousands of civilians.</p>
<p>I did wonder too if the any of the politicians who had authorized this air attack had themselves ever been on the receiving end of laser guided depleted uranium munitions. Had they ever seen the awful damage that these weapons do a city and its population? Perhaps if they actually been in the city of air attack and felt the concussion from these bombs and saw the mayhem caused they just might not be so inclined to authorize an attack on a civilian population.</p>
<p>I am confident that NATO would not have been so reckless with human life if they had called on to attack a major western city. Indeed, I am confident that would not be called upon ever to attack a western city. NATO only attacks (as does the US and its allies) the poor and underprivileged of the 3rd world.</p>
<p>Only the day before, at a women’s event in Tripoli, one woman came up to me with tears in her eyes: her mother is in Benghazi and she can’t get back to see if her mother is OK or not. People from the east and west of the country lived with each other, loved each other, intermarried, and now, because of NATO’s “humanitarian intervention,” artificial divisions are becoming hardened. NATO’s recruitment of allies in eastern Libya smacks of the same strain of cold warriorism that sought to assassinate Fidel Castro and overthrow the Cuban Revolution with “homegrown” Cubans willing to commit acts of terror against their former home country. More recently, Democratic Republic of Congo has been amputated de facto after Laurent Kabila refused a request from the Clinton Administration to formally shave off the eastern part of his country. Laurent Kabila personally recounted the meeting at which this request and refusal were delivered. This plan to balkanize and amputate an African country (as has been done in Sudan) did not work because Kabila said “no” while Congolese around the world organized to protect the “territorial integrity” of their country.</p>
<p>I was horrified to learn that NATO allies (the Rebels) in Libya have reportedly lynched, butchered and then their darker-skinned compatriots after U.S. press reports labeled Black Libyans as “Black mercenaries.” Now, tell me this, pray tell. How are you going to take Blacks out of Africa? Press reports have suggested that Americans were “surprised” to see dark-skinned people in Africa. Now, what does that tell us about them?</p>
<p>The sad fact, however, is that it is the Libyans themselves, who have been insulted, terrorized, lynched, and murdered as a result of the press reports that hyper-sensationalized this base ignorance. Who will be held accountable for the lives lost in the bloodletting frenzy unleashed as a result of these lies?</p>
<p>Which brings me back to the lady’s question: why is this happening? Honestly, I could not give her the educated reasoned response that she was looking for. In my view the international public is struggling to answer “Why?”.</p>
<p>What we do know, and what is quite clear, is this: what I experienced last night is no “humanitarian intervention.”</p>
<p>Many suspect it is about all the oil under Libya. Call me skeptical but I have to wonder why the combined armed sea, land and air forces of NATO and the US costing billions of dollars are being arraigned against a relatively small North African country and we’re expected to believe its in the defense of democracy.</p>
<p>What I have seen in long lines to get fuel is not “humanitarian intervention.” Refusal to allow purchases of medicine for the hospitals is not “humanitarian intervention.” What is most sad is that I cannot give a cogent explanation of why to people now terrified by NATO’s bombs, but it is transparently clear now that NATO has exceeded its mandate, lied about its intentions, is guilty of extra-judicial killings–all in the name of “humanitarian intervention.” Where is the Congress as the President exceeds his war-making authority? Where is the “Conscience of the Congress?”</p>
<p>For those of who disagree with Dick Cheney’s warning to us to prepare for war for the next generation, please support any one who will stop this madness. Please organize and then vote for peace. People around the world need us to stand up and speak out for ourselves and them because Iran and Venezuela are also in the cross-hairs. Libyans don’t need NATO helicopter gunships, smart bombs, cruise missiles, and depleted uranium to settle their differences. NATO’s “humanitarian intervention” needs to be exposed for what it is with the bright, shining light of the truth.</p>
<p>As dusk descends on Tripoli, let me prepare myself with the local civilian population for some more NATO humanitarianism.</p>
<p>Stop bombing Africa and the poor of the world!</p>
<p>Cynthia McKinney is a former member of Congress from Georgia. She can be reached at: <a href="" type="internal">[email protected]</a>.</p>
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<p /> | NATO’s Feast of Blood | true | https://counterpunch.org/2011/05/24/nato-s-feast-of-blood/ | 2011-05-24 | 4 |
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<p>The Palestinian Authority became a formal member of the International Criminal Court on Wednesday in a move that could open the way for Israelis and Palestinian militants—including those from Hamas—to be prosecuted for war crimes.</p>
<p>The Guardian reports:</p>
<p>International justice activists hailed the occasion as an opportunity to bring accountability after years of conflict between the Palestinians and Israel, but Palestinians backed away from earlier threats to introduce a raft of complaints on formally becoming the court’s 123rd member.</p>
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<p>Instead they will wait for the outcome of a preliminary investigation launched by the court’s chief prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, initiated when the Palestinian Authority acceded to the court’s governing Rome statute 90 days ago.</p>
<p>The decision not to press ahead immediately with cases has been seen by observers as a way of avoiding an immediate conflict with the US Congress, which has the authority to freeze US aid to the Palestinian Authority should it pursue its own cases.</p>
<p>Read more <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/law/2015/apr/01/palestinian-authority-becomes-member-of-international-criminal-court" type="external">here</a>.</p>
<p>— Posted by <a href="" type="internal">Alexander Reed Kelly</a>.</p> | Palestinian Authority Becomes Member of International Criminal Court | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/palestinian-authority-becomes-member-of-international-criminal-court/ | 2015-04-01 | 4 |
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<p>SANTA FE — A bill to allow New Mexico farmers to grow an industrial version of marijuana’s non-intoxicating cousin has passed a Senate panel.</p>
<p>The Senate Conservation Committee voted unanimously this week to send the Industrial Hemp Farming Act to the Senate Judicial Committee without a recommendation.</p>
<p>Sen. Cisco McSorley, an Albuquerque Democrat, recently filed the legislation aimed at legalizing the selling of hemp and licensing of farmers to grow the crop.</p>
<p>The proposal would establish fees and set up state regulations for the processing of hemp to be distributed.</p>
<p>Gov. Susana Martinez has said she did not support efforts to legalize marijuana in New Mexico but has not said if she supports allowing the cultivation of hemp in the state.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | New Mexico Senate panel OKs hemp production bill | false | https://abqjournal.com/541179/new-mexico-senate-panel-oks-hemp-production-bill.html | 2 |
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<p>Photo: &lt;a href="http://www.ethanhill.com/"target="new"&gt;Ethan Hill&lt;/a&gt;</p>
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<p>Could you compare Jesselyn Radack’s lovely but modest Tudor home, in a cool bower of leafy trees in Washington, D.C., to a jail? Of course not. There is her tall, handsome husband, an Africa specialist for the World Bank, pushing open the front door in the evening and planting a kiss on his wife. There are her two young sons, three and five, banging on the piano and slopping juice on the recently refinished coffee table. No, it’s an exaggeration to imagine the 32-year-old Radack, who’s pregnant—with a girl, finally!—as a prisoner. Just as overwrought as the letter Radack wrote about a year ago, when the D.C.-area sniper was still on the loose, saying that she felt “hunted”—not by the mysterious gunman but by her former employer, the U.S. Department of Justice.</p>
<p>But then, how to explain what it feels like to have your life stopped, to go from being a golden-girl government lawyer—who marched through Brown, Yale Law School, and straight into the Attorney General’s Honor Program—to living under the drip, drip torture of a seemingly unending investigation, one that has cost you $30,000 in unpaid legal bills and stripped you of the profession that was you, or at least such a big part of you that staying home with the boys certainly isn’t the “silver lining” that friends and family keep ever so kindly insisting? “I would want to choose to become a full-time mom,” Radack tells me repeatedly and tightly, the implication being that it’s a choice she never would’ve made.</p>
<p>Radack’s home detention of sorts began in November 2002, when she was effectively fired from Hawkins, Delafield &amp; Wood, the Washington law firm where she’d been practicing housing law for just seven months after being forced out of the Justice Department’s ethics unit in April 2002. An agent from DOJ’s Inspector General’s Office had spent the summer poking around her new office, informing Radack’s co-workers that she was a “criminal,” suspected of leaking to Newsweek emails she’d written while with the government that were critical of the FBI’s interrogation of “American Taliban” John Walker Lindh. At first, Hawkins partner Cullen MacDonald was supportive, assuring Radack that it was a “hallmark of a government lawyer to be investigated.” But by the fall, he demanded she sign an affidavit saying she didn’t leak the emails, or resign. (For legal reasons, Radack still won’t say whether she gave the emails to Newsweek, but she did claim protection under the Whistleblower Protection Act, which makes it illegal for a government agency to retaliate against someone who may have gone to the press.)</p>
<p>Things rapidly went from bad to worse. Last January, the Inspector General referred its leak report to the U.S. attorney in the District of Columbia for possible criminal prosecution. That office wouldn’t say what crime she may or may not have committed; though since “leaking” isn’t criminal, the charge presumably would be “theft of government property,” or some similar offense. The case was finally dropped nine months later, on September 11, 2003, but in early November, the DOJ’s Office of Professional Responsibility informed Radack that it had reported her to the Maryland and D.C. attorney regulatory authorities for violating confidentiality rules. The outcome of those inquiries won’t be known for some time—whistleblowers are usually exempt from confidentiality rules—but even if Radack beats this latest rap, the damage to her reputation, to her ability to find work in Washington’s close-knit legal and political community, may well be permanent.</p>
<p>Although not as well known, Radack seems to have joined the ranks of people who’ve been punished or exiled by the Bush administration for questioning its policies or spin, the most recent being Ambassador Joseph Wilson and his CIA operative wife. But what’s happened to Radack is more than just a case study of political vengeance, Bush-style. “Whistleblowers are not necessarily people I’d want to have a beer with,” says C. Fred Alford, a University of Maryland political scientist and the author of a fascinating book that applies psychological theory to whistleblowers’ experiences. “There is almost by definition something a little unsocialized about the true believer, as I like to call them.” Or even, in our go-along-to-get-along society, something a little scary. As one whistleblower told Alford, we’re all afraid of people who feel compelled to “commit the truth.”</p>
<p>ESSELYN RADACK’S LIFE story is almost inconceivably sympathetic, a Lifetime TV writer’s dream. Her childhood in Columbia, Maryland, was filled with gaping but familiar suffering—a divorced, overwhelmed mother who dated volatile men and spent the evenings self-medicating with alcohol; a house so filthy her youngest brother had to take a half-dozen allergy medications until he left at 18; for-auction signs periodically staked in the front yard; a successful lawyer-father living nearby in Washington, D.C., but somehow unable or unwilling to intervene—and small, inadvertent cruelties: teenage Jesselyn, a serious ice-skater, switching on her competition video to find that her mother had taped Dallas over the only record she had of herself gliding and twirling and leaping into the air.</p>
<p>Nonetheless, Radack managed, in addition to skating, to earn excellent grades, start on the field-hockey team, land a spot on the homecoming court, and get into Brown University. There, on her own for the first time—”The only person I have to worry about is me, how unbelievably, amazingly selfish. What a gift!”—she really soared: tip-top of her class, triple major, resident adviser, women’s-rights activist, etc.</p>
<p>Except…she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in February of her junior year and thereafter was in and out of the hospital for steroid treatments to control blindness in her left eye and the inability to write or even walk when the feeling drained from her arms or legs. She was admitted to Yale Law School, and although she spent much of her second year reeling with fever and nausea—the side effects of adjusting to a new drug that would eventually loosen the hold M.S. had on her—she kept her nearly perfect A record intact (they call them “H’s” at Yale, but nobody’s fooled), while publishing a few law-review articles on the side.</p>
<p>Which brings us to the present, almost. Upon graduation from law school in 1995, Radack was chosen for the Justice Department’s prestigious Honor Program, where, by many accounts, she performed admirably for the next seven years. The only downside to her success was that once she’d transferred from the civil to the ethics unit, a few colleagues there grew to resent her, she says, particularly after an article she published in Georgetown’s ethics journal was lauded by Deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson and FBI Director Robert Mueller. But gnarly office politics notwithstanding, Radack figured she might stay at Justice for the rest of her career—until, that is, she exchanged a few emails on the interrogation of John Walker Lindh.</p>
<p>Radack had been working full time in the ethics unit for 10 months when, in December 2001, she received an email from John De Pue, a lawyer in the terrorism unit, asking if it would be appropriate for an FBI agent to interview Walker Lindh in Afghanistan without a lawyer, even though his father had hired one for him. After consulting with a senior ethics staffer, she emailed him no, but a few days later, De Pue informed her that the agent had done it anyway. Radack responded that the interview “may have to be sealed or only used for national security purposes.” “Ugh,” De Pue retorted.</p>
<p>It then became her job, Radack says, to try to strategize with her superiors about how to minimize the damage of this potential ethics breach. But Radack may have pushed the matter a little more vigorously than was wise, given the political climate. The validity of Walker Lindh’s confession was becoming pivotal to the government’s case; his lawyers were arguing their client had been Mirandized under extreme duress (bound with duct tape, starved, kept in a cold, dark shipping container), while Attorney General John Ashcroft was countering that the 21-year-old’s rights had been “carefully, scrupulously honored.” As a result, U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis ordered the Justice Department to turn over all internal documents regarding Walker Lindh’s questioning, which Radack only learned when lead prosecutor Randy Bellows emailed her on March 7, 2002, to say he had two emails she’d exchanged with the terrorism unit—were there more? She was stunned. The ethics chief, Claudia Flynn, hadn’t mentioned the court order, and Radack and De Pue had emailed back and forth at least a dozen times.</p>
<p>Radack rushed to tell Flynn about the missing emails. “I sent everything that was in the file,” Flynn shot back, according to Radack. (Flynn, like most DOJ officials involved, declined to comment for this story.) Radack immediately went to check the paper file the ethics unit is required to keep intact on each inquiry it handles, a once thick sheaf that she herself compiled, and found only three emails. “I literally got sick, like I was going to vomit,” Radack says. She called the computer help line and frantically recovered what she thought were all of the emails and set them on Flynn’s chair with a memo. A while later at the elevator she bumped into her boss, whose only comment was, “Now I have to explain why [the ethics unit] shouldn’t look bad.”</p>
<p>Radack says it appeared to her as if she was caught in the middle of an effort by someone at DOJ to destroy evidence in violation of a federal court order. Suddenly, an unscheduled, scathing performance review she’d received a few weeks earlier made sense. When Flynn, with whom Radack says she’d previously been on good terms, had handed it to her, she told her that she was going to be “shocked,” Radack says—and she was: “When you’ve gone through life getting rave reviews, I’ve never got anything even mediocre….” The evaluation didn’t mention Walker Lindh, but it was written during the period when Radack was pestering Flynn about the interrogation. Flynn hadn’t signed the review and told Radack that she wouldn’t put it in her file if she found another job, which she now did, at Hawkins.</p>
<p>She began at the law firm on April 8, and two months later Newsweek‘s Michael Isikoff had the emails between Radack and De Pue.</p>
<p>Apart from whether Radack leaked the emails, in the aftermath, she’s gradually embraced the role of whistleblower. She started a website, Coalition for Civil Rights and Democratic Liberties; accepted an invitation to assist the American Bar Association’s task force on the treatment of enemy combatants; and was quoted in a sprawling New Yorker piece on John Walker Lindh published last March. In May, she fed information about her case to Senator Edward Kennedy, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which led to a short delay in the confirmation of DOJ official Michael Chertoff to the U.S. Appeals Court in Philadelphia.</p>
<p>Yet to hear DOJ spokeswoman Barbara Comstock tell it, Radack has been wasting her righteous breath from the get-go. According to a court document Comstock faxed me, the Walker Lindh prosecutors (though apparently not Bellows) had the vast majority of the emails between the ethics and terrorism units before Radack complained to Flynn. More broadly, DOJ’s position is that the back-and-forth between Radack and De Pue was a sideshow. The legality, not the ethics, of questioning Walker Lindh was always the burning issue, says Comstock, who left DOJ for the private sector this fall. And, as Chertoff told the Judiciary Committee, more senior parts of the criminal division decided early on that Walker Lindh could be questioned without an attorney because Supreme Court precedent says suspects don’t have to be treated as represented persons when a family member hires a lawyer for them.</p>
<p>Great, Radack responds, the judge got the emails, but she had no way of knowing that, since so much of the case took place under wraps, and she had ample reason to suspect a “cover-up”: Why would Bellows tell her he had only two emails? (Bellows, now a judge, declined to comment.) Why were there only three emails in the official paper file? Why did Flynn get so aggravated when Radack confronted her?</p>
<p>It’s unclear, then, whether there was a cover-up, or whether any attempt at one was abandoned or somehow thwarted. What’s unmistakable, however, is that Radack’s boss wanted to get rid of her, and, once the emails became public, DOJ hounded her out of her private-sector job. The only motive her supporters, as well as several former assistant U.S. attorneys and Justice Department officials who’d comment only off the record, can glean is revenge. The Walker Lindh case was the showpiece of the government’s war on terrorism, and while prosecutors were saying up to the moment they struck a plea deal in July 2002 that they had the goods to seek three consecutive life sentences against him, they ended up agreeing to 20 years, probably, say legal experts, because of the troubling way the FBI and military handled their captive.</p>
<p>But while Radack’s emails made for lousy P.R. when they were published a month before the scheduled trial date, they were a blip in the process, so why keep giving Radack the Javert treatment? Says Doran Bunkin, among Radack’s closest friends and a D.C. attorney herself, “You’ve got this beautiful woman who’s pregnant, who has two little kids, who has M.S., who’s just trying to do her job, and you’re going to crucify her?” Put less delicately, Radack isn’t some foreign national whom the government can lock away indefinitely as an enemy combatant and the public won’t notice or care. She’s one of us.</p>
<p>Or maybe not. The great relief is that whistleblowers aren’t like the vast majority of us, says Alford, the political scientist. For him, Radack’s story is less about a world turned upside down by 9/11 than about what strange creatures whistleblowers necessarily are.</p>
<p>STRANGE DOESN’T have to mean wearing funny shoes,” Alford says. “It can just mean being a true believer. A real cynic isn’t going to blow the whistle. A real conformist isn’t going to blow the whistle. And a real radical probably won’t be in a position to do it. It takes someone who believes in the system far more than the system ever believes in itself.”</p>
<p>Talking with Radack in her neat, placid home, she seems anything but weird, in the clichéd, whistleblower-as-misfit sense. Her fingernails and toenails match (deep mauve); her kinky hair (though she often dries it straight) is cinched in a ponytail, her eyebrows lightly plucked. As her Brown friend Christin Semaprabon recalls, she’s “very, very put together, all the time.”</p>
<p>I myself felt a little sloppy around Radack, a little bumbling, too jokey or flip. It’s not that she’s icy, not in the least; she listens intently, radiating concern. Rather, she’s deeply earnest and hyperarticulate, capable of saying things like “I ask myself, ‘Would I do this again?’ And from a utilitarian perspective, I’d say no. From a deontological perspective, I’d have to say yes.”</p>
<p>Radack actually has a long history of whistleblowing or, as a shrink once told her, of “setting the record straight.” At 16, she shared her family’s wretchedness with a vice principal concerned she wouldn’t graduate if she couldn’t get to school on time. Soon after, a county child-welfare worker was at the door. Radack’s younger brother Jeremy remembers that his mother told the three kids, “‘If you don’t tell these people you’re happy here, they’re going to take you away from me.'” He kept quiet, but his older sister was incredulous, if not incensed, that the guy interviewed them in front of their mom. “Obviously,” she says, “we weren’t going to say anything.” Not quite. “When he was leaving, I was like, ‘There’s a gun in the house,'” Radack whispers, as she did back then.</p>
<p>Radack decided that she didn’t want to live with her mother anymore, but she was adamant about graduating from the public high school that had become her refuge. The entire family had begun to see a therapist (even her father had decided to get involved) who, fortuitously, was also counseling a divorced woman who had a son but longed for a daughter, too. After a single meeting with the woman—and a glance at what would be her bedroom, all pink—Jesselyn moved in. “It was so calmmmmm,” she says.</p>
<p>In college in the early 1990s, Radack kept speaking up. She was a leading defender of Brown’s wildly controversial “rape list.” Early in her junior year, female students had scrawled the names of men who’d allegedly sexually violated them on bathroom walls. Radack hadn’t done so herself, but she and three other women had been working with the administration to develop a sexual-misconduct disciplinary policy, and when the rape list hit, the so-called Committee of Four were thrust into a public role. Radack was quoted in the New York Times and Newsweek, and even appeared, with huge hair, a red cowl neck, and turquoise eye shadow, on Phil Donahue. Interestingly, opponents of the list heaped their most vicious invective on Radack because she wasn’t the stereotypical feminist, Semaprabon says—she didn’t hide her femininity and obviously “liked” boys.</p>
<p>Radack had a reason for lobbying the administration in the first place, a very personal one. “In the fall of my sophomore year at Brown, I was sexually assaulted on my way home from a semiformal by three football players,” she wrote in a law-school paper later adapted for a 2000 essay collection called Just Sex: Students Rewrite the Rules on Sex, Violence, Activism, and Equality. The drunken guys propositioned her and groped her butt and breasts, she wrote, and only peeled off when a car came by. Back at her dorm room, she found a message from one of them on her memo board: “Hi. It’s Jack and I have a very big dick and I’m going to f— you up the ass.” Radack knew “Jack” (the pseudonym she used in her article) vaguely and immediately reported the incident to campus police, offering the memo board and her ripped dress as evidence. When all three admitted what they’d done but said they were just joking, the university cops turned the complaint over to the dean of students, who left it to the football coach to deliver a punishment that Radack thought wholly inadequate: extra laps at practice.</p>
<p>What’s relevant about this episode from today’s perspective is not what a “radical” Radack was or is, but how narrowly she describes her motivation for pressing the claim. “You were told at orientation, ‘If something happens to you, here’s what you do.’ I’d followed all the right steps, all the right channels, and nothing happened. I wasn’t going to put up with this.”</p>
<p>This insider’s outsider quality isn’t immediately apparent in Radack; it sneaks up on you. Yes, she was the ultimate good girl in high school, but she also carpooled with a classmate whose father was in jail (they bonded over their unhappy home lives) and even stayed in touch with him after he himself was incarcerated for stabbing a female classmate to death while robbing a convenience store. Her third year at Yale Law, a place in which I found, as a journalism fellow there, that people fretted about the smallest details of their personal conduct lest an ill-chosen word or bathroom toke come back to haunt them in confirmation hearings (it was assumed, without a hint of self-consciousness, that all Yalies were headed for such greatness), she posed topless for Playboy’s “Women of the Ivy League.”</p>
<p>The topless picture is grist for Radack’s detractors, but the back story isn’t surprising—if you’re Jesselyn Radack. About a week before graduation, she had to rush home to help her mother out of a legal fix, and when she returned to school she saw Playboy’s recruitment flyers. “I happen to have big boobs, and it was the easiest, quickest way out for me,” she says. She made $600 and signed the check over to her mother to pay for a lawyer. (“I didn’t ask her to do it, but it was nice of her,” her mother says today.) Radack says she doesn’t see anything odd about what she did: She’s always been a free-speech, not an anti-pornography, feminist—the rape list was applauded by First Amendment absolutists. Still, didn’t it cross her mind that taking off her shirt for 600 bucks, at the image-obsessed law school, after writing about her own “assault” might be unwise? No, Radack says, she was just grateful to hand over the money and get back to her own life: finals, graduation, studying for the bar, and starting at Justice in the fall.</p>
<p>“NARCISSISM MORALIZED” is Alford’s provocative term to explain why whistleblowers do what they do. “Whistleblowers blow the whistle because they dread living with the corrupted self more than they dread living in isolation from others,” he writes in Whistleblowers: Broken Lives and Organizational Power, his 10th book of moral psychology. With this concept, Alford sets aside the pathological definition of narcissism—which includes as its well-known features exploitation of others and lack of empathy—and instead puts whistleblowers in such exalted company as Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr.</p>
<p>Moral narcissists strive to live up to their “ego ideal,” as Freud would have it, rather than lower the ideal and say to themselves, consciously or not, “Well, I’m just going to go to work every day and go along,” Alford argues. He came to the notion after sitting in on a whistleblower support group for a year, eavesdropping at a retreat for stressed-out whistleblowers, and interviewing 24 more in depth. The only force strong enough to make whistleblowers blow and keep blowing, despite mounting psychological and financial costs (most studies show about two-thirds lose their jobs and many never return to their original fields), is narcissistic rage. “Look what you’ve done to my moral purity!” the whistleblower’s heart cries.</p>
<p>Alford is wary of picking apart why Radack, or any whistleblower, did it, because that process transforms political disagreements into “private acts of disobedience that may be subject to discipline.” Assuming the whistleblower’s case isn’t “totally implausible,” Alford’s question “is not, ‘Was the whistleblower right (pure, just, well balanced)?’ But what can the whistleblower’s experience teach us about the fate of the individual in the organization?” Or, as he told me, “The most striking thing about Radack’s story was the way the law firm behaved. It begins to look like there really is something called the System, and if you violate the rules in one part, there’s no safe haven.”</p>
<p>Last March, in fact, Hawkins went so far as to (unsuccessfully) challenge Radack’s unemployment claim, for $309 a week, telling the court in a letter that the firm was “particularly concerned” about her failure to cooperate with the Inspector General because “the entire focus of its law practice is representing governmental entities.” Radack’s employment lawyer, Mona Lyons, says she’s amazed at how clearly Hawkins stated that it unloaded Radack for fear she might threaten its ability to get government business. “I mean, it’s not Mack’s trucking company—this is a law firm, for god’s sakes,” Lyons says. (Hawkins’ counsel didn’t return phone calls.)</p>
<p>“People are scared of [the Ashcroft] Justice Department,” Lyons goes on. But Alford would say that organizations in general can’t bear truth tellers, those who dare “to bring the outside in.” Ask yourself this question: Assuming you’re convinced that Radack was convinced she’d witnessed a serious wrong, would you hire her?</p>
<p>SO FAR, NO ONE HAS. Granted, Radack has no way of knowing why she hasn’t gotten an offer from any of the half-dozen public-interest groups and small law firms where she’s interviewed. “It’s hard to tease out how much is being seven months pregnant, how much it’s the cloud of what’s happened, and how much it’s the bad economy,” she says. Back when the criminal investigation was pending, Radack applied for a job at the American Civil Liberties Union, but a close friend who knew someone there told her that the free-speech group wanted her to put all this behind her before they’d consider hiring her. Around the same time, a partner at Harris Wiltshire, the D.C. law firm that represents Steven Hatfill—the biologist who sued Justice for publicly fingering him in the anthrax investigation—told her he was very interested in having her work on the Hatfill case. (Radack even got a mention in the lawsuit: DOJ had undertaken only a “token effort” to find the source of repeated leaks trashing Hatfill, the complaint says, while “leaks that embarrass the DOJ are treated seriously and lead to criminal referrals [as in the case of former DOJ employee Jesselyn Radack].”) But a month later, Hatfill’s lawyer emailed her to say he’d consulted with his colleagues, and though she was “obviously a very capable lawyer,” the “accusations about you, however unfounded, could complicate the issue…. The risks here are too great.”</p>
<p>And now, of course, a new cloud looms: the possibility of disbarment or suspension. “I thought it was over; I don’t know why I believed that,” Radack says, sounding crushed, after learning she’d been reported for alleged ethics violations. Considering the DOJ’s halfhearted pursuit of whoever leaked the name of Ambassador Wilson’s wife, her situation couldn’t be more ironic, she adds. “My presumed leak was for the purpose of whistleblowing; the White House’s presumed leak was to punish a whistleblower.”</p>
<p>Actually, it’s not quite right to call Radack unemployed; she’s become a professional whistleblower. After putting her sons down for their afternoon naps, she hurries down to her basement office to check her website: Has she picked up any new signatures on her petition on behalf of Americans’ civil rights or contributions to her legal-defense fund? She writes law-review articles on ethics and speaks about her experience. And she continues to huddle with her legal team. Lyons, the employment attorney, may sue Hawkins for back pay, and Bruce Fein, a very high-powered conservative constitutional lawyer, has stepped forward to help clear her name—pro bono.</p>
<p>Radack seems so purposeful, so “together,” as Semaprabon put it, that it’s sometimes easy to forget that there’s anything amiss in her life, easy to numb out as she tells her story for the umpteenth time. A single question, on the phone or in an email, unleashes a cascade of information; once she’s leaped into her story, she can’t seem to stop. “We’ve just got to keep moving forward,” her husband says. But is that what she’s doing?</p>
<p>Alford speculates that this relentless chronologizing helps Radack (and other whistleblowers) avoid the true moral to her story, which is that her act has no meaning in the common narrative sense: There is no ending, because true vindication—the little gal took on the big organization and won—is unlikely ever to come. “She will not be put back in her former position. She’ll be lucky to get a job with the ACLU,” he says. “And everything she’s learned about how the world works that she didn’t want to know will be shown true. The real damage is the knowledge.”</p>
<p>His comments made me think of Jesselyn’s bat mitzvah videotape, which her mother keeps. She read from Exodus, all about “different laws of justice,” as she put it, and spoke of Jeremiah. Today, Jeremiah is seen as something of a hero, but he died disgraced, loathed for incessantly warning his people that they’d become debased and would suffer mightily for it.</p>
<p>Wearing a “Heidi” dress with a wine-colored bodice and white billowy sleeves, 13-year-old Jesselyn stands in front of the congregation, next to her beaming rabbi. “This verse warns not to follow the majority of the people blindly for evil purposes, especially to disrupt justice,” she says in a girlish, slightly lisping voice. “I hope that I will always be able to make the right decisions about my actions.” Radack believes she has, of course. But will she ever know a happy ending? It depends on whose stories you trust more: the Old Testament’s or Lifetime’s.</p>
<p /> | Anatomy of a Whistleblower | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2004/01/anatomy-whistleblower/ | 2018-01-01 | 4 |
<p>Like many commodities exchange traded products, the United States Oil Fund (NYSEArca: <a href="http://www.etftrends.com/etf-resume.php?quote=uso" type="external">USO Opens a New Window.</a>), which tracks West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures, can be subject to some seasonal factors and that is worth remembering as the fourth quarter gets underway.</p>
<p>Oil is also likely to get some help from now dwindling bets that the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates in the coming months. Raising interest rates would likely boost the dollar, in turn pressuring dollar-denominated commodities such as oil.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>SEE MORE: <a href="http://www.etftrends.com/2016/08/its-game-time-for-oil-etfs/" type="external">It’s Game Time For Oil ETFs Opens a New Window.</a></p>
<p>“Meanwhile, it is significant to add that a feature of Q4 in past years has been a slide in oil prices. With that in mind, and the falls we’ve seen since the OPEC deal was announced, we could be set for the seasonal slump,” according to <a href="http://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/Are-We-Set-For-A-Seasonal-Slide-In-Oil-Prices.html" type="external">OilPrice.com Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>
<p>That could also figure into the performance of equity-based energy strategies, which some investors are betting will finally deliver increased earnings.</p>
<p>The growth is not surprising as the energy sector has been one of the worst areas in earnings growth. For Q3 2016, the sector is expected to reveal its largest year-over-year earnings decline of 66%, the worst performance of all 11 S&amp;P 500 sectors.</p>
<p>ETF investors interested in gaining exposure to the improving energy sector have a number of broad plays to choose from. For example, the Energy Select Sector SPDR (NYSEArca: <a href="http://www.etftrends.com/etf-resume.php?quote=xle" type="external">XLE Opens a New Window.</a>), the largest equity-based energy ETF, increased 14.4% year-to-date.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>SEE MORE: <a href="https://www.etftrends.com/2016/08/energy-stocks-etfs-can-keep-surging/" type="external">Energy Stocks, ETFs can Keep Surging Opens a New Window.</a></p>
<p>Last week, oil and energy exchange traded funds rallied Thursday after the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries agreed to the first output cut since 2008, with Saudi Arabia relaxing its position on Iran amid stubbornly low oil prices.</p>
<p>“But Q4 aside, the OPEC deal has been significant in other ways. It has been the first time that the cartel has shown signs of solidarity since as far back as 2008. With OPEC now committed to working in the best interests of the organization we can see this as both a baby step toward a further limit, and as a sign of continued market domination,” reports OilPrice.com.</p>
<p>For more information on the crude oil market, visit our <a href="http://www.etftrends.com/tag/oil/" type="external">oil category Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>
<p>United States Oil Fund</p>
<p>The opinions and forecasts expressed herein are solely those of Tom Lydon, and may not actually come to pass. Information on this site should not be used or construed as an offer to sell, a solicitation of an offer to buy, or a recommendation for any product.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.etftrends.com/2016/10/how-seasonality-could-affect-oil-etfs/" type="external">This article Opens a New Window.</a> was provided by our partners at ETFTrends.</p> | How Seasonality Could Affect Oil ETFs | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/10/05/how-seasonality-could-affect-oil-etfs.html | 2016-10-05 | 0 |
<p>Merck (NYSE:MRK) reported a 67% jump in first-quarter profit on Friday as tighter cost controls and strong diabetes drug sales helped offset softer sales from arthritis drug Remicade, which it now splits with Johnson &amp; Johnson.</p>
<p>The No.2 U.S. drug maker earlier this month agreed to pay Johnson &amp; Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) $500 million to settle a lengthy arbitration suit. While Merck kept exclusive marketing rights in 70% of the areas where it now sells Remicade, it increased J&amp;J’s share of the profit to 50%</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>The drug giant earned $1.74 billion during the latest quarter, or 56 cents a share, compared with a year-earlier $1.04 billion, or 34 cents.</p>
<p>Excluding one-time restructuring, litigation and acquisition costs, Merck earned 99 cents, beating average analyst estimates in a Thomson Reuters poll by a penny.</p>
<p>Revenue for the three-month period edged 1% higher to $11.73 billion, missing the Street’s view of $11.82 billion on a 31% drop in Remicade to $519 million and a 21% decrease to $336 million of hypertension treatments Cozaar/Hyzaar.</p>
<p>Some of those pressures were offset by an increase of 24% to $919 million of diabetes drug Januvia, as well as new pipeline drugs.</p>
<p>Merck backed its profit in the range of $3.75 to $3.85, excluding items, which is in line with average analyst forecasts’ of $3.80 a share.</p>
<p>The results follow a 10% profit jump by Bristol-Myers Squibb (NYSE:BMY) Thursday despite facing softer sales of blood pressure treatment Avapro, which marked the start to a series of its blockbuster drugs set to lose U.S. patent protection this year.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p> | Merck Stirs Up 67% Jump in 1Q Profit | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2012/04/27/merck-1q-profit-tops-street-revenue-shy.html | 2016-01-26 | 0 |
<p />
<p>North Korea wants some attention. So on Sunday it <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/07/world/asia/07korea.html?hp" type="external">launched a missile</a> that failed to place a satellite in orbit but did travel about 2000 miles, twice as far as previous Korean missiles. President Barack Obama decried this “provocative act.” At the United Nations, members of the Security Council met but could not put together a response. So what should be done? New America Foundation think-tanker Steve Clemons has some <a href="http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/2009/04/obama_needs_to_1/" type="external">solid thoughts</a>:</p>
<p />
<p>Barack Obama in a well-crafted speech in Prague calling for a return to serious work on constraining the spread of weapons of mass destruction has ratcheted up the decibel level of his protest of the North Korea launch — saying that their must be consequences.</p>
<p>The problem is that China and Russia, which actually deployed warships and fighters to the region of the launch, believe that the world must not overreact to North Korea’s provocation. These two countries have thus far blocked the issuance of any statement from the United Nations Security Council, which met last evening (Sunday) for an emergency session.</p>
<p>North Korea seems to be demanding that it not fall too far down the Obama priority list — and it has engineered one of the first of many probable global crises designed to test the resolve and strategic course of the Obama administration….</p>
<p>North Korea is already the target of some of the world’s most stringent sanctions. And maintaining them — and even adding some categories of sanctions — does send a signal, but it is a soft one that the North Koreans may not care about or respect.</p>
<p>If this provocation was designed primarily “to get attention,” then the Obama administration should be asking what can be done to give North Korea “more” attention. Attention itself is not a strategic commodity — or something that a great nation should withhold if there is a chance of securing strategically significant successes over the ability of North Korea to further enhance its nuclear weapon systems capacity.</p>
<p>Giving North Korea more attention will be pilloried as appeasement by voices such as John Bolton and Frank Gaffney who think that there is little else but expedited regime change and military collision that will change North Korea’s course.</p>
<p>But what I have learned watching North Korea’s engagement with the US over the years is that North Korea does not move behaviorally in straight lines. But after all is said and done, when one looks back, one sees that North Korea is moving generally in a direction that the West may eventually be able to accept.</p>
<p>Clemons suggests that Obama not “put himself into a box” by talking too tough about this particular provocation. He advises Obama to throw some “attention” at North Korea, while keeping the ongoing negotiations (involving China and Russia) alive and while craftily devising ways to embolden and strengthen those interests within North Korea–be they robber barons or so-called progressives who want better relations (or some relations with the outside world)–that might possibly be at odds with Kim Jong Il’s regime.</p>
<p>Clemons, a realist-minded expert on Asia, adds:</p>
<p />
<p>Bluster [from the United States and other nations] will not work and is not respected. Force actually is respected by the North Koreans but can easily escalate beyond control.</p>
<p>North Korea is not monolithic. It would be prudent to try to generate some leverage on the competing factions around Kim Jong Il.</p>
<p>But hitting North Korea hard now may undermine any chance of teasing out these factions and of generating other more promising scenarios.</p>
<p>In politics, it certainly is difficult to respond to a potential threat (even an exaggerated one) by saying, “We’re going to tease out a more promising scenario.” And in this instance, neocons and other hawks will be eager to deride and attack any approach that is not a full-throated roar of aggression. For his part, Obama will have to be careful about the rhetoric he uses–so as to not decrease his own options and undermine a policy that might have to depend more on nuance than swagger. That certainly is easier said than done.</p>
<p /> | What To Do About that North Korean Missile Launch | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2009/04/what-do-about-north-korean-missile-launch/ | 2009-04-06 | 4 |
<p>China expected buzz when it launched an aircraft from its new carrier, the <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/asia-pacific/china/121125/china-lands-jet-carrier-the-first-time-video" type="external">Liaoning</a>. It didn't expect, however, to also launch an entirely new internet fad.</p>
<p>When newscasts of a J-15 jet landing and launching on the Liaoning hit airwaves, a curious thing happened.</p>
<p>Instead of marveling at the technology involved, China appears to have latched onto the two deckhands seen in videos.</p>
<p>The yellow-jacketed duo are giving a pilot hand signals, crouching low and extending their right arms in a "shooting" motion.</p>
<p><a href="http://usa.chinadaily.com.cn/epaper/2012-11/28/content_15967202.htm" type="external">China Daily</a> reports the Chinese people are performing a gushing tribute by taking photos of themselves in the pose and posting them online.</p>
<p>"Although the gesture has often been seen in movies, I couldn't restrain my excitement the first time I saw it used to instruct a fighter jet to land and take off from China's first aircraft carrier," journalist <a href="http://usa.chinadaily.com.cn/epaper/2012-11/28/content_15967202.htm" type="external">Han Lu</a>&#160;told China Daily.</p>
<p>Now, for some odd reason, netizens have attached PSY's "Gangnam Style" music to those images and created "carrier style." The mash-up video is doing well on China's version of YouTube, called <a href="http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XNDgwMTc0Nzky.html?f=18117843" type="external">YouKu</a>.</p>
<p>The video has 57.8 million views. Or is that 578,000? We're relying on Google's translation, here, so it's very difficult to tell.</p>
<p>Either way, the <a href="http://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1091321/liaoning-landing-tests-spawn-new-gangnam-style-parody" type="external">South China Morning Post</a> called it a "light-hearted snub" of a very serious naval accomplishment.</p>
<p>So is it reverence or rejection? With the internet, who can tell? Read below for the evidence.</p>
<p>[ <a href="//storify.com/dtrif/aircraft-carrier-style-takes-off" type="external">View the story "Aircraft Carrier Style ... takes off" on Storify</a>]</p> | Aircraft carrier style: social media steals China's thunder on Liaoning | false | https://pri.org/stories/2012-11-29/aircraft-carrier-style-social-media-steals-chinas-thunder-liaoning | 2012-11-29 | 3 |
<p>Jordan's King Abdullah made a rare visit to the West Bank on Monday, meeting in Ramallah with&#160;Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas who plans to renew reconciliation talks between rival political factions between the Fatah and Hamas.</p>
<p>King Abdullah, who has not visited the West Bank in more than a decade - he visited the West Bank in 2000 to meet with Yasser Arafat, Abbas' late predecessor - traveled the short distance from Amman to Ramallah via helicopter and arrived to a red carpet welcome at Abbas's presidential compound, <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2011/11/21/world/meast/jordan-palestinians/?hpt=wo_bn8" type="external">CNN reported</a>.</p>
<p>A Jordanian palace official, meantime, told <a href="http://af.reuters.com/article/commoditiesNews/idAFL5E7ML1FK20111121" type="external">Reuters</a>that:</p>
<p>"The visit comes in the context of Jordan's support for the Palestinian Authority and the Palestinian people to achieve Palestinian national rights and an independent state."&#160;</p>
<p>The Jordanian monarch urged the Palestinian leader to resume direct peace negotiations with Israel, Reuters reported.</p>
<p>However, Abbas said after the meeting that that there were no signs negotiations with Israel will be resumed in the near future.</p>
<p>He said that&#160;he would resume negotiations if Israel "halts settlement activities and abides by international resolutions," adding that his demands were not preconditions but rather obligations based on agreements between the two sides, <a href="http://english.wafa.ps/index.php?action=detail&amp;id=18078" type="external">the official Palestinian news agency WAFA reported</a>.</p>
<p />
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<p>The visit also comes at a time when both leaders are making outreach efforts to the political leadership of Hamas, the Islamist Hamas movement that has ruled the Gaza Strip since 2007, when it ousted the Palestinian Authority government.</p>
<p>Abbas, who also serves as the head of the Fatah political faction, is scheduled to meet with Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal in Cairo to renew efforts at political reconciliation between the rival parties, according to CNN.</p>
<p>CNN adds that:</p>
<p>Both Israel and the United States have expressed opposition to the formation of any Palestinian unity deal that includes Hamas which both countries consider a terrorist organization.</p> | King Abdullah of Jordan visits West Bank (VIDEO) | false | https://pri.org/stories/2011-11-21/king-abdullah-jordan-visits-west-bank-video | 2011-11-21 | 3 |
<p />
<p>From:&#160; <a href="http://www.breitbart.com/video/2016/03/07/3249896/" type="external">Breitbart</a></p>
<p>Sunday at the University of Michigan-Flint at the CNN debate, Democratic presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton said she wants to work to limit the numbers and kinds of people with access to guns.</p>
<p>Clinton said, "I think we have to try everything that works to try to limit the numbers of people and the kinds of people who are given access to firearms. The Brady Bill, which has been in effect now for about 23 years, has kept more than two million purchases from going forward. So we do have to continue to try to work on that because not every killer will have the same profile."</p>
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<p>&#160;</p>
<p>0 comments</p> | Hillary Clinton: Try Everything To Limit The Numbers And Kinds Of People Who Are Given Access To Firearms | true | http://freedomsfinalstand.com/hillary-clinton-try-everything-to-limit-the-numbers-and-kinds-of-people-who-are-given-access-to-firearms/ | 0 |
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<p>The seminar will be at UNM Science &amp; Technology Park Auditorium 800 Bradbury SE in Albuquerque.</p>
<p>The session discusses the significant endeavor of determining the market potential of a product or service, understanding the dynamics in the marketplace, producing a marketing plan, and selling your product and/or service.</p>
<p>Featured presenters include: Betsy Gillette, director of Market Research and Planning – TVC; Barbara Kline, Principal – Breakthru Communications Inc.; and Lisa Hale, president – Focused Leadership Consulting.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>There is no cost, but registration is requested. RSVP to <a href="http://www.eventbrite.com" type="external">www.eventbrite.com</a>/event/5234332028 or Margaret Speer, TVC at 843-4202 <a href="mailto:([email protected]" type="external">([email protected]</a>) or Lee Trussell, TVC at 843-4256 <a href="mailto:([email protected]" type="external">([email protected]</a>).</p>
<p>The seminars are sponsored by Technology Ventures Corp., Sandia National Laboratories, Greater Albuquerque Chamber of Commerce, Albuquerque Hispano Chamber of Commerce, UNM’s Robert O. Anderson School of Management, and the City of Albuquerque Office of Economic Development.</p> | Free entrepreneur seminar Wednesday | false | https://abqjournal.com/165854/free-entrepreneur-seminar-wednesday-2.html | 2013-02-04 | 2 |
<p>Published time: 13 Aug, 2017 22:42</p>
<p>CIA Director Mike Pompeo claimed Venezuela is overrun with Iranians, Hezbollah, Cubans and Russians in response to questions about Donald Trump’s statements about US military intervention.</p>
<p>Pompeo appeared on &#160;Fox News Sunday where he responded to comments made by President Donald Trump on Friday, in which he said there was “a possible military option” for Venezuela.</p>
<p>The CIA head said he believes Trump’s comments were an effort to “give the Venezuelan people hope and opportunity to create a situation where democracy can be restored.” &#160;</p>
<p>Pompeo described “continued deterioration” in Venezuela as “[President Nicolas] Maduro is continuing to assert more power, inflict more pain on the people of Venezuela, you can see the beginning of fissures among various groups.”</p>
<p>“The intelligence makes very clear that the Maduro regime continues to put snipers in towers,” Pompeo said with a laugh, “And do things that are horrible, repressive and the American policy is to work with our Latin American partners to try and restore democracy,” he said.</p>
<p>When asked why Venezuela would be the US’s problem, Pompeo responded:</p>
<p>“Venezuela could very much become a risk for the United States of America. The Cubans are there; the Russians are there, the Iranians, Hezbollah are there. This is something that has a risk of getting to a very very bad place, so America needs to take this very seriously.”</p>
<p>In July, Pompeo suggested the CIA is working on regime change in Venezuela during a <a href="http://aspensecurityforum.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/The-View-from-Langley.pdf" type="external">talk</a> at the Aspen Security Forum. &#160;</p>
<p>“America has a deep interest in making sure that it is stable, as democratic as possible. And so, we’re working hard to do that, I am always careful when we talk about South and Central America and the CIA, there’s a lot of stories,”&#160;Pompeo <a href="http://aspensecurityforum.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/The-View-from-Langley.pdf" type="external">said</a> to laughter from the audience. Far from it being a joke, US intelligence has been involved in attempted regime change and <a href="http://foreignpolicy.com/2013/08/20/mapped-the-7-governments-the-u-s-has-overthrown/" type="external">coups</a> across Latin America between the 50s and early 90s.</p>
<p>“We are very hopeful that there can be a transition in Venezuela and we the CIA is doing its best to understand the dynamic there, so that we can communicate to our State Department and to others.” he added.</p>
<p>The US imposed sanctions on eight officials in Venezuela this month, including President Nicolas Maduro, in response to the country’s Constituent Assembly elections to draft a new constitution in July, which the US called “illegitimate.”</p> | CIA head says ‘Iran, Hezbollah & Russians’ involved in Venezuela, pose ‘risk’ to US | false | https://newsline.com/cia-head-says-iran-hezbollah-russians-involved-in-venezuela-pose-risk-to-us/ | 2017-08-13 | 1 |
<p>Shares of Conatus Pharmaceuticals Inc. skyrocketed in the extended session Monday after the microcap biotech announced a licensing and collaboration agreement with Novartis AG for a liver disease treatment. Conatus shares surged 150% to $4.90 after hours on heavy volume. The company said it will receive $50 million upfront from Novartis in addition to other payments for an exclusive option, collaboration and licensing agreement for its liver disease drug emricasan. Novartis will also pay 50% of development costs for the drug after the exercise of options, Conatus said.</p>
<p>Copyright © 2016 MarketWatch, Inc.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p> | Conatus Shares Skyrocket After Novartis License Deal | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/12/19/conatus-shares-skyrocket-after-novartis-license-deal.html | 2016-12-19 | 0 |
<p>High-tech video games may be the latest weapon for scientists in their battle to fight drug-resistant bacteria. Sort of.</p>
<p>Scientists at Virginia Tech University have developed a computer model that helps researchers track pandemics around the world. It could give them new ways to determine why one disease spreads and another one peters out.</p>
<p>Take swine flu. Some 33 soldiers on a U.S. Army base contracted it back in 1976 and one person died. But the disease never spread. In 2009, swine flu, also known as H1N1, came back. It tore around the globe, infecting 61 million people, and killing 12,000.</p>
<p>One way to understand how a disease could spread is to computerize the situation, and see what happens with an artificial population. During the 2009 outbreak, U.S. health officials used the Virginia Tech computer model, called EpiSimdemics, to test and predict what H1N1 would do in the population.</p>
<p>Christopher Barrett, one of the EpiSimdemics project leaders, said the model is a way to generate a in-person social network based on how real people interact with one another. To do that, the computer uses official U.S. census data, gives people jobs based on statistical surveys and then defines how they move about their world, also based on information gleaned from real people.</p>
<p>"So if they were going to drive, for example, you might need models of traffic - detailed traffic - with every individual in a vehicle or in a bus or something so that you can figure out where they are, who they’re next to." Barrett said.</p>
<p>Once that's done, a disease, everything from the regular flu to HIV, can be introduced to the population and its spread can be tracked.</p>
<p>Computer scientist Madhav Marathe said part of what's innovative about the model is it tries to account for how people's behavior will change in the face of a pandemic.</p>
<p>"The individual behaviors, the disease and the social contact network all change in response to each other," he explained. "For instance, I decide not to go to work, or I decide to get antivirals, or decide not to send my child to work. This in effect changes how the disease continues to move."</p>
<p>The simulation can’t tell exactly what’s going to happen in a pandemic. But public health officials can tweak the model, for example they can introduce a school closure or make a vaccine available, and see how it affects things. That gives them a good overall understanding of what can happen and what can go wrong.</p>
<p>In 2009, it helped the government plan for how to deal with H1N1.</p>
<p>"The question that we were posed, along with other groups, was — if you’re given this small quota of vaccines, how do you decide whom to vaccinate?" Marathe said. "And remember that the decision has to be done under the following different criteria: how many people do you save, how much control you can achieve from the disease, what’s the potential economic impact, how can you save critical workers so the society can keep functioning and so on."</p>
<p>In the end, computer models like these might not stop a disease in its tracks, but they can certainly help save lives.</p> | Powerful computer models help researchers react to pandemic spread | false | https://pri.org/stories/2012-04-16/powerful-computer-models-help-researchers-react-pandemic-spread | 2012-04-16 | 3 |
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<p>But even in the face of this groundbreaking victory for animal protection, there are still New Mexican chimps like Rosie and Elijah held at Texas Biomedical Research Institute, the lab whose former director said chimps were equal to "books in the library." Some of these chimps with especially horrifying research histories, like Ken, have died waiting in this lab. Despite the huge changes our federal government has made, more must be done.</p>
<p>New Mexicans have a unique history with chimpanzees.</p>
<p>In the 1950s, the U.S. Air Force brought infant chimpanzees here from West Africa for Project Mercury, part of our race to space.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>In the 1990s, New Mexico held the largest colony of captive chimpanzees in the world at The Coulston Foundation, a private laboratory that profited off chimps by using and leasing them for experimentation until outrage over gross violations of the Animal Welfare Act and sanctions over sloppy work forced the lab's closure. Their 600 chimps were split into two groups: one group was held by the National Institutes of Health at the Alamogordo Primate Facility on Holloman Air Force Base and another was donated to the sanctuary Save the Chimps.</p>
<p>No invasive research on chimpanzees has taken place in New Mexico since 2001 and, over the past five years, the public, the Albuquerque Journal and dozens of elected leaders have rallied to protect the remaining chimps on Holloman, effectively speaking out against the NIH's wasteful plan to ship all New Mexican chimps to the Texas lab for use in further cruel and pointless research.</p>
<p>However, the NIH did move a small group of New Mexico chimps to Texas in 2010 before announcing their plan publicly - that group included Rosie and Elijah.</p>
<p>In recent years, public outcry pressed for fundamental change, leading to an independent scientific study by the Institute of Medicine finding that "? most current use of chimpanzees for biomedical research is unnecessary."</p>
<p>Since 2011, the NIH has not spent any tax dollars on any new invasive research projects using chimps and has adopted a rigorous set of criteria to be met before government-supported research on chimps can proceed.</p>
<p>Now, the Fish and Wildlife Service takes an additional important step. Any activity that can harm a captive chimp in the United States, even privately funded research, will require a special permit and must benefit wild chimp populations. This will obstruct needless biomedical research and deter interstate trading of chimpanzees in the pet and entertainment industries that are harmful to wild chimps.</p>
<p>Support for the Fish and Wildlife decision to protect captive chimpanzees is rightly broad and far-reaching. The agency deserves all the adulation and thanks given in the press and on social media in recent days.</p>
<p>But what's missing from this latest round of good news is what must come next: more chimps experiencing peace and dignity in sanctuary. It's time for Rosie, Elijah and all of the 20 New Mexican chimps still held at Texas Biomedical Research Institute to go to sanctuary. The NIH can make this happen.</p>
<p>While we celebrate the Fish and Wildlife Service's step forward, let's press to make sure that changes on paper turn into real changes in living conditions for our surviving chimps.</p>
<p>When more chimps get into sanctuary, they have a chance to experience life as a chimpanzee rather than as an invasive test subject, and scientists can better focus on humane and effective research. We will know we did the right thing.</p>
<p>Twenty New Mexican chimps stuck in a Texas lab have more than earned their chance.</p>
<p /> | 20 NM chimps stuck in a Texas lab must be freed | false | https://abqjournal.com/601986/20-nm-chimps-stuck-in-a-texas-lab-must-be-freed.html | 2 |
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<p />
<p>What a difference 17 months makes -- and I say this as a shareholder of Exelixis stock for more than two years.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Flashing back to 2014, Exelixis, a company focused solely on developing cancer therapies, had high hopes for its lead compound, cabozantinib, as a treatment for metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer. Considering that prostate cancer is the second-most commonly diagnosed cancer, the hope had been that positive clinical data from its late-stage COMET studies would propel sales, profits, and Exelixis' share price higher. Unfortunately, the COMET trials burned up: Cabozantinib (brand names Cometriq and Cabometyx) failed to generate a statistically significant improvement in overall survival relative to the placebo. This dealt a crushing blow to the share price, and it cast doubt about Exelixis' ability to expand Cometriq beyond the treatment of metastatic medullary thyroid cancer, a rare disease, and Cometriq's only approved indication at the time.</p>
<p>Today, things have changed in a big way.</p>
<p>In an expected move, the Food and Drug Administration approved Cabometyx in April for the treatment of second-line renal cell carcinoma after the drug delivered a statistically significant improvements in progression-free survival, the primary endpoint of the trial, as well as overall survival and response rates. Median progression-free survival nearly doubled to 7.4 months from 3.8 months for standard of care Afinitor, while median overall survival improved 4.9 months to 21.4 months compared to 16.5 for Afinitor.</p>
<p>Image source: Exelixis.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>On top of delivering outstanding data in the METEOR trials, Exelixis also announced a licensing deal for Cabometyx in all countries except the U.S., Canada, and Japan, with Ipsen that netted it $200 million in upfront cash, as well as a $60 million milestone payment now that Cabometyx is approved. Exelixis stands to make $50 million more if its CELESTIAL trials for hepatocellular carcinoma succeed and the FDA expands Cabometyx's label once more, after which it could earn $545 million in additional sales-based milestones, as well as royalties that cap out at 26%.</p>
<p>In simpler terms, money worries are about to be a thing of the past for Exelixis.</p>
<p>But Exelixis isn't stopping there. Earlier this week, it announced results from its midstage CABOSUN trial in patients with previously untreated advanced renal cell carcinoma. Going head-to-head against Pfizer's standard-of-care treatment, Sutent, Cabometyx showed a statistically significant improvement in progression-free survival. No specific PFS data was mentioned in Exelixis' press release, but it nonetheless marks the first time cabozantinib has demonstrated superiority over a first-line, standard-of-care treatment. The next step for Exelixis is to consult with the FDA, likely to design a larger phase 3 study where PFS or overall survival will be the primary endpoint.</p>
<p>Even though we don't have specific data from CABOSUN as of yet, this is extremely exciting news since it could help Cabometyx move out from behind the shadow of competing drugs for renal cell carcinoma.</p>
<p>You might expect that Pfizer's Sutent and Novartis' Afinitor woud be Exelixis' prime competition, but you'd be wrong. Exelixis is most strongly contending with Bristol-Myers Squibb's cancer immunotherapy Opdivo, which tallied $704 million quarterly sales during the first quarter despite being on pharmacy shelves only about a year and a half.</p>
<p>Image source: Bristol-Myers Squibb.</p>
<p>Bristol-Myers' cancer immunotherapy, which works by supercharging the immune system to locate and destroy cancer cells, has been gobbling up market share in second-line renal cell carcinoma, and many analysts expect Cabometyx to take a seat behind Opdivo in line to treat RCC patients. Opdivo is also less expensive on a wholesale basis than Cabometyx ($143,000 vs. $165,000 per year).</p>
<p>Then again, Exelixis justifies its price based on being the only RCC therapy to hit statistical significance in improving PFS, overall survival, and objective response rate. More importantly, if Exelixis can garner first-line approval before Opdivo, it could be in position to take significant first-line market share of its own. Of course, we should keep in mind that Bristol-Myers is also angling for earlier-stage indications, too, with Opdivo in its CHECKMATE-214 trial in combination with Yervoy.</p>
<p>Yet are the two drugs really foes? Opdivo and Cabometyx are also being tested as a combination therapy in a phase 1b study with data due out later this year. If the data suggests that the combination of Opdivo and Cabometyx works more effectively than each drug by itself, we could be looking at a new standard of care, and far more revenue for Exelixis.</p>
<p>I should state, once more, that I'm a shareholder in Exelixis, so there's going to be some clear hopeful bias in these estimates; but I suspect Exelixis' lead drug could hit $1 billion in peak annual sales over the next five to seven years.</p>
<p>Image source: National Cancer Institute.</p>
<p>My assumption is based simply on Cabometyx garnering 10% market share in each indication that it's approved to treat, or may effectively treat. According to estimates from Transparency Market Research, which pegged the kidney cancer drug market at $2.6 billion in 2013, kidney cancer drug sales are expected to hit $4.5 billion in 2020. If Exelixis has 10% of the second-line market, we're probably looking at around $400 million in peak annual sales.</p>
<p>However, if Cabometyx also eventually expands its label to include the larger first-line patient pool, and it's able to garner a 10% share of that market, we would, presumably, be looking at an additional $400 million to $500 million in peak annual sales. Overall,that adds up to $800 million to $900 million in peak annual sales. This is on top of the roughly $60 million to $75 million it can likely generate annually from sales of Cometriq for advanced medullary thyroid cancer. This puts Cabometyx right on the border of blockbuster drug status (i.e., $1 billion+ in sales).</p>
<p>If Cabometyx shines in the CELESTIAL trials for hepatocellular carcinoma, then I'd surmise its chances of hitting $1 billion in peak annual sales would jump further. Datamonitor Healthcare is predicting sales growth of 172% in liver cancer drug sales between 2013 and 2019 to approximately $1.4 billion. Once more, if Cabometyx slides in to take 10% market share (assuming positive overall survival data in CELESTIAL), it could bring in $140 million annually based on this estimate.</p>
<p>Added together, we're looking at $1 billion to $1.1 billion in peak annual sales if everything goes well, and perhaps more if its phase 1b study in combination with Opdivo proves to be an even more effective RCC-fighting therapy.</p>
<p>To quote my colleague Brian Orelli, Exelixis appears potentially ready for "blastoff," and shareholders have Cabometyx to thank for it.</p>
<p>The article <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/2016/05/27/this-new-data-could-push-exelixis-cabometyx-over-1.aspx" type="external">This New Data Could Push Exelixis' Cabometyx Over $1 Billion in Peak Annual Sales Opens a New Window.</a> originally appeared on Fool.com.</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFUltraLong/info.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">Sean Williams Opens a New Window.</a>owns shares of Exelixis, but has no material interest in any other companies mentioned in this article. You can follow him on CAPS under the screen name <a href="http://caps.fool.com/player/tmfultralong.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">TMFUltraLong Opens a New Window.</a>, and check him out on Twitter, where he goes by the handle <a href="http://twitter.com/#%21/TMFUltraLong" type="external">@TMFUltraLong Opens a New Window.</a>.The Motley Fool recommends Exelixis. 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> | This New Data Could Push Exelixis' Cabometyx Over $1 Billion in Peak Annual Sales | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/05/27/this-new-data-could-push-exelixis-cabometyx-over-1-billion-in-peak-annual-sales.html | 2016-05-27 | 0 |
<p>This review is from a syndication service of The Washington Post.</p>
<p>In “Reckless Endangerment,” Gretchen Morgenson and Joshua Rosner argue that cozy connections between government and the financial industry were the primary cause of the financial crisis. While many economists — including this reviewer — have argued that government actions caused the crisis, Morgenson and Rosner use their investigative skills to dig down and explain why those actions were taken. The book focuses on two government agencies, Fannie Mae and the Federal Reserve.</p>
<p>The mutual support system is better explained and documented in the case of Fannie, the government-sponsored enterprise that supported the home mortgage market by buying mortgages and packaging them into marketable securities, which it then guaranteed and sold to investors.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Reckless-Endangerment-Outsized-Corruption-Armageddon/dp/0805091203%3FSubscriptionId%3D1XWTFJ60BR6QZ1PW9FR2%26tag%3Dtruthdig20-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D0805091203" type="external" /></p>
<p />
<p>By Gretchen Morgenson, Joshua Rosner</p>
<p>Times Books, 352 pages</p>
<p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Reckless-Endangerment-Outsized-Corruption-Armageddon/dp/0805091203%3FSubscriptionId%3D1XWTFJ60BR6QZ1PW9FR2%26tag%3Dtruthdig20-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D0805091203" type="external" /></p>
<p>The book gives examples of Fannie’s executives — Jim Johnson, chief executive from 1991 to 1998, is singled out most — using excess profits to support government officials in a variety of ways, with plenty left over for large bonuses. They got jobs for friends and relatives of elected officials, including Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), who is tagged as “a perpetual protector of Fannie.” They made campaign contributions and charitable donations to co-opt groups such as the community action organization ACORN, which “had been agitating for tighter regulations on Fannie Mae.” They persuaded executive branch officials — such as then-Deputy Treasury Secretary Larry Summers — to ask their staffs to rewrite reports critical of Fannie.</p>
<p>Fannie’s lobbying efforts were resisted by some government officials, who are the heroes of the book. Congressional Budget Office Director June O’Neill is praised for refusing to stop the release of a 1995 study by CBO staffer Marvin Phaup showing that federal support increased Fannie’s profits by $2 billion. Another hero is “none other than John W. Snow, the Treasury secretary,” who in 2003 “urged the creation of a new federal agency to regulate and supervise the financial activities of the government-sponsored enterprises.” (From 1995 to 2001, I was on the CBO’s Panel of Economic Advisers but was not involved in the CBO study. From 2001 to 2005, I was undersecretary of the Treasury for international affairs, and Fannie Mae issues were not part of the international division.)</p>
<p>The Fed takes a beating throughout the book. Early on, the authors take on the Boston Fed, and in particular its research director, Alicia Munnell, for using a study documenting racial discrimination in mortgage lending to justify the relaxation of credit standards, even though other researchers found the study’s findings to be flawed. The book claims that “the banks knew they held all the cards” when Timothy Geithner became president of the New York Fed in 2003. It says that financier Sandy Weill “cultivated Geithner” and approached him about running Citigroup, and it reminds us that “even as Citigroup was building up its hidden off-balance sheet risks in 2006, its overseers at the New York Fed did nothing to rein the bank in.”</p>
<p>To see long excerpts from “Reckless Endangerment” at Google Books, <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=FwUW2yuJzW0C&amp;printsec=frontcover&amp;dq=Reckless+endangerment&amp;hl=en&amp;ei=XlroTdSlNZOisQPrutDdDQ&amp;sa=X&amp;oi=book_result&amp;ct=result&amp;resnum=2&amp;ved=0CDEQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&amp;q&amp;f=false" type="external">click here</a>.</p>
<p>The book certainly does not let the private sector off the hook, but it is very hard to imagine that heavily regulated banks could have engaged in such extreme risk-taking without the support of regulators. Nobel Prize-winning economist George Stigler warned long ago about “regulatory capture” — the tendency for regulated firms to get protection from their regulators — and the authors provide considerable evidence of it. Though they do not always give sources, it is important to take such claims and evidence seriously and to introduce government reforms as necessary. This, unfortunately, has not happened yet, as the authors emphasize in the conclusion, pointing to “the irony of having two of the nation’s most strident defenders of Fannie Mae sponsoring” the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010 — which did not reform Fannie Mae.</p>
<p>John B. Taylor, a professor of economics at Stanford University and a senior fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution, is the author of “Getting Off Track: How Government Actions and Interventions Caused, Prolonged and Worsened the Financial Crisis.” He blogs at <a href="http://johnbtaylorsblog.blogspot.com/" type="external">Economics One</a>.</p>
<p>(c) 2011, Washington Post Book World Service/Washington Post Writers Group</p>
<p /> | A Road Map to Economic Armageddon | true | http://truthdig.com/arts_culture/item/a_road_map_to_economic_armageddon_20110602/ | 2011-06-03 | 4 |
<p>Portugal's telecom regulator has blocked an attempt by international operator Altice to buy control of local company Media Capital, saying it could create "significant obstacles" to competition.</p>
<p>The National Communications Authority, known as Anacom, said in a statement on its website Tuesday the deal needs to be reconfigured.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Netherlands-based Altice N.V., through its Portuguese telecoms company MEO, agreed in July to pay Spain's Prisa 440 million euros ($527 million) for its 94.7 percent stake in Media Capital.</p>
<p>Media Capital is one of Portugal's leading media groups, owning popular national television channels and radio stations.</p>
<p>The takeover was to be the latest addition to Altice's portfolio after expanding its telecommunications and cable presence in the United States and France.</p>
<p>The companies involved made no immediate comment.</p> | Portuguese regulator rejects Altice's bid for media company | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/09/19/portuguese-regulator-rejects-altices-bid-for-media-company.html | 2017-09-19 | 0 |
<p>When was the last time you ate one of your meals on an international flight?</p>
<p>I’m talking about steerage, because that’s the only way I can afford to travel.&#160; Always at the back of the plane, right in front of the row with the screaming babies.&#160; Forget about noise and space and think for a minute about getting to the airport the required three hours before flight time.&#160; When the dinner is finally served (about an hour and a half after departure) it’s been six or seven hours since you’ve last eaten.</p>
<p>On my recent flight from Washington (Dulles) to Munich, this is what I was served for dinner: a stale roll with a pad of margarine; a wilted salad probably weighing &#160;one ounce; a goop of pudding for the end of the meal and the entrée: identified as the “chicken” dinner.&#160; And that entrée?&#160; Perhaps an ounce and a half of plain white rice; two carrot slivers the size of a United States quarter; one piece of broccoli, not much bigger than the carrots; and—finally—a sliver of chicken about the length of a paper clip. All served plain, with no sauce or seasoning.</p>
<p>I figure that the entrée cost 1½ cents for the rice; 1 cent for the vegetables; two cents for the chicken, i.e., for a grand total for 4½ &#160;cents.&#160; Maybe with the uneatable dinner roll, the salad and the dessert another four cents; but if I am off a bit in my calculations here, it is obvious that the meal cost United Airlines no more than ten cents—and that’s being generous by any measurement.&#160; United Airlines must have spent more money on the 12 gram (less than a half an ounce) bag of pretzel sticks I was handed when I purchased my drink than what the entrée cost.&#160; Shouldn’t the pretzel money be spent on a better entrée?</p>
<p>Does this meal work for you after six hours without eating?&#160; Would it ease any of your hunger pangs?</p>
<p>I lucked out on my return flight home (from London to Washington) by ordering the exotic vegetarian dinner: yellow rice, including the odd pea mixed in it (3 cents cost); curried chick peas masala (3 cents); cooked spinach (3 cents).&#160; I estimated that that entrée cost you nine cents, but at least it had some flavor and evidence of a gourmet cook (I’m joking, of course). &#160;Since I had assumed the worst, I brought a large sandwich along on that second flight—since I didn’t see any reason to starve again—but should I be expected to do that on an expensive international flight?</p>
<p>So here’s my question besides concluding that meals prepared in the United States cannot actually be regarded as meals.&#160; I know these are difficult times for airlines, but on the first flight you charged me $7.00 for a small bottle of cheap Australian wine.&#160; It wasn’t even the normal split.&#160; It was a plastic bottle with a trickle of wine in it that must have cost United Airlines 25 cents.&#160; Couldn’t some of the enormous profit from that bottle of wine have underwritten a better meal?&#160; Perhaps ten additional cents, thus doubling what you are currently paying for your entrées?</p>
<p>Do you really think that I will fly United in the future for any international flight?</p>
<p>I have a proposal for you—again because I understand that you have to cut corners somewhere.</p>
<p>Am I correct in concluding that United Airlines agrees with the recent Supreme Court Citizens United decision?&#160; Corporations are people, yes?&#160; If that’s so, and if these are such needy days for United Airlines, why don’t you apply for food stamps?&#160; And then since you will clearly qualify on both counts (United Airlines is a people and your corporation is going hungry), take those food stamps and spend a little more on each entrée for your international flights.&#160; Not for the meals for the top one percent in First Class but those of us who have put up with the innumerable humiliations of flying third class.</p>
<p>What do you think?&#160; Will this work?</p>
<p>Let me know when I can begin flying United Airlines again.</p>
<p>Yours sincerely,</p>
<p>Charles R. Larson</p>
<p>Charles R. Larson is Emeritus Professor of Literature at American University in Washington, D.C.&#160; Email: <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a>.</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | About Your Airline Meals | true | https://counterpunch.org/2012/08/01/about-your-airline-meals/ | 2012-08-01 | 4 |
<p>Since February 26, the Cucapa Tribe in El Mayor, Baja California has organized an historic Zapatista peace camp to defend their fishing rights against harassment and intimidation by the Mexican government on the Colorado River Delta.</p>
<p>The idea for the camp originated during a visit by Subcomandante Marcos, spokesman for the EZLN (Zapatista Army of National Liberation), to El Mayor during the Zapatista “Otra Campana” (Other Campaign) in October 2006.</p>
<p>“We have decided to send an urgent message to the Mexicans and Chicanos north of the Rio Grande to come in order to maximize the number of people here, create a safe space, and protect the Cucapa and Kiliwa community during the fishing season,” said Marcos, also known as “delegado zero,” in announcing the initiation of the camp after a meeting with the Cucapa and Kiliwa community leaders.</p>
<p>In February, the Cucapa community issued its call to action. “You are no longer being asked to stand in solidarity with the indigenous people of Mexico. Now you are being asked to stand to play an integral role in a bi-national effort that will no longer consist of only resisting but also helping these communities exist and live as they have for thousands of years,” said the tribe.</p>
<p>The 304 member Cucapa Tribe said the camp aimed to “help reestablish the networks and relations that existed before borders separated families and communities, and to help expose these atrocities to a world that has avoided looking at the price of its excess, comfort and luxury.”</p>
<p>Although the peace camp got off to a slow start, the momentum built in March as the Cucapa and supporters constructed a fishing camp, secured buyers for the fish (corvina), purchased a refrigerated trailer and netted fish in defiance of federal fishing regulations that require permits in a “marine protected area.”</p>
<p>By the end of April, the camp had achieved its goals. “The camp is almost over, but it has been extremely successful,” explained Cesar Soriano from the Banda Martes in Los Angeles. “The main goal of the Cucapa ­ to fish without government harassment – was achieved.”</p>
<p>“The camp also achieved its second goal, to organize direct support from people from both sides of the border,” said Soriano. At different points during the camp, activists from Mexico City, Australia, El Salvador, and American Indian nations, as well as from San Diego and Los Angeles, showed their solidarity with the Cucapa. Many Zapatista solidarity groups from throughout California and the Southwest organized fundraisers for the Cucapa struggle.</p>
<p>Subcomandante Marcos and 10 Comandantes from Chiapas, en route to the Cucapa Camp in April, were also welcomed by the O’odham Tribe and friends in the state of Sonora.</p>
<p>“The Cucapa are doing the same thing they have been doing for 9,000 years,” said Marcos, as quoted by Brenda Norrell in Narco News on April 10. “The Cucapa and other Indian people called for this camp in defense of nature so they can fish without detentions or being put in jail.”</p>
<p>Caravans from Los Angeles, San Diego, Oakland and other California cities have gone to the camp to support the Cucapa when they fish during the high tides. While some accompanied the fishermen and fisherwomen on their boats, the others stayed on shore to watch out for federal soliders coming to cite or harass the Cucapa. The last high tide that the Cucapa will fish during will be from May 10-May 16, 2007.</p>
<p>For over thousands of years, the Cucapa people lived on land surrounding the Colorado River and its Delta where it empties into the Sea of Cortez. The tribe, in what is now the southwestern United States and north end of Baja California, lived off harvesting the native fish and plants of the river and Delta.</p>
<p>However, fish catches by the Cucapa and other tribes plummeted in recent decades as agribusiness in California and Arizona and thirsty Southern California cities diverted the entire flow of the Colorado without regard for the indigenous people below the U.S.-Mexico border. With only a trickle of the river ever reaching the once fertile Delta, catches of corvina, totuava (a giant seabass like fish that is now protected) and other species of fish declined dramatically.</p>
<p>Rather than addressing the problems of massive water diversions and fishing by corporate commercial fishing fleets that caused the fishery and ecosystem to decline, the Mexican government, under urging by corporate-funded U.S. conservation groups like Conservation International and the World Wildlife Fund, declared the traditional area of the Cucapa and Kiliwa people “an ecological reserve.”</p>
<p>They transformed the waters that for thousands of years sustained indigenous people into the “Biosphere Reserve of the Upper Gulf of California” on June, 10, 1993, because it was “in the public interest,” according to the government’s National Commission of Protected Natural Areas website.</p>
<p>“The website also noted that 77 percent of the people who live and around the reserve rely on fishing for their livelihoods, so it is unclear which public interest the fishing ban in the protected area serves,” said Kristin Brucker, in the Narco News Bulletin, October 22.</p>
<p>According to Brucker, “The problem isn’t that the Cucapa and Killiwa don’t want to preserve endangered fish and dolphins. They point out that it is in their very best interest to protect the species they rely upon for their livelihood and they want very much to be custodians of the river and its fish as they have for generations.”</p>
<p>Hilda Hurtado Valenzuela, the secretary of the Cucapa fishing cooperative, stressed that the Cucapa was not responsible for the overfishing, even though they bear the brunt of its consequences.</p>
<p>Armed federal soldiers (federales) have patrolled the reserve and accosted the fishermen since the marine protected area was established. In October, the community had approximately thirty outstanding warrants for “illegal” fishing in their attempt to survive, practicing the same traditions as their ancestors.</p>
<p>Hopefully, the success of this camp will send a strong message to the Mexican government and U.S. “conservation” groups that so called “bio-reserves” and “marine protected areas” cannot be imposed upon indigenous people and other family fishermen without resistance.</p>
<p>The problems that the Cucapa Tribe faces in Mexico parallel the situation in California where well funded “conservation” groups, in collusion with Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, are attempting to kick recreational anglers and family commercial fishermen off the water through the institution of “marine protected areas,” even though massive de-facto reserves and some of the strictest fishing regulations in the world are already in place.</p>
<p>The “marine protected areas” constitute a major case of “green washing” where the main problems responsible for fishery declines in California – habitat destruction, water quality decline and global warming ­ are avoided because to address these problems would require dealing with major corporate interests responsible for fishery declines.</p>
<p>Just like the Cucapa and other tribes have been completely excluded by “conservation” groups and Mexican government from any input into the institution of the bioreserves, the California Indian tribes have to date been completely excluded from a privately funded “stakeholders” process to push through the MLPA (Marine Life Protection Act) initiative.</p>
<p>And just like the ecosystem of the Colorado River Delta has been destroyed by water diversions and pollution, the California Delta, a nursery sustaining a wide variety of species along the California Coast, is threatened by a food chain collapse caused by massive increases in water diversions by the state and federal governments.</p>
<p>For more information about the Cucapa Camp go to <a href="http://detodos-paratodos.blogspot.com/" type="external">http://detodos-paratodos.blogspot.com/</a></p>
<p>DAN BACHER can be reached at: <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a></p>
<p>&#160;</p> | Zapatistas in the Colorado Delta | true | https://counterpunch.org/2007/04/21/zapatistas-in-the-colorado-delta/ | 2007-04-21 | 4 |
<p>All businesses want to make money, and when they do, they need to record and track their revenues. Revenue is the income that a business generates from its normal activities. A landscaping company, for example, might bring in money by cutting grass and planting trees. The money it earns from these activities is known as revenue.</p>
<p>Unearned revenueSome businesses work by having their customers pay in advance for services, which translates into unearned revenue for those businesses. Unearned revenue is money that is received by a business before goods or services are provided. Another way to look at it is prepaid revenue.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>As an example, let's say a landscaping company charges its customers $200 for five lawn-cutting services, and that its customers are required to prepay the $200 up front. As a result of this prepayment, the landscaping company now has a liability to its customers that's equal to the revenue earned from the actual performance of the services in question.</p>
<p>The benefit of unearned revenue is that companies that collect payments in advance get to use that money before they've done the work to earn it. Since money received immediately is always worth more than money received in the future, it's often in companies' best interest to take in unearned revenue provided they know how to account for it.</p>
<p>Accounting for unearned revenueUnearned revenue is usually classified as a current liability for the business that receives it. When a business takes in unearned revenue, it must record the payment by debiting its cash account for the amount of money received in advance and crediting its unearned revenue account. As the company earns that revenue, it reduces the balance in the unearned revenue account (with debit entries) and increases the balance in the revenue account (with credit entries).</p>
<p>Using our example, when the landscaping company receives its $200, it will debit its cash account in the amount of $200 and credit its unearned revenue account in the amount of $200. Once it provides the first lawn service, it will record a debit to its unearned revenue account in the amount of $40. At that point, its balance sheet will report the remaining liability in the amount of $160 and its income statement will report that $40 was earned. In other words, that $40 will be converted from unearned revenue to earned revenue. The company will then repeat the same process each time a lawn service is performed until its liability is reduced to zero.</p>
<p>This article is part of The Motley Fool's Knowledge Center, which was created based on the collected wisdom of a fantastic community of investors. We'd love to hear your questions, thoughts, and opinions on the Knowledge Center, in general, or this page, in particular. Your input will help us help the world invest, better! Email us at [email protected] . Thanks -- and Fool on!</p>
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<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> | How to Calculate Unearned Revenue | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/05/20/how-to-calculate-unearned-revenue.html | 2016-05-20 | 0 |
<p>On Thursday night's The Rachel Maddow Show, the MSNBC host was accidentally called "sir" by New Jersey Democrat, Rep. Bill Pascrell.</p>
<p>“Congressman, thanks for being with us tonight, sir,” said Maddow to Pascrell.</p>
<p>“Thank you, sir," he said, before quickly correcting himself. “Ma’am.”</p>
<p>Maddow, to her credit, handled it perfectly. The MSNBC host immediately let out a laugh; even joking about how frequently she gets misgendered.</p>
<p>“It’s all right, I answer to both," she said. "It’s actually quite convenient in unexpected places. You’d be surprised.”</p>
<p>WATCH:</p>
<p>However, Maddow did make a fool of herself earlier in the week, when she breathlessly announced that she was going to release President Donald Trump's tax returns. Instead of exposing Trump as a tax-shielding Scrooge McDuck with nefarious ties to Russia, she <a href="" type="internal">revealed</a>that the president is an upstanding citizen who paid a whopping $36 million in income tax in 2005 alone.</p>
<p>Oops!</p> | WATCH: Maddow Gets Misgendered | true | https://dailywire.com/news/14518/watch-maddow-gets-misgendered-amanda-prestigiacomo | 2017-03-17 | 0 |
<p>This is the second of three articles by Anna Malyukova about her memories of the Soviet Union, where she grew up and lived before its collapse in 1989. Anna's account is not a detached political analysis of the situation in the former Soviet Union but rather a story of her personal experiences, which illustrate the deep contradictions that marked the society and the everyday lives of the people.</p>
<p>The Russian Revolution has been subject to multiple misrepresentations, particularly in the United States. The anti-communist policies of successive U.S. administrations during the second half of the twentieth century made it possible for socialism to be identified with totalitarianism, oppression, and lack of freedoms. American capitalism, by contrast, has presented itself as the best possible social system. However, after eight years of economic recession and after the election of Donald Trump, things seem to be changing.</p>
<p>People across the world, including in the United States, know that capitalism is a system that deserves to die. The most sinister face of the "American way of life" is the exploitation and precarization of millions of workers, the rampant police violence, systemic racism, the mass incarceration of America's Black population, and the persecution of immigrant workers. Globalization has enabled American transnationals to enrich themselves by exploiting millions of workers, while oppressed people everywhere, especially in the Global South, suffer under the yoke that is the criminal economic and political hegemony of the US - the superpower that is sometimes commanded by Democrats and sometimes by Republicans.</p>
<p>In this context, it is useful to shed some light on what was the most impressive working-class revolution in history. It is true that the Communist Party was the main agent of capitalist restoration in Russia; however, some of the achievements of the Revolution endured into the 1980s, such as access to education, healthcare, and recreation. These important public goods and services, which are effectively withheld from millions of workers in the US, in particular from people of color and Latinx, were a lasting feature of Soviet society, and this was possible only because the revolution had expropriated the capitalist class. The laboring masses had taken their destiny into their own hands by taking political power and making the means of production the property of the state.</p>
<p>While the Russian Revolution of 1917 remains a most impressive testament to the profound changes that the working class is capable of bringing about, the subsequent developments in the Soviet Union are evidence of the nefarious role of the Stalinist bureaucracy, which used the theory of "Socialism in one country" in order to isolate the country in the world. As a result of the Stalinist counter-revolution, revolutionary movements all around the world were stopped in their tracks, as socialism was supposed to exist in "peaceful coexistence" with imperialism.</p>
<p>There are profound lessons to learn from the Bolshevik revolution. First and foremost among these lessons is the fact that a society without capitalist exploitation is possible. This is of immense importance especially for new generations of workers and young people who begin to embrace the idea of ""socialism and are looking to study the history of the Russian Revolution and of the Soviet Union in order to understand better how to build revolutionary movements that are prepared to take up the fight against global capitalism today. *************************************************************************** You can read the first part of Anna's narrative <a href="" type="internal">here</a></p>
<p>I was a healthy child, which was a relief for my parents. Mothers are given 18 months of maternity leave, while receiving half of their salary, and another 18 months with a quarter pay, if they decide to stay at home longer. Most women returned to work after 18 months, because the state provided daycare facilities for very little pay. Stay at home mothers were a rarity. Homeschooled children were even a bigger rarity. Most adults worked and unemployment was virtually nonexistent. To not have a job was synonymous with being useless to the state and everyone wanted to be useful to the state and participate in the economy. Cultural capital played a tremendous role in social life when finding a job of finding the right health specialist. Corruption did exist, but the scale of it is modest compared to what it seems to be now.</p>
<p>Early childhood education was very structured and very traditional. We were brought up to follow the footsteps of young Vladimir Ulyanov, who is known to the world as Lenin, learning stories about him from the time we were toddlers. Children prepared regular performances for adults, where they presented perfectly memorized lines and sang songs in choirs in perfect synchrony. Creativity was not nurtured in us and often seen as something devious, at least in my experience. But we were provided a great preparation for schooling and, most importantly, it allowed both of our parents to work full time and not worry about providing care for us. I always hated daycare and talked a few kids into digging under the fence to run away from the center (my building was right across the road from the daycare). Unfortunately, we never actually got to do it. What I liked was to stay home with my mom and play the way I wanted, which was mostly by myself. There, I could let my creativity take any shape I wanted.</p>
<p>Each building had a little playground for children with swings, slides, and a sandbox. In the afternoon most kids were there, playing, with adults overseeing them as they sat on the benches in front of the buildings. Our neighborhood was very clean because on Saturdays everyone got together for a Subotnik - event when everyone collected garbage and cleaned up the neighborhood. It was a fun event with a big fire of collected sticks and paper garbage at the end of the day, burning in the dark. Adults were usually signing, drinking was usually involved, and children running around, playing.</p>
<p>There were plenty of stores in my hometown, but the shelves were never full of items. My parents often took a 5 hour trip to Moscow on a train to get some groceries and delicatessens like cured meats, bananas, oranges, etc. Now, when I go shopping at Costco (or even a local grocery store) I often come back with bags and bags of food, only to go back to a supermarket in a day or two, when my parents came back with less stuff from the capital of Russia back in 1980s. There was a dry cleaning store and a hair salon in the next building form us. My parents would visited the hair salon regularly, but dry cleaning was a luxury for us. Most people owned washing machines, as did we, and the clothes would dry in special fenced up areas next to the buildings. On a sunny day, women would hang their bedding and towels to dry up in the sun. Small items will dry up in apartments or on balconies. Nowadays these spaces are used for parking, but back in the day, you can find women hanging clothes in the sun, kids playing in the sandboxes, riding bikes around the building, trees, flowers, and bushes surrounding the neighborhood, cats taking their walks, dogs warming up in the sun, men playing dominoes and smoking.</p>
<p>I realize that this image is romanticized by the memories of my childhood, but this is how I remember my life in a small provincial town in a classless Soviet Union. It was more of a community then than it is now in Russia, where capitalism replaced group consciousness with individualism and competition for resources and jobs. People didn't have much, but enough to live a respectable life. And everyone was pretty much in the same boat. I believe that all these benefits are due to the fact that the workers and the Russian people had a great revolution and as a product of it, they achieved great conquests that today do not exist in capitalist countries, for example, in the United States where education and health care are for a few.</p>
<p>At the same time, as I said at the beginning, there were social inequalities as well. It had a lot to do with who you knew and that often meant belonging to the Communist Party, which by the time I was born, was corrupted as well. Once you were well connected, it provided you with additional income, often in terms of bribes, as well as opportunities to have access to luxurious items which gave you other options to make money or use them as bribes.</p>
<p>One thing that as a child then and as a parent now I find amazing is that Soviet Union had in place a structure to help families and children to have extracurricular activities and after-school programs. Each state agency or factory had a cultural center, where concerts, political and social events took place, but it also had free programs for children. There were dance, art, drama, circus, and any kind of sport classes set up in those centers. Some were better than others, but every child had access to them. My parents enrolled me in a music school outside of those centers, which I attended for seven years and that was an intense experience where I attended classes four days a week, and this was something that we had to pay for. That was probably true about any activity if one wanted to get really good at something - music, gymnastic or anything else - find private schools or tutors. However, to find free after-school activities for you child and allow them to try and find for themselves what may be interesting to them, was quite easy.</p>
<p>My parents lived half of their lives under the communist regime and reaped benefits from a lot of social structures and systems set up by the state. It was a stable time, when one knew what to expect from the next day. When Soviet Union collapsed, life as we knew it ended and stability was gone. With the stability a lot of benefits of the socialistic country vanished as well. In the United States, people have heard of the bad things about the Soviet Union. Some are real and some have to do with the "war against communism" that worried U.S. capitalism so much. I think one of the bad things is precisely that there existed this privileged sector, a caste. However, what was great is often overlooked. This is, along with the huge social progresses in the Soviet Union, is a compelling lesson which must be learned.</p>
<p>Related</p>
<p><a href="Art-Culture" type="external">Art &amp; Culture</a>&#160;&#160;&#160;/&#160;&#160;&#160; <a href="Former-USSR" type="external">Former USSR</a>&#160;&#160;&#160;/&#160;&#160;&#160; <a href="Russia" type="external">Russia</a></p> | Everyday Life in the Soviet Union | true | https://leftvoice.org/Everyday-Life-in-the-Soviet-Union | 2017-02-27 | 4 |
<p>United States officials said Friday that President Bashar al-Assad's regime is running out of cash.</p>
<p>Sources at the US Treasury and the State Department <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503543_162-57481626-503543/u.s-officials-assad-regime-running-low-on-money/?tag=stack" type="external">told CBS News</a> that Syria is having problems finding a source to print its currency.</p>
<p>They estimate Assad has spent about half of Syria's sovereign wealth fund, which two years ago was estimated at some $5 billion, CBS wrote.</p>
<p>The news comes amid reports that Syria's military is gearing up for a massive military strike on the city of Aleppo, which the <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/middle-east/syria/120727/turkey-we-cannot-remain-spectator-syrian-city-aleppo" type="external">international community</a> fears could turn into a massacre.</p>
<p>More from GlobalPost: <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/middle-east/syria/120727/syria-un-and-us-fear-massacre-aleppo" type="external">Syria: UN and US fear massacre in Aleppo</a></p>
<p>On Friday, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon warned Syria not to use chemical weapons "under any circumstances," <a href="http://www.jpost.com/Headlines/Article.aspx?id=279157" type="external">according to Reuters,</a>citing threats from Assad.</p>
<p>European Union sanctions, spearheaded by the US, have crippled Syria's ability to find banking partners and put economic pressure on the government.</p>
<p>More from GlobalPost: <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/americas/united-states/120726/white-house-warns-massacre-plans-syrias-aleppo" type="external">White House warns of massacre plans for Syria's Aleppo</a></p> | US: Syria's Assad govt. running low on money | false | https://pri.org/stories/2012-07-28/us-syrias-assad-govt-running-low-money | 2012-07-28 | 3 |
<p />
<p>Business software maker Oracle Corp said on Monday it would buy Dyn, a monitor of global internet performance and traffic, to allow cloud customers to optimize their infrastructure costs and increase web-driven revenue.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Financial terms were not disclosed.</p>
<p>Dyn, whose customers include Netflix Inc, Twitter Inc and Pfizer Inc, was crippled by high-profile cyber attacks last month that disrupted some of its clients' websites.</p>
<p>Oracle's cloud business stores enterprise software and data on remote servers. The company said Dyn would help its cloud customers improve access and page-load speeds for their websites using internet performance information.</p>
<p>Manchester, New Hampshire-based Dyn acts like a switchboard for internet traffic, and helps businesses monitor, control and optimize internet applications and cloud services. It is also a provider of domain name services.</p>
<p>When a domain name services provider is attacked, it can cause massive disruptions as such companies are responsible for forwarding large volumes of internet traffic.</p>
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<p>(Reporting by Anya George Tharakan in Bengaluru; Editing by Sai Sachin Ravikumar)</p> | Oracle to buy internet infrastructure provider Dyn | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2016/11/21/oracle-to-buy-internet-infrastructure-provider-dyn.html | 2016-11-21 | 0 |
<p>LUTHER, Okla. (AP) — Luther sold its youth football field to Walmart about three years ago so that the company could build one of its Express stores, using the money from the sale and the new tax revenue to pay off the roughly $200,000 in debt that resulted from an embezzlement scandal involving the former town treasurer.</p>
<p>The store opened in May 2015 and closed only eight months later when Walmart pulled the plug on its Express experiment, shuttering all 102 of the smaller stores it had opened in mostly Southern and Midwestern towns to compete with dollar stores. Although many locations were taken over by Dollar General, the tax collections just don't measure up even though the Dollar General stores offer many of the same products, but not a pharmacy.</p>
<p>Tax collections in Luther, a town of about 1,600 on the outskirts of Oklahoma City, rose by $12,000 to $16,000 per month while the Express store was open, said City Manager Scherrie Pidcock. Since Dollar General opened in the larger building, the town's monthly revenue has recovered about two-thirds of the amount it was collecting with the Walmart Express, Pidcock said.</p>
<p>Luther has tried to pinch pennies any way it can. When its lone paid firefighter — the chief — quit the otherwise all-volunteer department in July, he was replaced by a volunteer, saving the town his roughly $2,800 a month salary. Mayor Jenni White, who took office a few months after the Walmart Express closed, said Luther had to put off buying two new police cars.</p>
<p>"We're just trying to go slowly, moving forward and not overspend the budget," White said. "It's what do we need, not what do we want."</p>
<p>Walmart closed its Express locations because of the demand of customers, who wanted more than the 12,000-square-foot stores could offer, according to Anne Hatfield, a spokeswoman for the Bentonville, Arkansas-based company.</p>
<p>"What we learned from the Express stores was that our customers still wanted to shop at the supercenters," Hatfield said. "The customers ... were travelling to the other (supercenter) stores," which, at an average of 187,000-square-feet, sell a full range of groceries, clothing, household and sporting goods, and basic automotive services.</p>
<p>In most of the towns where Dollar General took over the Express locations, it closed an existing smaller Dollar General store and employs about half the 30 workers the Walmart Expresses did.</p>
<p>Dollar General also simply doesn't generate the level of business of Walmart, said Craig Johnson, president of Customer Growth Partners, a retail consulting and research firm.</p>
<p>"Reason number one, Walmart was selling fresh," Johnson said, referring to produce and meats. "Dollar General ... I just don't think they do a good job on it" by displaying items that do not always "appear" fresh, Johnson said.</p>
<p>The disappearance of the Walmart Express pharmacy, which in many towns were the only pharmacies, has also played a role by reducing the number of customers entering the Dollar General stores.</p>
<p>"The pharmacy ... made customers come to the stores to fill purchases," Johnson said. "There's less people visiting store, and mathematically if there's less people in the store, there are less purchases being made," of various other items.</p>
<p>In Nettleton, Mississippi, a town of roughly 2,000 people about 100 miles southeast of Memphis, Tennessee, Mayor Mem Riley said the closing of the Walmart Express about 13 months after it opened cost the town about $24,000 a year in sales tax revenue, forcing the town to shelve its plan to improve its water and sewer services and parks.</p>
<p>"We had plans of doing infrastructure repair. We had those hopes, and then 'bam' it all disappears," Riley said.</p>
<p>In Luther, the youth football league now plays on the high school field, but instead of paying $1 per year rent to the city, the cost is $100 per game day, or about $500 per year, and the youth program no longer receives revenue from concession sales, a loss of about $1,200 each game day, according to Brian Wilson, president of the Little League Youth Football Association.</p>
<p>Birlene Langley, who was Luther's mayor when Walmart came knocking, said Walmart saved the town financially after it was discovered the town treasurer had failed to pay payroll taxes and was embezzling funds, a charge to which the former treasurer eventually pleaded guilty.</p>
<p>"The Walmart is what kept this town from going under," Langley said. "With Walmart, that was the best thing that ever happened to Luther. ... And then they just up and left."</p>
<p>Stung by company's departure, Langley said she vowed to never enter a Walmart again. But she now shops at a supercenter on Interstate 35 in Edmond, about 15 miles (24 kilometers) from Luther.</p>
<p>"Of course I said I'd never walk in one," after the store closed. "But there it is, right there on I-35, it's convenient," Langley said.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Follow Ken Miller on Twitter: <a href="https://twitter.com/KenMiller7" type="external">https://twitter.com/KenMiller7</a></p>
<p>LUTHER, Okla. (AP) — Luther sold its youth football field to Walmart about three years ago so that the company could build one of its Express stores, using the money from the sale and the new tax revenue to pay off the roughly $200,000 in debt that resulted from an embezzlement scandal involving the former town treasurer.</p>
<p>The store opened in May 2015 and closed only eight months later when Walmart pulled the plug on its Express experiment, shuttering all 102 of the smaller stores it had opened in mostly Southern and Midwestern towns to compete with dollar stores. Although many locations were taken over by Dollar General, the tax collections just don't measure up even though the Dollar General stores offer many of the same products, but not a pharmacy.</p>
<p>Tax collections in Luther, a town of about 1,600 on the outskirts of Oklahoma City, rose by $12,000 to $16,000 per month while the Express store was open, said City Manager Scherrie Pidcock. Since Dollar General opened in the larger building, the town's monthly revenue has recovered about two-thirds of the amount it was collecting with the Walmart Express, Pidcock said.</p>
<p>Luther has tried to pinch pennies any way it can. When its lone paid firefighter — the chief — quit the otherwise all-volunteer department in July, he was replaced by a volunteer, saving the town his roughly $2,800 a month salary. Mayor Jenni White, who took office a few months after the Walmart Express closed, said Luther had to put off buying two new police cars.</p>
<p>"We're just trying to go slowly, moving forward and not overspend the budget," White said. "It's what do we need, not what do we want."</p>
<p>Walmart closed its Express locations because of the demand of customers, who wanted more than the 12,000-square-foot stores could offer, according to Anne Hatfield, a spokeswoman for the Bentonville, Arkansas-based company.</p>
<p>"What we learned from the Express stores was that our customers still wanted to shop at the supercenters," Hatfield said. "The customers ... were travelling to the other (supercenter) stores," which, at an average of 187,000-square-feet, sell a full range of groceries, clothing, household and sporting goods, and basic automotive services.</p>
<p>In most of the towns where Dollar General took over the Express locations, it closed an existing smaller Dollar General store and employs about half the 30 workers the Walmart Expresses did.</p>
<p>Dollar General also simply doesn't generate the level of business of Walmart, said Craig Johnson, president of Customer Growth Partners, a retail consulting and research firm.</p>
<p>"Reason number one, Walmart was selling fresh," Johnson said, referring to produce and meats. "Dollar General ... I just don't think they do a good job on it" by displaying items that do not always "appear" fresh, Johnson said.</p>
<p>The disappearance of the Walmart Express pharmacy, which in many towns were the only pharmacies, has also played a role by reducing the number of customers entering the Dollar General stores.</p>
<p>"The pharmacy ... made customers come to the stores to fill purchases," Johnson said. "There's less people visiting store, and mathematically if there's less people in the store, there are less purchases being made," of various other items.</p>
<p>In Nettleton, Mississippi, a town of roughly 2,000 people about 100 miles southeast of Memphis, Tennessee, Mayor Mem Riley said the closing of the Walmart Express about 13 months after it opened cost the town about $24,000 a year in sales tax revenue, forcing the town to shelve its plan to improve its water and sewer services and parks.</p>
<p>"We had plans of doing infrastructure repair. We had those hopes, and then 'bam' it all disappears," Riley said.</p>
<p>In Luther, the youth football league now plays on the high school field, but instead of paying $1 per year rent to the city, the cost is $100 per game day, or about $500 per year, and the youth program no longer receives revenue from concession sales, a loss of about $1,200 each game day, according to Brian Wilson, president of the Little League Youth Football Association.</p>
<p>Birlene Langley, who was Luther's mayor when Walmart came knocking, said Walmart saved the town financially after it was discovered the town treasurer had failed to pay payroll taxes and was embezzling funds, a charge to which the former treasurer eventually pleaded guilty.</p>
<p>"The Walmart is what kept this town from going under," Langley said. "With Walmart, that was the best thing that ever happened to Luther. ... And then they just up and left."</p>
<p>Stung by company's departure, Langley said she vowed to never enter a Walmart again. But she now shops at a supercenter on Interstate 35 in Edmond, about 15 miles (24 kilometers) from Luther.</p>
<p>"Of course I said I'd never walk in one," after the store closed. "But there it is, right there on I-35, it's convenient," Langley said.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Follow Ken Miller on Twitter: <a href="https://twitter.com/KenMiller7" type="external">https://twitter.com/KenMiller7</a></p> | Small-town budgets hurting from loss of mini Walmarts | false | https://apnews.com/amp/88626a4188414e7e8a5e8ffa189df210 | 2018-01-20 | 2 |
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<p>The Collected Sermons of Walter Brueggemann (WJK)</p>
<p>It’s unusual to encounter a top-tier academic theologian who can also preach. Brueggemann is one of these strange creatures. In this volume, gathering sermons from 1972-2009, we encounter the world where the text lives. In these pages, we find a mind keenly attuned to the actual narrative of Scripture (an increasingly rare thing in our world) coupled with a heart richly infused with the belief that God speaks now.</p>
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<p>Cross-Shattered Christ, Stanley Hauerwas (Brazos Press)</p>
<p>As we conclude Lent and Holy Week, Hauerwas’s meditations on Jesus’ final seven words serve to ground us in the crushing reality of the Cross. Hauerwas says that he found “writing these meditations hard and difficult, [and] I hope that those who read them will find reading them hard and difficult.” I plan to soak in these during Holy Week. Perhaps you will join me.</p>
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<p>The Grey, Starring Liam Neeson</p>
<p>Based on a short story, The Grey is an adventure thriller set in the Alaska wilderness. After their plane goes down in the frozen wild, the few survivors attempt to find their way out while being stalked by wolves. This is no feel-good flick, but it narrates the story of a man stretched to his limits. There is one scene, near the end, where Neeson rants at the sky and demands God to show up. It’s certain to provide fodder for conversation.</p>
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<p>Winn Collier is pastor of All Souls, a Baptist congregation in Charlottesville, Va., the author of three books and a columnist. ( <a href="http://www.winncollier.com/" type="external">www.winncollier.com</a>)</p> | WINN RECOMMENDS | false | https://baptistnews.com/article/winnrecommends-5/ | 3 |
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<p>As the battle over <a href="" type="internal">financial regulatory reform</a> continues on Capitol Hill, the <a href="" type="internal">US Chamber of Commerce</a> is rallying behind an amendment to the Senate’s bill—one of more than <a href="" type="internal">125 proposed amendments</a>—that would exempt a large chunk of companies who use <a href="http://pogoblog.typepad.com/pogo/2010/01/will-the-senate-close-the-derivatives-loopholes.html" type="external">derivatives</a>, the complex financial products used to hedge risk but also to recklessly gamble on fluctuations in, say, the housing market. Yesterday, the Chamber <a href="http://www.uschamber.com/issues/letters/2010/100511sa3816.htm" type="external">sent a letter</a>, cosigned by trade groups from the oil, manufacturing, financial services, and real estate industries, backing an amendment <a href="http://thehill.com/blogs/on-the-money/banking-financial-institutions/96175-chambliss-drafts-substitute-derivatives-legislation" type="external">offered</a> by Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) exempting from regulation <a href="http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/05/exempting_end-users_--_or_not.html" type="external">“end-users” of derivatives</a>—the utilities, farmers, oil titans ( <a href="" type="internal">like BP</a>), airlines, and other companies who use derivatives to hedge risk. The letter claims that between 100,000 and 120,000 jobs could be lost because, as the bill looks now, it would require these end-users to set aside cash and other collateral for trading through the more transparent, safer <a href="http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/04/explaining_financial_regulatio_1.html" type="external">derivatives clearinghouse</a> proposed by Senate lawmakers.</p>
<p>That end-user exemption is opposed by the Senate’s architect of financial reform, Sen Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.), by many Senate Democrats, and by top administration officials like Gary Gensler, chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, who says ( <a href="http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&amp;source=web&amp;ct=res&amp;cd=2&amp;ved=0CB0QFjAB&amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cftc.gov%2Fucm%2Fgroups%2Fpublic%2F%40newsroom%2Fdocuments%2Fspeechandtestimony%2Fopagensler-32.pdf&amp;ei=j7zqS9PUNY3QtAPK3uTFBw&amp;usg=AFQjCNGWayQwB_fCGpwYWHhvFoJ7BnB7JA&amp;sig2=i9tEKhepJy7MAzSlBQ_c_w" type="external">pdf</a>) there should be no exemptions in derivatives regulation. Supporters of complete derivatives transparency cite reports like this one ( <a href="http://calculatedriskimages.blogspot.com/2010/05/unemployed-over-26-weeks-april-2010.html" type="external">pdf</a>), from the Congressional Research Service, which says that a broad end-user exemption could essentially gut new regulations altogether. CRS found that nearly two-thirds of derivatives trades involve an end-user, and “[i]f all end users are exempted from the requirement that OTC swaps be cleared, the market structure problems raised by AIG still remain.” In other words, it would be the loophole that ate the rule.</p>
<p>The job losses figure cited by the Chamber is undoubtedly cause for concern; no one wants to proactively cut jobs, especially with the 9.9 percent unemployment rate we have now. (An aside: I’m trying to track down the actual report on job losses used by the Chamber to make sure it’s been cited accurately—and not twisted to fit an agenda. I haven’t found it yet, but rest assured I am digging into this.) Then again, the out of control over-the-counter derivatives market played a huge role in the financial crisis—a meltdown that’s caused millions of Americans to lose their jobs and their homes. A <a href="http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2010/05/employment-population-ratio-part-time.html" type="external">record 6.72 million workers</a> who want to work have been unemployed for 26 weeks or more, the highest since the government started counting this figure in 1948; that number began its vertiginous climb in—you guessed it—the fall of 2008, when Wall Street crumbled.</p>
<p>Even if the Chamber is right to say tough derivatives regulation will result in the loss of jobs, you have to look at the bigger picture and broader gains here. 100,000 jobs is tough to swallow. But tougher still is not fixing the derivatives markets and setting the stage for the next meltdown—and the millions of job losses that come with it.</p>
<p /> | Chamber Cheers Derivatives Loophole | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2010/05/chamber-cheers-derivatives-loophole/ | 2010-05-12 | 4 |
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<p>PITTSBURGH — Bruno Mars has met the man he’s nicknamed after: former pro wrestling champion Bruno Sammartino.</p>
<p>The two met Tuesday night when the pop singing sensation’s 24K Magic World Tour stopped in Pittsburgh.</p>
<p>Sammartino heard through friends that Mars, born Peter Gene Hernandez, was nicknamed “Bruno” by his father because he was a “chunky” baby. The wrestling legend — now 81 — was about 275 pounds in his prime and the favorite wrestler of Mars’ father.</p>
<p>Sammartino told The Associated Press on Wednesday that he didn’t know much about Mars before the meeting, but came away “extremely impressed.”</p>
<p>“I hope he’s like that in everyday life. He was the most humble, nicest guy,” Sammartino said. “He couldn’t have been more respectful.”</p>
<p>Sammartino jokingly gave Mars a picture of himself in his wrestling “prime” to prove he was more muscular than chunky, and a replica of his championship belt from what was then known as the World-Wide Wrestling Federation. The group is now known as World Wrestling Entertainment, or WWE.</p>
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<p>Mars posted a picture of the meeting on Instagram saying, “I was nicknamed after this professional wrestler Bruno Sammartino. Tonight in Pittsburgh I had the honor of meeting him!”</p>
<p>Mars, 31, told the website RapUP in a May 2010 interview that his dad nicknamed him for the wrestler.</p>
<p>“Bruno is after Bruno Sammartino, who was this big fat wrestler. I guess I was this chunky little baby, so my dad used to call me that as a nickname,” Mars said. “The Mars came up just because I felt like I didn’t have no pizzazz, and a lot of girls say I’m out of this world, so I was like ‘I guess I’m from Mars.'”</p>
<p>Sammartino said Mars got curious enough about his career to check out clips of him in YouTube. He told Sammartino that he planned to chat with his father about the meeting.</p>
<p>“He told me, ‘You know, I called my dad and told him I was going to meet with you today and he was so excited,” Sammartino said</p> | Bruno Mars meets source of nickname: Bruno Sammartino | false | https://abqjournal.com/1052196/bruno-mars-meets-source-of-nickname-bruno-sammartino.html | 2017-08-23 | 2 |
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<p>The strict moratoriums, which start Tuesday, give federal health officials unprecedented power to choose any region and industry with high fraud activity, and ban new Medicare and Medicaid providers from joining the programs for six months. They wouldn’t ban existing providers.</p>
<p>The administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said the agency is targeting providers of home health care in eight counties in the Miami and Chicago areas. All ambulance providers would be banned in eight counties in the Houston area.</p>
<p>The moratorium, which was first reported by The Associated Press, will also extend to Children’s Health Insurance Program providers in the same areas, agency administrator Marilyn Tavenner said in a statement.</p>
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<p>It’s unclear how many providers will be shut out of the programs.</p>
<p>There were 662 home health agencies in Miami-Dade in 2012 and the ratio of home health agencies to Medicare beneficiaries was 1,960 percent greater in Miami Dade County than other counties, according to figures from federal health officials.</p>
<p>South Florida, long known as ground-zero for Medicare fraud, has also had several high-profile prosecutions involving that industry.</p>
<p>In February, the owners and operators of two Miami home health agencies were sentenced for their participation in a $48 million Medicare fraud scheme.</p>
<p>The number of home health providers in Cook County, Ill., increased from 301 to 509 between 2008 and 2012. There were 275 ambulance suppliers in Harris County, Texas, in 2012. The ratio of providers to patients in both regions was also several hundred times greater than in other counties, federal health officials said.</p>
<p>Top Senate Republicans have criticized the agency for not using the powerful moratoriums sooner as a tool to combat an estimated $60 billion a year in Medicare fraud. Senators Chuck Grassley, who is the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee, and Orrin Hatch, the ranking Republican on the Finance Committee, sent a letter to federal health officials in 2011 urging them to use the bans.</p>
<p>“While it’s certainly better late than never, it’s unfortunate that it took CMS three years to use the tools it’s had to protect seniors,” Hatch said in a statement Friday, adding he hoped “to see more action like this.”</p>
<p>Officials for the Department of Health and Services inspector general lobbied hard to ensure moratorium power was included under the Affordable Care Act as the Obama administration focuses on cleaning up fraud on the front end by preventing crooks from getting into the program in the first place.</p>
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<p>“There’s no shortage of bad actors to defraud the taxpayers, and the number gets bigger all the time, so it’s good to see the administration at last using this new tool to fight fraud,” Grassley said in a statement.</p>
<p>In the past, federal health officials tried to stall new provider applications from being processed, hoping to slow the number flocking to high-fraud sectors. But when providers inevitably complained, the agency had to process their paperwork.</p>
<p>The federal agency can also revoke the IDs of suspicious providers, but those are temporary and many companies are able to re-enroll later or enroll under a different name.</p>
<p>Federal health officials have been reluctant to use one of their most powerful new tools, worrying moratoriums may harm legitimate providers and hamper patients’ access to care. Tavenner said in the statement that would not happen, but the agency didn’t elaborate. Agency officials said they intend to consider other moratoriums in different industries in other cities going forward.</p>
<p>The ability to target certain industries and cities is especially helpful as Medicare fraud has morphed into complex schemes over the years, moving from medical equipment and HIV infusion fraud to ambulance scams as crooks try to stay one step ahead of authorities. Fraudsters have also spread out across the country, bringing their scams to new cities once authorities catch onto them.</p>
<p>The scams have also grown more sophisticated, using recruiters who are paid kickbacks for finding patients, while doctors, nurses and company owners coordinate to appear to deliver medical services that they are not.</p>
<p>The moratoriums come as budget cuts are forcing federal health officials to retract its watchdog arm as it launches its largest health care expansion since the Medicare program.</p>
<p>Health and Human Services inspector general officials said they are in the process of cutting staff by 20 percent, from 1,800 at its peak to 1,400, and cancelling several high-profile projects, including an audit that would have investigated technology security in the federal and state health exchanges launching in October. The project was slated to examine issues including whether patient information was secure from hackers in the online marketplace, where individuals and small businesses can shop for health insurance.</p>
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<p /> | Feds ban some Medicare providers | false | https://abqjournal.com/226335/feds-ban-some-medicare-providers.html | 2013-07-27 | 2 |
<p>Oil futures inched lower in electronic trading Wednesday after the American Petroleum Institute reported a 2.7 million-barrel rise in U.S. crude supplies for the week ended Oct. 7, according to sources. Analysts polled by S&amp;P Global Platts forecast an increase of 250,000 barrels in stockpiles. Total crude stocks of 479.9 million barrels "reflect the same accounting adjustment to remove lease stocks from the total planned for tomorrow's [Energy Information Administration] report," said Tim Evans, energy analyst at Citi Futures. The EIA data will be released Thursday. Data was delayed by one day this week due to Monday's government holiday. November crude was at $50.09 a barrel in electronic trading, down from the contract’s settlement of $50.18 on the New York Mercantile Exchange.</p>
<p>Copyright © 2016 MarketWatch, Inc.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p> | Oil Futures Inch Lower As Sources Say API Data Show U.S. Crude Supply Up 2.7 Million Barrels | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/10/12/oil-futures-inch-lower-as-sources-say-api-data-show-us-crude-supply-up-27.html | 2016-10-12 | 0 |
<p>Jan. 11 (UPI) — Israeli Prime Minister <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Benjamin_Netanyahu/" type="external">Benjamin Netanyahu</a> on Thursday called for a law against leaking recordings as his son faces scrutiny for comments he made about strippers and a business deal worth billions.</p>
<p>The leader’s son, Yair Netanyahu, is heard in an <a href="https://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2018/01/09/Taped-remarks-by-Israeli-PMs-son-add-controversy-to-corruption-scandal/2311515500514/" type="external">audio recording</a> suggesting his friend, Ori Maimon, should give him money to tip a dancer because Benjamin Netanyahu pushed through a deal benefiting his father, gas tycoon Kobi Maimon.</p>
<p>“My dad set up 20 billion dollars for your dad, and you’re fighting with me about 400 shekels?” Yair Netanyahu said.</p>
<p>News organization Hadashot paid $15,000 for the audio recording, though a number of news organizations refused to pay for it.</p>
<p>During a Cabinet meeting Thursday, Prime Minister Netanyahu told Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked that <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/netanyahu-orders-legislative-action-after-sons-tape-leaked/" type="external">there should be an investigation</a> into the legality of leaking such recordings.</p>
<p>“It is wrong for there to be no system protecting us,” Benjamin Netanyahu said. “It is time for your justice system to start acting and defending us. This is serious. It happened today with Yair Netanyahu and tomorrow it will happen to [Culture Minister Miri] Regev, to [Finance Minister Moshe] Kahlon and to others.”</p>
<p>Speaking at a news conference with Shaked, the prime minister said the media “ <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.834299" type="external">crossed a line</a>” by paying for and airing the secret conversation. Shaked said the government could pass a law to prohibit such recordings from being made.</p>
<p>Israeli law dictates that only one party must give consent in order to make recordings legal.</p>
<p>“We can’t be hostages. We are being threatened, and they are even trying to profit from selling it to the media. We can’t become punching bags to be attacked at any given moment,” Regev said.</p>
<p>Yair Netanyahu, 26, issued an apology, saying his remarks were made while he was drinking and did not represent his values.</p>
<p>The remarks by Yair Netanyahu now adds fuel to a fire at a time when the prime minister is the subject of two corruption investigations.</p>
<p>On Thursday, state attorney Shai Nitzan said <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/state-attorney-hopes-police-will-submit-netanyahu-recommendations-within-weeks/" type="external">he hopes</a> authorities will give their recommendations into the corruption investigations within the coming weeks.</p>
<p>“Any absurd claims that the investigation is being delayed deliberately are false,” he said. “If you believe investigating a prime minister is simple, that is a false assumption.”</p>
<p>The probe “is not dictated by any political interests, and we will do what needs to be done.”</p> | Israel’s Netanyahu suggests law against leaked recordings | false | https://newsline.com/israels-netanyahu-suggests-law-against-leaked-recordings/ | 2018-01-12 | 1 |
<p />
<p>Now reports are coming out that a maintenance worker had warned hotel dispatchers to call police and report a gunman, before Paddock even had the chance to open fire on the crowd. This goes directly against the police and mainstream media’s narrative, where they claim that they acted as quickly as possible.</p>
<p>Dozens of contradictions have emerged over the past two weeks, as the internet has aided us in our quest for the truth. Raw footage of the shooting has emerged, which some have suggested shows that there are multiple shooters. Others, such as Navy Seal Craig Sawyer, say that a basic audio analysis reveals multiple shooters as well.</p>
<p>Now however, a maintenance man at Mandalay Bay hotel has spoken out, and his words are shocking Americans. “Call the police, someone’s firing a gun up here! Someone’s firing a rifle on the 32nd floor down the hallway!”</p>
<p>Stephen Schuck was checking on a report of a jammed fire door on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay hotel when he stumbled onto the deadliest mass shooter in all of US history. Suddenly, he heard gunshots and saw a security guard who’d been shot in the leg. “Take cover!” the guard yelled.</p>
<p>“As soon as I started to go to a door to my left the rounds started coming down the hallway,” Schuck said. “I could feel them pass right behind my head.” Schuck immediately warned hotel management to call the police and report an active shooter, yet for some reason, they weren’t able to stop Stephen Paddock from murdering 48 people and injuring hundreds more.</p>
<p>That is likely because hotel staff waited several more minutes to call police and report the shooter, authorities now say.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/worker-warned-hotel-before-las-vegas-shooter-opened-fire-on-crowd/" type="external">CBS</a> reports:</p>
<p>LAS VEGAS —&#160;A maintenance worker said Wednesday he told hotel dispatchers to call police and report a gunman had opened fire with a rifle inside the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino hotel before the shooter began firing from his high-rise suite into a crowd at a nearby musical performance.</p>
<p>The&#160; <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/las-vegas-shooting-massacre-timeline-shift-questions-stephen-paddock/" type="external">revised timeline has renewed questions</a>&#160;about whether better communication might have allowed police to respond more quickly and take out the gunman before he committed the&#160; <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/feature/las-vegas-shooting/" type="external">deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history</a>.</p>
<p>Worker Stephen Schuck says he was checking out a report of a jammed fire door on the 32nd floor of Mandalay Bay when he heard gunshots and a hotel security guard, who had been shot in the leg, peeked out from an alcove and told him to take cover.</p>
<p>“As soon as I started to go to a door to my left the rounds started coming down the hallway,” Schuck said. “I could feel them pass right behind my head.</p>
<p>“It was kind of relentless so I called over the radio what was going on,” he said. “As soon as the shooting stopped we made our way down the hallway and took cover again and then the shooting started again.”</p>
<p>Police said Monday they believe gunman&#160; <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/stephen-paddock-used-hotel-freight-elevator-before-attack-las-vegas/" type="external">Stephen Paddock</a>&#160;shot a hotel security guard through the door of his suite six minutes before he unleashed a barrage of bullets into the crowd of concert-goers, killing 58 people and injuring hundreds more.</p>
<p>Reports are also confirming that the injured guard used his radio, and possibly a hallway phone, to call hotel dispatchers for help. In total, it appears that the hotel received two separate warnings BEFORE Stephen Paddock opened fire, yet somehow he was able to carry out the deadliest mass shooting in all of US history.</p>
<p>This account differs drastically from the one which police gave last week, where they said that Paddock fired at the security guard AFTER shooting into the crowd. How could police and the FBI, who are supposed to be the best of the best, get this simple detail wrong? Many are beginning to question this shooting.</p> | BOMBSHELL: Worker Alerted Hotel BEFORE Las Vegas Shooter Opened Fire | true | http://silenceisconsent.net/bombshell-worker-alerted-hotel-las-vegas-shooter-opened-fire/ | 2018-05-06 | 0 |
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<p />
<p>The bill, posted this week on the Navajo Nation Council’s website, proposes that the tribe lease 12,766 acres of farm land to Pumpkin Patch Fundraisers Inc. and Upland Desert Popcorn LLC.</p>
<p>In addition to the land, the companies would lease additional sites, facilities, irrigation equipment, water and utilities from NAPI.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Both companies have previously leased land from NAPI. Pumpkin Patch has been operating at the farm since 1991, and Upland Desert Popcorn began in 2001.</p>
<p>The contract between the companies and NAPI was set to expire on Dec. 31, 2016, and NAPI planned to use the land to grow wheat to supply its new flour mill company, according to The Daily Times archives.</p>
<p>Pumpkin Patch co-owner John Hamby said in an email that the contract with NAPI allows the companies to remain on site through October in order to complete the processing of last year’s crops.</p>
<p>NAPI CEO Wilton Charley could not be reached for comment.</p>
<p>Delegate Leonard Tsosie is sponsoring the bill, which has been assigned to the Resources and Development Committee. The committee has final authority to approve and authorize the lease between the tribe and both companies for 15 years starting this year, according to the bill.</p>
<p>The proposed lease agreement is attached to the bill, and it states the companies would pay the tribe a flat annual lease of $150 per acre, and NAPI cannot impose any additional payments.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>In a telephone interview, Tsosie called Pumpkin Patch Fundraisers and Upland Desert Popcorn “good neighbors,” explaining that both have provided job opportunities and economic development throughout the years. He said when he served on the Resources and Development Committee, he encouraged NAPI to extend its business relationship with the companies.</p>
<p>The legislation states the tribe established NAPI as a tribal enterprise in 1970 to operate the Navajo Indian Irrigation Project and to manage an agricultural business.</p>
<p>It further states NAPI has no leasing authority and has not submitted a lease management plan to the tribe for consideration, implementation or approval, and under the Navajo Nation Trust Land Leasing Act of 2000, the tribe can issue leases without the approval of the U.S. Department of the Interior Secretary.</p>
<p>Tsosie said because of that information, the tribe has authority over the use of the land.</p>
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<p /> | Bill proposes lease for pumpkins, popcorn | false | https://abqjournal.com/941058/bill-proposes-lease-for-pumpkins-popcorn.html | 2 |
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<p>In this episode of “Hometown Baghdad,” Adel, Ausama and Saif comment on the violence that has become so commonplace a daylong gun battle feels more like an inconvenience than cause for alarm.</p>
<p>For those unfamiliar with this Web series, <a href="http://www.hometownbaghdad.com/" type="external">“Hometown Baghdad”</a> is an outstanding documentary that follows three young Iraqis.</p>
<p>Watch it:</p>
<p />
<p /> | Symphony of Bullets | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/symphony-of-bullets/ | 2007-04-03 | 4 |
<p>A baby walrus was rescued in Alaska after being stranded.</p>
<p>The adorable calf was found near Barrow, Alaska after it was separated from a larger group as they floated on rapidly moving sea ice.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hyHi75u6f9IAtIjcOQcPanz0_rDw?docId=760318882e054b118862aa6511ef0108" type="external">According to the Associated Press</a>, the male calf is about four to six weeks old.</p>
<p>It is now being cared for at the Alaska SeaLife Center in Seward.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2180159/Stranded-walrus-calf-rescued-Alaska-fisherman-spot-lagoon.html?ito=feeds-newsxml" type="external">The Daily Mail reported</a> that local fisherman saw the calf in the lagoon by itself and caught it.</p>
<p>It is not clear whether it will be released back into the wild.</p>
<p />
<p /> | Stranded walrus calf is rescued in Alaska lagoon (VIDEO) | false | https://pri.org/stories/2012-07-28/stranded-walrus-calf-rescued-alaska-lagoon-video | 2012-07-28 | 3 |
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<p>If adopted, the regulations drafted by the California Department of Motor Vehicles would protect these carmakers from lawsuits in cases where vehicles haven’t been maintained according to manufacturer specifications.</p>
<p>That could open a loophole for automakers to skirt responsibility for accidents, injuries and deaths caused by defective autonomous vehicles, said Armand Feliciano, vice president for the Association of California Insurance Companies. For instance, manufacturers might avoid liability if the tires on self-driving cars are slightly underinflated or even if the oil hasn’t been changed as regularly as manufacturers suggest, he said.</p>
<p>“When is the last time you followed everything that is listed in your car manual?” Feliciano said.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>The California DMV declined to comment on its proposed regulations because they’re still being finalized.</p>
<p>PAVING THE WAY FOR AUTONOMOUS CARS</p>
<p>Determining liability for self-driving cars is just one of the many hurdles that still must be addressed as dozens of automakers and technology companies expand their tests of robotic vehicles cruising public roads scattered across the U.S. Some of these companies are hoping to deploy their self-driving vehicles in ride-hailing services and eventually sell them to consumers within the next few years.</p>
<p>As biggest testing ground for self-driving cars, California is being viewed as a bellwether for how other states might sculpt their regulations down the road.</p>
<p>The section addressing the limits of automakers’ liability adopts much of the wording proposed in an April 24 letter to the DMV from Paul Hemmersbaugh, formerly chief counsel for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and now chief counsel for the General Motors division overseeing self-driving cars.</p>
<p>Consumer Watchdog, an activist group frequently critical of business interests, believes Hemmersbaugh plied the connections he made at the California DMV while working at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to insert the clause that could make it easier for self-driving carmakers to avoid liability.</p>
<p>“It is the result of the ongoing and troubling federal revolving door between the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the auto industry,” Consumer Watchdog officials wrote in a letter sent Tuesday to the DMV and the head of the transportation overseeing the agency.</p>
<p>“MORAL HAZARD”</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Under current law, automakers can still be held liable for faulty equipment or other flaws in vehicles that require a human driver, even if the owners haven’t followed all the maintenance instructions.</p>
<p>That would change if the DMV’s proposed regulations go on the books as is, warned the Consumer Attorneys of California, a professional association of trial lawyers.</p>
<p>“This language creates a dangerous ‘moral hazard’ where manufacturers are encouraged to create unreasonable or impossible maintenance specifications to shift the burden onto (self-driving car) consumers or the public at large for technological failures,” the trade group wrote in its Oct. 25 comments to the DMV.</p>
<p>GM spokeswoman Laura Toole lauded the “transparency” of the DMV’s process. Dozens of parties also submitted comments and recommendations, leaving it to the DMV’s staff to decide which to include in the agency’s proposed rules, she said.</p>
<p>RULES FOR ROBOTS</p>
<p>In his April 24 letter, Hemmersbaugh linked his recommendations to concerns that self-driving carmakers might be held responsible for all vehicle problems “without taking into account the acts of intervening parties and other factors that contributed to an incident.”</p>
<p>Self-driving cars are being touted as safer alternative to vehicles operated by humans who get drunk or distracted. But accidents are still bound to happen, and some are likely to be caused by equipment defects, said Jacqueline Serna, legislative attorney for the Consumer Attorneys of California. And when that happens, she said, it should be left to the courts to draw the lines of liability.</p>
<p>“The courts have dealt with new technology in the past and they are equipped to do it again,” Serna said.</p>
<p>The issue could end up in court if the DMV doesn’t revise the current wording of its regulations. Consumer Watchdog says it will sue if the current regulations are approved and insurance trade groups say they may take legal action, too.</p> | California may limit liability of self-driving carmakers | false | https://abqjournal.com/1093276/california-may-limit-liability-of-self-driving-carmakers.html | 2017-11-15 | 2 |
<p>Last week, Wikileaks <a href="" type="internal">published</a> an email from then-CNN contributor Donna Brazile, now DNC chairwoman, giving the Hillary Clinton campaign a question before a town hall event. On Wednesday night, after the presidential debate, Fox News host Megyn Kelly <a href="http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2016/10/19/megyn_kelly_vs_donna_brazile_did_you_receive_debate_question_beforehand_brazile_i_will_not_be_persecuted.html" type="external">confronted</a> Brazile over the email. Brazile denied she did this and quickly played victim:</p>
<p>MEGYN KELLY: You’re accused of receiving a debate question whether a CNN town hall where they partnered with TV One that you had this question on March 12th, that verbatim, verbatim was provided by Roland Martin to CNN the next day. How did you get that question, Donna?</p>
<p>DONNA BRAZILE: Well, Kelly, as I play straight up and with you, I did not receive any questions from CNN.</p>
<p />
<p />
<p>Here is the email in question:</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal" /></p>
<p>The two women continued:</p>
<p>KELLY: Where did you get it.</p>
<p>BRAZILE: What information? Allow me to see what you’re talking about?</p>
<p>KELLY: You’ve got the Wikileaks showing you messaging the Clinton campaign at the March 13th CNN debate.</p>
<p>BRAZILE: As a Christian woman, I understand persecution. your information is false. What you’re — well, for suggestive e-mails were stolen. You’re interested and you’re like a thief that wants to bring into the night the things that.</p>
<p>Kelly reminded Brazile that the email troubled CNN’s Jake Tapper, who found the incident unethical. He co-hosted the town hall debate with Roland Martin, who allegedly sent an email to CNN producers with three questions, including the death penalty one:</p>
<p>KELLY: CNN’ Jake Tapper said this was unethical. Someone was unethically helping the Clinton campaign. He said this is very, very upsetting.</p>
<p>BRAZILE: I love CNN</p>
<p>KELLY: This is Jake Tapper: ‘My understand is that the e-mails came from Roland Martin and said this is very upsetting and troubling.’</p>
<p>That is your old colleague at CNN not Megyn Kelly. Who gave you that question?</p>
<p>BRAZILE: Megyn, I’ll say it on the record. I’m not going to try to validate falsified information. I have my documents. I have my files. Thank God I have not had my personal e-mails ripped off from me and stolen and given to some criminals to come back altered. I have my records and files. And as i said repeatedly, CNN, I never received anything.</p>
<p>Martin’s email contained the same question as Brazile, word for word. At first he denied sending questions to everyone, but admitted he sent it to the producers while CNN claimed no one gave Brazile or anyone the <a href="http://www.politico.com/blogs/on-media/2016/10/roland-martin-cnn-email-donna-brazile-wikileaks-229673" type="external">questions</a>:</p>
<p>“As far as consultation, I don’t believe I did. I know I asked all of my social media followers for their input on what they wanted me to ask. I did the same for the Hillary Clinton town hall we did in South Carolina in 2014. And I know that I called Rep. Clyburn to lock down language on his 10-20-30 amendment. That is an issue I’ve pushed for several years. I also know I called other members of Congress to ask them specific questions about their various bills and their status. All of that informed my questions. That’s called research,” Martin wrote.</p>
<p>But he did not explain how Brazile could have had the same exact language of a proposed question a day before he submitted them to CNN producers. CNN, in turn, is pointing the finger at TV One.</p>
<p>“As we have said since news of this broke, CNN did not share any questions with Donna Brazile, or anyone else for that matter, prior to the town hall,” a CNN spokesperson said in an email to POLITICO. “Given that our broadcast partners for the town hall at TV One sent this question to us the day AFTER it appeared in Donna’s email, we have every reason to believe it came from them.”</p>
<p>It turns out, a man named Ricky Jackson planned to ask Hillary that question at the March 13 CNN town hall. A court wrongly convicted him of murder in 1975 when he was only a teenager. From <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2016/10/11/then-cnn-contributor-donna-brazile-to-clinton-camp-sometimes-i-get-the-questions-in-advance/?utm_term=.476998b76640" type="external">The Washington Post</a>:</p>
<p>His exoneration came after spending 39 years in prison. His question for Clinton: “I came perilously close to my own execution, and in light of that, what I have just shared with you and in light of the fact that there are documented cases of innocent people who have been executed in our country, I would like to know, how can you still take your stance on the death penalty in light of what we know right now?”</p>
<p>Clinton responded at length, expressing a lack of confidence that the states could capably manage the ultimate penalty. However: “Where I end up is this, and maybe it is distinction that is hard to support, but at this point, given the challenges we face from terrorist activities primarily in our country that end up under federal jurisdiction for very limited purposes, I think that it can still be held in reserve for those,” said the candidate.</p> | Megyn Kelly Grills Donna Brazile Over Giving Question to Hillary Campaign | true | http://legalinsurrection.com/2016/10/megyn-kelly-grills-donna-brazile-over-death-penalty-question/ | 2016-10-20 | 0 |
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<p>WASHINGTON — Reversing his past calls for a speedy exit, President Donald Trump recommitted the United States to the 16-year-old war in Afghanistan Monday night, declaring U.S. troops must “fight to win.” He pointedly declined to disclose how many more troops will be dispatched to wage America’s longest war.</p>
<p>In a prime-time address to unveil his new Afghanistan strategy, Trump said the U.S. would shift away from a “time-based” approach, instead linking its assistance to results and to cooperation from the beleaguered Afghan government, Pakistan and others. He insisted it would be a “regional” strategy that addressed the roles played by other South Asian nations — especially Pakistan’s harboring of elements of the Taliban.</p>
<p>“America will work with the Afghan government as long as we see determination and progress,” Trump said. “However, our commitment is not unlimited, and our support is not a blank check.”</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Still, Trump offered few details about how progress would be measured. Nor did he explain how his approach would differ substantively from what two presidents before him tried unsuccessfully over the past 16 years.</p>
<p>Although Trump insisted he would “not talk about numbers of troops” or telegraph military moves in advance, he hinted that he’d embraced the Pentagon’s proposal to boost troop numbers by nearly 4,000, augmenting the roughly 8,400 Americans there now.</p>
<p>Before becoming a candidate, Trump had ardently argued for a quick withdrawal from Afghanistan, calling the war a massive waste of U.S. “blood and treasure” and declaring on Twitter, “Let’s get out!” Seven months into his presidency, he said Monday night that though his “original instinct was to pull out,” he’d since determined that approach could create a vacuum that terrorists including al-Qaida and the Islamic State would “instantly fill.”</p>
<p>“We will ask our NATO allies and global partners to support our new strategy, with additional troop and funding increases in line with our own. We are confident they will,” Trump said in comments echoed by Defense Secretary Jim Mattis.</p>
<p>Earlier this year, Trump announced he was entrusting Mattis and the military with the decision about how many troops would be needed. In talking points sent Monday to congressional Republicans and supportive groups, the White House affirmed that the troop numbers were up to Mattis and added that the administration wasn’t seeking more money from Congress for the strategy in the current fiscal year, which concludes at the end of next month.</p>
<p>While Trump stressed his strategy was about more than just the military, he was vague on other “instruments of American power” he said would be deployed in full force to lead Afghanistan toward peace, such as economic development or new engagement with Pakistan and India. Absent military specifics, it was difficult to assess how his plan might dissolve the stalemate between the Taliban and the Afghan government.</p>
<p>On one point — the definition of victory — Trump was unequivocal. He said American troops would “fight to win” by attacking enemies, “crushing” al-Qaida, preventing terror attacks against Americans and “obliterating” the Islamic State group, whose affiliate has gained a foothold in Afghanistan as the U.S. squeezes the extremists in Syria and Iraq.</p>
<p>Trump’s definition of a win notably did not include defeating the Taliban, the group whose harboring of al-Qaida led the U.S. to war in Afghanistan in the days after the 9/11 attacks. Like President Barack Obama before him, Trump conceded that any solution that brings peace to Afghanistan may well involve the Taliban’s participation.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>“Someday, after an effective military effort, perhaps it will be possible to have a political settlement that includes elements of the Taliban in Afghanistan,” Trump said. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, in a statement after the speech, said the U.S. was ready to support peace talks with the Taliban “without preconditions.”</p>
<p>Talk of future Taliban reconciliation was one of several echoes of Obama woven into Trump’s plan. Like Trump, Obama insisted near the start of his presidency that the “days of providing a blank check are over,” urged a regional approach and said U.S. assistance would be based on performance.</p>
<p>Still, Trump was intent on differentiating his approach from his predecessors — at least in rhetoric. He emphasized there would be no timelines, no hamstringing of the military and no divorcing of Afghanistan from the region’s broader problems.</p>
<p>One step being considered to further squeeze Pakistan is to cut foreign aid programs unless Islamabad clamps down on the Taliban and an associated group known as the Haqqani network, senior administration officials told reporters ahead of Trump’s speech. Using civilian and military aid as a pressure lever with the Pakistanis has been tried for years.</p>
<p>Trump’s speech concluded a months-long internal debate within his administration over whether to pull back from the Afghanistan conflict, as he and a few advisers were inclined to do, or to embroil the U.S. further in a war that has eluded American solutions for the past 16 years. Several times, officials predicted he was nearing a decision to adopt his commanders’ recommendations, only to see the final judgment delayed.</p>
<p>And while Trump has pledged to put “America First,” keeping U.S. interests above any others, his national security advisers have warned that the Afghan forces are still far too weak to succeed without help. Even now, Afghan’s government controls just half the country.</p>
<p>In Kabul, Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid dismissed Trump’s speech as “old” and his policy as “unclear.” But the plan was cheered by Afghanistan’s government. Ambassador Hamdullah Mohib, the Afghan envoy to Washington, called it a “10 out of 10.”</p>
<p>“We heard exactly what we needed to,” Mohib said in a phone interview. “The focus on the numbers has taken away the real focus on what should have been: what conditions are required and what kind of support is necessary.”</p>
<p>Among U.S. elected officials, the reception was equally mixed, reflecting the deep divisions among Americans about whether to lean into the conflict or pull back.</p>
<p>John McCain, the Senate Armed Services Committee chairman who’d criticized Trump for delays in presenting a plan, said the president was “now moving us well beyond the prior administration’s failed strategy of merely postponing defeat.” House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said the speech was “low on details but raises serious questions.”</p>
<p>“Tonight, the president said he knew what he was getting into and had a plan to go forward. Clearly, he did not,” said Pelosi, D-Calif.</p>
<p>At its peak, the U.S. had roughly 100,000 in Afghanistan, under the Obama administration in 2010-2011. The residual forces have been focused on advising and training Afghan forces and on counterterror operations — missions that aren’t expected to dramatically change under Trump’s plan.</p>
<p>“I share the America people’s frustration,” Trump said. But he insisted, “In the end, we will win.”</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Burns reported from Amman, Jordan. Associated Press writers Kathy Gannon in Islamabad and Jill Colvin and Ken Thomas in Washington contributed.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Reach Josh Lederman on Twitter at <a href="http://twitter.com/joshledermanAP" type="external">http://twitter.com/joshledermanAP</a> and Robert Burns at https://twitter.com/robertburnsap</p> | Trump commits US to fight on in Afghanistan; no speedy exit | false | https://abqjournal.com/1051218/after-fraught-debate-trump-to-disclose-new-afghanistan-plan.html | 2017-08-21 | 2 |
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<p />
<p>Since Monday, fighters aligned with Yemen’s internationally recognized President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi have been making advances and seizing more territory from Yemen’s Houthi rebels, the officials said. Warplanes from the Saudi-led coalition provided air cover for Hadi’s forces, they said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.</p>
<p>The battles are part of the so-called Golden Spear operation launched by the coalition and Hadi’s government and aimed at uprooting Houthis and allied forces from the western coast, starting from the strait of Bab al-Mandab and extending to the vital Red Sea ports of Mokha and Hodeida. The coalition accuses Houthis of using these ports to receive supplies of arms and ammunition from Iran.</p>
<p>Fadl Hassan, commander of the 4th Military District, told The Associated Press that an advanced phase of the operation would be the liberation of the embattled city of Taiz, which is divided between Houthi rebels and pro-Hadi forces.</p>
<p>The war in Yemen is entering its second year after Houthis seized the capital Sanaa and forced Hadi to flee the country. The Saudi-led coalition has waged an extensive air campaign since March 2015 aimed at restoring Hadi’s government. The northern region remains under Houthi control.</p>
<p>In Sanaa, officials and witnesses said that two airstrikes hit a gas station near a school in the Nihm district outside Sanaa, the capital. The airstrikes killed at least six civilians including children. They said that the school itself wasn’t targeted in Tuesday’s airstrikes.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Meritxell Relaño, the UNICEF representative in Yemen, condemned the attacks, saying that one child was confirmed dead and four others were wounded.</p>
<p>The coalition has come under heavy criticism by international rights groups for carrying out attacks against civilians including schools, markets, hospitals and residential areas. More than 4,200 civilians have been killed and the fighting has left more than three million people displaced.</p>
<p>Relaño said in a Wednesday statement that a total 1,400 children have been killed and more than 2,140 wounded since the war started. She said about 1,400 of them had been recruited by the warring parties. Over 2,000 schools are no longer being used because they were destroyed, used as shelters for the displaced or occupied by fighters and used for military purposes.</p>
<p>“Schools have to be zones of peace at all times, a sanctuary where children can learn, grow, play and be safe. Children should never risk their lives only to attend school,” she said.</p> | Dozens killed as fighting rages at Yemen’s Red Sea strait | false | https://abqjournal.com/925533/dozens-killed-as-fighting-rages-at-yemens-red-sea-strait.html | 2 |
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<p>Dale: Are you sure, Ken? I’ve known plenty of people who exit a career in sales only to find that they miss the excitement of being on the front lines of business. In the words of Billie Jean King, “Pressure is a privilege.” Pressure comes with doing something meaningful and with the drama of success or failure.</p>
<p>J.T.: Yes, there is plenty of energy that comes with always needing to make your numbers. However, if you are weary of that pressure, you’ll need to prepare for the new challenge of changing direction. To do so, employers will want you to have experience in marketing.</p>
<p>Dale: People in sales often believe that marketing is really just the Sales Assistance Department. However, those in marketing believe sales is just a logical outcome of their efforts. To them, going from sales to marketing is like going from working in a bookstore to publishing books: a different and broader skill set.</p>
<p>J.T.: That’s why you’ll identify all the marketing elements of your sales career, and highlight those in your résumé and social media profiles. Additionally, you should know that you will be limited in your ability to apply for jobs online – that’s because your recent job titles and skills won’t match the automated applicant tracking systems used to screen you in or out of potential jobs. Instead, you’ll have to network into meeting the heads of marketing departments to determine what they’ll need in order to consider you for a role. The process is going to work against you, so plan to go around it.</p>
<p>Dale: You also might consider sneaking up on the process, by which I mean getting into sales management. People in sales management work more closely with marketing folks and so you’ll have the chance to see if you really want to make the switch, while gaining the connections and knowledge that will make the switch a logical evolution.</p>
<p>Dear J.T. &amp; Dale: I know interviews are supposed to work both ways: The interviewer wants to gauge the candidate’s fit with the company and the interviewee wants to do the same. My question is what to do when, as the interviewee, you come to the conclusion, mid-interview, that it’s not a fit. Should you cut it off, or do you suck it up and muddle through to the end, so there is zero chance that bridges are burned? – Sasha</p>
<p>Dale: You bring back a painful old memory. As a young corporate manager, an executive with another big corporation persuaded me to fly to his small city for a job interview. He picked me up at the airport, gave me a tour of the town and told me that he’d arranged for me to be interviewed by half a dozen executives the next day. I thought it over and concluded that I’d never move to that town or work for that manager. I called the guy and said that I would be happy to soldier through the round of interviews, but I had concluded that it wasn’t right for me. Did he still want me to come in? I thought I was being helpful; he thought me an unprofessional jerk and told me he’d tell the company not to pay for my airfare or hotel. They did, but I made an enemy that day and I hate making accidental enemies.</p>
<p>J.T.: The point is that you always suck it up and go through with the interview. Do not be like Dale.</p>
<p>Dale: You’d think an executive might appreciate your candor, but all they hear is, “You’re not good enough for me.”</p>
<p>J.T.: So finish the interview. If they call you in for the next round, simply say: “I have another offer that’s a better fit and I’m going with it. However, I really enjoyed meeting you and would love to stay in touch.” Never burn a bridge. Every job is temporary and it’s a small hiring world.</p>
<p>Jeanine “J.T.” Tanner O’Donnell is a professional development specialist and the founder of the consulting firm jtodonnell. Dale Dauten resolves employment and other business disputes as a mediator with <a href="http://AgreementHouse.com" type="external">AgreementHouse.com</a>. Please visit them at <a href="http://jtanddale.com" type="external">jtanddale.com</a>, where you can send questions via email, or write to them in care of King Features Syndicate, 300 W. 57th St., 15th Floor, New York, NY 10019.</p>
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<p /> | Sales loses its luster; marketing tempts | false | https://abqjournal.com/548224/sales-loses-its-luster-marketing-tempts.html | 2 |
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<p>Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval is being vetted by the White House for a potential nomination to the Supreme Court, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2016/02/24/brian-sandoval-republican-governor-of-nevada-is-being-vetted-for-supreme-court-vacancy/?tid=sm_tw" type="external">the Washington Post reported Opens a New Window.</a>, citing two people familiar with the process. The Post says the Republican governor is increasingly viewed by some key Democrats as perhaps the only nominee President Barack Obama could pick who could break a Republican blockade. Republicans have said they won't vote or hold hearings on an Obama nominee to replace the late Justice Antonin Scalia.</p>
<p>Copyright © 2016 MarketWatch, Inc.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p> | Nevada Gov. Sandoval Being Vetted As Supreme Court Pick: Report | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/02/24/nevada-gov-sandoval-being-vetted-as-supreme-court-pick-report.html | 2016-02-24 | 0 |
<p>Despite evidence, helpfully provided by the CIA, to the contrary, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi still insists she wasn’t aware that waterboarding would be on the menu of the Bush administration’s interrogation techniques when she was briefed in secret in 2002.</p>
<p>Times Online:</p>
<p>The disclosures on Thursday night appear to contradict repeated statements by the House of Representatives Speaker in which she claimed never to have been told that techniques — since described by President Obama as torture — had actually been deployed.</p>
<p>A ten-page memorandum revealed that Ms Pelosi, at the time the most senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, received a secret briefing in September 2002 about the programme, including an interrogation of Abu Zubaydah.</p>
<p />
<p>Although the memo makes no specific reference to waterboarding — which simulates the sensation of drowning and has therefore been described by human rights activists as torture — Justice Department documents disclosed last month show that Abu Zubaydah was the first of three prisoners to be subjected to the technique and underwent the procedure at least 83 times in August 2002.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article6251891.ece" type="external">Read more</a></p> | Pelosi Sticks By Her Waterboarding Denial | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/pelosi-sticks-by-her-waterboarding-denial/ | 2009-05-09 | 4 |
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