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<p>The op-ed stirred controversy and a challenge. The controversy was stirred by the following statement:</p>
<p>“This has been a vicious campaign season. … I do not like dishonest ads directed at Republicans. I, also, do not like dishonest ads directed at Democrats. These dishonest ads are pushed by political operatives from both parties. This year Jennings is the target of two of the most prominent Republican practitioners of the half-truth. I believe the state would be well served if both parties severely clipped the wings of such political operatives.”</p>
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<p>The challenge, from some involved with Reform New Mexico Now – a PAC run by Jay McCleskey – was that I prove that ads run by Reform involved dishonesty. OK. Consider the following examples from the campaign against Jennings.</p>
<p>Reform attacked Jennings on what it portrayed as Jennings’ opposition to giving a life sentence to an intentional killer of a child. An ad run by Reform against Jennings on KRQE-TV exhibited the following:</p>
<p>“JENNINGS ON LIFE SENTENCE FOR KILLING A CHILD”</p>
<p>“…it’s really wrong.”</p>
<p>Associated Press, 2/19/05″</p>
<p>But, read the actual quotation from the cited AP article from Feb. 19, 2005:</p>
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<p>“Senator Tim Jennings, D-Roswell, said he is concerned with the potential for state officials to abuse the system. He cited the case of his nephew, whom he said was wrongly accused of child abuse after his baby was discovered to have a bleeding problem. The child was placed in foster care for a year, and the family was reunited only after it was determined that the child had a blood disorder. The parents were stuck with $100,000 in legal bills, ‘and the state walks off clean,’ Jennings said. ‘When we paint with a big brush … it gets us headlines, but sometimes it’s really wrong,’ the senator said.” Clearly, when Jennings said “it’s really wrong,” he was talking about something quite different than portrayed by Reform’s ad.</p>
<p>Jennings also was attacked by Reform because he had written to ask the court to consider several factors in mitigation of Manny Aragon’s sentence after Aragon was convicted for corruption. Reform’s attack ads, however, failed to give the voter an accurate picture. They did not tell voters that a number of other New Mexico’s leading citizens, such as Archbishop Michael Sheehan and former Albuquerque Police Chief Bob Stover, also wrote letters on behalf of Aragon.</p>
<p>The ads accused Jennings of being part of the “political machine in Santa Fe,” and sought to link him with Aragon. Yet, they did not explain that the relationship between Jennings and Aragon was rocky – that, for instance, Aragon had organized a coup to replace Jennings as majority leader of the Senate. They failed to advise the reader that upon Aragon’s conviction Jennings had said, “None of us likes it when someone violates the public trust, and I think that is what happened. … What he did was wrong, wrong, wrong, and I think we all know that.”</p>
<p>However, Jennings thought the honorable thing to do was bring to the court’s attention some good acts by Aragon. Jennings mentioned such things as Aragon’s work to address South Valley gangs and Aragon’s sponsorship of the Crime Victims Reparation Act, but there are other examples. For instance, during the prison riots of February 1980 Aragon assisted in negotiating the freedom of captured guards.</p>
<p>Manny Aragon should have been sent to prison because of his corrupt acts. Yet, he also needed to be treated fairly. Jennings attempted to do that, and for his effort Jennings was battered by Reform.</p>
<p>What harm do these half-truth ads do to our state?</p>
<p>They diminish the possibility that a legislator will judiciously weigh the advantages and disadvantages to the state of proposed legislation. Instead, they increase the possibility that the legislator will visualize the possible half-truth ad which might be run against him, and vote accordingly.</p>
<p>Additionally, they lessen the willingness of the best and most able among us to stand for public office. These are folks who have multiple alternative opportunities. For them, public service is not a reward but is a sacrifice. Add to that sacrifice the probability that a political operative will advertise half-truths or worse about them, and we rarely will find them in public office.</p>
<p>It is ironic that an organization named “Reform New Mexico Now” has lessened the likelihood of reform in New Mexico.</p> | Attack Ads Do a Disservice To the Democratic Process | false | https://abqjournal.com/147108/attack-ads-do-a-disservice-to-the-democratic-process.html | 2012-11-18 | 2 |
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<p>U.S. food producers and shippers are trying to speed up exports to Mexico and line up alternative markets as concerns rise that this lucrative business could be at risk if clashes over trade and immigration between the Trump administration and Mexico City escalate.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Diplomatic relations have soured fast this month, as the new U.S. administration floated a 20 percent tax on Mexican imports and a meeting between the presidents of the two countries was canceled. U.S. President Donald Trump has also pledged to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) trade deal with Mexico and Canada.</p>
<p>Mexico is one of the top three markets for U.S. farm production.</p>
<p>Some U.S. producers of corn, soybean meal and distillers dried grains (DDGs), an ethanol byproduct, are trying to accelerate sales to Mexico because they are uncertain about the risk for new tariffs to disrupt trade, said Rafe Garcia, general manager for U.S. operations at shipper Primos &amp; Cousins USA.</p>
<p>"They don't know what will happen in the next month or the next week," Garcia said about producers. "They are trying to move everything as fast as they can."</p>
<p>The company, which ships U.S. livestock feed to Mexico and imports Mexican products like molasses, has already talked with U.S. producers about selling into other countries, such as Nicaragua, to reduce their dependence on Mexico, Garcia said.</p>
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<p>Exports are critical for U.S. farmers as a global slump in prices for agricultural products has pushed incomes to their lowest in years</p>
<p>Last week, more than 130 trade associations and food companies, including Cargill Inc [CARG.UL] and Tyson Foods Inc , touted the benefits of NAFTA in a letter to Trump on trade.</p>
<p>Food producers say the agreement has quadrupled U.S. agricultural exports in the region during the past two decades.</p>
<p>Mexico is expected to import about 4 percent of the U.S. corn crop in 2016/17, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). It buys 7.8 percent of U.S. pork production, the U.S. Meat Export Federation said.</p>
<p>"THEY'RE GOING TO RETALIATE"</p>
<p>The agriculture community, which strongly supported Trump during the presidential election, has already voiced its concern that he has withdrawn the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade pact. They are worried Mexico could use tariffs to strike back against Trump's plans to rework NAFTA and build a wall to keep out illegal immigrants.</p>
<p>Malcolm DeKryger, president of Indiana pork producer Belstra Milling, said he was worried Mexico would impose tariffs on U.S. ham, which could cause Mexican buyers to turn to Brazil or Europe.</p>
<p>"They're going to retaliate," he said about Mexico. "The place they can hit back as fast as they can to try to affect our pocket book is the food."</p>
<p>Mexico could target sanctions on farm products, in particular, in an attempt to punish rural communities that supported Trump in the presidential election, said Katherine Baylis, associate professor of agricultural and consumer economics at the University of Illinois.</p>
<p>"Look at where past trade retaliations have happened: It is amazingly pointed and usually pointed at crucial products from swing states which quite often turn out to be agricultural," Baylis said.</p>
<p>Prominent Mexican politicians, including former President Felipe Calderon, have said the nation should consider ending purchases of U.S. corn if Trump applies new taxes on Mexican exports.</p>
<p>U.S. company Ingredion Inc , which produces high fructose corn syrup and other corn products, said its "geographic diversity balances country-specific headwinds."</p>
<p>In 2009 and 2010, Mexico put tariffs on 99 American exports in retaliation when Washington blocked Mexican trucks from using U.S. highways. The strategy targeted products seen as important to specific U.S. regions, including Christmas trees, apples and frozen sweet corn, to maximize political pressure.</p>
<p>The dispute cost U.S. businesses over $2 billion and cut U.S. exports to Mexico of affected agricultural commodities by 27 percent.</p>
<p>(Reporting by Tom Polansek and Mark Weinraub in Chicago, additional reporting by Frank Jack Daniel in Mexico City; Editing by Andrew Hay)</p> | Trump puts U.S. food, farm companies on edge over Mexico trade | true | http://foxbusiness.com/politics/2017/01/31/trump-puts-us-food-farm-companies-on-edge-over-mexico-trade.html | 2017-01-31 | 0 |
<p>NEW ORLEANS (11-4) at TAMPA BAY (4-11)</p>
<p>Sunday, 4:25 p.m. ET, Fox</p>
<p>OPENING LINE - Saints by 8 1/2</p>
<p>RECORD VS. SPREAD - New Orleans 8-7, Tampa Bay 5-9-1</p>
<p>SERIES RECORD - Saints lead 32-19</p>
<p>LAST MEETING - Saints beat Buccaneers 30-10, Nov. 5</p>
<p>LAST WEEK - Saints beat Falcons 23-13; Buccaneers lost to Panthers 22-19</p>
<p>AP PRO32 RANKING - Saints No. 6, Buccaneers No. 28</p>
<p>SAINTS OFFENSE - OVERALL (2), RUSH (5), PASS (5)</p>
<p>SAINTS DEFENSE - OVERALL (15), RUSH (16), PASS (11)</p>
<p>BUCCANEERS OFFENSE - OVERALL (11), RUSH (27), PASS (4)</p>
<p>BUCCANEERS DEFENSE - OVERALL (31), RUSH (T24), PASS (32)</p>
<p>STREAKS, STATS AND NOTES - Playoff-bound Saints will clinch NFC South championship with victory. ... QB Drew Brees, one of three players in NFL history with over 70,000 career passing yards, has thrown for 1,911 yards, 12 touchdowns and three interceptions in his past seven games against division opponents. ... Saints RBs Mark Ingram (1,486 yards from scrimmage, 12TDs) and Alvin Kamara (1,426 yards, 12 TDs) are only teammates in league history with at least 1,300 scrimmage yards and 10 TDs in same season. ... WR Michael Thomas has 98 receptions for 1,151 yards and five TDs. ... Bucs have lost five straight, their second five-game skid of season. ... QB Jameis Winston has lost eight consecutive starts. Backup Ryan Fitzpatrick started only games team won during stretch in which it has dropped 10 of 12. ... Since returning from shoulder injury, Winston has played fairly well, throwing for 1,221 yards and eight TDs vs. two interceptions over past four games. ... WR Mike Evans has 66 receptions for 946 yards. Needs 54 yards to join A.J. Green and Randy Moss as only NFL receivers to begin pro career with 1,000-plus yards receiving in four consecutive seasons. ... Bucs will miss playoffs for 10th straight year. ... Fantasy Tip: Saints WR Ted Ginn, Jr., had 54-yard TD reception against Falcons last week. He has four receiving TDs in past five games vs. Bucs, who are last in league in pass defense. Winston, who may be as healthy as he's been all season, is coming off two of most-accurate passing games of career. He completed 77.8 percent of throws for 367 yards, TD and no interceptions last week, although he did lose three fumbles.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>For more NFL coverage: http://www.pro32.ap.org and http://www.twitter.com/AP_NFL.</p>
<p>NEW ORLEANS (11-4) at TAMPA BAY (4-11)</p>
<p>Sunday, 4:25 p.m. ET, Fox</p>
<p>OPENING LINE - Saints by 8 1/2</p>
<p>RECORD VS. SPREAD - New Orleans 8-7, Tampa Bay 5-9-1</p>
<p>SERIES RECORD - Saints lead 32-19</p>
<p>LAST MEETING - Saints beat Buccaneers 30-10, Nov. 5</p>
<p>LAST WEEK - Saints beat Falcons 23-13; Buccaneers lost to Panthers 22-19</p>
<p>AP PRO32 RANKING - Saints No. 6, Buccaneers No. 28</p>
<p>SAINTS OFFENSE - OVERALL (2), RUSH (5), PASS (5)</p>
<p>SAINTS DEFENSE - OVERALL (15), RUSH (16), PASS (11)</p>
<p>BUCCANEERS OFFENSE - OVERALL (11), RUSH (27), PASS (4)</p>
<p>BUCCANEERS DEFENSE - OVERALL (31), RUSH (T24), PASS (32)</p>
<p>STREAKS, STATS AND NOTES - Playoff-bound Saints will clinch NFC South championship with victory. ... QB Drew Brees, one of three players in NFL history with over 70,000 career passing yards, has thrown for 1,911 yards, 12 touchdowns and three interceptions in his past seven games against division opponents. ... Saints RBs Mark Ingram (1,486 yards from scrimmage, 12TDs) and Alvin Kamara (1,426 yards, 12 TDs) are only teammates in league history with at least 1,300 scrimmage yards and 10 TDs in same season. ... WR Michael Thomas has 98 receptions for 1,151 yards and five TDs. ... Bucs have lost five straight, their second five-game skid of season. ... QB Jameis Winston has lost eight consecutive starts. Backup Ryan Fitzpatrick started only games team won during stretch in which it has dropped 10 of 12. ... Since returning from shoulder injury, Winston has played fairly well, throwing for 1,221 yards and eight TDs vs. two interceptions over past four games. ... WR Mike Evans has 66 receptions for 946 yards. Needs 54 yards to join A.J. Green and Randy Moss as only NFL receivers to begin pro career with 1,000-plus yards receiving in four consecutive seasons. ... Bucs will miss playoffs for 10th straight year. ... Fantasy Tip: Saints WR Ted Ginn, Jr., had 54-yard TD reception against Falcons last week. He has four receiving TDs in past five games vs. Bucs, who are last in league in pass defense. Winston, who may be as healthy as he's been all season, is coming off two of most-accurate passing games of career. He completed 77.8 percent of throws for 367 yards, TD and no interceptions last week, although he did lose three fumbles.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>For more NFL coverage: http://www.pro32.ap.org and http://www.twitter.com/AP_NFL.</p> | Saints-Buccaneers Capsule | false | https://apnews.com/amp/bc51be1166b34b3aacc4cc95ae7afdd1 | 2017-12-28 | 2 |
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<p>Construction equipment sits on the site of the planned Violet Crown Theater at Santa Fe’s Railyard. (Albuquerque Journal File)</p>
<p>SANTA FE – A beer-and-wine application submitted by Violet Crown Cinema, operators of a long-awaited and soon-to-be-built movie theater in the Santa Fe Railyard, barely squeaked through with the City Council’s approval earlier this month.</p>
<p>Opposing councilors said they feared Violet Crown’s plan to allow patrons to bring both food and drinks into the cinema’s auditoriums could provide an opportunity for minors to consume alcohol.</p>
<p>“The applicant may need beer and wine to make a profit, but I don’t think it’s necessary to have a good movie experience,” Councilor Chris Rivera declared. “Our children are too important,”</p>
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<p>In a vote split along the city’s geographic lines, the council deadlocked 4-4 on Violet Crown’s request for the license. Councilors Patti Bushee, Peter Ives, Rebecca Wurzburger and Chris Calvert – who represent Santa Fe’s northerly Districts 1 and 2 – endorsed the liquor license application.</p>
<p>Rivera and Councilors Ron Trujillo, Bill Dimas and Carmichael Dominguez, the city’s Districts 3 and 4 representatives, voted against it.</p>
<p>Mayor David Coss broke the tie in favor of the license.</p>
<p>“I look forward to seeing a movie at your theater and maybe having a glass of wine with my dinner,” Coss told Violet Crown owner Bill Banowsky.</p>
<p>The crowd at City Hall offered some applause after the vote and, for one of the few such hearings, cheered City Hall’s issuance of the license.</p>
<p>Violet Crown sought a beer and wine license for a restaurant planned in the theater site. Violet Crown also needed the council to grant a special waiver allowing the cinema to sell alcohol because the premises are within 300 feet of Tierra Encantada Charter School.</p>
<p>The Santa Fe Railyard master plan calls for a movie theater, but getting the project off the ground has proven difficult. Another company was chosen in 2006 to build a theater, but plans fell through due to lack of financing. A gaping hole, excavated for that theater, has sat for years at the proposed theater location next to the Market Station commercial complex in the city-owned Santa Fe Railyard.</p>
<p>Santa Fe Railyard Community Corp., which manages the Railyard, chose Violet Crown over three competitors earlier this year to finally move forward with a new project. Officials say the new theater could be open around the end of 2014.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>“I want to remind the council that we mandated the movie theater be here, and I am anxious to get that hole in the ground filled,” Bushee said.</p>
<p>That argument apparently didn’t move everyone. The first indication of resistance came when Trujillo, after Calvert moved to approve Violet Crown’s request, asked if the liquor license was a “do or break thing” for Violet Crown.</p>
<p>The answer was yes.</p>
<p>“We have sought a beer and wine license that is critical to the economic model of building what is not an inexpensive project. To be competitive as a restaurant, we can’t move forward without a beer and wine license,” Banowsky said.</p>
<p>Banowsky added that during the cinema bidding process, the SFRCC required that a restaurant be part of all project proposals. SFRCC Director Richard Czoski added that SFRCC’s agreement with Violet Crown would allow the company to terminate its lease if the council didn’t approve the liquor license request.</p>
<p>Violet Crown’s business model will allow patrons to take food and drink ordered at the restaurant into auditoriums where movies are screened. People won’t be served inside the theaters.</p>
<p>Banowsky said he’s discussed the plan with state of New Mexico officials and received a policy exception to allow drinks to be brought into the theaters.</p>
<p>“Across the county it’s becoming more the norm that beer and wine is an amenity to the cinema experience and important to make cinema operations economical,” Banowsky said.</p>
<p /> | Liquor application clears for Santa Fe theater | false | https://abqjournal.com/325237/liquor-application-clears-for-sf-railyard-theater.html | 2013-12-23 | 2 |
<p>LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — The University of Arkansas System is monitoring the financial status of its academic medical center after recently laying off more than 250 employees to reduce a deficit.</p>
<p>The University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences announced earlier this month it was cutting 600 positions as a way to help trim what administrators anticipated would be a $72.3 million deficit, almost twice what they originally expected. Nearly 260 of those positions were cut at the time of the Jan. 8 announcement, <a href="http://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2018/jan/25/ua-system-focusing-on-uams-cash-woes-20/" type="external">the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported</a> .</p>
<p>Administrators said the layoffs were necessary when the majority of the school's $1.5 billion budget is made up of personnel costs. They expect the layoffs to save $18 million in the fiscal year ending June 30.</p>
<p>System auditors are meeting biweekly with UAMS administrators to monitor the effects of the budget reductions. Auditors are also focusing on the campus' unrestricted cash, days cash on hand and days in accounts receivable, said Jacob Flournoy, the system's chief audit executive.</p>
<p>The school has dipped into its unrestricted net assets three of the past four years. Had the medical center continued, it would have had only $5 million in unrestricted net assets by June 30, and the school does not want its unrestricted assets to be below zero, Flournoy told trustees on Wednesday.</p>
<p>The medical center planned for deficit budgets for at least the past five years, said Bill Bowes, the school's senior vice chancellor for finance and administration and chief financial officer.</p>
<p>"Part of that is the challenge that we have in trying to support our academic programs, our research and our clinical activity with a heavy, heavy reliance on our clinical revenues," he said. "But you know, we did that, and we also realized at some point, we're going to have to make a correction, which is what we're doing this year."</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Information from: Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, <a href="http://www.arkansasonline.com" type="external">http://www.arkansasonline.com</a></p>
<p>LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — The University of Arkansas System is monitoring the financial status of its academic medical center after recently laying off more than 250 employees to reduce a deficit.</p>
<p>The University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences announced earlier this month it was cutting 600 positions as a way to help trim what administrators anticipated would be a $72.3 million deficit, almost twice what they originally expected. Nearly 260 of those positions were cut at the time of the Jan. 8 announcement, <a href="http://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2018/jan/25/ua-system-focusing-on-uams-cash-woes-20/" type="external">the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported</a> .</p>
<p>Administrators said the layoffs were necessary when the majority of the school's $1.5 billion budget is made up of personnel costs. They expect the layoffs to save $18 million in the fiscal year ending June 30.</p>
<p>System auditors are meeting biweekly with UAMS administrators to monitor the effects of the budget reductions. Auditors are also focusing on the campus' unrestricted cash, days cash on hand and days in accounts receivable, said Jacob Flournoy, the system's chief audit executive.</p>
<p>The school has dipped into its unrestricted net assets three of the past four years. Had the medical center continued, it would have had only $5 million in unrestricted net assets by June 30, and the school does not want its unrestricted assets to be below zero, Flournoy told trustees on Wednesday.</p>
<p>The medical center planned for deficit budgets for at least the past five years, said Bill Bowes, the school's senior vice chancellor for finance and administration and chief financial officer.</p>
<p>"Part of that is the challenge that we have in trying to support our academic programs, our research and our clinical activity with a heavy, heavy reliance on our clinical revenues," he said. "But you know, we did that, and we also realized at some point, we're going to have to make a correction, which is what we're doing this year."</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Information from: Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, <a href="http://www.arkansasonline.com" type="external">http://www.arkansasonline.com</a></p> | University of Arkansas System looks at UAMS deficit | false | https://apnews.com/amp/158d7e2c674e4e6c97fa3506478b9b00 | 2018-01-25 | 2 |
<p>Michael Hudson is a Distinguished Research Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri, Kansas City. He is the author of many books, including The Bubble and Beyond, and Finance Capitalism and its Discontents, Killing the Host- How Financial Parasites and Debt Destroy the Global Economy, and most recently J is for Junk Economics: A Survivor's Guide to Economic Vocabulary in an Age of Deception.</p>
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<p /> ANTON WORONCZUK, TRNN PRODUCER: Welcome to The Real News Network. I'm Anton Woronczuk in Baltimore. And welcome to another edition of The Michael Hudson Report.
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<p />Now joining us is Michael Hudson. Michael Hudson is a distinguished research professor of economics at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. His two newest books are The Bubble and Beyond and Finance Capitalism and Its Discontents.
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<p />Thanks for joining us, Michael.
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<p />MICHAEL HUDSON, PROF. ECONOMICS, UMKC: Good to be here.
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<p />WORONCZUK: So, Michael, let's talk about the E.U. parliamentary election results. What were the main political issues surrounding the elections? And how did the different parties fare?
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<p />HUDSON: Well, the main political issue is that unemployment is over 10.5 percent in Europe. And the European Parliament has no power at all over the domestic policy that's in the hands of the bankers that are imposing austerity and unemployment, and it has no power over foreign policy. That's in the hands of NATO.
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<p />So the so-called nationalist parties in France and England and others are saying, wait a minute, we want a real government that can use a central bank to restore employment by running a budget deficit. The European Lisbon Treaty won't let us do that. We want a government that's going to not just contribute to NATO to go to war in Afghanistan and Libya and Iraq, and now maybe Ukraine; we want to spend this money at home because we're in a depression.
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<p />And essentially there is--they've lost faith especially in the left. The newspapers all say it's a victory of the right, but the right only really got 25 percent. What is really striking is the fact that throughout Europe and in every country there's been a rejection of the traditional socialist parties--or I should say the parties that call themselves socialist, because the socialist parties, ever since Tony Blair in England sort of made a right ring run around Thatcher and out Thatcherized Thatcher, you've had the socialists taking the lead in urging austerity and urging anti-labor parties. And it's as if there's no memory at all of what socialism was a century ago, when it was increase government spending on industry, subsidy, and basically promotion of higher living standards. So you had the socialist parties all being co-opted by the right-wing, and there really isn't any party that's having an alternative to the current austerity that's just tearing Europe apart. So the real increase in voting was nonvoters: people voted with their backsides, saying, we're not going to vote for the socialists or any conservatives and we're not going to really vote for the so-called right-wing parties either, because they don't have an alternative to the austerity neoliberal neocon economic model that is being operated out of Brussels.
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<p />WORONCZUK: Well, you said earlier that--you said that the E.U. Parliament doesn't really have any influence over some major national policies. I think, like, some of it is, like, banking policy and foreign policy. What powers does it have?
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<p />HUDSON: Very little. It has the power to say yes; yes, please; and yes, thank you to the bankers and the neoliberals when they insist on more unemployment, when they say, we've got to tighten money against inflation, we've got to basically squeeze labor, and we've got to bail out the banks so that the banks can pay the bondholders. They don't really have the power to say no to any of this, because it's not really the kind of a parliament that you'd have in a nation state. A real nation state is defined as controlling the money supply, which the European Parliament doesn't do, the power to declare war, which the European Parliament has relinquished to NATO, and the power to set taxes. There is no real eurozone tax system. The taxes that are being supported are taxes that fall only on labor--the value added tax and the income tax, and they're charging labor for the Social Security and the health taxes.
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<p />So the fact that the parliament has so little power is what is leading the so-called nationalist parties to say, wait a minute, if Europe isn't going to have these powers, if only nation states have the power to say this, then let's withdraw from the eurozone and let's create a nation state that can do what governments are supposed to do--pull us out of the depression, subsidize industry, and make us grow again like we did before the eurozone and the euro came in to being.
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<p />WORONCZUK: Well, talk about this co-option of the political left by the right-wing parties. How did this happen?
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<p />HUDSON: There have been--many people, especially in Italy say, well, the Americans have a National Endowment for Democracy, meaning [incompr.] oligarchy [incompr.] came in. And the Americans have been subsidizing the most right-wing people within the socialist parties. So in England you had Tony Blair saying, wait a minute, the way to get votes for the Labour Party is to move to the center and to out-Thatcher Thatcher, to actually become an anti-labor party. I guess you could say what has happened by definition is a lack of economic theory to counterpose to the neoliberal theory that imposes austerity and the theory that give money to the banks and it'll all trickle down. The socialists became trickle-down theorists. And when a few socialists have raised their hands and said, wait a minute, maybe we ought to have a referendum on this, they've been very quickly removed--for instance, in Greece, when the socialist Papandreou--and when he said, let's have a referendum on whether to repay all of Greece's creditors, he was immediately removed, within a week. Even in Italy, when Berlusconi said, let's have an Italian referendum on the euro, he was very quickly removed. So there's a feeling that the eurozone bureaucracy has turned into basically an oligarchy and it's not democratic it all. So you could say that the people who are called and anti-democrats and extremists in reality--but they're saying, no, is that they want to protect the democracy from the oligarchic takeover that's occurred out of Brussels.
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<p />WORONCZUK: Do you think the SYRIZA gains in Greece are going to offer a challenge to this, the neoliberal governance, throughout the E.U.?
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<p />HUDSON: Yes. To me, that's the very best result of all of this. In practice, in the European Parliament, the fact that the opponents of neoliberalism are only 25 percent means that they're going to be ignored. The election will have zero effect on what the European Parliament actually does, because they can say, hey, we're in the majority, we don't have to give you anything at all. That's what happened in the Baltics, when the Baltics have opponents of neoliberals. So all the SYRIZA victory means is that they can show the people, look, we've done it here, we can win; now we need a national election, and if you elect us as a national election, we will then stop paying the foreign debts and we'll try to make the Greek economy grow again so that you don't have to emigrate in order to find work.
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<p />WORONCZUK: So, much of the press coverage of the election results have focused on what's happened in the U.K. and what's happened in France, Germany, and Greece. Is there--what about the Baltic states? As anything interesting happening in there?
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<p />HUDSON: Well, the U.S. coup in Ukraine frightened the Baltic voters. So one of the politicians from Latvia vote yesterday saying that most Latvians just didn't vote, because they weren't going to vote for austerity. But somehow the newspapers in Latvia all said, Russia is about to invade the Baltics, you've got to vote for the neoliberal parties that are supporting the bankers, or else the other parties is a pro-Russian party, and they're going to invite the Russians in. So you had the usual saber-rattling about Russia as a means of supporting the right wing. In other words, they're calling everybody who opposes the unemployment and the neoliberalism and the austerity, they're calling them communists or, in this case, just pro-Russians. And so they were panicked into supporting the right wing, what is there the right-wing parties, which, of course, call themselves socialist and social democrat.
<p />
<p />WORONCZUK: Okay. Michael Hudson, thank you so much for the report on the E.U. parliamentary elections.
<p />
<p />HUDSON: Good to be here.
<p />
<p />WORONCZUK: And thank you for joining us on The Real News Network.
<p />
<p />End
<p />
<p />DISCLAIMER: Please note that transcripts for The Real News Network are typed from a recording of the program. TRNN cannot guarantee their complete accuracy. | Voters Reject Traditional Left Parties In EU Parliament Elections | true | http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option%3Dcom_content%26task%3Dview%26id%3D767%26Itemid%3D74%26jumival%3D11917 | 2014-05-27 | 4 |
<p>Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) &lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/labor2008/2818507212/sizes/z/in/photostream/"&gt;AFLCIO&lt;/a&gt;/Flickr</p>
<p />
<p>Republican super-PACs and dark-money groups hurled everything they had at Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio)—upwards of $40 million in outside money, according to the Brown campaign. Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS, the Koch-backed Americans for Prosperity, the US Chamber of Commerce, you name it: The <a href="" type="internal">heavyweights in the GOP big-money universe</a> blitzed Ohio with TV ads, mailers, and billboards bashing Brown and supporting his opponent, Republican Josh Mandel.</p>
<p>But Brown didn’t buckle. Instead, he defeated Mandel on Tuesday. The Associated Press <a href="https://twitter.com/AP/statuses/266002958964105217" type="external">called the race at 9:23 p.m. EST</a>.</p>
<p>Brown’s defeat deals a blow to the GOP’s hopes of reclaiming control of the US Senate. (Democrats controlled 53 seats heading into Tuesday’s election.) A year ago, the Republican Party and powerful outside groups ranked Brown alongside Democrats <a href="" type="internal">Jon Tester of Montana</a> and <a href="" type="internal">Claire McCaskill of Missouri</a> as vulnerable incumbents ripe for ousting. The road to a Republican Senate majority ran through Ohio, Montana, and Missouri, as well as contested states like Massachusetts, Nebraska, Nevada, and North Dakota. That’s why GOP groups invested tens of millions of dollars in beating Brown and electing Mandel. In Ohio, Brown has left with them nothing to show for it.</p>
<p>Mandel, Ohio’s youthful treasurer and an Iraq war veteran, proved no match for the gravelly-voiced Brown. He was dogged by missteps and mini-controversies throughout his campaign: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ubjCziZ12g&amp;feature=youtu.be" type="external">stubbornly refusing</a> to take a position on the US auto bailout, <a href="http://www.salon.com/2012/10/03/ohio_senate_race_gops_josh_mandel_serial_no_shows/" type="external">racking up a miserable attendance record</a> for boards on which he served, even <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&amp;v=D4vZd3izW-w" type="external">confronting</a> a Democratic tracker in the presence of a reporter and then <a href="http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2012/10/02/mandel-account-of-confrontation-differs-from-evidence.html" type="external">misleading the public</a> about it. At one point Mandel had amassed <a href="http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2012/07/campaign_attacks_give_mandel_p.html" type="external">more “Pants on Fire” ratings</a> from PolitiFact Ohio than any other candidate in Ohio.</p>
<p>Despite all the money poured into defeating Brown, Mandel never took the lead in the race. The closest Mandel got was a <a href="http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/senate/oh/ohio_senate_mandel_vs_brown-2100.html" type="external">3-point deficit</a> in early September. Heading into Election Day, Brown led Mandel by 5 percentage points, 50 percent to 45 percent, in <a href="http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/senate/oh/ohio_senate_mandel_vs_brown-2100.html" type="external">RealClearPolitics‘ polling average</a>. Mandel’s lackluster support could have something to do with his refusal to stake out a position on the auto bailout. The bailout saved tens of thousands of jobs in Ohio, a state that’s home to car plants and auto suppliers, and the bailout itself was a salient issue in both the Brown-Mandel Senate race and the presidential race. Brown voted for the bailout and&#160; <a href="http://thehill.com/video/campaign/239775-ohio-sen-sherrod-brown-touts-auto-bailout-in-new-ad" type="external">openly touted</a>&#160;his choice throughout the campaign.</p>
<p>Brown’s victory puts the Senate Democrats one seat closer to keeping their slim majority. It also serves as a lesson: Even a staggering amount of political money can’t always propel a subpar candidate to victory.</p>
<p /> | Sen. Sherrod Brown Fights Off the Dark-Money Machine to Win in Ohio | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2012/11/sherrod-brown-josh-mandel-senate-ohio-dark-money/ | 2012-11-07 | 4 |
<p>Based on the tallies currently being produced by Israeli towns located in the haphazard line of Qassam rocket fire, it appears that the bulk of Israel’s civilian casualties in its war on Gaza will once again be shock related.</p>
<p>This was the case in the July 2006 war on Lebanon, during which the Israeli Health Ministry reported that 4,262 wounded Israeli civilians were treated in hospitals; this total was broken down into 33 seriously wounded patients, 68 moderately wounded, and 1,388 lightly wounded, with the remaining 2,773 treated for “shock and anxiety.” The UN Commission of Inquiry on Lebanon, meanwhile, cited the Lebanese authorities’ claim of 4,409 wounded Lebanese civilians—the only attempt at classification of casualties being a chart listing 56 different “collective massacres” conducted by Israeli forces during the war, with identifying labels such as: “Air raids struck heavily on the funeral procession of the victims of the previous day[‘s] air raids.”</p>
<p>BBC News reported different figures in its August 2006 civilian casualty scorecard for the war, according to which there were 32 seriously wounded Israelis, 44 moderately wounded Israelis, 614 lightly wounded Israelis, 1,985 Israelis treated for shock, and 3,697 wounded Lebanese. Israeli casualties were thus still overwhelmingly shock related, while the Lebanese were still:</p>
<p>a lump sum. not affected by acute stress disorders.</p>
<p>The same trend will most likely hold for Gaza—and not only because it is difficult for hospitals to accommodate people with heightened norepinephrine levels when they cannot accommodate people with missing limbs.</p>
<p>I awoke this past Sunday morning to find that 1 Israeli in Sderot had been lightly wounded, 4 Israelis had been treated for shock, and 23 Palestinians had been killed in Gaza since midnight. After performing a Google search of the terms “Palestinians treated for shock”—which mainly produced articles about Israelis being treated for shock due to Palestinian behavior—I phoned a Palestinian friend in Lebanon in an attempt to determine why enemies of Israel did not enjoy the luxury of psychological conditions. The investigation was conducted in modified English, the idiomatic form on which Hassan and I relied for all of our communications:</p>
<p>ME: Do Arabs ever go to hospital for problem with head? HASSAN: Arab he don’t have head.</p>
<p>This hypothesis would undoubtedly have been endorsed by ex-Israeli premier Golda Meir, who might have used it to back up her argument that Palestinians were not real people. Other possible excuses for the traditional embargo on Palestinian shock included the following:</p>
<p>The Palestinians were used to having bombs fall on their heads. It was the Palestinians’ own fault that bombs were falling on their heads. Shock had become the exclusive property of Israel’s international sympathy campaign, as had the words “hail,” “shower,” and “barrage.”</p>
<p>The Health section of Sunday’s online edition of the Jerusalem Post offered some insight into the unique phenomenon of Israeli shock. The main article was entitled “Escaping the trauma vortex,” which—although it sounded more like instructions for breaking down the Rafah border crossing—turned out to be the goal of Somatic Experiencing (SE), a self-healing philosophy that had recently been advertised in Sderot.</p>
<p>The article begins on a Friday morning at the “bomb-proofed Sderot Resiliency Center,” where visiting SE guru Gina Ross of Los Angeles is presiding in front of a rapt audience of health care professionals and social workers. According to the author of the article, the meeting has been auspiciously timed given the fragility currently felt by Israelis in the vicinity of the Gaza Strip, most of whom are nonetheless described as “sleeping in on the first day of the weekend.” A corresponding estimate of how many Gazans sleep in on Friday mornings is not provided.</p>
<p>The “upbeat” Ms. Ross describes the purpose of SE as replacing the “trauma vortex” with a “healing vortex.” The trauma vortex is the result of “an uncompleted biological response to threat, which leaves the system in an excessively high level of arousal, with thwarted movements of defense frozen in time”; the healing vortex occurs when victims learn how to “thaw the freeze and release the sensory motor expressions of trauma-based emotions.” Ross enthusiastically contends that the replacement process is sometimes possible in only a few sessions, even with years of buildup.</p>
<p>The SE method was developed by Dr. Peter Levine, who is described in the article as being the author of the book Taming the Tiger; it turns out that the book is in fact called Waking the Tiger, which is perhaps more appropriate in the Israeli context given apparent preferences for unleashing beasts rather than deterring them. In addition to a host of other titles, Ross is the Middle East senior trainer for Levine’s Foundation for Human Enrichment, as well as a self-proclaimed expert in overcoming “the insecurity and difficulties of exile”—her family having fled their home in Syria and later their home in Lebanon. Familiarity with exile might prove useful in the event that Gaza is one day deemed to be deserving of human enrichment, or somatic experience in general.</p>
<p>Ms. Ross has determined that Israelis, Palestinians, and Israeli-Arabs all suffer from collective trauma vortices—especially the second group, whose vortex “has been spiraling out of control for a while.” Thus, although the Gazans are permitted in this case to suffer psychologically, they are doomed to fail even at their own suffering, as it is not possible to implement a collective healing vortex while an army financed by the global superpower is overhead and underfoot.</p>
<p>The SE method does, however, provide innovative opportunities for such international notables as:</p>
<p>Barack Obama, who is in danger of developing a trauma vortex due to repeated reliance on the “flight” option in fight or flight situations—namely AIPAC addresses and opinions on the war on Gaza. MK Shai Hermesh, resident of a kibbutz close to the Gazan border, who—Tzipi Livni explained to a meeting of foreign diplomats in Sderot on 28 December—”has had to almost live in a shelter for weeks now.” Livni declared the situation “unbearable,” although this description most likely did not apply to the situation of Palestinian MPs held indefinitely in Israeli administrative detention.</p>
<p>Gina Ross’ assertion that “peace can only come from balanced collective nervous systems” might also prove revelatory for other members of the international community, such as those under the impression that peace can only come from preventing Israel’s disassembly of Palestine into noncontiguous enclaves. Instead of fretting over what percentage of remaining Palestinian territories should be permitted on the Israeli side of soaring cement walls, Middle East envoy Tony Blair might thus focus on more concrete issues like building emotional resilience into the roadmap for peace. Blair has already demonstrated a strong commitment to resilience, by choking back tears while discussing letters received from parents whose sons have died in Iraq but who nonetheless retain their conviction in the rightness of war.</p>
<p>(In keeping with the global distribution of power, Iraqis—like Gazans—have been judged unworthy of psychological victimhood, which is reserved for coalition troops, their families, and people who duct tape their windows to guard against WMD attack. Incidentally, the fourth item in the list of results returned by a Google search of the terms “Iraqis treated for shock” was a Haaretz article from 2007, entitled “Qassam fired from Gaza hits Sderot; man treated for shock.”)</p>
<p>Near the end of the Jerusalem Post article on escaping the trauma vortex, an Israeli SE practitioner at the Sderot meeting declares her intention to host an emotional first-aid workshop for citizens of Jerusalem experiencing secondary—i.e. vicarious—trauma.</p>
<p>Moving on to the second headline in the Health section of JPost.com, I was informed that: “Emotional hot lines see sharp rise in callers from the South,” most of whom were experiencing repercussions of the imbalance of the Gazan collective nervous system. According to the spokeswoman for the hotline run by Natal—Israel’s Trauma Center for Victims of Terror and War—a number of parents were concerned that their children were not eating or drinking; such behavior would have been less of a concern in Gaza, given the lack of food and drink.</p>
<p>Natal’s advice to those battling the trauma vortex included:</p>
<p>moderately abstaining from news reports. finding “light entertainment to ease them through the stress.” (The word “entertainment” was underlined; when I clicked on it I was transported to a website in Spanish where I was invited to download popular tunes to my cellular phone.) encouraging small children to spend time in their bomb shelters even when there were not air raid sirens, such that the shelters would become associated with things other than fear of death.</p>
<p>A visit to the Natal website itself revealed that many of the hotline callers were from northern Israel and were “experiencing flashbacks from the Second Lebanon War.” Condoleezza Rice, meanwhile, was also experiencing flashbacks to this particular war, and repeated that a ceasefire should never allow a return to the status quo ante, i.e. Gaza.</p>
<p>The Natal website describes the residents of southern Israel as “living in an abnormal reality” and provides them with coping tools, including a list of exercises entitled “Muscle Relaxation For Children.” In one of the exercises listed, parents are advised to have their children pretend that: “A little elephant is coming closer; in a moment it’s going to step on your stomach! Tighten your stomach; make your muscles as tight as you can. The elephant is gone; now your stomach can relax again.”</p>
<p>Alternate therapeutic activities are explored on SderotMedia.com, which features a video of a small boy in a black yarmulke intently decorating a Qassam rocket he has fashioned out of a plastic bottle, paper, and masking tape. A more complex juxtaposition of innocence and war can of course be found in the photos of Israeli children decorating missiles en route to Lebanon in 2006, but the director of the SderotMedia video does cover additional symbolic ground in the final scene, in which the decorated Qassam is placed in the middle of the floor with a baby in a purple sweater seated a short distance away. The baby eyes the Qassam for a few seconds, then crawls over to it and knocks the rocket over.</p>
<p>Further navigation of the website produced an article to accompany the video, entitled “Environmental Friendly Kassams.” In the article, the mother of the Qassam decorator explains that “the encounter with threat through creation” provides a sense of security to the children of Sderot (or at least to the 70-94% of them that SderotMedia diagnoses with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). The author of the piece supplies more relevant background information, such as that the “Color Red” alert is as familiar a concept to these children as the word “Dad,” and that the kids “don’t really care if the IDF is the one who began with the response”—an example that the rest of the world might follow.</p>
<p>After viewing another video of Sderot—this one starring a woman in a nightgown trembling in her house—I returned one last time to the Health section of the Jerusalem Post’s website to find an article entitled “Psychologically Speaking: Feeling sad.” This piece explored other potential reasons aside from rocket hail that Israelis might feel down, such as seasonal affective disorder (SAD), brought on by winter, and reverse seasonal affective disorder, brought on by summer.</p>
<p>Most Palestinians in Gaza at the moment presumably do not have enough spare time to be affected by seasonal changes, nor are the melatonin supplements recommended to combat SAD likely to be available on humanitarian aid trucks. Regular explosions, however, might offer Gazans access to some of the other suggested treatments, such as bright light therapy. The Israeli government, meanwhile, might consider ceasing the exploitation of its citizens’ genuine psychological torment in order to justify existential battles against its neighbors.</p>
<p>BELÉN FERNÁNDEZ is currently completing a book entitled Coffee with Hezbollah, which chronicles the 2-month hitchhiking journey through Lebanon that she and Amelia Opali'ska conducted in the aftermath of the July 2006 war. She can be reached at <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a>.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
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<p>&#160;</p> | The Trauma Vortex | true | https://counterpunch.org/2009/01/07/the-trauma-vortex/ | 2009-01-07 | 4 |
<p>Amrullah has a small frame and a soft voice. He used to have a reputation as a fighter and would fight with the rich kids. He’d get angry because they had nicer clothes. By fighting, he wanted to show his power. But now, at age 11, he believes that fighting is bad. When he sees those same boys, he says he no longer cares to fight.</p>
<p>“They have their way,” he says. “I have my way, and my way is nonviolent.”</p>
<p>The other boys asked Amrullah why he stopped fighting, but when he explained his new way of thinking, they couldn’t understand.</p>
<p>Amrullah has studied nonviolence at the Street Kids School, in Kabul, Afghanistan, for almost three years. The school, with 94 students this year, is a project of the Afghan Peace Volunteers (APVs) at the Borderfree Nonviolence Community Centre. There, the students also gain literacy and math skills, supplementing their lessons at the government schools. Each month, they receive modest food rations. The students become empowered as the stories and ideas they share in class become woven into later school lessons. In March, 2018, Amrullah and other third-year students will graduate. The hope is that they will continue their general studies in the public schools.</p>
<p>The third-year students are now taking an extra class, participating in the Bridge Program. This program introduces these students to the 17 volunteer teams at the center, from organic gardening to the duvet project (a women’s income-generating project involving sewing and distributing wool-stuffed blankets). In last Friday’s Bridge class, students explored how to work as a team and how to prepare for the challenges they will inevitably face if they decide to volunteer in one of the Borderfree projects.</p>
<p>Some of the students at the school used to work in Kabul’s streets. Others still do. Save the Children estimates that there are 2.2 million Afghan children between the ages of 8 and 14 who need to work.</p>
<p>Around age five, Amrullah began helping his father, who can’t speak, to rent glasses and other items to families for special occasions. Though his parents didn’t study, his father encouraged Amrullah to attend school instead of continuing to help him. His father doesn’t want Amrullah to struggle as he does.</p>
<p>Even though the food rations will end upon his graduation, Amrullah believes his father will support his desire to volunteer at the center.</p>
<p>Like Amrullah, Adila attends the Bridge class. She used to be a child laborer, selling bolonis, filled Afghan pancakes. Four years ago, Adila came to Kabul from Baghlon province to live with her aunt. Together they live in a single room with no stove to warm them from the winter cold. Her biggest challenge is convincing her father to permit her to stay in Kabul to study. She thinks her parents might call her back to the province.</p>
<p>“In Kabul there are a lot more opportunities to study,” she says.</p>
<p>Now in seventh grade, Adila wants to continue her studies, to go to university, and to become a doctor. Then she sees herself returning to Baghlon to help others. She likes doing nonviolence work because in a safe area, in an area without fighting, she and others can study better.</p>
<p>Seated a few chairs away from Adila is Sakina, age 11, who used to sell cigarettes and other small items. Now she works in her father’s vegetable shop. She has six sisters and all of age attend school.</p>
<p>Sakina is especially interested in joining the Borderfree cycling club after graduation.</p>
<p>“Riding a bike makes me happy,” she says.</p>
<p>When Sakina first told her parents she wanted to ride a bike, her father was a little angry and told her he couldn’t buy her a bike. Sakina has decided to ride, it seems, without informing her parents. Sakina believes that girls and boys must have the same rights and opportunities. She’s now in fifth grade.</p>
<p>The role models for Amrullah, Adila, and Sakina are most importantly the student volunteer teachers and coordinators at the Street Kids School. Both Zekrullah, who is a co-coordinator of the school, and Nemat, who used to teach nonviolence there and is now the coordinator of another team, were once child laborers themselves.</p>
<p>In three years, the students have learned peace building techniques and have become confident readers. Still, their lives will remain difficult. Naser, a Kabul University student and one of the Bridge class teachers, has worries. A few nights ago, he went to the market to buy some food and was saddened to see one of the students in the street selling sunflower seeds. It was late for people in Kabul to be outside yet there was a young girl alone working.</p>
<p>“Those kids working in the street, they don’t have much time to think about their life and they don’t have time to think about their best future,” Naser says. “They just think about how they should find food for one night. And they don’t have any plan for tomorrow.”</p>
<p>Food and economic insecurity are further complicated by safety concerns. When Naser talks to others in the street, they say they are not sure if they will be alive or not the next day. The violence extends to the Afghan education system, Naser adds, recalling school teachers hitting him or having him stand on one leg for a long time if he didn’t complete his homework.</p>
<p>Naser shares all of these challenges after I ask him what makes him happy, so I begin to believe that he has misunderstood me, but then he turns the idea around. It is because he knows all of the challenges in Kabul that seeing boys and girls in school makes him happy, really happy. “Education is the path, especially in Afghanistan,” he says, “toward positive change–toward a green, equal, and nonviolent world.”</p> | Stepping Stones to Change | true | https://counterpunch.org/2017/12/27/stepping-stones-to-change/ | 2017-12-27 | 4 |
<p>The battle for the Syrian city of Aleppo appeared to be turning Tuesday after government forces reportedly wrested a central neighborhood away from one of the rebel groups that has been fighting the brutal regime.</p>
<p>Syrian state television reported that regime forces had taken over the Farafra neighborhood, a once thriving area near the city's famed citadel that has been reduced to ruins.</p>
<p>But the fight was far from over, and trapped rebels told NBC News they would fight to the end.</p>
<p>"We will stay here until we die or we win," activist Ali Abo Al-Jod said. "I lost my whole family, I have nothing else to lose. I will not leave. I will stay here until I die ... this is my city."</p>
<p>The battle for divided Aleppo intensified after the recent <a href="" type="internal">collapse of a U.S.-Russia brokered cease-fire</a>, with Syria’s military launching a massive new offensive to take back control of rebel areas.</p>
<p>Syrian aircraft have been pounding the city and government troops have been fighting pitched battles with the rebels in the streets, gaining ground only to lose it hours later.</p>
<p>Related: <a href="" type="internal">'Toy Smuggler' Risks Life to Bring Smiles to Aleppo's Kids</a></p>
<p>Meanwhile, starving residents were struggling to survive in a city where a kilogram of zucchini costs about around 700 Syrian pounds, a kilo of eggplants sells for 850 pounds, and where tomatoes, cucumbers, milk and sugar cannot be bought for any price.</p>
<p>"Prices are very high because of the siege," Al-Jod said.</p>
<p>The new government offensive — <a href="" type="internal">and Russia's alleged role in it</a> — have sparked outrage in the West. Diplomats have called the actions in Aleppo "obscene" and suggested Russia might be guilty of war crimes.</p>
<p>But the Syrian regime has been deaf to pleas to halt its bruising campaign. And the images coming out of eastern Aleppo were horrifying scenes of destruction and bloodshed: children buried in rubble, families torn apart, buildings turned into hollowed-out shells.</p>
<p>The recent Syrian offensive in Aleppo has been described as the worst bombardment since the civil war erupted — and human rights groups warned that the remaining doctors in the city cannot keep up with the carnage.</p>
<p>The World Health Organization called Tuesday for "the immediate establishment of humanitarian routes" to evacuate hundreds of wounded and sick from eastern Aleppo. They said the hospitals are overflowing with the dead and dying and are in urgent need of supplies.</p>
<p>"Aleppo is in a state of emergency as area hospitals have run out of beds and ... equipment is running low," said the Union of Medical Care and Relief Organizations, pleading for support in a statement Monday.</p>
<p>Only 29 doctors remain in eastern Aleppo City to care for around 300,000 people, <a href="https://www.sams-usa.net/foundation/index.php/component/content/article/2-uncategorised/346-aleppo-is-under-fire-we-need-your-support-urgently" type="external">according to the Syrian American Medical Society (SAMS)</a>.</p>
<p>"Hospitals are overwhelmed," SAMS quoted a nurse as saying. "Doctors are conducting major surgeries on the floor without sterilization."</p>
<p>Meanwhile, the State Department announced it would provide another <a href="http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2016/09/262482.htm" type="external">$364 million of aid</a> "for those affected by the war in Syria." Of that money, $205 million is earmarked for the non-governmental agencies working "to meet the needs of displaced persons in the region and inside Syria."</p>
<p>So far, the U.S. has provided more than <a href="http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2016/09/262482.htm" type="external">$5.9 billion in humanitarian aid</a> to the Syrians since the civil war erupted in March 2011.</p> | Aleppo Battle: Syrian Troops Advance on City Center; Hospitals Overwhelmed | false | http://nbcnews.com/news/world/aleppo-battle-syrian-troops-advance-center-city-hospitals-overwhelmed-n655396 | 2016-09-28 | 3 |
<p>A look at Nasdaq 10 most-active stocks at 1 p.m.:</p>
<p>Apple Inc. rose 1.2 percent to $95.12 with 32,254,400 shares traded.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>BlackBerry Ltd. rose 5.1 percent to $11.16 with 23,160,000 shares traded.</p>
<p>Cisco Systems Inc. fell .2 percent to $25.15 with 10,427,000 shares traded.</p>
<p>Facebook Inc. fell 1.2 percent to $65.51 with 17,443,700 shares traded.</p>
<p>GT Advanced Technologies Inc. fell 13.5 percent to $16.91 with 19,802,700 shares traded.</p>
<p>Intel Corp. fell .4 percent to $31.01 with 10,827,200 shares traded.</p>
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<p>Micron Technology Inc. fell 2.1 percent to $33.04 with 13,920,000 shares traded.</p>
<p>Microsoft Corp. rose .7 percent to $42.09 with 11,538,500 shares traded.</p>
<p>NewLead Holdings Ltd. fell 6.2 percent to $.14 with 50,396,100 shares traded.</p>
<p>Sirius XM Radio Inc. fell 1.2 percent to $3.42 with 24,527,700 shares traded.</p> | Nasdaq's 10 most active stocks at 1 p.m. | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2015/03/05/nasdaq-10-most-active-stocks-at-1-pm.html | 2016-03-05 | 0 |
<p>A new Washington Post poll finds that Americans are not as right-wing as the right-wing thinks they are — or behaves like they think they are. Republicans have no doubt moved this country ever-right. Today, Ronald Reagan would be a Democrat. But there is a glimmer of hope, as this WaPo poll shows.</p>
<p>Presidential candidates who support a ban on same-sex marriage should forget about winning an election, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/polls/postabcpoll_100211.html" type="external">a new Washington Post poll</a> finds. 42% of Americans are less likely&#160;to support a presidential candidate who supports banning same-sex marriage. Only 25% are more likely to support such a candidate. One-third of Americans say support for a ban on same-sex marriage would not make a difference in their decision on a candidate, showing we have more work to do.</p>
<p>Americans are less likely to support a presidential candidate who “Thinks public schools should teach creationism or intelligent design alongside evolution as part of the science curriculum.” (35%-28%, with a full 37% undecided.)</p>
<p>READ:&#160; <a href="" type="internal">Abortion: New CNN Poll Finds America Remains Steadfastly Pro-Choice</a></p>
<p>Americans are more likely to support a presidential candidate who “Sees global warming as a problem that needs to be addressed.” (44%-21%, with 36% undecided.)</p>
<p>Americans are less likely to support a presidential candidate who wants to “Let states opt out Social Security.” (52%-24%, with 24% undecided.)</p>
<p>Americans are more likely to support a presidential candidate who wants to “Extend unemployment benefits.” (37%-32%, with 32% undecided.)</p>
<p>Stupidly, Americans are more likely to support a presidential candidate who “Wants to repeal new health care law.” (43%-29%, with 27% undecided.)</p>
<p>Of course, these numbers are for those who are Democrats, Republicans, and Independents.</p>
<p>For those who are Republicans, all bets are off:</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal" /></p>
<p>Additionally, the poll found more Americans than less do not support the Tea Party. 47% oppose the Tea Party, 42% support it:</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal" /></p>
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<p>Dressed in army fatigues, Alejandra Segura patrols a field in central Colombia, checking the work of her fellow soldiers. They are training to clear land mines, and Segura is the only woman in&#160;sight.</p>
<p>In fact, as we drive around the Colombian army base — a sprawling complex in the “tierra caliente,” or hot country, three hours outside of Bogota — she is the only woman in uniform&#160;anywhere.</p>
<p>For decades, Colombia’s female army recruits were relegated to back-office positions. That changed in 2009, when a new policy allowed women to serve. Since then, women like Segura have been able to rise up the ranks. While they are trained for battle, they have not yet been deployed to combat&#160;positions.</p>
<p>Segura, 23, joined in the first wave of female recruitment. Eight years later, she is helping to train the next generation of demining specialists, who will help clear Colombia’s soil of the deadly remains of a 50-year civil conflict that is only just coming to an&#160;end.</p>
<p>Last year, the government agreed to a peace deal with the country’s left-wing&#160;FARC&#160;guerrilla group (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia). More than 7,000 fighters have demobilized since the agreement, but clearing the detritus of the war is going to take&#160; <a href="http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/colombia/article76787692.html" type="external">much longer</a>. Colombia’s president, Juan Manuel Santos, has promised that the country will be free of land mines&#160; <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-colombia-landmines-idUSKBN15T2FM" type="external">by 2021</a>.</p>
<p />
<p>Alejandra Segura oversees demining training.</p>
<p>Laura Dixon</p>
<p>On this day, a torrential downpour has cleared for bright blue skies. The humidity is such that it feels like steam is rising off the grass. In one of the fields, some former recruits are being tested to check they are still up to&#160;standard.</p>
<p>It takes immense patience to work in demining: There are several stages to clearing a vegetable-patch-sized clearing. First, the soldiers search for cables or wires, triggers that might have been left above ground. Then, they start to clear the foliage, cutting and collecting tiny blades of grass so they don’t set off an explosive device below. Then the land is checked with a metal detector, or with dogs if the deminers suspect a chemical&#160;IED&#160;might have been left&#160;there.</p>
<p>If they get a positive reading, the dig begins. In a week, the deminers might find nothing, or they might come across four or five homemade explosives in one&#160;day.</p>
<p>It is slow, painstaking work, taking a whole day to clear a patch 3–6ft square —&#160;and that’s working 7 a.m. to 6 p.m., often in scorching&#160;temperatures.</p>
<p>The task they are facing is gargantuan: Almost every region in the country is thought to be plagued with IEDs and handmade explosives. National statistics show there have been&#160; <a href="http://www.accioncontraminas.gov.co/prensa/infoVictimas/Infografia-1706-Victimas-01.jpg" type="external">11,486 victims</a>&#160;since 1990, and this year 15 people have been killed or injured by land mines, five of them&#160;children.</p>
<p />
<p>To deal with the challenge, the army has expanded from one demining battalion to seven, and drafted in soldiers, like Segura, to help train the troops. They have found that local communities, which have seen decades of conflict between the government and the&#160;FARC&#160;rebels, open up more easily to women, trust them more, and give them better information on where the community believes the mines might be&#160;laid.</p>
<p>“It’s not always easy to get good information from these communities — these are often people who don’t trust the army,” says Segura, who has swapped her green combat clothes for the navy blue of the humanitarian demining brigade. “Previously, talking about where the mines were would have meant risking their&#160;lives.”</p>
<p>Segura grew up in Villavicencio, a frontier town in a region plagued by violence between the army, guerrilla fighters and organized crime groups. As a child, she says she often saw people who had been injured by land mines — they had lost their legs or their hands, or&#160;both.</p>
<p>Villavicencio is in Meta, the&#160; <a href="http://www.accioncontraminas.gov.co/prensa/2017/Paginas/170323-EEUU-apoya-Desminado-Humanitario-en-Meta.aspx" type="external">most contaminated area in the country</a>, with almost 2,000 acres (8 million square meters) of land affected, government figures show. Rumor has it that during the worst years, locals there would send livestock through the fields ahead of them because from one day to the next the path might have been mined. If it had been, they lost their herd, but at least they came out&#160;alive.</p>
<p>“It is thought that anti-personnel mines have been planted in 30 departments — that’s practically 98 percent of Colombia,” Segura says. “That affects communities on a socioeconomic level, with people who can’t use all their land to farm, and so it has a big impact in these rural zones where people live off the&#160;land.</p>
<p>“It affects paths to schools and access to water holes. But there is also a psychological impact, and that is what we are trying to combat by generating confidence in the job we are&#160;doing.”</p>
<p />
<p>A trainee demonstrates how to carefully clear foliage in order to avoid setting off an explosive device.</p>
<p>Laura Dixon</p>
<p>There are currently eight women in Colombia’s demining brigade, all of them certified project leaders. They, too, have gone through months of vigorous training and in-the-field experience so that they become experts on the process —&#160;and so that they can recognize the psychological impact this kind of job can have on the&#160;recruits.</p>
<p>“This work,” Segura explains, “it’s hard. The soldiers have to be motivated, well-behaved and physically fit to work eight hours a day, six days a week. Most important is that they are emotionally stable — you need to be able to confront an invisible enemy that can strike at any moment. Even the best-trained person can be scared. There’s always a risk, but you can’t let it affect your&#160;judgment.”</p>
<p>In some of the ranks, Segura says, there is still machismo, but most people are now concentrating on the job in hand. “It’s your work, not your gender, that matters,” she&#160;says.</p>
<p>“This is a big change,” says Segura. “But the army fought so that this could happen. Now we are working to make Colombia free of mines. This is a step so that people can go back to the lands they were displaced&#160;from.”</p>
<p>Laura Dixon reported from Tolemaida, Colombia. This article originally appeared on News Deeply's <a href="https://www.newsdeeply.com/womenandgirls" type="external">Women &amp; Girls</a>, and you can find the original <a href="https://www.newsdeeply.com/womenandgirls/articles/2017/07/04/the-woman-helping-clear-colombia-of-its-deadly-landmines" type="external">here</a>.&#160;For important news&#160;focused on women and&#160;girls in the developing world, you can sign up to the <a href="http://newsdeeply.us5.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=8b78e9a34ff7443ec1e8c62c6&amp;id=b0f0f8619e" type="external">Women &amp; Girls&#160;email list</a>.</p> | Meet the woman helping clear Colombia of its deadly land mines | false | https://pri.org/stories/2017-07-07/meet-woman-helping-clear-colombia-its-deadly-land-mines | 2017-07-07 | 3 |
<p>At approximately 12:30 a.m. Thursday morning, a silver Toyota sedan with a cracked windshield plowed through barricades and crashed into a crowd of over twenty pedestrians in Downtown Austin, Texas, during SXSW, according to the Austin Police Department and multiple eyewitness reports. Austin PD is reporting that 23 people were transported to the hospital. Of those, five are in critical condition, and two are deceased. The two deceased were reportedly operating a moped.</p>
<p>The accident occurred between 9th Street and Red River outside The Mohawk, a celebrated outdoor music venue. Rapper Tyler, The Creator, was playing a hotly anticipated show when the crash occurred, with the vehicle running over a crowd of people assembled outside. The suspect is reportedly in custody and was under the influence of alcohol, according to numerous reports. Several journalists were on hand to capture the aftermath. This is a developing story...</p>
<p>UPDATE: Austin Police Chief Acevedo says the crash started as a DWI stop at a nearby gas station when the suspect, a black male, sped off and struck two people on a moped (a man and a woman) while speeding the wrong way down a one-way street. He also struck a taxi and a van before fleeing on foot. He was tased and taken into custody.</p> | Car Crashes Into Crowd at SXSW, 23 People Transported to Hospital, Multiple Fatalities | true | https://thedailybeast.com/car-crashes-into-crowd-at-sxsw-23-people-transported-to-hospital-multiple-fatalities | 2018-10-03 | 4 |
<p>Why am I a radio journalist? Two words: Danny Schechter.</p>
<p>I was already following the news by 12 or 13, in the early ‘70s. I read the Boston Globe just about every day and tuned in to Cronkite and Chancellor in the evenings when I wasn’t playing baseball or listening to records. It was the time of Vietnam and Nixon and social upheaval of every kind, and even in my comfortable Boston suburb these things were part of the conversation in my crowd, and I had a sense that I wanted to be a bigger part of that conversation.</p>
<p>But when I found Danny Schechter,&#160;the News Dissector on WBCN, the once-revolutionary and by then still mostly free-form rock station here in Boston, my head exploded. It’s hard 40+ years later to convey the cultural impact of WBCN on a place like Boston at the time, and a kid of my generation. It was about so much more than music, and Danny was about so much more than the news.</p>
<p>Here was a voice that didn’t just report the news, he got inside it, ripped it apart and examined all the bits. He started with the what but then went quickly and deeply into the who and why, with answers that I didn’t see in the Globe or on TV. He used wit and irony and what I’m sure I’d now see as an over-the-top sense of left-wing indignation and righteousness to go beyond informing to what some at the time might’ve called fomenting. He mixed news and commentary with music and culture and humor in what I remember as a daily, delirious, revelatory storm. It was journalism, it was activism, sometimes it was screed but to me it was intoxicating and inspiring.</p>
<p>And it was radio. Stories I couldn’t turn off. Music that made my heart race. Voices that stimulated whole other imaginative stories inside my own head. People inside that box that I knew I would never meet but felt were my closest friends and companions. A seed planted by endless summers listening to Ned Martin and the Red Sox suddenly blossomed into an obsession. I had to be part of it.</p>
<p>I started poking around at other local stations. Got myself invited as a semi-regular panelist on a teen talk show. Pestered DJs at 'BCN and elsewhere to let me sit in on their shows. And I worked the other side, writing for my school newspapers. Then, in 11th grade, my dream came true. I went to work for Danny Schechter.</p>
<p>His younger brother Bill had come to teach history at our high school. I took one of his classes, he became a mentor and a friend, and then in junior year when I signed up for a program that allowed students to take a whole semester off and work outside of school (you read that right; it was a very different time.)&#160;Bill Schechter&#160;ran the program, and the only thing I wanted to do was go work with Danny. But I was reluctant to exploit my relationship with Bill for personal gain (translation: I was an idiot), so I didn’t ask. Finally Bill just did it for me, unprompted. He knew what I really wanted, and clearly didn’t share my concern about working connections.</p>
<p>So I went to work as an intern in the 'BCN newsroom, working mostly with Danny but also others who were also doing great work there. I learned the basics, from editing wire copy to cutting tape (yes, we edited tape with razor blades) to mixing features to gathering tape in the field. I learned about (although to this day haven’t mastered) the demands of thinking on my feet and writing on deadline. I learned basic interviewing and newswriting skills, learned about story balance and multiple-sourcing, got an immersive lesson in all the zillion subjective decisions that go into the creation of every news report.</p>
<p>I got to see how Danny performed his magic, and got to be part of creating it.</p>
<p>It was also a reality check. I got to know Danny the person instead of Danny the journalist-commentator-activist. I learned a bit about what drove him, and it wasn’t always the most idealistic stuff. I also very quickly learned he could be a bear to work with, had to learn to take heaps of abuse, but also how to let it roll over me, accept an apology, and get back to work. It wasn’t all fun and amazing. It was also frustrating, terrifying, exhausting. Even worse, sometimes it was downright boring. It was the real life of a small, quirky&#160;but&#160;earth-shaking corner of the news business.</p>
<p>I also learned that I couldn’t be Danny. That I didn’t want to be Danny. But my five months working with him left me as sure as ever that radio journalism was what I wanted most to do with my life, gave me the skills and experience that helped me start to find my way, and somehow instilled a sense that I might actually be good at it.</p>
<p>Danny stopped being a regular fixture in my life a couple of years later when he left ‘BCN for a Nieman Fellowship at Harvard, then went on to ABC, Globalvision, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artists_United_Against_Apartheid" type="external">Artists United Against Apartheid, etc.</a>and continued to make an impact, and often a bit of trouble, wherever he went. It was another 10&#160;years before I got my first professional reporting assignment and earned my first dollar in radio. But I owe that assignment, and this job, and everything that came between, to Danny Schechter, the News Dissector (with a major assist from little brother Bill, still a friend and mentor.)</p>
<p>RIP, Danny. Thank you for being your cranky, tenacious, forever-outraged self. Thank you for taking on an idealistic if somewhat clueless kid as an intern. Thank you for inspiring me and countless others to become a journalist, an activist, or just an engaged — and sometimes enraged — citizen.</p>
<p>The world needs many more like you.</p> | A goodbye...and thanks...to the 'News Dissector' | false | https://pri.org/stories/2015-03-23/goodbyeand-thanksto-news-dissector | 2015-03-23 | 3 |
<p />
<p>Not really, but it’s a great example of how we reach across the color divide to figure out how to learn to live in peace with each other. It’s a <a href="http://www.bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/9914" type="external">video</a> of me and Ross Douthat of The Atlantic. It was fun and I actually learned useful things about the quote-unquote white POV.</p>
<p /> | Watch Bitter Enemies Make Nice on Bloggingheads.tv | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2008/04/watch-bitter-enemies-make-nice-bloggingheadstv/ | 2008-04-11 | 4 |
<p>By Michael T. Klare, TomDispatch</p>
<p />
<p>&#160; &#160; U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry. (Carlos Barria / AP)</p>
<p>This piece first appeared at TomDispatch. Read Nick Turse’s introduction <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/176017/tomgram%3A_michael_klare%2C_the_coming_of_cold_war_2.0/" type="external">here</a>.</p>
<p />
<p>America’s grand strategy, its long-term blueprint for advancing national interests and countering major adversaries, is in total disarray. Top officials lurch from crisis to crisis, improvising strategies as they go, but rarely pursuing a consistent set of policies. Some <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/10/us/politics/republican-hopefuls-in-south-carolina-push-a-muscular-foreign-policy.html" type="external">blame</a> this indecisiveness on a lack of resolve at the White House, but the real reason lies deeper. It lurks in a disagreement among foreign policy elites over whether Russia or China constitutes America’s principal great-power adversary.</p>
<p>Knowing one’s enemy is usually considered the essence of strategic planning. During the Cold War, enemy number one was, of course, unquestioned: it was the Soviet Union, and everything Washington did was aimed at diminishing Moscow’s reach and power. When the USSR imploded and disappeared, all that was left to challenge U.S. dominance were a few “rogue states.” In the wake of 9/11, however, President Bush <a href="http://2001-2009.state.gov/s/ct/rls/wh/6947.htm" type="external">declared</a> a “global war on terror,” envisioning a decades-long campaign against Islamic extremists and their allies everywhere on the planet. From then on, with every country said to be either with us or against us, the chaos set in. Invasions, occupations, raids, drone wars ensued — all of it, in the end, <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175854/tomgram%3A_engelhardt,_a_record_of_unparalleled_failure/" type="external">disastrous</a> — while China used its economic clout to gain new influence abroad and Russia began to menace its neighbors.</p>
<p>Among Obama administration policymakers and their Republican opponents, the <a href="http://www.armed-services.senate.gov/hearings/15-01-29-global-challenges-and-the-us-national-security-strategy" type="external">disarray</a> in strategic thinking is striking. There is general agreement on the need to crush the Islamic State (ISIS), deny Iran the bomb, and <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/28/us/politics/republicans-criticize-james-baker-for-speech-on-benjamin-netanyahu.html" type="external">give Israel</a> all the weapons it wants, but not much else. There is certainly no agreement on how to allocate America’s strategic resources, including its military ones, even in relation to ISIS and Iran. Most crucially, there is no agreement on the question of whether a resurgent Russia or an ever more self-assured China should head Washington’s enemies list. Lacking such a consensus, it has become increasingly difficult to forge long-term strategic plans. And yet, while it is easy to decry the current lack of consensus on this point, there is no reason to assume that the anointment of a common enemy — a new Soviet Union — will make this country and the world any safer than it is today.</p>
<p>Choosing the Enemy</p>
<p>For some Washington strategists, including many prominent Republicans, Russia under the helm of Vladimir Putin represents the single most potent threat to America’s global interests, and so deserves the focus of U.S. attention. “Who can doubt that Russia will do what it pleases if its aggression goes unanswered?” Jeb Bush <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2015/06/jeb-bush-germany-visit-118779.html" type="external">asserted</a> on June 9th in Berlin during his first trip abroad as a potential presidential contender. In countering Putin, he noted, “our alliance [NATO], our solidarity, and our actions are essential if we want to preserve the fundamental principles of our international order, an order that free nations have sacrificed so much to build.”</p>
<p>For many in the Obama administration, however, it is not Russia but China that poses the greatest threat to American interests. They feel that its containment should take priority over other considerations. If the U.S. fails to enact a new trade pact with its Pacific allies, Obama <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/29/opinion/thomas-l-friedman-on-trade-obama-right-critics-wrong.html" type="external">declared</a> in April, “China, the 800-pound gorilla in Asia, will create its own set of rules,” further enriching Chinese companies and reducing U.S. access “in the fastest-growing, most dynamic economic part of the world.”</p>
<p>In the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union, the military strategists of a seemingly all-powerful United States — the unchallenged “ <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1999/02/05/news/05iht-france.t_0.html" type="external">hyperpower</a>” of the immediate post-Cold War era — <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/15/washington/15military.html" type="external">imagined</a> the country being capable of fighting full-scale conflicts on two (or even three fronts) at once. The shock of the twenty-first century in Washington has been the discovery that the U.S. is <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/176003/" type="external">not all-powerful</a> and that it <a href="http://security.blogs.cnn.com/2012/01/04/panetta-ending-two-war-strategy/" type="external">can’t successfully</a> take on two major adversaries simultaneously (if it ever could). It can, of course, take relatively modest steps to parry the initiatives of both Moscow and Beijing while also fighting ISIS and other localized threats, as the Obama administration is indeed attempting to do. However, it cannot also pursue a consistent, long-range strategy aimed at neutralizing a major adversary as in the Cold War. Hence a decision to focus on either Russia or China as enemy number one would have significant implications for U.S. policy and the general tenor of world affairs.</p>
<p>Choosing Russia as the primary enemy, for example, would inevitably result in a further buildup of NATO forces in Eastern Europe and the delivery of major weapons systems to Ukraine. The Obama administration has consistently opposed such deliveries, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/12/world/europe/defying-obama-many-in-congress-press-to-arm-ukraine.html" type="external">claiming</a> that they would only inflame the ongoing conflict and sabotage peace talks. For those who view Russia as the greatest threat, however, such reluctance only encourages Putin to escalate his Ukrainian intervention and poses a long-term threat to U.S. interests. In light of Putin’s ruthlessness, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/12/world/europe/defying-obama-many-in-congress-press-to-arm-ukraine.html" type="external">said</a> Senator John McCain, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee and a major advocate of a Russia-centric posture, the president’s unwillingness to better arm the Ukrainians “is one of the most shameful and dishonorable acts I have seen in my life.”</p>
<p>On the other hand, choosing China as America’s principal adversary means a relatively restrained stance on the Ukrainian front coupled with a more vigorous response to Chinese claims and <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/17/world/asia/china-building-airstrip-in-disputed-spratly-islands-satellite-images-show.html" type="external">base building</a> in the South China Sea. This was the message delivered to Chinese leaders by Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter in late May at U.S. Pacific Command headquarters in Honolulu. Claiming that Chinese efforts to establish bases in the South China Sea were “out of step” with international norms, he <a href="http://www.defense.gov/Speeches/Speech.aspx?SpeechID=1944" type="external">warned</a> of military action in response to any Chinese efforts to impede U.S. operations in the region. “There should be… no mistake about this — the United States will fly, sail, and operate wherever international law allows.”</p>
<p>If you happen to be a Republican (other than Rand Paul) <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/10/us/politics/republican-hopefuls-in-south-carolina-push-a-muscular-foreign-policy.html" type="external">running</a> for president, it’s easy enough to pursue an all-of-the-above strategy, calling for full-throttle campaigns against China, Russia, Iran, Syria, ISIS, and any other adversary that comes to mind. This, however, is rhetoric, not strategy. Eventually, one or another approach is likely to emerge as the winner and the course of history will be set.</p>
<p>The “Pivot” to Asia</p>
<p>The Obama administration’s fixation on the “800-pound gorilla” that is China came into focus sometime in 2010-2011. Plans were then being made for what was assumed to be the final withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq and the winding down of the American military presence in Afghanistan. At the time, the administration’s top officials conducted a systematic review of America’s long-term strategic interests and came to a <a href="http://www.state.gov/s/d/former/burns/remarks/2011/176667.htm" type="external">consensus</a> that could be summed up in three points: Asia and the Pacific Ocean had become the key global theater of international competition; China had taken advantage of a U.S. preoccupation with Iraq and Afghanistan to bolster its presence there; and to remain the world’s number one power, the United States would have to <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/archive/175476/michael_klare_a_new_cold_war_in_asia" type="external">prevent</a> China from gaining more ground.</p>
<p>This posture, spelled out in a series of statements by President Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and other top administration officials, was initially called the “pivot to Asia” and has since been relabeled a “rebalancing” to that region. Laying out the new strategy in 2011, Clinton <a href="http://foreignpolicy.com/2011/10/11/americas-pacific-century/" type="external">noted</a>, “The Asia-Pacific has become a key driver of global politics.&#160; Stretching from the Indian subcontinent to the western shores of the Americas… it boasts almost half of the world’s population [and] includes many of the key engines of the global economy.” As the U.S. withdrew from its wars in the Middle East, “one of the most important tasks of American statecraft over the next decade will therefore be to lock in substantially increased investment — diplomatic, economic, strategic, and otherwise — in the Asia-Pacific region.”</p>
<p>This strategy, administration officials claimed then and still insist, was never specifically aimed at containing the rise of China, but that, of course, was a diplomatic fig leaf on what was meant to be a full-scale challenge to a rising power. It was obvious that any strengthened American presence in the Pacific would indeed pose a direct challenge to Beijing’s regional aspirations. “My guidance is clear,” Obama <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/11/17/remarks-president-obama-australian-parliament" type="external">told</a> the Australian parliament that same November. “As we plan and budget for the future, we will allocate the resources necessary to maintain our strong military presence in this region. We will preserve our unique ability to project power and deter threats to peace.”</p>
<p>Implementation of the pivot, Obama and Clinton <a href="http://foreignpolicy.com/2011/10/11/americas-pacific-century/" type="external">explained</a>, would include support for or cooperation with a set of countries that ring China, including increased military aid to Japan and the Philippines, diplomatic outreach to Burma, Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, and other nations in Beijing’s economic orbit, military overtures to India, and the conclusion of a major trade arrangement, the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/12/business/unpacking-the-trans-pacific-partnership-trade-deal.html" type="external">Trans-Pacific Partnership</a> (TPP), that would conveniently include most countries in the region but exclude China.</p>
<p>Many in Washington have <a href="https://www.gop.com/clintons-missing-pivot/" type="external">commented</a> on how much more limited the administration’s actions in the Pacific have proven to be than the initial publicity suggested. Of course, Washington soon found itself re-embroiled in the Greater Middle East and shuttling many of its military resources back into that region, leaving less than expected available for a rebalancing to Asia. Still, the White House continues to pursue a strategic blueprint aimed at bolstering America’s encirclement of China. “No matter how many hotspots emerge elsewhere, we will continue to deepen our enduring commitment to this critical region,” National Security Adviser Susan Rice <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/11/21/remarks-prepared-delivery-national-security-advisor-susan-e-rice" type="external">declared</a> in November 2013.</p>
<p>For Obama and his top officials, despite the challenge of ISIS and of disintegrating states like Yemen and Libya wracked with extremist violence, China remains the sole adversary capable of taking over as the world’s top power.&#160; (Its economy already <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-30483762" type="external">officially has</a>.) To them, this translates into a simple message: China must be restrained through all means available. This does not mean, they claim, ignoring Russia and other potential foes. The White House has, for example, signaled that it will begin <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2015/06/13/nato-eastern-europe-weapons-new-york-times/71180308/" type="external">storing</a> heavy weaponry, including tanks, in Eastern Europe for future use by any U.S. troops rotated into the region to counter Russian pressure against countries that were once part of the Soviet Union. And, of course, the Obama administration is continuing to up the ante against ISIS, most recently <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/09/politics/u-s-considering-1000-additional-troops-in-iraq/" type="external">dispatching</a> yet more U.S. military advisers to Iraq. They insist, however, that none of these concerns will deflect the administration from the primary task of containing China.</p>
<p>Countering the Resurgent Russian Bear</p>
<p>Not everyone in Washington shares this China-centric outlook. While most policymakers agree that China poses a potential long-term challenge to U.S. interests, an oppositional crew of them sees that threat as neither acute nor immediate. After all, China remains America’s <a href="https://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/statistics/highlights/top/top1312yr.html" type="external">second-leading</a> trading partner (after Canada) and its largest supplier of imported goods. Many U.S. companies do extensive business in China, and so favor a cooperative relationship. Though the leadership in Beijing is clearly trying to secure what it sees as its interests in Asian waters, its focus remains primarily economic and its leaders seek to maintain friendly relations with the U.S., while regularly engaging in high-level diplomatic exchanges. Its president, Xi Jinping, is expected to <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/china-president-plans-state-visit-to-us-this-year/2015/02/09/f7b538f1-1158-4f19-857a-f35c3ec115cb_story.html" type="external">visit Washington</a> in September.</p>
<p>Vladimir Putin’s Russia, on the other hand, looks far more threatening to many U.S. strategists. Its annexation of Crimea and its ongoing support for separatist forces in eastern Ukraine are viewed as direct and visceral <a href="http://nationalinterest.org/feature/russia-america-stumbling-war-12662" type="external">threats</a> on the Eurasian mainland to what they see as a U.S.-dominated world order. President Putin, moreover, has made no secret of his <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/25/world/europe/vladimir-putin-lashes-out-at-us-for-backing-neo-fascists-and-islamic-radicals.html" type="external">contempt</a> for the West and his <a href="http://www.economist.com/news/international/21601862-why-should-russian-presidents-innovative-attitude-towards-borders-be-restricted" type="external">determination</a> to pursue Russian national interests wherever they might lead. For many who remember the Cold War era — and that includes most senior U.S. policymakers — this looks a lot like the menacing behavior of the former Soviet Union; for them, Russia appears to be posing an existential threat to the U.S. in a way that China does not.</p>
<p>Among those who are most representative of this dark, eerily familiar, and retrograde outlook is Senator McCain. Recently, offering an <a href="http://www.mccain.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=826bf5ca-17e6-4308-a2fe-6209c1c8e8a5" type="external">overview</a> of the threats facing America and the West, he put Russia at the top of the list:</p>
<p>“In the heart of Europe, we see Russia emboldened by a significant modernization of its military, resurrecting old imperial ambitions, and intent on conquest once again. For the first time in seven decades on this continent, a sovereign nation has been invaded and its territory annexed by force. Worse still, from central Europe to the Caucuses, people sense Russia’s shadow looming larger, and in the darkness, liberal values, democratic sovereignty, and open economies are being undermined.”</p>
<p>For McCain and others who share his approach, there is no question about how the U.S. should respond: by bolstering NATO, providing major weapons systems to the Ukrainians, and countering Putin in every conceivable venue. In addition, like many Republicans, McCain <a href="http://www.mccain.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/opinion-editorials?ID=1099c12c-0fbb-4f5d-857d-2027b0613d1f" type="external">favors</a> increased production via hydro-fracking of domestic shale gas for export as liquefied natural gas to reduce the European Union’s reliance on Russian gas supplies.</p>
<p>McCain’s views are <a href="http://conservativeread.com/with-eye-on-u-s-election-republicans-assail-russias-putin/" type="external">shared</a> by many of the Republican candidates for president. Jeb Bush, for instance, <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2015/06/jeb-bush-germany-visit-118779.html" type="external">described</a> Putin as “a ruthless pragmatist who will push until someone pushes back.” Senator Ted Cruz, when asked on Fox News what he would do to counter Putin, typically <a href="http://www.ontheissues.org/International/Ted_Cruz_Foreign_Policy.htm" type="external">replied</a>, “One, we need vigorous sanctions… Two, we should immediately reinstate the antiballistic missile batteries in Eastern Europe that President Obama canceled in 2009 in an effort to appease Russia. And three, we need to open up the export of liquid natural gas, which will help liberate Ukraine and Eastern Europe.” Similar comments from other candidates and potential candidates are commonplace.</p>
<p>As the 2016 election season looms, expect the anti-Russian rhetoric to heat up. Many of the Republican candidates are likely to attack Hillary Clinton, the presumed Democratic candidate, for her role in the Obama administration’s 2009 “ <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/us-russia-relations-reset-fact-sheet" type="external">reset</a>” of ties with Moscow, an attempted warming of relations that is now <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/wp/2014/03/04/the-failure-of-the-reset-obamas-great-mistake-or-putinss/" type="external">largely considered</a> a failure. “She’s the one that literally brought the reset button to the Kremlin,” <a href="http://conservativeread.com/with-eye-on-u-s-election-republicans-assail-russias-putin/" type="external">said</a> former Texas Governor Rick Perry in April.</p>
<p>If any of the Republican candidates other than Paul prevails in 2016, anti-Russianism is likely to become the centerpiece of foreign policy with far-reaching consequences. “No leader abroad draws more Republican criticism than Putin does,” a conservative website <a href="http://conservativeread.com/with-eye-on-u-s-election-republicans-assail-russias-putin/" type="external">noted</a> in June. “The candidates’ message is clear: If any of them are elected president, U.S. relations with Russia will turn even more negative.”</p>
<p>The Long View</p>
<p>Whoever wins in 2016, what Yale historian Paul Kennedy has termed “ <a href="http://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2014/07/15/the-danger-of-imperial-overstretch/" type="external">imperial overstretch</a>” will surely continue to be an overwhelming reality for Washington. Nonetheless, count on a greater focus of attention and resources on one of those two contenders for the top place on Washington’s enemies list. A Democratic victory spearheaded by Hillary Clinton is likely to result in a more effectively focused emphasis on China as the country’s greatest long-term threat, while a Republican victory would undoubtedly sanctify Russia as enemy number one.</p>
<p>For those of us residing outside Washington, this choice may appear to have few immediate consequences. The defense budget <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/20/us/politics/republican-budgets-in-both-house-and-the-senate-add-to-military-spending.html" type="external">will rise</a> in either case; troops will, as now, be shuttled desperately around the hot spots of the planet, and so on. Over the long run, however, don’t think for a second that the choice won’t matter.</p>
<p>A stepped-up drive to counter Russia will inevitably produce a grim, unpredictable Cold War-like atmosphere of suspicion, muscle-flexing, and periodic crises. More U.S. troops will be deployed to Europe; American nuclear weapons may <a href="http://www.ibtimes.com/uk-could-host-us-nuclear-weapons-again-white-house-weighs-response-russia-1956573" type="external">return</a> there; and saber rattling, nuclear or otherwise, will increase. (Note that Moscow recently <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/06/16/us-russia-nuclear-putin-idUSKBN0OW17X20150616" type="external">announced</a> a decision to add another 40 intercontinental ballistic missiles to its already impressive nuclear arsenal and recall Senator Cruz’s proposal for deploying U.S. anti-missile batteries in Eastern Europe.) For those of us who can remember the actual Cold War, this is hardly an appealing prospect.</p>
<p>A renewed focus on China would undoubtedly prove no less unnerving. It would involve the deployment of additional U.S. naval and air forces to the Pacific and an attendant risk of armed confrontation over China’s expanded military presence in the East and South China Seas. Cooperation on trade and the climate would be imperiled, along with the health of the global economy, while the flow of ideas and people between East and West would be further constricted. (In a sign of the times, China recently <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/18/world/foreign-groups-fear-china-oversight-plan.html" type="external">announced</a> new curbs on the operations of foreign nongovernmental organizations.) Although that country possesses far fewer nuclear weapons than Russia, it is <a href="http://allthingsnuclear.org/why-is-china-modernizing-its-nuclear-arsenal/" type="external">modernizing</a> its arsenal and the risk of nuclear confrontation would undoubtedly increase as well.</p>
<p>In short, the options for American global policy, post-2016, might be characterized as either grim and chaotic or even grimmer, if more focused. Most of us will fare equally badly under either of those outcomes, though defense contractors and others in what President Dwight Eisenhower first dubbed the “military-industrial complex” will have a field day. Domestic needs like health, education, infrastructure, and the environment will suffer either way, while prospects for peace and climate stability will recede.</p>
<p>A country without a coherent plan for advancing its national interests is a sorry thing. Worse yet, however, as we may find out in the years to come, would be a country forever on the brink of crisis and conflict with a beleaguered, nuclear-armed rival.</p>
<p>Michael T. Klare, a <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/176003/tomgram%3A_michael_klare,_superpower_in_distress/" type="external">TomDispatch regular</a>, is a professor of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College and the author, most recently, of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/1250023971/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" type="external">The Race for What’s Left</a>. A documentary movie version of his book Blood and Oil is available from the Media Education Foundation. Follow him on Twitter at @mklare1.</p>
<p>Follow TomDispatch on Twitter and join us on <a href="http://www.facebook.com/tomdispatch" type="external">Facebook</a>. Check out the newest Dispatch Book, Nick Turse’s&#160; <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/1608464636/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" type="external">Tomorrow’s Battlefield: U.S. Proxy Wars and Secret Ops in Africa</a>, and Tom Engelhardt’s latest book, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/1608463656/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" type="external">Shadow Government: Surveillance, Secret Wars, and a Global Security State in a Single-Superpower World</a>.</p>
<p>Copyright 2015 Michael T. Klare</p> | Russia or China: Who Should Lead America’s Enemies List? | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/russia-or-china-who-should-lead-americas-enemies-list/ | 2015-07-01 | 4 |
<p>Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) told <a href="http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2016-05-11/12-questions-for-tom-cotton" type="external">U.S. News</a> that he might be open to serving as Donald Trump’s running mate. Cotton stated, "I haven't seen it floated out there. Like I said, I've been focusing my political work on making sure that we hold the Senate and focus the rest of the time on my son.” When queried whether he would rule out such a possibility, Cotton answered, "I wouldn't rule it in either."</p>
<p>Cotton has signed on to the “unify the party” effort, asserting, “I've said all along, I'll support the nominee, because we can't afford another term of the Obama-Clinton foreign policy or for that matter, economic policy at home. And now Donald Trump's the presumptive nominee. So we obviously need to do some work to unify around our common and shared principles and Donald's got the responsibility and opportunity to do that in the coming weeks.”</p>
<p>Addressing the possibility of a third party formed by genuine conservatives, Cotton toed the party line, saying, “I think it's important that the Republican Party remain the home of conservatives and that the best way to advance conservative principles is to elect Republicans, up and down the ballot.”</p>
<p>Cotton <a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2015/07/14/tom_cotton_iran_deal_response_arkansas_senator_says_congress_will_kill_iran.html" type="external">spearheaded the opposition</a> to the Iran nuclear deal. But when asked about Trump’s statement that he wouldn’t rip up the deal, Cotton equivocated, “Well, Donald Trump, like all 16 [other] candidates and every Republican and many Democrats in the Senate and House all said it was a terrible deal, and all said it was not in U.S. national security interests.”</p>
<p>Trump <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/sep/4/donald-trump-iran-nuclear-deal-we-have-horrible-co/" type="external">said</a> last September, “I know it would be very popular for me to do what a couple of ‘em said — ‘we’re gonna rip it up,’ ‘we’re gonna rip it up.’ Iran is going to be an absolute terror, and it’s horrible that we have to live with it. Nevertheless, we have a contract.” Then Trump had added he was disappointed the U.S. couldn’t sell Iran missiles, blustering, “And, by the way, making money. You see Russia [is] selling missiles and Germany’s involved. Everybody’s involved now with Iran selling them stuff. We’re probably [going to] be the only ones that won’t be selling them anything, but that’s all gone now.”</p>
<p>“Well, Donald Trump, like all 16 [other] candidates and every Republican and many Democrats in the Senate and House all said it was a terrible deal, and all said it was not in U.S. national security interests.”</p>
<p>Tom Cotton, explaining away Donald Trump's softness on Iran nuclear deal</p>
<p>Cotton was elected to the House in 2012 and the Senate in 2014. Although he has been mentioned as a candidate for the presidency in 2020, he stated, “We haven't even gotten our nominees yet in this presidential cycle, so I don't want to speculate about the future. All I'm focused on now is making sure we keep the Senate in Republican hands.”</p> | Tom Cotton Might Accept VP Nod | true | https://dailywire.com/news/5653/tom-cotton-might-accept-vp-nod-hank-berrien | 2016-05-11 | 0 |
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<p>The turmoil comes as Yemen battles al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, the target of the drone program, and faces a purported affiliate of the extremist Islamic State group that claimed responsibility for a series of suicide bombings killing at least 137 people Friday.</p>
<p>All these factors could push the Arab world’s most impoverished country, united only in the 1990s, back toward civil war. “I hate to say this, but I’m hearing the loud and clear beating of the drums of war in Yemen,” Mohammed al-Basha, a spokesman for the Yemeni Embassy in Washington, D.C., wrote on Twitter.</p>
<p>The Shiite rebels, known as Houthis, swept into Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, in September and now control it and nine of the country’s 21 provinces. President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, a one-time prisoner of the Houthis in his own home, escaped last month and installed himself in Aden, declaring it the temporary capital amid the Houthi insurrection.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Earlier Saturday, Hadi gave his first televised address since fleeing the capital, striking a defiant tone. He described the rebels’ rule as “a coup against constitutional legitimacy.” He also pledged to raise the Yemeni flag over the Maran mountains, a stronghold for the Houthis, members of the Shiite Zaydi sect that represents nearly 30 percent of Yemen’s population.</p>
<p>Hadi also said that regional Shiite power Iran supported the Houthis, something critics also allege and the rebels deny. Sunni Gulf countries have lined up to support Hadi and have moved their embassies to Aden to back him against the Shiite rebels.</p>
<p>Almost immediately after Hadi’s speech, the Houthis issued a statement announcing their offensive against security and military institutions loyal to Hadi, calling it a battle against extremists.</p>
<p>“The council announces this decision to call the proud sons of the Yemeni people in all regions to unite and support and cooperate with the armed and security forces in confronting terrorist forces,” they said in the statement carried by the Houthi-controlled state news agency SABA.</p>
<p>Though seizing power in Sanaa and clashing with those protesting their power grab, the Houthis largely haven’t resorted to open warfare since beginning their campaign in September. Their statement Saturday immediately recalled the years of war fought in the country, once split between a Marxist south that once was a British colony and a northern republic.</p>
<p>Meanwhile Saturday, U.S. troops, including Special Forces commandos, were evacuating from the al-Annad air base in southern Yemen, Yemeni security and military officials said. The officials did not say whether the troops had left the country.</p>
<p>The air base, the country’s largest, was believed to have some 100 American troops stationed there. U.S. officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment Saturday.</p>
<p>Saturday night, a security official in Aden said a military transport plane from Oman evacuated 16 British military and security forces.</p>
<p>On Friday, al-Qaida militants seized control of the southern provincial capital of al-Houta in the group’s most dramatic grab of territory in years. That’s just nearby the al-Annad air base, which has been the scene of rocket attacks in the past by militants.</p>
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<p /> | Shiite rebels call for Yemen offensive | false | https://abqjournal.com/558537/shiite-rebels-call-for-yemen-offensive.html | 2 |
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<p>Royal Dutch Shell PLC (RDSA.LN) said Monday that it is selling 71.6 million shares in Woodside Petroleum Ltd. (WPL.AU) for 31.10 Australian dollars ($23.78) a share, raising A$2.2 billion as it seeks to lower its debt mountain.</p>
<p>Shell said it is selling the shares to two investment banks and expects the deal to be completed on Tuesday.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Shell will own a 4.8% interest in Woodside after the sale, and it has agreed not to sell any more shares in the Australian oil company for at least 90 days thereafter.</p>
<p>Write to Ian Walker at [email protected]; @IanWalk40289749</p>
<p>(END) Dow Jones Newswires</p>
<p>November 13, 2017 03:40 ET (08:40 GMT)</p> | Royal Dutch Shell Sells 71.6 Million Woodside Shares for A$31.10 each | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2017/11/13/royal-dutch-shell-sells-71-6-million-woodside-shares-for-31-10-each.html | 2017-11-13 | 0 |
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<p>The Spartanburg County Sheriff’s deputy who was arrested and fired after being accused of&#160; <a href="http://www.thestate.com/news/state/south-carolina/article131188659.html" type="external">inappropriate contact with an underage girl</a>, using the alias “Redneck Rick,” has pleaded guilty to a crime, according to multiple reports.</p>
<p>Chris Wilbanks, who lives in Newberry County, has pleaded guilty to sexual exploitation of a minor, according to&#160; <a href="http://wspa.com/2017/11/06/fmr-deputy-pleads-guilty-after-child-porn-investigation/" type="external">wspa.com</a>.</p>
<p>U.S. District Court documents filed on Oct. 26 state Wilbanks entered a guilty plea in connection with the indictment, according to&#160; <a href="http://www.foxcarolina.com/story/36777819/fmr-upstate-deputy-pleads-guilty-in-redneck-rick-child-sextortion-case" type="external">foxcarolina.com.</a></p>
<p>He was charged with coercing a minor to engage in sexually explicit conduct for photos or video, according to an affidavit.</p>
<p>The federal district attorney said the incidents took place while the former Spartanburg County deputy was on duty, according to&#160; <a href="http://www.foxcarolina.com/story/36777819/fmr-upstate-deputy-pleads-guilty-in-redneck-rick-child-sextortion-case" type="external">foxcarolina.com.</a></p>
<p>In February,&#160; <a href="http://www.goupstate.com/news/20170206/deputy-accused-of-coercing-girl-into-sending-nude-photos" type="external">goupstate.com</a>&#160;reported that police in Washington state responded to a woman whose 11-year-old daughter received inappropriate communications on her phone, court records state. The communications were sent on Kik, a photo and video messaging app.</p>
<p>On Jan. 3, the girl received messages from a user called “Redneck Rick,” court records state. The user claimed to be a 14-year-old boy who went to the girl’s school.</p>
<p>During the course of the investigation, it was determined “Redneck Rick” was Wilbanks’ profile on Kik, investigators said in court documents.</p>
<p>Those documents say Wilbanks asked the girl for photos of her wearing athletic apparel and a swimsuit. Eventually, Wilbanks asked for nude photos of the girl, court records state.</p>
<p>The girl refused at first, but Wilbanks told her he would show the photos to other people unless she sent more, according to the court records.</p>
<p>Court records indicate the girl was visibly upset and crying in several of the images. Wilbanks told her not to look so upset and to smile, according to those records.</p>
<p>In all, the girl sent 22 photos to Wilbanks, half of which were nude or partially clothed, the records state.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.goupstate.com/news/20170206/deputy-accused-of-coercing-girl-into-sending-nude-photos" type="external">Goupstate.com</a>&#160;reported that Wilbanks joined the Spartanburg County Sheriff’s Office in 1998, according to the S.C. Criminal Justice Academy, whose records showed he had no prior disciplinary actions.</p> | Former SC sheriff’s deputy ‘Redneck Rick’ pleaded guilty to child porn charges | false | https://studionewsnetwork.com/police-news/former-sc-sheriffs-deputy-redneck-rick-pleaded-guilty-child-porn-charges/ | 2017-11-08 | 3 |
<p>First the good news.&#160; On July 12, Nabil Al-Raee, the Artistic Director of The Freedom Theatre in Jenin, was released after more than a month in detention following his arrest at his home in the early hours of the morning in June by Israeli Armed Forces,</p>
<p>Not accused of any crime, but arrested initially on suspicion of ‘illegal activity’ and withholding information about the murder last year of Freedom Theatre co-founder, Juliano Mer Khamis, for the first two weeks of his captivity Nabil was not allowed to have any contact with his lawyer or family, and throughout his detention he was subject to a long set of interrogations.&#160; When the military judge declared in a court hearing that no evidence had been established, the military prosecution put forward a third accusation of him being involved in ‘terror activities’.</p>
<p>The bad news is that Nabil has only been freed on bail, and that he will remain under house arrest wearing an electronic foot chain until his next trial at the end of the month.</p>
<p>Meanwhile former commander of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade Zakaria Zubeid, who&#160; received an amnesty when he renounced violence in 2005&#160; and committed himself to cultural resistance through theatre, has been held without charge by the Palestinian security forces in prison in Jericho since May 13.&#160; Zubeidi, is co-founder of the Jenin Freedom Theatre.&#160; On December 29, 2011, Israel rescinded Zubeidi’s pardon for unstated reasons.</p>
<p>“The theatre is an important project,” said Zubeidi.&#160; “ It can bring the children together under one roof, give them the possibility to dream, develop them and lighten their psychological burden.”`</p>
<p>What is it about the Freedom Theatre that causes its artistic director to be arrested in a night time raid, one co-founder to be held in prison and the other, Juliano Mer Khamis, to be brutally gunned down at the entrance to the theatre last year?</p>
<p>Built on the inspiration and legacy of Juliano Mer Khamis’mother, Arna Mer-Khamis, a Jewish woman who in 1987 went to Jenin and set up a theatre and activity centres for the children of the camp and worked there until her death of cancer in 1995, the initiative to set up the Freedom Theatre as a European-Jewish-Palestinian-Arab venture in the Jenin refugee camp was born of the enthusiasm of two people – the artist Dror Feiler, and Jonatan Stanczak, a Swedish-Jewish peace activist , who set up an association and solicited contributions&#160; after viewing&#160; Juliano Mer Khamis’ excellent film “ <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNGmA8Ma1UM" type="external">Arna’s Children</a>”.</p>
<p>“The Freedom Theatre was created with the inspiration of Arna,” said Juliano, whose father was a Palestinian, speaking before he was murdered,&#160; “but even so, despite&#160; the partners of the project’s request to name the theatre after her, I refused.&#160; Arna hated commemoration.&#160; We will not make a personality-cult for her.&#160; We are setting up a theatre in the spirit of her actions.&#160; One of the reasons why we called the project Freedom Theatre, apart from the obvious political connotations, was the intention to create a theatre that would be free from all the elements of the occupation that is imprinted on the population.&#160; Part of the work with the children will be to liberate them from the scars of the occupation, from the social patriarchy they live under, from the oppression they live under at home and outside.”</p>
<p>“The real essence of the theatre is to create a free zone for children so they can create and bring about change.&#160; I think that the best way to influence the behaviour of a child is to create for him a living space without laws, which is the opposite of the reality he comes from.&#160; This is not a pedagogical effort or an attempt to deal with neurological or pathological phenomena. We have no pretensions. Certainly not me.”</p>
<p>“I think that adults, too, need theatre. It’s not enough that they send their children here, we want to work with them.&#160; Because a network of relationships in the camp are based on violence and hierarchy – between the camp and the occupation, between the parents, between the parents and the children and among the children – a way of group work in psychodrama workshops can teach the participants to create different networks of inter-personal relationships.”</p>
<p>The Freedom Theatre has mounted critically acclaimed productions of plays that raise the dilemmas of the individual spirit faced with the soul-crushing imposition of arbitrary power, including an original musical production inspired by Alice in Wonderland, Animal Farm, and a Palestinian adaptation of Waiting for Godot. Several of these productions have toured in Europe and the United States – although Israel has frequently obstructed the international performances by denying actors and technical staff access to consular offices to apply for visas or permission to cross the border into Jordan, the only access West Bank Palestinians have for international flights.&#160; Performances within the West Bank have been harassed by Israeli armed forces surrounding the performance space with troops.</p>
<p>A French circus group, scheduled to perform at The Freedom Theatre, was denied entry into Palestine by Israel.</p>
<p>A leading actor in the Godot play was arrested by Israeli armed forces and held in jail throughout the final two months of rehearsal.</p>
<p>Israeli troops have surrounded the theatre and abducted staff members in the middle of the night.</p>
<p>“This behaviour is mounting to systematical harassment of The Freedom Theatre by The Israeli army.&#160; It is scandalous,” said&#160; co-founder Jonatan Stanczak, who lives in Jenin.&#160; “This proves that the Israeli army and security apparatus is either lost in their investigation or that they have the actual intention of damaging the theatre. It also seems that after the murder of Juliano Mer Khamis The Freedom Theatre is no longer exempted from the kind of oppression the Palestinian society is subjected to in general.”</p>
<p>Since the murder of Mer-Khamis the Israelis have repeatedly summoned Palestinian staff members of The Freedom Theatre to the Salem army base for intimidating interrogations.&#160; All come to the appointments as scheduled and answer the given questions to the best of their knowledge even though they are intimidated and even threatened.</p>
<p>“Usually these interrogations start with ‘We know you are the one who killed Juliano, why did you kill him?’” said Stanczak.</p>
<p>“Since this has happened so many times in the past, I can’t interpret it as anything else than an ongoing harassment of the employees of The Freedom Theatre and their families by the Israeli army.”</p>
<p>“Maybe they thought we would break down when Juliano was assassinated, but we kept on and now they are trying to suffocate us slowly by harassing our employees, members and supporters with various accusations, one more absurd than the other.&#160; This systematic harassment has gone on for a year now.”</p>
<p>The Freedom Theatre is warmly received in the Jenin refugee camp.</p>
<p>“The residents of the camps and the military organizations understand that the occupation oppresses also the cultural-intellectual infrastructure and does not allow the residents to develop,” said Mer-Khamis.</p>
<p>As Ashraf, one of “Arna’s Children” expressed in the film:</p>
<p>“When I am on stage I feel like I am throwing stones. We wont let the occupation keep us in the gutter. To me acting is like throwing a Molotov cocktail. On stage I feel strong, alive and proud”.</p>
<p>The Freedom Theatre will continue the message of Juliano Mer Khamis and his mother Arna to promote freedom – not only for the Palestinian people but for all human beings. We will continue our resistance through art, continue our struggle, continue to do our better than best.</p>
<p>As Juliano would say: “The Revolution must go on!”</p>
<p>Michael Dickinson&#160;is an artist living in Istanbul. He can be contacted at <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a>.</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | The Bravest Theater in the World | true | https://counterpunch.org/2012/07/13/the-bravest-theater-in-the-world/ | 2012-07-13 | 4 |
<p>Papa Murphy's Holdings Inc. said Tuesday that it will be refranchising stores it owns in certain markets and using the cash raised to reduce its debt. The company said it would be retaining a royalty annuity in those sales, which along with other changes "positions us well to return the company to profitable growth," Jean Birch, board chair and interim CEO, said. Papa Murphy's shares have dropped 25.3% over the last three months, compared with a 7.0% rise in the S&amp;P 500 .</p>
<p>Copyright © 2017 MarketWatch, Inc.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p> | Papa Murphy's Holdings Says It Will Refranchise Some Stores To Pay Down Debt | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/01/17/papa-murphy-holdings-says-it-will-refranchise-some-stores-to-pay-down-debt.html | 2017-01-17 | 0 |
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<p>A: First, realize that everybody has been a part of those conversations involving the difficult times and situations faced by citizens of our country and of the world. We may not as individuals be able to do anything those negative issues, but we don’t have to allow them to taint us as negative.</p>
<p>In our own thinking we can look at negative issues without becoming negative ourselve and express our thoughts without further darkening the skies. Others’ negativity over the topics may be unavoidable, but we control our response to them.</p>
<p>When you feel conversations turn to the negative or linger too long there, make an effort to introduce other topics or ask questions that veer onto another subject. If you truly feel cornered, you may need to say directly, “I think we’ve exhausted this subject. Let’s talk about your plans for the summer.”</p>
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<p>Sometimes we also find ourselves part of negative conversations that spring from shared experiences at work, at school or in our social circle. Perhaps as parents we hear a complaint about a teacher that triggers a negative conversation over that teacher.</p>
<p>It’s important in a situation like this to avoid jumping on a bashing bandwagon, which doesn’t solve any problems but tends to leave a negative cloud that’s not easily dispelled. If that conversation must be had, stick to the facts and focus on solutions.</p>
<p>When facing those kinds of conversations it’s healthy to remember the saying: “You should always credit people with the goodwill that you want to be credited with.”</p>
<p>Dear Readers: I wanted to share with you a tremendous experience I had last month sharing a day with a group of more than 90 sixth- through 12th-grade girls from Sandia Preparatory School in Albuquerque. Planned by Sandia Prep students with the help of faculty and staff, the “Savvy Girls Empowerment Workshop” provided a daylong series of sessions designed to help girls grow in confidence and in their leadership skills.</p>
<p>These young women fully participated in lessons and activities with my team and me ranging from communications strategies to conflict resolution to social skills. Together we discussed self-respect, interpersonal relationships and traits of leaders, and we developed strategies to build on their strengths.</p>
<p>The program was made possible by Sandia Prep’s Girls of Achievement and Leadership Fund (the GoAL! Fund), which since 2010 has raised $30,000 to support the development of leadership skills in girls through skill-building workshops and conferences, international travel for community service and tuition assistance.</p>
<p>It was refreshing to see Sandia Prep and its GoAL! Fund working to prepare these young women to fit into the competitive world in which they’re going to live. And it was wonderful to see these young women participate so fully and gain all the knowledge they could from the experience, building confidence in their unique qualities and ability to make a difference.</p>
<p>The message is one I wish more organizations and people would embrace – how important it is to respond to the leadership development needs of today’s kids because it’s their world and they want their place in it. We should prepare them well to take it.</p>
<p>Proper preparation and good manners never go out of style.</p>
<p>Post your comments at thelmadomenici.com. Thelma Domenici is CEO of Thelma Domenici &amp; Associates, offering corporate coaching and social skills development programs to all ages.</p> | Turn conversations away from negativity | false | https://abqjournal.com/181732/turn-conversations-away-from-negativity.html | 2013-03-24 | 2 |
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<p>YIKES! I would hate to have that thing on my fishing line. Imagine what else is out there that we don’t know about.</p>
<p>A research team conducting a dive in Monterey Bay off the coast of California have captured first-ever video of a rarely-seen denizen of the deep called the black seadevil.</p>
<p>The creature was spotted this week in the dark, deep waters 1,900 feet below the surface by researchers with the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute.</p>
<p>“We’ve been diving out here in the Monterey Canyon regularly for 25 years, and we’ve seen three,”&#160; <a href="http://www.mbari.org/news/behind-the-scenes/behind-the-scenes.html" type="external">MBARI&#160;</a>Senior Scientist Bruce Robinson <a href="http://www.mercurynews.com/science/ci_26984924/monterey-bay-researchers-capture-rare-deep-sea-anglerfish" type="external">&#160;told&#160;</a>the San Jose Mercury News Friday.</p>
<p>Robinson said a luminescent “fishing pole” projecting from the anglerfish’s head is a glowing lure to attract prey.</p>
<p>Robinson told the paper they captured the fish to study, but don’t know how long it will survive.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.foxnews.com/science/2014/11/22/monterey-researchers-take-first-ever-video-mysterious-black-seadevil/" type="external">This article continues on&#160;foxnews.com</a></p> | EVIL SPAWN OF SATAN? Researchers Capture First Ever Footage of Seadevil Fish | true | http://girlsjustwannahaveguns.com/evil-spawn-satan-researchers-capture-first-ever-footage-seadevil-fish/ | 0 |
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<p>The tax deadline for filing your 2015 income tax return is April 18. We have been given an extra four days to prepare and send in our tax returns this year. You’re thinking that me, the tax and therefore, math expert, can’t add, right? You’re guessing it’s three days but don’t forget, this is a leap year. February 29 gave us all one extra day.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>But all this extra time doesn’t mean much if you are a procrastinator. You may still be shoveling around that pile of paperwork saying, “Manana, manana.” It’s easy for lethargy to set in when it comes to numbers and coughing up more dough and data to the government.</p>
<p>If you haven’t made an appointment with your tax pro by now, I’d say tax tip number one is to NOT even try -- unless you’re in the mood for hearing scornful laughter. Almost all tax pros are up to their proverbial ears in alligators and will likely not have time to sort through your paperwork. Perhaps they will allow a drop off of your tax data to be pursued if time slows down and I’m sure they will be happy to file an extension for you.</p>
<p>Which brings me to tax tip number two: file an extension. &#160;If you are expecting a refund, you will not be required to pay anything with the extension form. You can file the extension for free by going to the IRS website and selecting <a href="https://www.irs.gov/uac/Free-File:-Do-Your-Federal-Taxes-for-Free" type="external">IRS Free File Opens a New Window.</a> from the homepage. Follow the prompts. This will buy you time until October 17, 2016.</p>
<p>Bear in mind that an extension is only an extension of time to file, not an extension of time to pay. If you anticipate owing taxes on April 15, you will want to make a payment of your full anticipated tax liability. Therefore you should complete IRS <a href="https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f4868.pdf" type="external">Form 4868 Opens a New Window.</a>, attach a check or money order and mail it to the IRS address indicated on the form’s instructions by April 18. It must be post marked that day, otherwise it will be considered late and subject to penalties and interest. I recommend you send it certified mail. Be sure to put your Social Security number, the tax year, and ‘Form 1040’ on the memo line of the check to ensure that it is credited properly to your tax account.</p>
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<p>To be on the safe side, rather than sending a check, make an extension-related electronic credit card payment. See the instructions on Form 4868 to find out how to do this. You can also choose to pay any expected balance due by authorizing an electronic funds withdrawal from a checking or savings account. You will need the appropriate bank routing and account numbers.&#160; For information about these and other methods of payment, visit the <a href="http://www.irs.gov/" type="external">IRS website Opens a New Window.</a>&#160;or call 800-TAX-1040 (800-829-1040).</p>
<p>You can reduce your tax liability by making a contribution to your IRA or Health Savings Account. Be sure to let the plan manager know that you want this contribution credited to the 2015 tax year.</p>
<p>If you are required to make estimated tax payments, your first payment for 2016 taxes is also due on April 18. Use <a href="https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f1040es.pdf" type="external">Form 1040-ES Opens a New Window.</a> to make the payment.</p>
<p>My third tax tip involves timing. Make an appointment to see your tax professional sometime in May or June to finalize your tax return. Creating this deadline might whip you into shape to get the deed done. Remember that IRS penalties accrue dramatically. If you wait until October and you owe money, you will likely pay a 25% penalty plus interest. Penalties accrue at 5% per month and max out at 25%. This can get real expensive, real fast. It’s far cheaper to pay now – even if you have to use a credit card to do so.</p>
<p>Besides, in May or June your tax professional will be back from an extended vacation, refreshed and ready to tackle your tax return. She won’t be hard pressed like she was during tax season or in the last minute onslaught of the final October deadline.</p>
<p>If you prepare your own tax return, you can do so for free if your income was less than $62,000 by going to the IRS website and using the <a href="https://www.irs.gov/uac/Free-File:-Do-Your-Federal-Taxes-for-Free" type="external">IRS Free File</a> software. Or you can purchase tax preparation software which also allows electronic filing.</p> | Last Minute Tax Tips for Procrastinators | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2016/04/13/last-minute-tax-tips-for-procrastinators.html | 2016-04-13 | 0 |
<p>Last night, Zachary Jacobson became the latest person to seek a confrontation with the police.</p>
<p><a href="/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/maricopa-knife.jpg" type="external" />The 20-year-old was spotted jumping on the hood of the marked Maricopa County, Arizona sheriff’s deputy vehicle in Fountain Hills&#160;while holding an eight-inch butcher knife, CBS 5 <a href="http://www.kpho.com/story/29952194/mcso-man-who-hates-the-police-stabs-sheriffs-posse-vehicle" type="external">reports</a>.</p>
<p>With guns drawn, deputies ordered him to drop the knife, and that’s when they say he began stabbing the hood of the vehicle, piercing the steel.</p>
<p>According to deputies, Jacobson said he did so because he “hates the police” and wanted to “send a message to everyone.”</p>
<p>He didn’t elaborate on what message should be received.</p>
<p>“This is a scary time for all law enforcement,” Sheriff Joe Arpaio said after the incident. “We are dealing with a war on cops, people are randomly shooting our law enforcement officials; then this guy targets a fully marked Sheriff’s Vehicle to send a message. I want to commend my deputies and possemen for showing restraint, and utilizing their training when dealing with this suspect.”</p>
<p>Jacobson was booked into the 4th Avenue Jail on charges for criminal damage and he may face other charges, ABC 15 <a href="http://www.abc15.com/news/region-central-southern-az/maricopa/mcso-zachary-jacobson-arrested-for-stabbing-marked-sheriffs-vehicle" type="external">reports</a>.</p> | Man stabs police car with butcher knife to ‘send a message’ | true | http://theamericanmirror.com/man-stabs-police-car-with-butcher-knife-to-send-a-message/ | 2015-09-03 | 0 |
<p>WASHINGTON (AP) — Presidents since George Washington have resisted congressional requests for documents and the testimony of administration officials by asserting a power known as executive privilege. Executive privilege is the president’s power to keep information from the courts, Congress and the public to protect the confidentiality of presidential decision-making.</p>
<p>Steve Bannon’s refusal to answer questions from a congressional committee about his time working for President Donald Trump is raising new concerns that the White House is trying to control what current and former aides tell Congress.</p>
<p>Here are some questions and answers about the extent of executive privilege, and its use in recent administrations.</p>
<p>Q. What is executive privilege? Is it written in the Constitution?</p>
<p>A. The privilege to withhold documents and prohibit aides from testifying rests on the proposition that the president has an almost unparalleled need to protect the confidentiality of candid advice that goes into presidential decision-making. There is no reference to executive privilege in the Constitution, but the Supreme Court has held that it derives from the president’s ability to carry out the duties he holds under the Constitution.</p>
<p>Q. Are there limits to the invocation of executive privilege?</p>
<p>A. Yes, there are. Courts have not had much to say about executive privilege, but in the 1974 case over President Richard Nixon’s refusal to release Oval Office recordings as part of the Watergate investigation, the Supreme Court held that the privilege is not absolute. In other words, the case for turning over documents or allowing testimony may be more compelling than arguments for withholding them. Indeed, in that context, the court ruled 8-0 that Nixon had to turn over the tapes.</p>
<p>Q. Who has the final word when the president or an aide called to testify invokes executive privilege?</p>
<p>A. When it came to the Watergate tapes, the Supreme Court said it had the final word, and lower courts have occasionally weighed in to resolve other disputes. But courts have also made clear that they prefer the White House and Congress resolve their disagreements without judicial intervention, when possible.</p>
<p>Q. How frequently does the executive branch claim the privilege?</p>
<p>A. Not often, in recent administrations. The most recent court case involving claims of executive privilege was over Congress’ effort to force the Obama administration to release documents pertaining to a failed law enforcement program called Operation Fast and Furious. The administration claimed the documents should remain confidential, but a federal judge ordered them turned over to a House committee in 2016.</p>
<p>WASHINGTON (AP) — Presidents since George Washington have resisted congressional requests for documents and the testimony of administration officials by asserting a power known as executive privilege. Executive privilege is the president’s power to keep information from the courts, Congress and the public to protect the confidentiality of presidential decision-making.</p>
<p>Steve Bannon’s refusal to answer questions from a congressional committee about his time working for President Donald Trump is raising new concerns that the White House is trying to control what current and former aides tell Congress.</p>
<p>Here are some questions and answers about the extent of executive privilege, and its use in recent administrations.</p>
<p>Q. What is executive privilege? Is it written in the Constitution?</p>
<p>A. The privilege to withhold documents and prohibit aides from testifying rests on the proposition that the president has an almost unparalleled need to protect the confidentiality of candid advice that goes into presidential decision-making. There is no reference to executive privilege in the Constitution, but the Supreme Court has held that it derives from the president’s ability to carry out the duties he holds under the Constitution.</p>
<p>Q. Are there limits to the invocation of executive privilege?</p>
<p>A. Yes, there are. Courts have not had much to say about executive privilege, but in the 1974 case over President Richard Nixon’s refusal to release Oval Office recordings as part of the Watergate investigation, the Supreme Court held that the privilege is not absolute. In other words, the case for turning over documents or allowing testimony may be more compelling than arguments for withholding them. Indeed, in that context, the court ruled 8-0 that Nixon had to turn over the tapes.</p>
<p>Q. Who has the final word when the president or an aide called to testify invokes executive privilege?</p>
<p>A. When it came to the Watergate tapes, the Supreme Court said it had the final word, and lower courts have occasionally weighed in to resolve other disputes. But courts have also made clear that they prefer the White House and Congress resolve their disagreements without judicial intervention, when possible.</p>
<p>Q. How frequently does the executive branch claim the privilege?</p>
<p>A. Not often, in recent administrations. The most recent court case involving claims of executive privilege was over Congress’ effort to force the Obama administration to release documents pertaining to a failed law enforcement program called Operation Fast and Furious. The administration claimed the documents should remain confidential, but a federal judge ordered them turned over to a House committee in 2016.</p> | Questions and answers about executive privilege | false | https://apnews.com/1890f544201941b490a8fd165c63203e | 2018-01-17 | 2 |
<p><a href="http://pienews.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Shot.jpg" type="external" />Overnight shootings across the city left at least eight people wounded, including a 15-year-old boy, in addition to a man shot to death by police, authorities said. The 15-year-old, the youngest person shot overnight, was injured in a shooting about 11:45 p.m. in the Grand Crossing neighborhood, near the [?]</p>
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<p><a href="http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2014-05-11/news/chi-overnight-shootings-wound-at-least-20140511_1_south-austin-neighborhood-west-pullman-neighborhood-serious-condition" type="external">Click here to view original web page at articles.chicagotribune.com</a></p>
<p /> | 9 more shot in Chicago on Sunday night | true | http://politicalillusionsexposed.com/shootings-across-city-overnight-injure-8-1-dies-in-police-shooting/ | 0 |
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<p>The mother of the U.S. ambassador killed in the 2012 attack in Benghazi has asked that Donald Trump and the Republican Party stop the "opportunistic and cynical" use of her son's name and death.</p>
<p>Christopher Stevens was among four Americans killed in the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi on Sept. 11, 2012.</p>
<p>"As Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens’s mother, I am writing to object to any mention of his name and death in Benghazi, Libya, by Donald Trump’s campaign and the Republican Party," Stevens’ mother, Mary Commanday, said in a short letter <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/23/opinion/a-mothers-complaint-about-a-cynical-use-of-benghazi.html?_r=0&amp;mtrref=thehill.com&amp;assetType=opinion&amp;mtrref=www.cnn.com&amp;gwh=BC4128968BC7B58654EC0471E2CE8E30&amp;gwt=pay&amp;assetType=opinion" type="external">published in The New York Times</a> online Saturday.</p>
<p>"I know for certain that Chris would not have wanted his name or memory used in that connection. I hope that there will be an immediate and permanent stop to this opportunistic and cynical use by the campaign,” she said in the letter.</p>
<p>Related: <a href="" type="internal">House Republicans Release Long-Awaited Benghazi Report</a></p>
<p>Republicans at the party’s national convention this week repeatedly brought up Benghazi in attacking presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.</p>
<p>Trump in a speech accepting his party’s nomination Thursday referred to the victims of the Benghazi attack, who he claimed were "left helpless to die at the hands of savage killers" by Clinton, who was secretary of State at the time.</p>
<p>Related: <a href="" type="internal">Republicans Escalate Violent Rhetoric Against Clinton</a></p>
<p>Steven’s sister in an interview <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/chris-stevenss-family-dont-blame-hillary-clinton-for-benghazi?utm_content=bufferd52c6&amp;utm_medium=social&amp;utm_source=twitter.com&amp;utm_campaign=buffer" type="external">published in The New Yorker last month</a>said she does not hold Clinton responsible for the attack.</p>
<p>Anne Stevens said in the interview that the Benghazi mission was understaffed, and her brother knew that but believed it was worth it to promote better relations with North Africa and the Middle East.</p>
<p>To "use Chris's death as a political point," Anne Stevens added, "is not appropriate." She said it would be more useful if Congress increased security resources for State Department facilities around the world, particularly in North Africa and the Middle East.</p>
<p>State Department communications specialist Sean Smith and CIA security contractors Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty were the other Americans killed in the attack.</p> | Mother of Chris Stevens, Ambassador Killed in Benghazi, Tells GOP: Stop Using Son’s Death | false | http://nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/mother-ambassador-killed-benghazi-tells-trump-gop-stop-invoking-son-n615591 | 2016-07-24 | 3 |
<p><a href="http://pienews.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/MD.jpg" type="external" />Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL) told Roll Call that Congress must act on immigration reform before August or it doesn't happen this year. The deadline to pass immigration overhaul legislation is this August, said Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, R-Fla., who is part of the effort to develop an immigration bill that [?]</p>
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<p><a href="http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2014/05/republican-lawmaker-pushes-for-amnesty-before-november-election/" type="external">Click here to view original web page at www.thegatewaypundit.com</a></p>
<p /> | Republican Lawmaker Pushes For Amnesty Before November Election | true | http://politicalillusionsexposed.com/republican-lawmaker-pushes-for-amnesty-before-november-election/ | 0 |
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<p>By the spring of 2009, it was clear something was amiss at the Indian Pueblos Federal Development Corp., which was formed by the state’s 19 pueblos to develop the old Albuquerque Indian School property.</p>
<p>The Indian corporation and its private partners had constructed two office buildings on the property and leased them to the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs, but the corporation had lost more than $2.5 million over two years and was essentially broke.</p>
<p>Sanchez: Change-of-plea hearing set for today</p>
<p>The pueblos’ governors responded by removing the corporation’s longtime president, Bruce Sanchez, then governor of Santa Ana Pueblo, and installing new management.</p>
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<p>In September 2012, Sanchez and prominent Santa Fe-area real estate broker Thomas Keesing were indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of stealing $3.6 million from the Indian corporation.</p>
<p>Sanchez and Keesing pleaded not guilty, and jury selection for their trial was to begin Feb. 11. But notices filed in U.S. District Court on Tuesday showed change-of-plea hearings were scheduled this morning for Sanchez and Keesing before Judge M. Christina Armijo.</p>
<p>Attorneys for Sanchez and Keesing and a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Albuquerque couldn’t be reached for comment.</p>
<p>In September 2012, a grand jury indicted Sanchez on 15 counts of conspiracy to defraud the United States, embezzlement from an Indian tribal organization, tax evasion and willful failure to file a tax return. Keesing was charged with 11 counts of conspiracy and embezzlement.</p>
<p>Using fraudulent invoices, the two allegedly diverted at least $3.6 million from the Indian corporation to a Keesing company, with $1.7 million of that eventually funneled to Sanchez.</p>
<p>“Bruce Sanchez allegedly betrayed the people he was duty-bound to service,” Kenneth Gonzales, then U.S. attorney and now a federal judge, said in announcing the indictments.</p>
<p>Sanchez, who is about 60, was governor of Santa Ana Pueblo for four one-year terms between 1999 and 2010 and was a prominent figure in statewide Indian affairs.</p>
<p>He also has served as the pueblo’s lieutenant governor, head of its casino regulatory commission and chairman of the pueblo’s development and investments company. Sanchez became president and chief executive officer of the Indian development corporation in about 2003.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>While pueblo governor, he oversaw the opening of the pueblo’s $80 million Hyatt Regency Tamaya Resort &amp; Spa and Twin Warriors Golf Club and a $60 million expansion of the Santa Ana Star Casino.</p>
<p>Keesing, who is in his early 60s, was a real estate broker living in Pecos, about 30 miles from Santa Fe, at the time of his indictment. He was president of The Santa Fe Agency and New Mexico Real Estate Inc., both now defunct.</p>
<p>Keesing served as chairman in the 1990s of the New Mexico Highlands University Board of Regents and was named to an ethics-reform task force in 2007 by then-Gov. Bill Richardson. He has served as officers of Santa Fe and state Realtors associations.</p>
<p>The old Albuquerque Indian School property, on 12th Street just north of Interstate 40, is held in trust by the federal government for the 19 pueblos in the state.</p>
<p>The pueblos opened the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center on the property in 1976 and later created the Indian Pueblos Federal Development Corp. to develop the remainder of the land.</p>
<p>In the mid-2000s, the development corporation and private partners created companies to build, then lease two buildings to the Bureau of Indian Affairs. The companies borrowed $75.3 million for construction, with the loans to be paid off with money from lease payments.</p>
<p>The Journal reported in 2010 that documents showed at least $8.9 million of the borrowed construction money went to the Indian corporation and $11.1 million to the private partners for such things as development and management fees and so-called contingencies.</p>
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<p /> | Plea hearing set for former Santa Ana governor | false | https://abqjournal.com/532711/plea-hearing-set-for-former-santa-ana-governor.html | 2 |
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<p><a href="http://www.nmlegis.gov/Sessions/13%20Regular/bills/house/HB0051.pdf" type="external">HB51</a>: This bill, sponsored by Rep. Sheryl Williams Stapleton, D-Albuquerque, would allow summer civics courses to be offered as high school electives. I didn’t know they weren’t allowed already, but there you go.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.nmlegis.gov/Sessions/13%20Regular/bills/house/HB0053.pdf" type="external">HB53</a>: This bill, also sponsored by Rep. Williams Stapleton, would create a new law called the Teacher Loan Repayment Act, and would assist teachers in paying off their student loans if they went to teach in high-risk schools.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.nmlegis.gov/Sessions/13%20Regular/bills/house/HB0054.pdf" type="external">HB54</a>: Also sponsored by Williams Stapleton, this bill would require all school boards to establish a cyberbullying prevention policy by August. Districts are already required by law to have anti-bullying policies in place, but this would require district policies to specifically address cyber bullying.</p>
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<p><a href="http://www.nmlegis.gov/Sessions/13%20Regular/bills/house/HB0232VES.pdf" type="external">HB232</a>: This bill has some bipartisan love from Rep. James Smith, R-Sandia Park, and Sen. Jacob Candelaria, D-Albuquerque. The bill would require school board candidates to report campaign contributions, the same way candidates for other offices do. APS already has a policy requiring this, but this would codify it in law and would apply to all districts.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.nmlegis.gov/Sessions/13%20Regular/bills/house/HB0310EDS.pdf" type="external">HB310</a>: This bill, sponsored by Rep. Mimi Stewart, D-Albuquerque, modifies the criteria for schools to qualify to have the <a href="" type="internal">K-3 Plus program</a>. Before, at least 85 percent of a school’s students had to come from low-income families in order for the school to qualify. Now, schools can qualify if they have 80 percent or more low-income students or if they got a D or F school grade the previous year.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.nmlegis.gov/Sessions/13%20Regular/bills/house/HB0392.pdf" type="external">HB392</a>: This bill, sponsored by Rep. Mary Helen Garcia, D-Las Cruces, would make the Public Education Commission independent of the Public Education Department, and would remove the secretary of education’s power to overturn the PEC’s decisions about whether to approve the authorization of new charter schools or the renewal of existing ones. This comes as the <a href="" type="internal">PEC is suing</a> Education Secretary-designate Hanna Skandera over <a href="" type="internal">this decision</a>.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.nmlegis.gov/lcs/_session.aspx?chamber=H&amp;legtype=B&amp;legno=%20460&amp;year=13" type="external">HB460</a>: I’ve written about this bill, sponsored by Rep. Stewart and Sen. Tim Keller, D-Albuquerque. It would prevent for-profit companies from administering school curriculum. I’ve laid this out more thoroughly <a href="" type="internal">here</a> and <a href="" type="internal">here</a>.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.nmlegis.gov/Sessions/13%20Regular/bills/house/HB0462.pdf" type="external">HB462</a>: This is a companion bill to <a href="http://www.nmlegis.gov/Sessions/13%20Regular/bills/senate/SB0464.pdf" type="external">SB464</a>, which would allow schools to continue getting class size waivers in order to cope with tight budgets. It is sponsored by David Gallegos, R-Eunice, and I wrote about the potential implications for APS <a href="" type="internal">here</a>.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.nmlegis.gov/Sessions/13%20Regular/bills/house/HB0513ECS.pdf" type="external">HB513</a>: This bill, also sponsored by Stewart, codifies some aspects of the “alternative demonstration of competency” requirement for students who don’t pass the 11th grade Standards-Based Assessment.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.nmlegis.gov/Sessions/13%20Regular/bills/house/HB0623.pdf" type="external">HB623</a>: This bill, sponsored by Rep. Christine Trujillo, clarifies that school counselors, as well as teachers, are eligible for tier-three licensure.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.nmlegis.gov/Sessions/13%20Regular/bills/house/HB0628AFS.pdf" type="external">HB628</a>: This bill, sponsored by Rep. W. Ken Martinez, D-Grants, would provide an appropriation to cover special education funding requirements in the event that <a href="" type="internal">this issue with the feds</a> doesn’t get resolved in NM’s favor.</p>
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<p><a href="http://www.nmlegis.gov/Sessions/13%20Regular/resolutions/house/HJR02.pdf" type="external">HJR2</a>: This resolution for a constitutional amendment is sponsored by Rep. Smith and Sen. Daniel Ivey-Soto, D-Albuquerque. It would allow school board elections to be held along with other non-partisan elections, like city elections. I’ve given this resolution <a href="" type="internal">its own blog post</a> before.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.nmlegis.gov/Sessions/13%20Regular/bills/senate/SB0115.pdf" type="external">SB115</a>: This bill, sponsored by Sen. Stuart Ingle, R-Portales, is about solvency in the education retirement fund. Honestly, I’m not an expert, so <a href="" type="internal">here’s a quick overview</a> from my more informed colleague Dan Boyd.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.nmlegis.gov/Sessions/13%20Regular/bills/senate/SB0231FCS.pdf" type="external">SB231</a>: This bill, sponsored by Sen. Keller and Rep. Jimmie Hall, R-Albuquerque, would give school districts and charter schools more flexibility in how they invest their money, including them in some of the laws that allow cities and counties to invest.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.nmlegis.gov/Sessions/13%20Regular/bills/senate/SB0333.pdf" type="external">SB333</a>: This bill, sponsored by Sen. Sue Wilson Beffort, R-Sandia Park, tightens up the rules on charter school nepotism and lease payments.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.nmlegis.gov/Sessions/13%20Regular/bills/senate/SB0370.pdf" type="external">SB370</a>: This bill, sponsored by Sen. Michael Sanchez, D-Belen, creates an alternative school grading scheme for alternative schools and charter schools that cater specifically to at-risk students.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.nmlegis.gov/Sessions/13%20Regular/bills/senate/SB0587.pdf" type="external">SB587</a>: I figure most people have stopped reading by now, but this one is interesting. Sponsored by Sen. Howie Morales, D-Silver City, this bill would repeal the school grading act as it stands and create a council to study school grades and come up with a new grading scheme.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.nmlegis.gov/Sessions/13%20Regular/bills/senate/SB0588.pdf" type="external">SB588</a>: This is similar, and also sponsored by Sen. Morales. This bill calls for creating a council to study teacher evaluation. It also specifies that measures of student learning shall not account for more than 20 percent of a teacher’s evaluation. Of course, Skandera has already adopted administrative rules that call for a new evaluation system to start in the fall, and which says teacher evaluations must be 50 percent based on student learning measures.</p>
<p>So, that’s a lot, but that’s all of them! The session is over, so they can’t pass any more education bills. The thing to watch now is which of these the governor signs. And you don’t have to watch it, because I’ll watch it for you and report back.</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | Things on the governor’s desk | false | https://abqjournal.com/181184/things-on-the-governors-desk.html | 2 |
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<p>PAGE, Ariz. (AP) - Authorities say a man is in custody for allegedly fatally stabbing his cousin at a home in Page.</p>
<p>Page police identify the victim as 28-year-old Jeremiah Welch of Kaibeto.</p>
<p>They say an altercation occurred between family members about 4:30 a.m. Wednesday and Welch was stabbed several times and later died of his injuries.</p>
<p>Police haven't released the name of the suspect yet.</p>
<p>They say he fled the scene in a vehicle after the stabbing and was later picked up by Navajo Nation tribal police.</p>
<p>He's being held in the Tuba City Jail awaiting extradition to Page and police say he's facing a murder charge.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | Man accused of fatally stabbing his cousin in Page | false | https://abqjournal.com/404270/man-accused-of-fatally-stabbing-his-cousin-in-page.html | 2 |
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<p>The Hill <a href="http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/governor-races/294560-new-clinton-ad-slams-trumps-respect-for-veterans" type="external">reports</a>:</p>
<p>A new ad from Hillary Clinton’s campaign questions Donald Trump’s respect for military veterans. The video, released Tuesday, shows veterans silently watching footage of the GOP presidential nominee making controversial remarks about the military.</p>
<p>“I know more about [the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria] than the generals do,” Trump says in one segment. In another, he mocks Sen. John McCain’s (R-Ariz.) time as a prisoner of war, sarcastically saying “he’s a war hero because he was captured,” before derisively adding, “I like people that weren’t captured, OK?”</p>
<p>Trump also a question about the sacrifices he’s made by bragging about his real estate buildings. A reporter responds: “You think those are sacrifices?”</p>
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<p /> | New Hillary Ad Hits Trump On Veterans [VIDEO] | true | http://joemygod.com/2016/09/06/new-hillary-ad-hits-trump-veterans-video/ | 2016-09-06 | 4 |
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<p>NEW YORK — Sloane Stephens’ remarkably rapid rise from a ranking of 957th in early August to U.S. Open champion on Saturday began with the slow work of coming back from surgery on her left foot.</p>
<p>After being off tour for 11 months because of her injury, Stephens easily beat her close friend Madison Keys 6-3, 6-0 in the first Grand Slam final for both, becoming only the second unseeded woman to win the tournament in the Open era, which began in 1968.</p>
<p>“I mean, there is no words to describe how I got here — the process it took or anything like that,” Stephens said, “because if you told someone this story, they’d be, like, ‘That’s insane.'”</p>
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<p>After the operation in January, Stephens couldn’t walk for a month. It wasn’t until May that she would get back onto a tennis court — and even then she was off her feet, plopped on a wood table at a practice facility at UCLA while aiming her racket at balls tossed by her coach, Kamau Murray. From there, Murray said, Stephens progressed to sitting while rolling around on an armless office chair. Two weeks later, Stephens finally was able to stand in place while working on her swing. Another two weeks, and she was allowed to move.</p>
<p>“Definitely,” Murray said Saturday, “not fun for her.”</p>
<p>Nor was it all that fun to face a pal with so much at stake. Stephens, 24, and Keys, 22, have known each other for about a decade, first as juniors, then on tour and as U.S. Fed Cup and Olympic teammates. They texted and spoke on the phone early in 2017, when both sat out the Australian Open because of injuries — Keys had surgery on her left wrist during the offseason, then again in June.</p>
<p>When the match ended after only 61 minutes, with Stephens claiming the last eight games, they met at the net for a long hug . While waiting for the trophy ceremony to begin, Stephens walked over and plopped herself down in a courtside chair next to Keys, so they could chat side-by-side.</p>
<p>“Sloane is truly one of my favorite people and to get to play her was really special. Obviously I didn’t play my best tennis today and was disappointed,” Keys said. “But Sloane, being the great friend that she is, was very supportive. And if there’s someone I have to lose to today, I’m glad it’s her.”</p>
<p>They hammed it up afterward, too. When Stephens was presented with her $3.7 million winner’s check, she grabbed Keys’ arm, as if to stop herself from fainting at the sum.</p>
<p>“That’s a lot of money!” Stephens said. Keys eyed the check and teased, “I’ll hold it for her.”</p>
<p>Keys texted Murray a couple of days before the U.S. Open began to arrange a practice session with Stephens. And the two finalists planned to party together Saturday night.</p>
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<p>“She can buy me drinks,” Keys said. “All of the drinks.”</p>
<p>This was only the second time in the Open era that two women were making their Grand Slam final debuts against each other in New York.</p>
<p>Keys acknowledged afterward it was all a bit much for her, and it showed: She wound up with 30 unforced errors.</p>
<p>“I definitely think my play today came down to nerves and all of that,” she said, “and I just don’t think I handled the occasion perfectly.”</p>
<p>Stephens, meanwhile, made only six unforced errors.</p>
<p>Told of that number by a reporter during her engaging news conference, filled with quips and smiles, Stephens slapped a palm on the table in front her, then snapped her fingers and said: “Shut the front door. I don’t think that’s ever happened to me before. Oh, my God. That’s a stat.”</p>
<p>Still, she had dealt with jitters beforehand, too.</p>
<p>Murray went to Stephens’ hotel room Friday night to check on her, using as an excuse for the visit that he needed to deliver some clean laundry. This is how he said the conversation went:</p>
<p>Stephens: “You wanted to see if I was nervous.”</p>
<p>Murray: “Yeah.”</p>
<p>Stephens: “I am.”</p>
<p>“We just laughed and chuckled and talked about it for about 25 minutes, and after that, it was all good,” Murray said. “I mean, probably she was still nervous but, you know, at least give her a chance to get it out.”</p>
<p>Stephens’ late father, John Stephens, was the 1988 NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year for the New England Patriots. And her mother, Sybil Smith, was Boston University’s first All-American in women’s swimming. In addition to being a super athlete, Stephens seems to thrive in the spotlight: She’s now 5-0 in tournament finals.</p>
<p>A year ago, she sat out the U.S. Open altogether because of her foot problem.</p>
<p>In 2017, her season debut came at Wimbledon in July, when she lost in the first round. Lost her next match, too, in Washington.</p>
<p>Since then, she has gone 15-2. Her ranking, up to 83rd at the start of the U.S. Open, will climb to No. 17 on Monday. Oh, and, don’t forget: She is now, and forever will be, a Grand Slam champion.</p>
<p>“I should just retire now,” Stephens joked. “I told Maddie I’m never going to be able to top this. I mean, talk about a comeback.”</p>
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<p>More AP tennis coverage: https://apnews.com/tag/apf-Tennis</p>
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<p>Follow Howard Fendrich on Twitter at <a href="http://twitter.com/HowardFendrich" type="external">http://twitter.com/HowardFendrich</a></p> | Stephens tops Keys in US Open final for 1st Grand Slam title | false | https://abqjournal.com/1061050/keys-stephens-in-1st-all-american-us-open-final-in-15-years.html | 2017-09-09 | 2 |
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<p>Question: My car insurance company contacted me and asked me to sign a document that excludes two individuals from my policy. I've never heard of these people, much less know them personally. I refused to sign for the simple reason that I don't want my name associated with people I don't know. My insurer has now threatened to not renew my policy. In 25 years of driving, this is the first for me. Where do they get this information from? Should I start looking for another insurance company?&#160;</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Answer: You're probably wondering where the insurance company is even coming up with names of people you've never met to add, or exclude, from your policy.</p>
<p>To find out for certain where your auto insurer came up with these two names, you'll have to ask it directly, but likely the names showed up on one of the reports the company pulled to verify the data it has on you.</p>
<p>Car insurance companies use various resources to make certain they have <a href="http://www.carinsurance.com/kb/always-disclose-information.aspx?WT.qs_osrc=fxb-172103210" type="external">accurate information Opens a New Window.</a> on you when determining your rates at the beginning of a policy or at renewal time -- and one is an undisclosed driver report. This report may come as part of the claim history report, motor vehicle report or VIN report; it just depends what company your auto insurer uses to obtain these reports.</p>
<p>For instance, LexisNexis provides insurance companies with the <a href="http://www.carinsurance.com/Articles/scoring-high-car-insurance-rates.aspx?WT.qs_osrc=fxb-172103210" type="external">C.L.U.E. claims report Opens a New Window.</a> and also offers an additional driver discovery (A.D.D.) report.</p>
<p>The A.D.D. report lists potential additional drivers in a household who may not have been disclosed by the insurance applicant or policyholder.&#160; LexisNexis also offers a youthful driver discovery (Y.D.D.) report that alerts auto insurance providers to the fact that a <a href="http://www.carinsurance.com/young-drivers-car-insurance.aspx%20?WT.qs_osrc=fxb-172103210" type="external">newly licensed youth Opens a New Window.</a> (between the age of 15 and 25) is residing at a certain address and may not have been disclosed.</p>
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<p>There is also Insurance Services Office (ISO), which offers underwriting reports to auto insurance companies.&#160; These reports include Motor Vehicle Records (MVRs), credit scoring, claims history, and undisclosed driver information.&#160; The ISO undisclosed driver report identifies hidden drivers not listed on an application or policy.</p>
<p>Likely the individuals you've never heard of showed up on such a report, and since you are saying these people don't live with you, and, in fact, that you don't know them, your insurance company wants to make sure you're telling the truth by having you sign a <a href="http://www.carinsurance.com/coverage-definition/named-driver-exclusion.aspx%20?WT.qs_osrc=fxb-172103210" type="external">named driver exclusion Opens a New Window.</a> form with these people listed on it.</p>
<p>Excluding people from your policy means that the listed parties wouldn't be covered in any way by your policy if they did operate your car.</p>
<p>While excluding people you don't know may seem silly to you, to your insurer it proves that either you really don't know these people or that you can't get away without listing them and letting them drive your car for free - because they wouldn't be covered.</p>
<p>I'd recommend getting an answer from your car insurance company on why it believes these individuals are associated with you.&#160; If they're listed on a report that other insurers may also pull, then it's in your best interest to try and get the data corrected so you don't continually have this issue.</p>
<p>Go ahead then and comparison shop for the <a href="http://www.carinsurance.com/cheapest-car-insurance.aspx%20?WT.qs_osrc=fxb-172103210" type="external">cheapest auto insurance rates Opens a New Window.</a>. You may find by changing insurers you can <a href="http://www.carinsurance.com/Articles/pocket-money-shop-around.aspx%20?WT.qs_osrc=fxb-172103210" type="external">save hundreds of dollars Opens a New Window.</a> -- and it's just as well that you're ready to leave your current car insurance provider.</p>
<p>Just remember, if you change providers, be sure that the new policy is in effect before canceling your current one.&#160; Even a one-day lapse of coverage can get you penalized in some states.</p>
<p>The original article can be found at CarInsurance.com: <a href="http://www.carinsurance.com/kb/excluding-strangers-from-auto-policy.aspx?WT.qs_osrc=fxb-172103210" type="external">Insurer thinks strangers are driving my car Opens a New Window.</a></p> | Insurer Thinks Strangers are Driving My Car | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2013/06/24/insurer-thinks-strangers-are-driving-my-car.html | 2016-03-05 | 0 |
<p>With the news (Politico’s wiley Marc Caputo reported) that Senator Marco Rubio’s 2010 senatorial campaign manager Jose Mallea is considering a run for the Florida House of Representatives, the case can now be made that the world is coming to an end.</p>
<p>Well, Mallea’s probable candidacy may not signal the “End of Days,” but it could signal that the political sky in Florida is falling.</p>
<p>With Trump’s historic win last year, everyone seems to be lining up to run for something.</p>
<p>Note to me: Maybe I should run for office? Wait, wake up, You have way too many blonde and brunette skeletons in your closet. Nevermind</p>
<p>To be honest, normally I would never suspect that a former Bush operative and beer brewing enthusiast like Mallea would run for office, but Jose is a special breed.</p>
<p>Mallea is Mallea, and he works and comes off as a polished elected official.</p>
<p>Heck, since meeting him back in 2009, I suspected he could take a stab at public office with all the politically correct hot air that&#160; resonated from his mouth every time it shutters.</p>
<p>All of you arroz con pollo eating “Chivatos” (Reaganista, Correoso, Manzano, and the rest of the Miami Mafia) from the boogie down known as Miami-Dade County know of what I speak of.</p>
<p>In other words, Jose Mallea is ready for political prime time. He&#160; has developed all the necessary gluto-baby-kissing tools needed to run for office and win.</p>
<p>Mallea, who is of Cuban-Ecuadorian decent (don’t fault him for being part Cuban) has even hired Brett “Cowboy Boots” Doster of Front Line Strategies of&#160;Tallahassee, Florida, to manage his campaign.</p>
<p>We reached out to Mallea is morning for comment about the news that he may run for elected office.</p>
<p>Here is a texted statement Mallea sent over to the Shark Tank:</p>
<p>I care a great deal about our community and feel it’s important to give back in any way that I can. &#160;Public service is a great honor and a &#160;privilege. &#160;I hope the residents of house district 116 honor me with their vote and the opportunity to be their voice in Tallahassee.</p>
<p>I’m lucky to have a great network of friends who care about the process and will be in contact with all of them soon asking for their support.</p>
<p>Front Line Strategies will serve as my campaign consultants and manager. &#160;The team includes Brett Doster, Pablo Diaz and Matt Mohler.</p>
<p>Hopefully if elected, Mallea will keep in line with GOP principles because if he doesn’t, well…</p>
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<p>Expect a sit down interview with Mallea in the coming weeks.</p> | Former Rubio Aide To Run For Florida House of Reps | true | http://shark-tank.com/2017/03/07/former-rubio-aide-run-florida-house-reps/ | 0 |
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<p>John N. Anderson, 53, of Grapevine, Texas, died Saturday after falling about 350 feet from the South Rim near El Tovar Lodge, park officials said. Witnesses reported seeing Anderson near a small rock wall that serves as a barrier between visitors and the massive gorge, but no one saw him fall, Grand Canyon Chief Ranger Bill Wright said Tuesday.</p>
<p>Wright said authorities believe Anderson was trying to retrieve something, possibly a hat, when he fell over the edge. The Grand Canyon Regional Communications Center received a report of a man falling around 8 a.m. Saturday.</p>
<p>Rangers found the man's body in a rock outcropping and began CPR, but efforts to resuscitate him were unsuccessful. A helicopter was used to remove Anderson's body, park spokeswoman Kirby-Lynn Shedlowski said.</p>
<p>The National Park Service and the Coconino County Medical Examiner are investigating.</p>
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<p>"You always want to rule out foul play," Wright said. "You want to rule out whether somebody did this to him or he did it to himself. We believe based on reports and the circumstances that it was accidental."</p>
<p>The medical examiner's office has labeled Anderson's death accidental, due to multiple injuries from a fall.</p>
<p>Anderson was visiting the park with family. About 4.5 million people visit the Grand Canyon each year, and an average of 12 people die there annually, according to park statistics. The deaths can be attributed to anything from natural causes, medical issues and suicide to heat, drowning and traffic crashes. An average two to three deaths per year are from falls over the rim, Shedlowski said.</p>
<p>Park brochures, newsletters and signs at the canyon warn of the dangers of getting too close to the edge. Shedlowski said visitors should be aware of their surroundings.</p> | Texas man dies from fall into Grand Canyon | false | https://abqjournal.com/370759/texas-man-dies-tumble-into-grand-canyon.html | 2 |
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<p>Mark Fiore</p>
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<p>Big congratulations are in order for Mark Fiore on just winning a <a href="http://www.pulitzer.org/citation/2010-Editorial-Cartooning" type="external">Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning</a>. Mark started doing his sly, jam-packed animated cartoons back when online poltical cartooning was just kicking off and way before Flash movies became cool. We’re proud that Mark’s work has appeared weekly on the MoJo website for years. (We can’t claim him all to ourselves, however; his work also runs on newspaper websites like the San&#160;Francisco Chronicle‘s, which officially gets Pulitzer bragging rights, being a newspaper and all. If you haven’t watched Mark’s stuff, you’re in for a treat. Browse his past work <a href="" type="internal">here</a>, or watch his recent takes on the <a href="" type="internal">Vatican sex scandal</a>, <a href="" type="internal">how to talk like a Teabagger</a>, and <a href="" type="internal">closeted homophobic pols</a>. Congrats again, Mark!</p>
<p>UPDATE: Extra props to Mark for being a self-syndicated cartoonist and for <a href="http://voices.washingtonpost.com/comic-riffs/2010/04/the_riffs_interview_new_pulitz.html" type="external">nominating himself for the Pulitzer</a>.</p>
<p /> | Mark Fiore Picks Up a Pulitzer | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2010/04/mark-fiore-wins-cartooning-pulitzer/ | 2010-04-12 | 4 |
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<p>Sears (NASDAQ:SHLD) is planning to spin off its Hometown and Outlet stores into a separate publicly-traded company as it looks for ways to cut costs and revamp its brand to stem bleeding sales.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Shares of Sears soared 5.3% to $54.12 Monday on the news.</p>
<p>In a prospectus filed through the Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday, Sears Hometown &amp; Outlet Stores said it will operate as a business within Sears Holdings but as an independent public company whereas Sears Holdings will not retain any ownership interest.</p>
<p>Financial terms of the proposed deal, including how much Sears plan to raise through the offering, were not disclosed. However, Sears did say the new public company will be listed under the symbol “SHOS” on Nasdaq OMX Group’s (NASDAQ:NDAQ) Nasdaq Stock Market.</p>
<p>Sears Holdings currently owns all of the common stock of the outlet, home and hardware business, but plans to dispose of its remaining shares through sales into the public market.</p>
<p>ESL Investments, owned by Sears’ chairman Edward Lampert, is expected to own at least 62% of SHOS’ outstanding stock. Barron's said in its latest edition released this weekend that Sears' stock could double to $100 if Lampert's restructuring plan succeeds.</p>
<p>As of April 28, Sears Hometown and Hardware consisted of 1,116 stores, including 944 Sears Hometown and 96 Sears Hardware stores as well as 76 Sears Home Appliance Showrooms and 122 Sears Outlet Stores across all 50 states.</p>
<p>Earlier this year, Sears closed five Hometown stores, eight hardware stores and one outlet.</p>
<p>The combined business, which is a retailer focused on selling home appliances, hardware, tools and lawn and garden equipment, recorded sales of $2.3 billion in 2011 and net income of $33.1 million.</p>
<p>The Sears subsidiary says that it connection with the spin off, it plans to enter an asset-backed senior secured revolving credit facility, about $175 million of which it plans to use to pay a cash dividend to Sears Holdings.</p>
<p>Sears, which also owns the Kmart retail chain, engaged Duff &amp; Phelps to act as a financial advisor to the separation.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p> | Sears' Hometown Stores to File for IPO | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2012/08/13/sears-hometown-outlet-stores-to-file-for-ipo.html | 2016-01-26 | 0 |
<p>To emphasize your dedication to peace and revulsion for war, the most effective way is not, surely, to offer a prayer at the place of sacred enshrinement of a murderous gang of fascist warmongers. Yet that is precisely what the Japanese prime minister, Junichiro Koizumi, did when he visited Tokyo’s Yasukuni shrine this week.</p>
<p>Set aside questions of Japanese contrition, or lack of it, over Pearl Harbor. That is an understandable American concern, yet even it was lost amid the convoluted reporting about the Yasukuni visit’s dubious motives and diplomatic consequences.</p>
<p>This is an Asian affair. It is about bayoneting babies in the single worst atrocity in the World War 2 era: the Nanking Massacre or, especially in view of its horrific violence against women, the Rape of Nanking. After overwhelming the Chinese capital in mid-December of 1937, the Japanese army ran amok in a six-week rampage of rape, torture and slaughter. The death toll: At least 370,000 Chinese men, women, children, babies and the elderly, nearly all civilians. Up to 80,000 women were raped, and then usually murdered.</p>
<p>Nanking ­ unmentioned in most mainstream reporting that I saw ­ is the specter that haunts this week’s shameful episode of official Japanese arrogance. Only in 1995 did the Japanese Diet (parliament) get around to recording “deep remorse” about Nanking, but noted the “context of colonial rules and acts of aggression worldwide”. The word “apologize” went unuttered.</p>
<p>True, the British in India, Americans in the Philippines, and especially the Belgians in the Congo, committed appalling acts of brutality against native populations. Does that excuse Japan for not only imitating them, but going a lot further? The fact is that Koizumi, and the 101 sheep-like politicians, 93 from his own ruling Liberal Democratic Party, who followed him obediently to Yasukuni the following day, appear to lack any comprehension of Asian memories of Japanese wartime brutality. Their visits demonstrate their poor understanding not just of their neighbors, but of the world. As Americans say: They just don’t get it.</p>
<p>At Yasukuni, amid some graceful 19th century Japanese architecture, cherry blossom trees and monuments, is the Book of Souls. Here are recorded the names, origins and places of death of 2,466,532 (at last count) Japanese men, and some women, who died in wars since the shrine was built in 1869.</p>
<p>Most were simple combatants caught in the horrors of war, but important to note is that in the Shinto religion the shrine represents, war dead are known as “kami”. This is the same word that appears in the kamikaze appellation of suicide bombers in World War 2, and means divine or god-like. The dead’s souls, therefore, are not just remembered, but worshipped as deities.</p>
<p>A matter conspicuous by its absence in much of the Yasukuni reporting, was the true nature of the “14 Class A war criminals” mentioned in passing as also enshrined in Yasukuni, which, in an excruciating irony, means “peaceful nation”. Some references were made to General Hideki Tojo, Japan’s prime minister from 1941-44, as one of the 14 inscribed in the Book of Souls, but the other 13 went unmentioned. This was a discraceful omission.</p>
<p>Tojo, known as “the Razor” and a pre-war member of the Black Dragon Society, a fascist assassination gang, was tried in 1948 for war crimes on 54 counts, found guilty, and hanged. Only afterwards was it revealed that he had approved anatomical experiments on prisoners without anesthetic. Another six were found guilty and hanged, four received life imprisonment, one got 20 years, and two died before sentencing. Although their names mean little to non-historians, their terrible deeds are still reviled around the world. (More on them later.)</p>
<p>It was October 17 that Koizumi chose to make his fifth visit to Yasukuni since taking office in 2001 ­ more visits than any other prime minister, and five more than Emperor Akihito who, unlike his predecessors, has made not one appearance at Yasukuni because of its connections. The Koizumi visit was the first day of the shrine’s annual autumn festival, but also the anniversary of the day the 14 convicted war criminals were sanctified at the temple in 1978.</p>
<p>This is significant, because that decision was an example of overt Japanese military nationalism. Ever since the end of World War 2 the shrine’s association with neo-fascist Shinto militarism has been notorious. Enshrining the 14 was a victory for the nationalists. Proof, if any were needed, of its dishonorable nature: it was kept secret for months.</p>
<p>Koizumi and his fellow LDP shrine visitors declare that it is no business of other nations to comment on or even note their religious and patriotic observances. The prime minister’s Yasukuni visit, therefore, could be likened to Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder paying his respects at monuments to Himmler and Goebbels, or even Hitler himself. But imagine the outrage around the world. Remember too the wrath heaped upon President Ronald Reagan when in 1984 he visited a graveyard in Bitburg, Germany, where among others were buried members of the Nazi SS murder brigade.</p>
<p>What of the 14 war criminals honoured by Koizumi’s prayerful presence? Two were General Iwane Matsui, commander-in-chief of the Nanking army, and his chief-of-staff, Akira Mutou, both of whom knew about and tolerated the hideous slaughter perpetrated by their men. These deeds were documented and photographed, and have been belatedly shown.</p>
<p>After the war and before his trial, Matsui erected a large white statue along the coast of the Izu peninsula south of Tokyo in the seaside spa town of Atami, his birthplace. The statue depicted Kannon, the Goddess of Mercy, for God’s sake. She was built facing Nanking.</p>
<p>There, Matsui permitted his Japanese soldiers, after the city’s surrender, to kill and kill until they were exhausted. Some felt compelled to take rests before they began again. They wielded Japanese martial swords, machetes and bayonets, shot from rifles, pistols and machine guns, burned and buried people alive, and gloried in hangings, decapitations, and strangulations. Heavily pregnant women were raped and their fetuses cut out, sometimes for display to senior officers, who in one recorded case met the sight with gusts of laughter. Soldiers competed in the numbers they slew in a day, and at least one Japanese newspaper reported such rivalry blow by deadly blow.</p>
<p>The world cannot be expected to forget, or forgive, these events. But what do Koizumi and his political cronies know of the world?</p>
<p>Also hanged in 1948 and now enshrined in Yasukuni, is General Heitaro Kimura, officer-in-charge of the Burma railway whose soldiers with his knowledge and approval grossly mistreated, overworked and starved to death British and American prisoners of war in Burma and on the River Kwai.</p>
<p>Another sanctified figure familiar to British and Americans would be General Kenji Doihara, army commander in the horrors of Japanese-occupied Singapore in 1944-45. Before that as a major-general in the Japanese air force, Doihara gave formal approval of the Pearl Harbor air raid, and for his mischief and malfeasance in China in the 1930s, Doihara was nicknamed “Lawrence of Manchuria” after the British Arabist.</p>
<p>Many nations have their war shrines and museums, but surely Japan’s Yasukuni, and the adjoining Yushukan museum, are more unapologetically militaristic? The museum refers to the total of 1,068 tried for war crimes after World War 2 as “martyrs,” who were “cruelly and unjustly tried by a sham tribunal of the allied forces [the international court] of the US, England (sic), Netherlands, China and others. These martyrs are also the kami of Yasukuni”.</p>
<p>It adds that “Japan’s dream of building a Great East Asia was necessitated by history and was sought after by the countries of Asia.” Try telling that to the Koreans, Filipinos, and Chinese. And in a final, outrageous denial, the shrine’s propaganda adds that the “comfort women” ­ Japanese and Asian women forced into prostitution to satisfy Japanese soldiers ­ were not coerced “by the Japanese empire”. Then by whom?</p>
<p>Of course, we know the victor writes the history and administers the course of post-war justice. Often these are distorted by prejudice and dishonesty, but what nation in Asia wishes the Japanese had been the victors? Certainly not those who have rioted against them in Beijing, Jakarta, Manila, Hanoi and Seoul.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, the woeful lack of education that Japanese authorities have provided their schoolchildren for decades about the Pacific war has produced opinion now equally divided over Yasukuni and Koizumi’s visit. A new nation still knows almost nothing about Nanking. A proper apology and education are required. Their absence will be costly.</p>
<p>CHRISTOPHER REED lives in Japan. He can be reached at: <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a></p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | Koizumi and the Rape of Nanking | true | https://counterpunch.org/2005/10/19/koizumi-and-the-rape-of-nanking/ | 2005-10-19 | 4 |
<p>LOS ANGELES (AP) - KJ Feagin scored 22 points as Santa Clara grabbed an early lead and pulled away steadily to post a 65-49 win at Loyola Marymount in a West Coast Conference contest Thursday night.</p>
<p>Santa Clara now has won six of the last eight meetings with the Lions.</p>
<p>Henry Caruso hit two free throws five minutes into the game to put Santa Clara in front, 7-6, and the Broncos never trailed again. Matt Hauser scored on a layup with 16:12 left in the game to push the lead into double digits. The Lions cut the lead to single digits briefly down the stretch, but Santa Clara pulled away.</p>
<p>Santa Clara (5-10, 2-1) won its conference opener against Pepperdine, but lost at No. 20 Gonzaga.</p>
<p>Caruso and Josep Vrankic each scored 13 points for the Broncos.</p>
<p>Steven Haney scored 17 points and Eli Scott added 14 for LMU (5-9, 0-3).</p>
<p>LOS ANGELES (AP) - KJ Feagin scored 22 points as Santa Clara grabbed an early lead and pulled away steadily to post a 65-49 win at Loyola Marymount in a West Coast Conference contest Thursday night.</p>
<p>Santa Clara now has won six of the last eight meetings with the Lions.</p>
<p>Henry Caruso hit two free throws five minutes into the game to put Santa Clara in front, 7-6, and the Broncos never trailed again. Matt Hauser scored on a layup with 16:12 left in the game to push the lead into double digits. The Lions cut the lead to single digits briefly down the stretch, but Santa Clara pulled away.</p>
<p>Santa Clara (5-10, 2-1) won its conference opener against Pepperdine, but lost at No. 20 Gonzaga.</p>
<p>Caruso and Josep Vrankic each scored 13 points for the Broncos.</p>
<p>Steven Haney scored 17 points and Eli Scott added 14 for LMU (5-9, 0-3).</p> | Feagin's 22 leads Santa Clara past Loyola Marymount, 65-49 | false | https://apnews.com/amp/3a7b82d255a74fbb9501f2e31445cfe0 | 2018-01-05 | 2 |
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<p />
<p>This salad is simply gorgeous, and a great way to bring color, flavor and oomph to a</p>
<p>Lucy Beni/Associated PressFresh citrus, pomegranate and arugula team up for a colorful salad for the holiday table.</p>
<p>holiday meal. The combination of tartness from the citrus, sweetness from the pomegranate seeds, sharpness from the onion, and a bit of herby bitterness from the arugula – plus a bright vinaigrette – makes this a salad that isn’t just a placeholder on a plate. And the colors are amazing.</p>
<p>You can buy pre-shelled pomegranate seeds in little containers in the produce section of the supermarket, or if you’re feeling industrious, buy a whole pomegranate, split it apart and remove the seeds yourself. It’s messy but slightly therapeutic work. If you have kids, lay out lots of paper on the table, put them in big T-shirts that can get messy and let them take on this project.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>THANSGIVING SALAD</p>
<p>Servings: 6</p>
<p>LEMON VINAIGRETTE:</p>
<p>1 large shallot, thinly sliced</p>
<p>2 tablespoons lemon juice</p>
<p>1 tablespoon rice vinegar</p>
<p>3 tablespoons olive oil</p>
<p>Kosher or coarse salt and freshly ground pepper to taste</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>SALAD:</p>
<p>8 cups baby arugula</p>
<p>1 small red onion, halved and very thinly sliced</p>
<p>2 cara cara or blood oranges</p>
<p>Seeds from one pomegranate (about ¾ cup)</p>
<p>Make the vinaigrette. In a small container, combine the shallots, lemon juice, rice vinegar, olive oil, salt and pepper. Shake to blend.</p>
<p>Place the arugula in a large serving bowl with the onion. Peel the oranges, and use a paring knife to remove all the white pith from the outside of the fruit. Cut the oranges crosswise into slices, and cut those slices into 4 pieces. Add these to the bowl. Pour the dressing on the salad, and toss to combine. Scatter the pomegranate seeds over the top and serve.</p>
<p>PER SERVING, salad with dressing: 100 calories; 65 calories from fat; 7 g fat (1 g saturated; 0 g trans fats); 0 mg cholesterol; 172 mg sodium; 8 g carbohydrate; 2 g fiber; 6 g sugar; 1 g protein.</p>
<p /> | Salad brings fresh flavor to big meal | false | https://abqjournal.com/894464/salad-brings-fresh-flavor-to-big-meal.html | 2 |
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<p>The California Field Poll, reportedly one of the most accurate public opinion polls in the U.S., indicates that about one third or more of Republicans are tending to vote in favor of Green Power and Green jobs (or against Prop 23, which would put a halt to the state’s Green Power Law until unemployment improved).</p>
<p>Seventy eight percent&#160; of registered Democrats are voting for Green Power and green jobs while remarkably 38 percent of even Republicans are in favor of it.&#160; Even 31 percent of Tea Party-affiliated Republicans are in favor of not stopping California’s Green Power law. &#160;California’s Green Power law is a regressive tax that would raise electricity rates by as much as 40 percent or more and would increase water rates significantly due to the fact that the largest part of water bills are for electricity to pump water.&#160; <a href="" type="external">Water-related energy use consumes about 19 percent of the state’s electricity</a>. <a href="http://www.energy.ca.gov/2005publications/CEC-700-2005-011/CEC-700-2005-011-SF.PDF" type="external" /></p>
<p>Environmentalism, as reflected in a NO Vote on Prop 23, still tends to be more favored by affluent voters while more moderate-income Vietnamese and Latinos are 50-50 split on the proposition.&#160; However, African-Americans are voting for Green Power and green jobs about as evenly as white voters, probably due to the promise of jobs.</p>
<p>The only apparent wild card in the early polling data is that independent and unaffiliated voters conceivably could swing Prop 23, but it would nearly take all of them to do so, an unlikely possibility.</p>
<p>2010 is a year where angry voters may be voting no across the board on all the propositions, perhaps not realizing that a NO vote on Prop 23 is a YES vote for Green Power. When voters are confused about complicated ballot initiatives they typically vote no on them.</p>
<p>The ballot argument for Green Power (against Prop 23) in the state voter pamphlet includes wording that “Texas oil companies” are opposed to Green Power and jobs in California.</p>
<p>But the voter pamphlet failed to fairly report that a CalPERS hedge fund manager heavily invested in dirty coal, nukes, and oil and gas companies in Texas donated $5 million in support of the Green Power Law and jobs (and against Prop 23).&#160; Also not included in the ballot argument is that the major donor in support of Green Power and jobs (against Prop 23) is invested in stocks in a Chinese solar panel company that will outsource manufacturing jobs to China, not California. California may not be getting as many Green jobs as advertised. &#160; <a href="" type="internal">Read here</a>.</p>
<p>Conversely, the ballot argument in favor of Prop 23 (and against Green Power) failed to educate voters that it is likely that jobs in the conventional peak power segment of the energy industry are likely to be lost once Green Power can trump conventional power in the spot energy market and peak time submarket. &#160;Green Power typically costs about four times the price of conventional energy (coal, oil, gas, hydro) and thus it can only compete in the higher-priced peak time power segment of the market. &#160;Many cities, water districts, and private companies own and operate peaker plants that may be adversely affected by California’s Green Power Law, including loss of jobs.</p>
<p>The ballots arguments in favor of Prop. 23 (and against Green Power) also failed to educate the voters that California Green Power law protects oil and gas companies from having to compete any longer with the cheapest sources of energy which are coal and hydropower.&#160; So oil and gas companies and stocks should reap a windfall if Prop. 23 fails to pass (and California’s Green Power law is not stopped). &#160;Without coal and hydropower to keep energy prices down the price of oil and gas will likely spike sometime after 2012 when the Green Power law goes into effect.&#160; Markets are quirky and we will see what happens with electricity rates once the cheapest sources of energy, coal and hydropower, are embargoed by California’s Green Power law sometime after 2012.</p>
<p>Another oddity is that the state voter pamphlet did not explain that California’s Green Power law contains a “cap and trade” provision which means that there will be no net reduction in air pollution from Green Power. &#160;This is because energy companies can reduce pollution but trade credits to other energy providers to continue to pollute, especially in highly populated urban air basins which trap smog and pollution.</p>
<p>The last time California did something like this was in late 2001 when it mothballed old polluting oil-powered plants generating cheap electricity along the California coastline in order to meet EPA clean air mandates and shifted to cleaner, but higher cost, natural gas power plants.&#160; This was called “the California Energy Crisis.”</p> | Even Many GOP Voters Oppose Prop. 23 | false | https://calwatchdog.com/2010/11/01/even-many-gop-voters-oppose-prop-23/ | 2018-11-20 | 3 |
<p>Health officials say that new cases of West Nile Virus have been confirmed in Will County in Illinois, the first detection of the disease in that county so far this year and indication the virus is spreading.</p>
<p>Authorities confirmed that a batch of mosquitoes tested positive for the virus in Will County, which is located near Chicago, and is the latest a in a string of confirmations in the state that have included Cook, Kane, and DuPage counties,&#160;according to a <a href="http://cltv.com/2015/07/12/west-nile-virus-detected-in-will-county/" type="external">CLTV report</a>.</p>
<p>The Illinois Department of Public Health reported 44 human cases of West Nile Virus in the state last year, and it appears there will be yet another year of outbreaks for the virus, which has become a mainstay in the United States during the summer months as mosquitoes flourish.</p>
<p>West Nile Virus typically doesn’t cause any symptoms at all when mosquitoes transmit the virus to humans through a bite, but about 20 percent do experience fever, headaches, and body aches — and in the most severe cases, people can come down with meningitis or encephalitis. In rare cases, people can die from the disease.</p>
<p>West Nile Virus is exclusively a mosquito-born illness that is transmitted into the bloodstream of humans when they are bitten, and therefore risk of contracting the virus can be dramatically reduced simply by consistent use of insect repellant or by wearing protective clothing outdoors.</p>
<p>WNV infection doesn’t have any known treatments, but since cases are usually mild, that hasn’t been necessary. However, in rare cases — less than 1 percent — it can result in severe complications, so it is prudent for individuals to take steps to avoid infection.</p>
<p>The West Nile Virus was first reported in Uganda in East Africa back in 1937 and hadn’t made much of an impact until the mid-1990s, when there were two major outbreaks two years apart, one in Algeria and one in Romania. The first case in the United States was in New York City in 1999.</p>
<p /> | Authorities alarmed after new West Nile Virus cases emerge in Illinois | false | http://natmonitor.com/2015/07/12/authorities-alarmed-after-new-west-nile-virus-cases-emerge-in-illinois/ | 2015-07-12 | 3 |
<p>PHOENIX (AP) _ The winning numbers in Wednesday evening's drawing of the Arizona Lottery's "Fantasy 5" game were:</p>
<p>06-09-14-20-26</p>
<p>(six, nine, fourteen, twenty, twenty-six)</p>
<p>Estimated jackpot: $52,000</p>
<p>¶ Players with all five numbers win all or share a prize that starts at $50,000. Tickets with four winning numbers are worth $500, while those who guess three numbers get $5 and those who choose two win $1.</p>
<p>PHOENIX (AP) _ The winning numbers in Wednesday evening's drawing of the Arizona Lottery's "Fantasy 5" game were:</p>
<p>06-09-14-20-26</p>
<p>(six, nine, fourteen, twenty, twenty-six)</p>
<p>Estimated jackpot: $52,000</p>
<p>¶ Players with all five numbers win all or share a prize that starts at $50,000. Tickets with four winning numbers are worth $500, while those who guess three numbers get $5 and those who choose two win $1.</p> | Winning numbers drawn in 'Fantasy 5' game | false | https://apnews.com/amp/a4eb7aeb275546a6b29cda8b7d390b75 | 2018-01-11 | 2 |
<p>General Electric (NYSE:GE) Co Chief Executive Jeff Immelt said people "may be disappointed in the adoption of the electric vehicle" but his company will continue investing in battery technology to reflect its confidence in an eventual uptick.</p>
<p>Speaking during an automotive conference in Detroit on Tuesday, Immelt -- whose company is a key supplier to automakers producing electric cars -- said GE is "committed to long-term development" of alternative-fuel vehicles. The executive shrugged off the perception that electric cars are just novelties and said the industry needs to find solutions to cost and infrastructure challenges.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>GE, after all, has a lot riding on the success of alternative-fuel vehicles. "For every dollar invested in electric vehicles GE has 10 cents of content," he said.</p>
<p>Several car companies, including General Motors Co, Nissan Motor Co, Toyota Motor Corp, Ford Motor Co and Tesla Motors Inc, have in recent years introduced cars that run partially or entirely on electric power.</p>
<p>Electric vehicles carry an expensive battery and typically cost more than a conventional vehicle of similar size. Sales of such vehicles have thus far been modest, and below some initial expectations.</p>
<p>COSTS, INFRASTRUCTURE ARE CHALLENGES</p>
<p>"You never can tell when this will reach a tipping point...a lot has to happen in order for this to take place," Immelt said.</p>
<p>Immelt said that GE executives share a Chevrolet Volt at the company's headquarters, and said driving the vehicle is an empowering experience.</p>
<p>However, "the near term challenge is going to be all about cost" and infrastructure, he said.</p>
<p>For instance, the battery used in an all-electric vehicle such as the Focus Electric, Ford's first all-electric passenger car, can cost between $12,000 and $15,000, company executives say. That would represent around a third of the Focus Electric's overall price of around $39,000.</p>
<p>By 2020, Ford expects hybrids, plug-in hybrids and electric vehicles will comprise 10 percent to 25 percent of its sales as oil prices rise and government standards on fuel economy and emissions grow stricter.</p>
<p>Others aren't as confident.</p>
<p>Boston Consulting Group predicts electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids will make up 5 percent of the market within eight years.</p>
<p>It would take 12 years to break even on a Chevy Volt with gas at $4 a gallon, auto research group Edmunds.com said. Ford research shows that consumers are more apt to buy electrified automobiles if they can recoup the higher vehicle cost in less than four years, assuming gasoline costs $4.50 a gallon.</p>
<p>Immelt is convinced the market for electric vehicles will not remain a small niche, adding that GE does not invest in technologies simply because they are popular trends.</p>
<p>"Novelties don't work in business," he said.</p>
<p>GE also announced a plan to add 300 jobs at its advanced manufacturing center in Van Buren Township, Michigan. And it will expand by 25 percent its summer internships and co-ops for college students at the Michigan locations.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p> | GE Chief Defends Electric Vehicles, Says Disappointment Will Fade | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2012/04/24/ge-chief-defends-electric-vehicles-says-disappointment-will-fade.html | 2016-01-26 | 0 |
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<p>LONDON — Britain’s foreign secretary has backed U.K. court decisions preventing the parents of a terminally ill child from taking him abroad for experimental treatment, despite an offer of help from a Vatican hospital.</p>
<p>Boris Johnson’s comment Wednesday came during a previously scheduled call in which Italy’s foreign minister raised the hospital’s offer to treat 11-month-old Charlie Gard, who is suffering from a rare genetic condition that has damaged his brain and left him unable to breathe without assistance.</p>
<p>Charlie’s parents want to take him to the United States for an experimental medical treatment they believe may prolong his life, but a succession of judges have backed specialists at Great Ormond Street Hospital in London who say the therapy won’t help Charlie and may cause him to suffer.</p>
<p>“The foreign secretary said this was a deeply tragic and complex case for all involved, and said it was right that decisions continued to be led by expert medical opinion, supported by the courts, in line with Charlie’s best interests,” Johnson’s spokesman said in statement.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>President Donald Trump and Pope Francis brought international attention to the family’s legal battle this week by commenting on a case that pits the rights of parents to decide what’s best for their children against the responsibility of authorities to make sure children receive the most appropriate care.</p>
<p>Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin said Tuesday that the Holy See would do everything possible to overcome legal obstacles to bringing Charlie to Rome for treatment. Italian Foreign Minister Angelino Alfano raised the offer from the Bambino Gesu children’s hospital in his call with Johnson.</p>
<p>Earlier, British Prime Minister Theresa May told the House of Commons that she understands Charlie’s parents are trying to do what’s right for their child, but that in cases like this doctors are forced to make “heartbreaking decisions.”</p>
<p>“I am confident that Great Ormond Street Hospital have and always will consider any offers or new information that has come forward with consideration of the well-being of a desperately ill child,” May said.</p> | UK’s foreign secretary backs doctors in Baby Charlie case | false | https://abqjournal.com/1028269/uks-foreign-secretary-backs-doctors-in-baby-charlie-case.html | 2017-07-05 | 2 |
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<p>ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — A Nebraska man has been sentenced to 15 years in federal prison after drugs were found in his bag at a New Mexico train station.</p>
<p>Prosecutors say 46-year-old Rayvell Vann, of Omaha, also was sentenced Friday to at least eight years of supervised release after serving his prison term.</p>
<p>Vann was arrested in Albuquerque on April 9, 2012.</p>
<p>He was indicted for possessing more than 100 grams of PCP and possession of codeine, both with intent to distribute. A jury convicted him seven months ago on the drug trafficking charges.</p>
<p>Prosecutors say Vann was aboard an Omaha-to-Los Angeles train when a federal drug agent conducting an interdiction investigation asked to check his bag at the Amtrak station in Albuquerque.</p>
<p>The agent reported finding the drugs inside a pink gift-wrapped box.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | 15 years for drugs on Amtrak train | false | https://abqjournal.com/284271/15-years-for-drugs-on-amtrak-train.html | 2013-10-19 | 2 |
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<p>ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. - At least two attorneys with backgrounds as prosecutors say they are running in the Democratic primary for district attorney in Bernalillo County.</p>
<p>Raul Torrez, a former assistant U.S. attorney, attorney general and district attorney, says he will announce his candidacy at a press conference Tuesday - the filing deadline in New Mexico for declaring candidacies.</p>
<p>Ed Perea also says he'll be running for D.A. He is a former Albuquerque police commander, and a special prosecutor in the 13th judicial district, which covers Cibola, Sandoval and Valencia counties.</p>
<p>Perea and Torrez would be running to replace Bernalillo County District Attorney Kari Brandenburg, who hasn't said whether she is seeking re-election.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | 2 attorneys run in Dem primary for Bernalillo County DA | false | https://abqjournal.com/736647/2-attorneys-run-in-dem-primary-for-bernalillo-county-da.html | 2 |
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<p />
<p>Shares of Hewlett-Packard (NYSE:HPQ) jumped more than 8% on Friday after the PC maker’s stronger-than-expected earnings and upbeat guidance were met with a slew of positive analyst notes and an upgrade.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>The Palo Alto, Calif.-based tech giant revealed late Thursday a fiscal 2013 EPS guidance in the range of $3.40 to $3.50, which is above the consensus view of $3.32.</p>
<p>It also reported adjusted earnings of 82 cents a share in its most recent quarter, topping average analyst estimates of 71 cents in a Thomson Reuters poll.</p>
<p>Friday’s rally is on top of a more than 6% buying frenzy in extended trading on Thursday after H-P reported first-quarter results. Its shares climbed close to 9% in recent trade to $18.62, and are up about 20% since the beginning of January.</p>
<p>The computer maker, which has struggled with soft demand for PCs amid the switch to mobile devices, was upgraded to “neutral” from “sell” by UBS (NYSE:UBS) on Friday as analysts digested the upbeat guidance.</p>
<p>“Although the fundamentals remain mixed, the substantial improvement in free cash flow reduces the likelihood of significant downside to the stock,” said UBS analyst Steven Milunovich in his research note. “The company’s blocking and tackling is improving, and the likelihood of the bottom falling out appears diminished.”</p>
<p>A number of other brokerages raised their price target on H-P, including Evercore (NYSE:EVR) which upped its target to $15 from $11 on an “underweight” rating, J.P. Morgan (NYSE:JPM), which lifted its target on H-P to $22 from $21 on a “neutral” rating and Jefferies (NYSE:JEF), which raised its target to $13.50 from $10 on an “underperform” rating.</p>
<p>While declining computer sales continue to be a headache for makers of computers like Dell (NASDAQ:DELL) and H-P, the latter showed positive desktop revenue and unit growth year-over-year. Printer demand also remained promising despite a decline in revenue.</p>
<p>However, UBS didn’t raise its second-quarter or full-year guidance on H-P despite the beat, nothing several challenges, including the broader trend of dwindling PC demand and pricing as well as soft service orders remain.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p> | H-P Shares Rally 8% on Upbeat Guidance | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2013/02/22/h-p-shares-rally-8-on-upbeat-guidance.html | 2016-03-02 | 0 |
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<p>Image Source: ADP.com.</p>
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<p>Automatic Data Processing reported 2016 fiscal third-quarter results on April 28. The payroll and human capital management company continues to benefit from the trend toward outsourced HR services.</p>
<p>ADP results: The raw numbers</p>
<p>Data Source: ADP Q3 2016 <a href="http://investors.adp.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=967814" type="external">earnings press release Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>
<p>What happened with ADP this quarter?</p>
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<p>Segment results Employer services revenue increased 5% (7% on a constant-dollar basis) to $2.6 billion, with the number of employees on ADP clients' payrolls inthe U.S. increasing 2.5%. Employer services client revenue retention and segment margin declined 30 and 40 basis points, respectively, compared with the third quarter of fiscal 2015.</p>
<p>PEO [professional employer organization] services revenue jumped 16% to $866 million, with average worksite employees paid increasing 14% to approximately 422,000. In addition, PEO services' segment margin increased by 50 basis points year over year, mostly because of productivity improvements.What management had to say"ADP's results in the third quarter were solid and reflect investments we've made to support our clients through the first year of [Affordable Care Act] compliance reporting," saidCFO Jan Siegmund in a press release. "On a year-to-date basis, we have made substantial investments in operational resources and additional selling expenses, and have also continued our shareholder friendly actions, returning over$1.7 billionin cash through dividends and share repurchases."Looking forwardADP reiterated its guidance for full-year 2016 bookings growth of 12% over$1.6 billionsold in fiscal 2015.The company also continues to expect revenue to increase about 7%, and 9% on a constant-dollar basis.</p>
<p>In addition, ADP narrowed its earnings outlook, with management now anticipating adjusted EPS growth of about 12% (versus its prior forecast of 11% to 13%) and 13%on a constant-dollar basis, compared with its previous range of 12% to 14%.</p>
<p>"We are seeing continued traction for our technology solutions and our robust service offerings, as a growing number of clients adopt new applications or chose our higher-touch HR outsourcing models," addedCEO Carlos Rodriguez. "While sales of additional human capital management modules that assist with the Affordable Care Act, or ACA, compliance continue to boost our performance, we are especially pleased to have seen balanced contributions to growth from across our HCM [human capital management] portfolio."</p>
<p>The article <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2016/05/03/peo-services-growth-fuels-automatic-data-processin.aspx" type="external">PEO Services Growth Fuels Automatic Data Processing Earnings Opens a New Window.</a> originally appeared on Fool.com.</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFGuardian/info.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">Joe Tenebruso Opens a New Window.</a> has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends Automatic Data Processing. 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> | PEO Services Growth Fuels Automatic Data Processing Earnings | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/05/03/peo-services-growth-fuels-automatic-data-processing-earnings.html | 2016-05-03 | 0 |
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<p><a href="http://www.fcx.com/" type="external">Freeport-McMoRan Copper &amp; Gold Inc.</a> The company’s official Web site, including an “ <a href="http://www.fcx.com/fcx/ia.htm" type="external">Issues &amp; Answers</a>” section that responds to allegations of human rights and environmental abuses in Irian Jaya.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.moles.org/" type="external">Project Underground</a> This environmental and human rights organization supports communities impacted by mining, oil and gas activities. Their <a href="http://www.moles.org/motherlode/freeport/freeport.html" type="external">page on Freeport-McMoRan</a> includes background information, as well links to the ACFOA, OPIC and other reports.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/boyer/fp/" type="external">Robert Boyer’s Homepage</a></p>
<p />
<p>“ <a href="/news/feature/1996/09/bryce.html" type="external">Spinning Gold</a>” A Mother Jones exposé summarizing the situation in Irian Jaya and examining the efforts Freeport has made to keep journalists away from its Indonesian mine. Written by Robert Bryce, a contributing editor at the Austin Chronicle.</p>
<p /> | Additional Resources on Freeport-McMoRan’s activities in Irian Jaya: | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/1997/04/additional-resources-freeport-mcmorans-activities-irian-jaya/ | 1997-04-21 | 4 |
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>Mr. Tillerson:</p>
<p>You have to be feeling pretty good about your new position heading the world’s largest oil and gas company. You stand astride the globe where, with few exceptions, the Congress is like putty in your hands, the White House is your House and the consuming public is powerless. Governments in the Third World may huff and puff, but Exxon/Mobil pretty much gets its way in dozens of arrangements completed and about to be concluded.</p>
<p>Seven years ago, your predecessor, Lee Raymond, took over Exxon’s main competitor, Mobil Oil Company, through a merger approved by the misnamed Antitrust Division of the Justice Department. Really, what is left of antitrust standards when the number one and number two companies in an industry are permitted to marry?</p>
<p>Profits of your company are beyond your dreams of avarice. Over $36 billion last year, after modest taxes, yet you blithely ignored urgent pleas by members of Congress, especially that of the powerful Chairman, Senator Chuck Grassley (Rep. Iowa) to contribute some significant deductible money to charities which help impoverished American families pay the exorbitant prices for heating oil this past winter. Rarely has there been such a demonstration of corporate greed and insensitivity by a company that has received huge government welfare subsidies, de-regulation and tax expenditures over the years at the expense of the smaller taxpayers of America.</p>
<p>Exxon/Mobil even relishes the latest “Big Oil’s Big Windfall,” to use the phrase in a recent /New York Times/ editorial, which wrote that “oil companies stand to gain a minimum of $7 billion and as much as $28 billion over the next five years under an obscure provision in last year’s giant energy bill that allows companies to avoid paying royalties [to Uncle Sam] on oil and gas produced in the Gulf of Mexico. This welfare payment at a time of record crude oil, refined oil and natural gas prices appears too much even for one of your industry’s giants. A Shell official told the /New York Times/ reporter, Edmund L. Andrews, “Under the current environment, we don’t need royalty relief.”</p>
<p>Exxon/Mobil doesn’t feel any need to say something like that. You’re a corporate superpower at the pinnacle of your superpowers. No Ida Tarbell, no Fred Cook, no Senator Phil Hart, no Sixty Minutes program can effectively expose you, because the company has been exposed and exposed and nothing changes your corporate policies.</p>
<p>Unchanged is Exxon/Mobil’s stubborn refusal to pay the modest $5 billion punitive damage award following the Exxon Valdez oil spill that damaged or put so many small businesses out of business. They are still waiting, according to a recent network television expose. Last year your company made that much post-tax profits in about seven weeks. After the devastating spill in Alaskan waters, your gasoline prices rose sharply in California and you made money there. And your delay for 12 years resisting the court ordered payout by legal maneuvers has returned in interest on that award about that amount. Not that many years ago, a company in your mega-profitable position would have considered the public relations if not the simple justice benefits before dragging on the proceedings. Not so, with the impregnable Exxon/Mobil.</p>
<p>While BP and Shell move to build and talk about a solar power business, including wind power, you continue to parade that window dressing pittance of a project at Stanford University that is going nowhere. Your company is still seen as a resistant skeptic among a swarm of multinational companies including BP, that recognize Global Warming and its direct fossil fuel connections.</p>
<p>To make matters worse, Exxon/Mobil has funded over three dozen organizations to undermine scientific findings about global warming or as front groups to engage in obstructionist or harassment activities.</p>
<p>These and other derelictions have led environmental groups to urge a boycott (See <a href="http://www.exposeexxon.com/" type="external">exposeexxon.com)</a> of Exxon/Mobil products and employment refusals by university graduates. Only company insiders know how effective such a boycott has been at the gasoline pump and elsewhere. My guess is that you’re shrugging it off as inconsequential. The boycott clearly needs more imagination in getting its message out.</p>
<p>The lessons of history teach that the arrogance of corporate power eventually meets its match, either through the decay of internal hubris or the rise of public law enforcement or from private challenges-innovative, civic or competitive.</p>
<p>Remember, the awesome power and market position of General Motors years ago, or the dominance of IBM. When you’re on top is when you should be most alert to the misuses of power that are sowing the seeds of future decline. The mean-spirited image of your company, the stinginess of transferring some of your corporate welfare windfalls to the welfare of millions of shivering children and their penurious parents are upsetting even Republican members of Congress hearing from their indignant constituents about sky high fuel prices.</p>
<p>So observers of your company-official and regular people-will be waiting for signs of the post-Raymond, clenched jaw era of Exxon/Mobil under the command of your group of executives. Let’s see if the change is just one of style or one of more sincere responses to the ways the approaching winds are blowing.</p>
<p>Sincerely,</p>
<p>RALPH NADER</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | The Corporate Superpower of Superpowers | true | https://counterpunch.org/2006/04/01/the-corporate-superpower-of-superpowers/ | 2006-04-01 | 4 |
<p>Here is an account by a Libyan, who did not want to disclose his name, of what it was like to be tortured by Libyan security. He says: “I was blindfolded and taken upstairs. I was shocked with electricity and made to sit on broken glass. They were kicking and punching me until I confessed. I said ‘No’.” This went on for over a week.</p>
<p>One day the interrogators tied his hands behind his back and took him upstairs. He continues: “They opened the door and I saw my son and wife. There were five or six members of security with masks. They tied me to a chair and one of them said: ‘Do you want to sign or should we torture them?'”</p>
<p>According to the prisoner one of the interrogators took his 10-month-old son and put a wire on his hand and “he screamed and his face turned red”. The little boy appeared to stop breathing. Soon afterwards the prisoner signed the confession demanded by Libyan security.</p>
<p>The testimony about the baby’s torture in front of his father was recorded by Human Rights Watch in Tripoli in 2005. The same year the UK signed a Memorandum of Understanding accepting Libyan diplomatic assurances that torture would not be used against Libyan exiles repatriated from the UK to Libya. Few documents agreed to by a British government exude so much hypocrisy and cynicism.</p>
<p>Will the close co-operation on what amounted to farming out torture by the CIA and MI6 to Muammar Gaddafi and his interrogators be forgotten in the rush of events in Libya? Western intelligence services presumably hope so. The fragile and divided Libyan authorities may think twice before quarrelling with the very organizations whose aid over the past six months enabled them to defeat Gaddafi.</p>
<p>I saw Abdelhakim Belhaj, the head of the military council controlling all militia brigades in Tripoli, last week and asked him about how he was arrested in Malaysia, tortured in Thailand, and sent back for more torture and imprisonment in Abu Salim prison in Tripoli. Given the Libyan rebels’ reliance on Nato air strikes, I thought it likely that Belhaj, a founder of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group which had been accused of links to al-Qa’ida, would avoid talking about his rendition. Instead Belhaj showed that he was still a very angry man. He said he was considering suing those responsible.</p>
<p>It is good that Belhaj is not willing to cover up what happened to him, and that his story is confirmed by documents in Tripoli proving the cosy relationship between MI6, the CIA and Gaddafi. It should help to discredit the way in which the world’s most disgusting and oppressive dictators have been able in the decade since 9/11 to claim that anybody opposing them was an Islamic fundamentalist linked to al-Qa’ida. By 2003 the government of Uzbekistan boiled to death two prisoners and still got a US grant for its security services.</p>
<p>The degradation of standards started almost immediately in Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban with the denial of the status of prisoners of war being granted to captives. In northern Afghanistan General Rashid Dostum, a warlord of notorious brutality but an ally of the CIA, had hundreds, if not thousands, of prisoners buried alive or packed into containers to suffocate.</p>
<p>It now turns out that several of the rebels who played a crucial role in overthrowing Gaddafi, and have been lauded as freedom fighters by Western leaders, were among those savagely tortured by MI6’s friends in Abu Salim. This might just begin to turn the tide against the systematic mistreatment of prisoners which has become such a hallmark of the security world since 9/11.</p>
<p>PATRICK COCKBURN is the author of &#160; <a href="" type="internal">The Occupation: War, resistance and daily life in Iraq</a>&#160;and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1416551476/counterpunchmaga" type="external">Muqtada! Muqtada al-Sadr, the Shia revival and the struggle for Iraq</a>.</p> | The Post 9/11 Torture Network | true | https://counterpunch.org/2011/09/06/the-post-911-torture-network/ | 2011-09-06 | 4 |
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<p>WASHINGTON — Iran is failing to fulfill the “spirit” of its nuclear deal with world powers, President Donald Trump declared Thursday, setting an ominous tone for his forthcoming decision about whether to pull the U.S. out of the landmark agreement.</p>
<p>As he often had during the president campaign, Trump ripped into the deal struck by Iran, the U.S. and other world powers in 2015 and said “it shouldn’t have been signed.” Yet he pointedly stopped sort of telegraphing whether or not the U.S. would stay in.</p>
<p>“They are not living up to the spirit of the agreement, I can tell you that,” Trump said of the Iranians, though he did not mention any specific violations. Earlier this week, the administration certified to Congress than Iran was complying — at least technically — with the terms of the deal, clearing the way for Iran to continue enjoying sanctions relief in the near term.</p>
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<p>In a news conference alongside Italian Premier Paolo Gentiloni, Trump also said:</p>
<p>— The U.S. is committed to a strong Europe, though he didn’t say directly whether he prefers that the European Union stay intact.</p>
<p>— He sees no military role for the U.S. in stabilizing Libya.</p>
<p>— It’s possible he may soon be able to strike deals with Congress on both health care and funding legislation to head off a government shutdown.</p>
<p>On Iran, Trump and his top officials have been walking a narrow line as they seek to show an aggressive stance. While disparaging the nuclear deal and accusing Iran of fomenting violence and terrorism throughout the Middle East, Trump has avoided committing to abandoning the agreement, a move that would be staunchly opposed by U.S. businesses and European allies.</p>
<p>Yet the president seems keenly aware that his indecisiveness about the deal’s future is a step back from his campaign declaration that as president he would rip it up or renegotiate.</p>
<p>He said of Iran, “I think they are doing a tremendous disservice to an agreement that was signed.”</p>
<p>Under the deal, brokered during the Obama administration, Iran agreed roll back key aspects of its nuclear program in exchange for relief from certain economic sanctions. Critics have said it’s unfathomable that the U.S. would grant sanctions relief to Tehran even as it continues testing ballistic missiles, violating human rights and supporting extremist groups elsewhere in the Middle East.</p>
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<p>By design, the nuclear deal does not address those Western grievances, meaning Tehran can be in compliance even as it violates U.N. resolutions and remains a U.S.-designated state sponsor of terrorism. The U.S. has continued to punish Tehran for those activities with non-nuclear sanctions that also fall outside the purview of the deal.</p>
<p>Trump hasn’t given a timeline for when his administration’s review of Iran policy — including whether to stick with the deal — will be complete. But the U.S. must decide next month whether to renew a waiver so that Iran can continue receiving sanctions relief.</p>
<p>The president joined Italian Premier Gentiloni for a White House news conference at a tense time for Europe, which was reeling anew from a deadly attack in Paris on Thursday ahead of a pivotal presidential vote in France on Sunday. The French election is being seen as a bellwether for whether the move toward nationalism and separation from the European Union, displayed by Britain’s move to leave the EU, will continue spreading to other European countries.</p>
<p>Trump didn’t specifically weigh in on the French election, nor would he say outright whether he supported countries staying in the EU. But he said a strong Europe is “very, very important” to the United States.</p>
<p>“We will help it be strong, and it’s very much to everybody’s advantage,” Trump said.</p>
<p>Weeks after he said he was moving on after a failed attempt in Congress to replace the Affordable Care Act, Trump said “there’s no give-up” and predicted a proposed GOP overhaul of Obama’s health care law was gaining popularity.</p>
<p>And, with a funding deadline looming to keep the government running, Trump said it was possible Congress would manage to accomplish it all next week or “shortly thereafter.”</p>
<p>“I think we’ll get both,” he said.</p>
<p>Grappling with other national security concerns, Trump said he did not see a role for the U.S. in Libya, adding that the U.S. “has right now enough roles.” Trump has criticized the Obama administration for a 2011 military intervention that he says created a power vacuum that led Libya to slip into chaos.</p>
<p>Trump also voiced optimism that the U.S. had successfully enlisted China to try to persuade North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons program.</p>
<p>“We don’t know whether or not they’re able to do that, but I have absolute confidence that he will be trying very, very hard,” Trump said, referring to Chinese President Xi Jinping.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Reach Josh Lederman on Twitter at <a href="http://twitter.com/joshledermanAP" type="external">http://twitter.com/joshledermanAP</a></p> | Trump raps Iran as violating ‘spirit’ of nuclear deal | false | https://abqjournal.com/990858/trump-says-iran-violating-spirit-of-nuclear-deal.html | 2017-04-20 | 2 |
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<p>People began lining up well before sunrise for the 8 a.m. ticket distribution. The lines stretched for blocks and snarled traffic around McCormick Place, the sprawling convention center along Lake Michigan where Obama will speak on Tuesday night.</p>
<p>“You never know when something as huge or as phenomenal like this will happen again, so I was like ‘I’m not missing this for nothing,'” said Umar Ibrahim, 28, who took the day off from his job as a city bus driver to snag a ticket, waking up at 3 a.m. to start the trek to the convention center.</p>
<p>“Just talking about it makes you beam,” he said as he clenched his ticket, grinning from ear-to-ear.</p>
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<p>Obama’s final speech to the public will continue a tradition set in 1796 when George Washington addressed the American people for the last time as president. It will be followed by a “family reunion” for alumni of Obama’s former campaigns, according to a save-the-date sent to alumni.</p>
<p>Obama has described the event as “a chance to say thank you for this amazing journey,” to celebrate the ways the country has changed and “to offer some thoughts on where we all go from here.”</p>
<p>For many supporters, Obama’s decision to give the speech in Chicago rather than Washington added to the significance of the event. It was in Chicago’s Grant Park that in 2008 he delivered his victory speech after becoming the nation’s first black president.</p>
<p>“He’s coming home,” said Cheryl Bellamy-Bonner, 56, who volunteered on Obama’s 2004 U.S. Senate campaign. “It shows he really cares about the people.”</p>
<p>Bellamy-Bonner said she appreciated Obama’s professionalism in office and his support of diversity. If there have been any disappointments, she said, it’s that he couldn’t accomplish more, which she blamed on a lack of bipartisanship. On Tuesday night, she’s hoping to hear what Obama will do next and “what we can do to help.”</p>
<p>Organizers didn’t say how many tickets were available, but many people walked away empty-handed on Saturday.</p>
<p>Among them was Stacy Bond. The 28-year-old from suburban Evanston said she’s disheartened about President-elect Donald Trump and wanted to be in the room to hear directly from Obama, the first president she voted for after reaching the legal voting age.</p>
<p>“You kind of want to hold on to that last bit of him that we’ve had,” she said.</p>
<p>The White House says the farewell address also will be streamed live online. Obama will be joined by first lady Michelle Obama and Vice President Joe Biden.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Follow Sara Burnett on Twitter at https://twitter.com/sara_burnett</p> | Thousands brave cold for tickets to Obama farewell speech | false | https://abqjournal.com/923005/thousands-brave-cold-for-tickets-to-obama-farewell-speech.html | 2017-01-07 | 2 |
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<p>Image source: Vanguard Group.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>It's important for retirement investors to have the exposure to stocks that they need in order to help their money grow over time. However, many investors have trouble with the volatility that pure stock funds have, and they prefer more balanced funds that also have exposure to other types of assets. The Vanguard STAR Fund gives investors a mix of stocks and bonds to try to reduce volatility, and the fund has attracted $18.6 billion in assets as of May 31. With its goal of providing both long-term capital appreciation and current income for investors, Vanguard STAR Fund tries to meet all of the needs that retirement investors have. Moreover, rock-bottom costs are helpful for investors. However, a relatively conservative stock allocation might make Vanguard STAR less than ideal for the youngest investors.</p>
<p>The Vanguard STAR Fund has produced reasonably good long-term returns for retirement investors. Over the past 15 years, the fund has produced an average annual return of 6.3%, outperforming the average balanced fund handily. The fund's 15-year performance puts it among the top 17% of funds in its category, and Vanguard STAR Fund has also posted three-year and 10-year returns that put the fund in the top quarter of all similar funds.</p>
<p>As a balanced fund, Vanguard STAR Fund holds a sizable bond component, and so its distribution yield is fairly high compared to what many stock funds would pay. Currently, the fund carries a 30-day yield of nearly 2% as calculated for the Securities and Exchange Commission.</p>
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<p>Vanguard STAR Fund's annual expenses are quite reasonable, although they're actually somewhat on the high side for Vanguard. The shares carry an expense ratio of 0.34%, which is less than half the average among balanced funds. The fund also carries no 12b-1 marketing fees.</p>
<p>In addition, like all Vanguard funds, Vanguard STAR doesn't charge a sales load. The fund also avoids purchase fees and redemption fees, and the only ancillary charges are account service fees for accounts with balances of less than $10,000 in the fund. However, you can also avoid this last fee if you sign up for electronic delivery of materials related to your account.</p>
<p>Image source: Getty Images.</p>
<p>Vanguard STAR Fund currently has between 60% and 65% of its portfolio in stocks, with roughly a quarter of its assets in bonds and the remaining 10% to 15% in cash. The fund invests solely in other Vanguard mutual funds, most notably the stalwart Vanguard Windsor Fund and its Windsor II sequel. International stock funds make up about 20% of the fund's total assets. On the bond side, the portfolio is split relatively evenly across a GNMA government mortgage fund, a long-term investment-grade corporate bond fund, and a short-term investment grade corporate bond fund.</p>
<p>Vanguard STAR Fund's officers and trustees manage the allocation of the fund. The Vanguard Equity Index Group, led by Joseph Brennan, is ultimately responsible for the equity funds that Vanguard STAR owns, while Chief Investment Officer Mortimer Buckley looks over the company's Fixed Income Group.</p>
<p>Two managers have direct oversight over the fund, William Coleman and Walter Nejman. Both have been with the fund since 2013.</p>
<p>Vanguard STAR Fund has benefited from the strong performance in the bond market recently. Although the fund's corporate exposure has underperformed what Treasury bond funds have returned, low interest rates have produced big increases in bond values generally. The trade-off is that income levels have fallen, and if interest rates start to rise, then bonds will fall in value. Added income at that point might not be enough to offset capital losses.</p>
<p>Moreover, Vanguard STAR Fund has a set allocation that isn't always going to be appropriate for investors. Early in your lifetime, a roughly 60%-40% split isn't as aggressive as most investors should be. Once you're in retirement, you can make a case that the split is too aggressive. Because of that, some investors will prefer to go with a target retirement fund that automatically adjusts as you grow older.</p>
<p>Given how well the bond market has performed recently, the chief danger for investors in Vanguard STAR Fund is that a reversal could produce capital losses on the bond side of the portfolio. Nevertheless, as part of an overall retirement portfolio, Vanguard STAR can play a useful role in providing the balanced exposure that many investors want and need.</p>
<p>The article <a href="http://www.fool.com/retirement/2016/07/13/vanguard-star-fund-is-it-the-right-retirement-choi.aspx" type="external">Vanguard STAR Fund: Is It the Right Retirement Choice For You? Opens a New Window.</a> originally appeared on Fool.com.</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFGalagan/info.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">Dan Caplinger Opens a New Window.</a> has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services <a href="http://www.fool.com/shop/newsletters/index.aspx?source=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> | Vanguard STAR Fund: Is It the Right Retirement Choice For You? | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/07/13/vanguard-star-fund-is-it-right-retirement-choice-for.html | 2016-07-13 | 0 |
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<p>WASHINGTON — The United States delivered an ominous warning to Americans on Friday to stay away from Cuba and ordered home more than half the U.S. diplomatic corps, acknowledging neither the Cubans nor America’s FBI can figure out who or what is responsible for months of mysterious health ailments.</p>
<p>No longer tiptoeing around the issue, the Trump administration shifted to calling the episodes “attacks” rather than “incidents.”</p>
<p>The U.S. actions are sure to rattle already delicate ties between the longtime adversaries who only recently began putting their hostility behind them. The U.S. Embassy in Cuba will lose roughly 60 percent of its American staff and will stop processing visas for prospective Cuban travelers to the United States indefinitely, officials said. Roughly 50 Americans had been working at the embassy.</p>
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<p>President Donald Trump said that in Cuba “they did some very bad things” that harmed U.S. diplomats, but he didn’t say who he might mean by “they.”</p>
<p>Though officials initially suspected some futuristic “sonic attack,” the picture is muddy. The FBI and other agencies that searched homes and hotels where incidents occurred found no devices.</p>
<p>Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who reviewed options for a response with Trump, said, “Until the government of Cuba can ensure the safety of our diplomats in Cuba, our embassy will be reduced to emergency personnel in order to minimize the number of diplomats at risk of exposure to harm.”</p>
<p>In Friday’s travel warning, the State Department confirmed earlier reporting by The Associated Press that U.S. personnel first encountered unexplained physical effects in Cuban hotels. While American tourists aren’t known to have been hurt, the agency said they could be exposed if they travel to the island — a pronouncement that could hit a critical component of Cuba’s economy that has expanded in recent years as the U.S. has relaxed restrictions.</p>
<p>At least 21 diplomats and family members have been affected. The department said symptoms include hearing loss, dizziness, headache, fatigue, cognitive issues and difficulty sleeping. Until Friday, the U.S. had generally referred to “incidents.” Tillerson’s statement ended that practice, mentioning “attacks” seven times; the travel alert used the word five times.</p>
<p>Still, the administration has pointedly not blamed Cuba for perpetrating the attacks, and officials have spent weeks weighing how to minimize the risk for Americans in Cuba without unnecessarily harming relations or falling into an adversary’s trap.</p>
<p>If the attacks have been committed by an outside power such as Russia or Venezuela to drive a wedge between the U.S. and Cuba, as some investigators have theorized, a U.S. pullout would end up rewarding the aggressor. On the other hand, officials have struggled with the moral dimensions of keeping diplomats in a place where the U.S. government cannot guarantee their safety.</p>
<p>The administration considered expelling Cuban diplomats from the U.S., officials said, but for now no such action has been ordered. That incensed several lawmakers who had urged the administration to kick out all of Cuban’s envoys.</p>
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<p>“It’s an insult,” said Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, a vocal critic of Cuba’s government, in an interview. “The Cuban regime succeeded in forcing Americans to downscale a number of personnel in Cuba, yet it appears they’re going to basically keep all the people they want in America to travel freely and spread misinformation.”</p>
<p>The U.S. travel warning said, “Because our personnel’s safety is at risk, and we are unable to identify the source of the attacks, we believe U.S. citizens may also be at risk and warn them not to travel to Cuba.”</p>
<p>Canada, which also has reported diplomats with unexplained health problems, said it had no plans to change its diplomatic posture in Cuba.</p>
<p>The U.S. moves deliver a significant setback to the delicate reconciliation between America and Cuba, countries that endured a half-century estrangement despite only 90 miles of separation. In 2015, President Barack Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro restored diplomatic ties, embassies were re-opened and travel and commerce restrictions were eased. Trump has reversed some changes but has broadly left the rapprochement in place.</p>
<p>After considering options that ranged all the way to a full embassy shutdown, Tillerson made the decision to reduce all nonessential personnel and all family members. Also included in the recall is Scott Hamilton, currently the highest-ranked diplomat at the mission. Staffing at the embassy in Havana was already lower than usual due to recent hurricanes that whipped through Cuba.</p>
<p>Cubans seeking visas to enter the U.S. may be able to apply through embassies in nearby countries, officials said. The U.S. will stop sending official delegations to Cuba, though diplomatic discussions will continue in Washington.</p>
<p>The United States notified Cuba early Friday via its embassy in Washington.</p>
<p>Cuba blasted the American move as “hasty” and lamented that it was being taken without conclusive investigation results. Still, Josefina Vidal, Cuba’s top diplomat for U.S. affairs, said her government was willing to continue cooperation with Washington “to fully clarify these incidents.” Her government took the rare step of the inviting the FBI to the island after being presented with the allegations earlier this year.</p>
<p>To medical investigators’ dismay, symptoms have varied widely. In addition to hearing loss and concussions, some people have experienced nausea, headaches and ear-ringing. The Associated Press has reported some now suffer from problems with concentration and common word recall.</p>
<p>Some U.S. diplomats reported hearing loud noises or feeling vibrations when the incidents occurred, but others heard and felt nothing yet reported symptoms later. In some cases, the effects were narrowly confined, with victims able to walk “in” and “out” of blaring noises audible in only certain rooms or parts of rooms, the AP has reported</p>
<p>Though the incidents stopped for a time, they recurred as recently as late August.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Michael Weissenstein in Havana, Bradley Klapper in Washington and Rob Gillies in Toronto contributed.</p>
<p>Reach Josh Lederman on Twitter at <a href="http://twitter.com/joshledermanAP" type="external">http://twitter.com/joshledermanAP</a> and Matthew Lee at <a href="http://twitter.com/APDiploWriter" type="external">http://twitter.com/APDiploWriter</a></p> | US to Americans: Stay away from Cuba after health ‘attacks’ | false | https://abqjournal.com/1070778/ap-sources-us-urges-no-travel-to-cuba-cuts-embassy-staff.html | 2017-09-29 | 2 |
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<p>PHOENIX — Gov. Doug Ducey on Monday called for a pay raise for all teachers, increased spending on all-day kindergarten and a signing bonus for new teachers who take jobs in poor areas, signaling that education will be at the top of his priorities during the upcoming legislative session.</p>
<p>The Republican governor outlined an ambitious plan for education that includes everything from raises to providing free tuition at state universities for prospective teachers, but provided no details on how he is going to pay for the changes.</p>
<p>Ducey will have a relatively small amount of available money — the Legislature’s budget analysts estimate it at $24 million — to spend because he wants to cut taxes at the same time.</p>
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<p>“I want the teachers of our state to know: You make the difference. I value your work, and it’s time we return the favor,” Ducey said. “I have a commitment our educators can take to the bank: starting with the budget I release Friday, I will call for an increased investment in our public schools — above and beyond inflation — every single year I am governor.”</p>
<p>Teacher salaries would go up by about 2 percent over several years, Ducey’s office said. That would be a $1,000 raise for a teacher making $50,000.</p>
<p>The governor also said in his state of the state address that he wants the Legislature to approve licensing fee waivers for low-income Arizonans who complete technical training, and an additional year of general relief welfare checks for people actively seeking work or caring for children who regularly attending school. That would restore benefits for some to the two years available before Ducey cut Arizona benefits to the lowest in the nation, at one year, in 2015.</p>
<p>The fee waiver and welfare increases are designed to reward people who are actively looking to get off government assistance programs.</p>
<p>“All too often government incentivizes being out of a job – rather than getting a job,” Ducey said. “So why not reward those who are making an honest effort to get off unemployment, or food stamps, or welfare.”</p>
<p>The education proposals come as the governor has been under pressure to boost funding for schools beyond what they got in last year’s Proposition 123. That measure adds more than $300 million a year in cash for K-12 schools for the next decade but still leaves Arizona schools near or at the bottom in terms of school funding nationally.</p>
<p>Ducey hasn’t said how much money he thinks he has to spend on the initiatives announced Monday. The Legislature’s budget analysts say there’s about $24 million in available surplus for new initiatives, a figure the governor said last week doesn’t match his office’s projections. But he promised to increase spending this year and each year he’s in office above what’s required to cover inflation on education.</p>
<p>“Now, I’m not promising a money tree,” he said. “I can’t. There’s no pot of gold, or cash hiding under a seat cushion. And unlike Washington, we don’t print money, and we won’t raise taxes.”</p>
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<p>He laid out 15 new or expanding education programs, buoying the hopes of education advocates, but raising questions about how he’ll fund them.</p>
<p>“I think the governor did a good job outlining steps, and we’ll see what that all entails,” said Rep. Doug Coleman, R-Apache Junction, who’s pushed for more K-12 school funding. “I’m excited to see his budget.”</p>
<p>Democrats were also pleased with the education agenda, but wary of whether Ducey can pull it off.</p>
<p>“If he’s serious about giving adequate dollars to any of those 15 steps that he promised then I guess the devils’ in the details, and I’m anxious to see his budget on Friday,” said Rep. Rebecca Rios, the Democrats’ minority leader. “The fact is we only have $24 million, he’s promised more tax cuts every year he’s governor, he’s promised not to raise taxes.</p>
<p>“So the math just doesn’t add up, which leads me to question of those 15 steps, who’s going to benefit,” she added.</p>
<p>The governor renewed his call for the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to be broken up, a high priority for Republican western officials who view the court as too liberal. He cited other reasons last year, including the court’s extreme caseload, large geographic area and high rate of cases overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court.</p>
<p>“Arizona, and other states in the 9th Circuit, deserve better,” he said.</p>
<p>He also borrowed a line from president-elect Donald trump by saying Washington, D.C., “isn’t the only swamp that needs draining.” He cited the number of lobbyists who descended on the Capitol last year while he was pushing an effort to consolidate boards and commissions. He ordered the commissions to fire those lobbyists after the session ended.</p>
<p>Ducey also is calling for an expansion of a program that lets new mothers who work for the state bring their children to work. He called the program a “win-win-win because it boosts productivity, cuts turnover and leads to happier babies.”</p>
<p>Ducey also promised new cash to complete the elimination of a backlog in rape kits. That effort was started last year.</p>
<p>“My budget fully funds the testing of all remaining rape kits,” he said. “And with the recommendations of our task force, we are ready to move forward with legislation requiring all future kits to be tested.”</p> | Education tops priorities in Ducey’s state of state speech | false | https://abqjournal.com/924102/education-tops-priorities-in-duceys-state-of-state-speech.html | 2017-01-09 | 2 |
<p>The CIA launched a drone attack Friday in northern Yemen that killed Anwal al-Awlaki, one of the most influential remaining leaders of al-Qaida wanted by the United States, authorities said.</p>
<p>Al-Awlaki, 40, was a U.S.-born Muslim cleric and “the leader of external operations for al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula,” or AQAP, President Obama said in his announcement of Awlaki’s death.</p>
<p>The drone attack is said to have killed at least six other people, including Samir Kahn, also a U.S. citizen and the co-editor of an al-Qaida magazine, and Salem bin Arfaaj, an al-Qaida militant. –BF</p>
<p>The Washington Post:</p>
<p />
<p>In Washington, senior Obama administration officials confirmed that Aulaqi, 40, a dual national of the United States and Yemen, and Khan were killed in a drone strike on their convoy.</p>
<p>The strike was carried out by a CIA drone operating from a new agency base on the Arabian Peninsula, U.S. officials said. It marks the first time that the CIA has launched a drone strike in Yemen since 2002, and the first indication that the new base is operational. The Post is withholding details on the specific location of the base at the request of the Obama administration.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle-east/anwar-al-aulaqi-us-born-cleric-linked-to-al-qaeda-killed-yemen-says/2011/09/30/gIQAsoWO9K_story.html" type="external">Read more</a></p> | U.S. Drone Attack Kills Al-Qaida Leader | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/u-s-drone-attack-kills-al-qaida-leader/ | 2011-09-30 | 4 |
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<p>But of all the developments in the astonishing Republican presidential contest, this moment told us what we need to know about the state of a once-great political party.</p>
<p>Consider the forces that brought Palin to the national stage in the first place.</p>
<p>In 2008, John McCain, running behind Barack Obama in the polls, wanted to shake up the contest by picking a moderate as his running mate. His first choice was Sen. Joe Lieberman, and he also liked former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge.</p>
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<p>But McCain won the nomination against the will of the Republican right as more conservative candidates had fractured their side's vote. "He is not the choice of conservatives, as opposed to the choice of the Republican establishment - and that distinction is key," said Rush Limbaugh, using language that is now oh-so-familiar. The establishment, Limbaugh charged, had "long sought to rid the party of conservative influence."</p>
<p>A moderate VP choice would have been too much for Limbaugh's legions. So McCain, facing a full-scale revolt on the floor of the Republican convention, gave up on Lieberman and Ridge, turning instead to Palin. A new hero for the Limbaugh-Fox News disciples was born.</p>
<p>Where Palin was concerned, Limbaugh overestimated the establishment's dedication to principle and underestimated its opportunism.</p>
<p>After Obama won, the main goal of Republican leaders of all stripes was to take back Congress as a prelude to defeating the president in 2012. The angry grass-roots right - it has been there for decades but cleverly rebranded itself as the tea party in 2009 - would be central in driving the midterm voters the GOP would need to the polls.</p>
<p>Since no one was better at rousing them than Palin, old-line Republican leaders embraced and legitimized her even if they snickered privately about who she was and how she said things.</p>
<p>Today's Republican crisis was thus engineered by the party leadership's step-by-step capitulation to a politics of unreason, a policy of silence toward the most extreme and wild charges against Obama, and a lifting up of resentment and anger over policy and ideas as the party's lodestars.</p>
<p>Many Republicans are now alarmed that their choice may come down to Trump, the candidate of a reality-show populism that tries to look like the real thing, and Sen. Ted Cruz, an ideologue whom they fear would lead their cause to a devastating defeat.</p>
<p>There is an honorable pushback against this outcome from champions of a genuinely more moderate and tolerant brand of conservatism - the columnists Michael Gerson and David Brooks among them.</p>
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<p>But this is a battle that needed to be joined long ago. A showdown was required before the steady, large-scale defection of moderate voters from the party.</p>
<p>Now that opponents of Trump and Cruz need the moderates, they are no longer there - except, perhaps, in states where independents might cross into the party's primaries to save it from itself.</p>
<p>And instead of battling the impulses now engulfing the party, GOP honchos exploited them. They fanned nativist feeling by claiming that illegal immigrants were flooding across our borders, even when net immigration from Mexico had fallen below zero.</p>
<p>They promised radical reductions in the size of government, knowing no Republican president, including Ronald Reagan, could pull this off. They pledged to "take the country back," leaving vague the identity of the people (other than Obama) from whom it was to be reclaimed. Their audiences filled in the blank.They denounced Obamacare as socialist, something, as Sen. Bernie Sanders is pointing out, it decidedly is not. Indeed, it's rooted in proposals Republicans once made themselves.</p>
<p>Politicians whose rhetoric brought the right's loyalists to a boiling point now complain that they don't much like the result. But it's a little late for that.</p>
<p>Why shouldn't the party's ultra-conservatives and its economically distressed working-class supporters feel betrayed? At least with Trump, Cruz and Palin, they have reason to think they know what they're getting. "We are mad and we've been had," Palin declared on Tuesday. "They need to get used to it."</p>
<p>So watch for the establishment's next capitulation. There are reports that some in its ranks are already cozying up to Trump. Given the record, there's little reason to doubt this.</p>
<p /> | GOP set table for Trump triumph | false | https://abqjournal.com/710913/gop-set-table-for-trump-triumph.html | 2 |
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<p>Lakeisha Holloway, 24, “repeatedly plowed into pedestrians on the crowded Las Vegas Strip on Sunday night, killing one person and injuring dozens more in what police say was a deliberate assault,” according to <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/las-vegas-sidewalk-crash-one-dead-26-hurt-intentional-act-n483581" type="external">NBC News</a>. Of the 37 injured, six were initially in critical condition but are now listed in stable condition.</p>
<p>Driver in fatal Las Vegas strip car crash identified as Lakeisha Holloway <a href="https://t.co/BITrqookAs" type="external">https://t.co/BITrqookAs</a> <a href="https://t.co/AOocc4pUIm" type="external">pic.twitter.com/AOocc4pUIm</a></p>
<p>It has been reported that the suspect had a 3-year-old girl (currently “unidentified” but suspected to be her daughter) with her in the back of the 1996 Oldsmobile four-door sedan she drove during the fatal attack; the toddler was unharmed.</p>
<p>Las Vegas Sheriff Joe Lombardo confirmed that Holloway was originally from Oregon but he added that authorities were "having difficulty obtaining her background."</p>
<p>Holloway will be charged with one count of murder with a deadly weapon but could also face charges of child abuse.</p>
<p>The victim of the attack has been identified as 32-year-old Jessica Valenzuela, per Clark County Coroner's Office. Valenzuela “was from Buckeye, Arizona, according to Colleen Downey, a spokeswoman for the coroner's office.”</p>
<p>Buckeye woman Jessica Valenzuela, 32, ID'd as victim in Vegas crash. Crowdfunding page says she has 3 daughters. <a href="https://t.co/C0pxEhCTEy" type="external">pic.twitter.com/C0pxEhCTEy</a></p>
<p>The driver hit pedestrians in two areas, according to police, which said witnesses described the car speeding up and slamming into a second group of people after the initial strike.</p>
<p>Rabia Qureshi, a tourist from Wisconsin, told <a href="http://www.ksnv.com/" type="external">NBC station KSNV</a> that the car looked like "a bowling ball and the human bodies were like pins."</p>
<p>"You think it's a show, because you're in Vegas," Qureshi said. "But then I saw some people fly in the air."</p>
<p>Qureshi's husband, Atif, a surgeon, stopped their car and dashed out to lend assistance.</p>
<p>"The first thing that came into my mind was that I should be out there helping them," Atif Qureshi said.</p>
<p>Another witness, Sofie Kitterød, told NBC News that she saw 10 people being taken away in ambulances.</p>
<p>"What we've heard is that a car drove up on the sidewalk by Planet Hollywood and continued past Paris Hotel," Kitterød said. "There are many ambulances on both sites."</p> | Horrific Crash On Vegas Strip Was ‘Intentional Act’ | true | https://dailywire.com/news/2031/horrific-crash-vegas-strip-was-intentional-act-amanda-prestigiacomo | 2015-12-21 | 0 |
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<p>The Cowboys had lost five in a row, counting an 83-67 loss at Wyoming, but not counting an exhibition whipping at UNLV.</p>
<p>Now Christmas season has arrived and Highlands has won five straight, putting the Cowboys (6-5, 5-0) atop the RMAC.</p>
<p>NMHU coach Craig Snow said the turnaround is a product of "getting punched in the nose" by a tough schedule and the incorporation of new players.</p>
<p>"I told our guys 20 days ago when we were coming back from LA (after a loss to California Baptist), and having lost five in a row, that we were not as bad as we thought we were," Snow said. "Now, we're coming back from South Dakota (after a win over South Dakota School of Mines) and we have won five in a row. And we're not as good as we think we are."</p>
<p>Cowboys Kendrick Nichols, Marlon Johnson, Jonathon Mines and Ron Lawton all average double-digit scoring. Johnson averages 8.2 rebounds a game, while Mines averages 3.2 assists. They have won their last five games by an average score of 88.8 to 75.6.</p>
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<p>"I think it has been a natural growth of the team, with eight new guys still learning the system," Snow said.</p>
<p>Highlands also played its first eight games of the season on the road. Their first home game was the RMAC opener against Western New Mexico, an 84-64 decision that sparked the winning streak.</p>
<p>"Anytime you challenge yourself, you get exposed," Snow said. "Certain rotations, certain combinations. But you also find some strengths. - If you play a schedule that's not quite as difficult, it's hard to glean those things."</p>
<p>NMHU is in the middle of a mandatory seven-day break. It returns to practice Monday to prepare for a Jan. 1 home game against Colorado Christian.</p>
<p>"We're probably the only team in the country that doesn't want a break right now because we're playing so well," Snow said.</p> | NMHU hoops: Cowboys 5-0 in the RMAC | false | https://abqjournal.com/696842/nmhu-hoops-cowboys-5-0-in-the-rmac.html | 2 |
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<p>FRIENDSWOOD, Texas — Authorities say a student was stabbed five times inside a biology classroom at his high school in Southeast Texas, and that a 15-year-old student has been charged.</p>
<p>Galveston County sheriff’s officials say the victim was hospitalized in stable condition Friday with injuries to his abdomen and arms that aren’t considered life-threatening.</p>
<p>Investigators believe the victim bumped into the suspect as the two were leaving a classroom Thursday afternoon at Clear Brook High School in Friendswood, about 20 miles southeast of Houston. The boys’ names haven’t been released.</p>
<p>Capt. Peter Sifuentes (suh-FWEN’-tays) says the suspect is in juvenile custody on a charge of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. Sifuentes said the suspect had a folding pocketknife and stayed in the classroom until officers arrived.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | Student stabbed while leaving class at Texas high school | false | https://abqjournal.com/561197/student-stabbed-while-leaving-class-at-texas-high-school.html | 2 |
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<p>Oil prices edged lower Friday as the shutdown of several refineries in the wake of tropical storm Harvey suppressed demand.</p>
<p>Light, sweet crude for October delivery fell 10 cents, or 0.2%, to $47.13 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, down four out of the past five sessions. Brent, the global benchmark, was trading near flat at $52.85 a barrel.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Prices have come under pressure this week after Harvey made landfall in Texas as a Category 4 hurricane and was then downgraded to a tropical storm, dousing the coast with rain and flooding. While the storm disrupted some crude production, the industry expects a bigger impact on demand as refiners shut down or reduced operations.</p>
<p>"Harvey's impact continues to be the key short-term factor that the market is keeping an eye on, with a significant reduction in refinery operations curtailing oil demand," Robbie Fraser, commodity analyst at Schneider Electric, said in a Friday report.</p>
<p>According to the Energy Department, 10 refineries in the Gulf Coast region were shut down as of Thursday afternoon, nearly 17% of total U.S. refining capacity. However, some refiners have announced plans to restart facilities in the coming days, easing concerns of a fuel shortage.</p>
<p>"There's a lot of doom and gloom out there about their ability to come back from this, but in my experience, they come back a lot more quickly than people realize," said John Kilduff, founding partner at Again Capital. "The anxiety yesterday hit a crescendo and today we're seeing it get dialed back."</p>
<p>On Friday, gasoline prices pulled back after hitting a two-year high. Futures for October delivery were recently down 2.8% at $1.7289 a gallon on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Diesel prices fell 0.5% to $1.7341 a gallon.</p>
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<p>"Indications that a couple of Texas ports could be reopening and a couple of pipelines out of the Houston region could be stepping up flows is contributing to some profit taking across the energy spectrum today," Jim Ritterbusch, president of Ritterbusch &amp; Associates, wrote Friday in a research report.</p>
<p>With a key source of crude demand on hold, analysts and traders expect the amount of crude oil in storage to pile up over the next few weeks, reversing a trend that ignited hope a global rebalancing in the oil market was gaining traction.</p>
<p>As traders continue to assess the damage done in Harvey's aftermath, the market will once again turn its attention to the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, analysts said. The global cartel has struggled to mitigate a global supply glut as U.S. shale has increased production following OPEC's decision to curtail output.</p>
<p>--Marina Force contributed to this article.</p>
<p>Write to Stephanie Yang at [email protected]</p>
<p>(END) Dow Jones Newswires</p>
<p>September 01, 2017 11:44 ET (15:44 GMT)</p> | Oil Edges Lower as Harvey Disruptions Weigh | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2017/09/01/gas-prices-jump-amid-storm-related-refinery-closures-update.html | 2017-09-01 | 0 |
<p>Despite profits soaring to levels not seen in years, airline service was a mixed bag in 2013, according to the latest Airline Quality Ratings report.</p>
<p>The good news: The quality of service hit an all-time high, with carriers bumping fewer travelers from flights and customer complaints to the U.S. Department of Transportation dropping by 15 percent.</p>
<p>The bad news: Airlines did a worse job when it comes to arriving on time, and handling bags. (Perhaps this is one of the reasons more folks are opting to get their bags <a href="" type="internal">wrapped in plastic</a>).</p>
<p>"Some indicators got better, some got worse," said Dean E. Headley, an associate professor of marketing at Wichita State University and co-author of the annual report. "We have about 15 airlines that we track and for the most part, about half of them got better and half got worse."</p>
<p>Headley and his co-author Brent Bowen, dean of the College of Aviation at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, have calculated the Airline Quality Rating annually since 1991.</p>
<p>The annual rating of airlines is calculated by measuring how carriers performed in four categories: on-time performance, mishandled bags, denied boardings and customer complaints, based on data tracked by the Transportation Department.</p>
<p>The top-rated airline in 2013 was Virgin America. It was the second year in a row the airline topped the list. Here's a look at the top 15.</p>
<p>Two airlines stood out in the annual report on service.</p>
<p>United improved its performance in all four categories. While that is certainly encouraging for United travelers, Headley says the airline had plenty of room for improvement.</p>
<p>"They had a horrible complaint rating a year ago and they really had nowhere to go but up," he said.</p>
<p>By comparison, Southwest, which is in the midst of completing its merger with AirTran, saw its performance drop across the board. Headley said that could be a sign Southwest is struggling with growing pains.</p>
<p>"Many people always prefer Southwest Airlines, but yet their system is getting a lot more complex," he said. "They are adding a lot of routes, they are growing, and we all know that is a difficult job in today's environment."</p>
<p>Overall, the industry has come a long way from 2007 when the AQR recorded its lowest scores.</p> | Airlines Got Fewer Complaints But Bungled More Bags | false | http://nbcnews.com/business/travel/airlines-got-fewer-complaints-bungled-more-bags-n73731 | 2014-04-07 | 3 |
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<p>SAN DIEGO – Kyle Blanks wanders onto a baseball field from a Big and Tall store, or maybe a forest in Oz.</p>
<p>The Moriarty High alumnus is listed as 6-foot-6 and 264, but it’s not just the height that distinguishes him, it’s the bulk. Everything about him makes you want to deliver helmets and first-aid kits to everyone sitting in left field.</p>
<p>Yet the game has been far more dangerous to Blanks than vice versa. Until now.</p>
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<p>Freed from a disabled list that functioned more as a dungeon, the Padres’ outfielder/first baseman has eight home runs in 164 at-bats. He also is hitting .272 with an .822 OPS for a club that has become, so far, the best little bargain in Southern California.</p>
<p>Check the ledger. The Padres have a payroll of $48.3 million and are 40-41.</p>
<p>The Dodgers’ payroll is $216.7 million and they were 36-43 entering Saturday night’s late game against Philadelphia.</p>
<p>And the Angels pay out $137.2 million and are 38-43.</p>
<p>Granted, the season is not quite at the midpoint. But the Padres have prospered with depth, a bullpen and a surprising rotation led by Jason Marquis, who was cast adrift by the pitching-averse Twins last summer but is 9-3 here.</p>
<p>“We were coming off a pretty good finish last year,” said manager Bud Black, referring to a 47-36 record after June 30. “And virtually everybody is back from that team. Sometimes that’s not good, but in this case it was.</p>
<p>“So I liked our club from the beginning, even though not everyone did.”</p>
<p>But a healthy Blanks was a bonus, like a cheap free agent. During the past three years he has been disabled for 366 days. And not for flu symptoms, either.</p>
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<p>Blanks had a strained arch in 2009 that became plantar fasciitis, blew out his elbow in 2010 and had Tommy John surgery, and got all the way to April 14 last year before he blew out his left shoulder.</p>
<p>“They were all wear-and-tear issues,” Blanks said. “I was throwing the ball around the infield one day when my elbow went. I don’t really blame myself, but maybe if I’d taken care of myself a little better I could have prevented them.”</p>
<p>At one point Blanks, 26, was playing at 290 pounds. On the theory that nothing healthy ever comes from a drive-thru, Blanks has changed his physique and, when disabled last year, learned yoga.</p>
<p>But even when he was top-heavy, Blanks was nimble enough to play corner outfield, and he feels it’s important to put balls in play and not fall into the walk-strikeout-homer trap, also known as the Adam Dunn Zone.</p>
<p>“He can run and you can drop that old saying about ‘for a big guy,”‘ said Alonzo Powell, one of the Padres’ batting coaches.</p>
<p>Blanks does not try to propel balls into the Gaslamp Quarter during batting practice here.</p>
<p>“I don’t want to be a base-clogger,” he said.</p>
<p>“When I first started watching him, he crushed balls to right-center,” said Jake Wilson, the Padres scout who signed Blanks before Wilson became Tampa Bay’s western regional supervisor.</p>
<p>“I’ve seen him hit some long ones. But he wants to be a good all-around hitter.”</p>
<p>Blanks got attention during a Connie Mack tournament, on a team that has placed four players in the majors and later used fellow Moriarty High alum Matt Moore, the brilliant Tampa Bay left-hander.</p>
<p>The Padres took Blanks in the 42nd round, knowing he had an offer from the U. of New Mexico. Instead Blanks went to Yavapai JC in Arizona. “I needed some refinement,” he said.</p>
<p>He got some. In his only season at Yavapai, Blanks rampaged for 85 hits and eight home runs in 56 games and hit .440.</p>
<p>“I got to play with a wood bat there,” Blanks said. “That year was a huge stepping stone for me.”</p>
<p>Under the draft-and-follow rules that were in effect then, the Padres still had his rights. That’s how the 1,241st player picked in the draft gets a $140,000 bonus.</p>
<p>He had consecutive 100-plus RBI seasons in Lake Elsinore and Double-A San Antonio, and still hasn’t struck out 100 times in a season.</p>
<p>What happens when Blanks fills everything in?</p>
<p>“That’s tough,” Black said. “But when you look at the tools, you don’t see a glaring weakness. You see things that equate to a very solid major league career. But he just has to do it over time.”</p>
<p /> | Blanks enjoying healthy season | false | https://abqjournal.com/239912/blanks-enjoying-healthy-season.html | 2 |
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<p />
<p>Image source: Vera Bradley.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Vera Bradley (NASDAQ: VRA) announced on Oct. 12 that its payment system was breached. Payment cards used at Vera Bradley store locations between July 25 and Sept. 23 may have been affected. Besides the potential theft of customer information, the company expects some of its business plans to be delayed as a result.</p>
<p>Law enforcement notified the women's fashion designer on Sept. 15 that credit and debit cards used at Vera Bradley stores were affected. The company advised customers to be alert to unauthorized transactions on the cards they used at Vera Bradley stores. Upon further investigation, it was concluded that online sales transactions were not affected.</p>
<p>The hack into the payment system is a blow to Vera Bradley as the company's new online store was set to be launched this month. The company was betting on the new format, which features new payment options, an easier-to-navigate and customizable layout, and international sales scalability.</p>
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<p>As a result of the hack, the company will have to delay the online store launch until 2017. Even though the online payment system wasn't hit, efforts that would have gone into launching the website are instead being focused on increasing security measures. Management said that comparable sales numbers could be negatively impacted as a result of the newly designed web store missing the important holiday shopping season this fall.</p>
<p>Vera Bradley has been in the midst of a brand transformation in the past year. The company has redesigned the look and feel of its logo and store layout and has also launched new fashion lines, including leather handbags, accessories, and a line of stationery.</p>
<p>To complement all of the new changes and revamping, a new ad campaign with extra emphasis on a social-media presence and outreach is under way. Along with that, the company's flagship store in the SoHo neighborhood of New York City recently opened its doors, featuring the new logo and fashion lines. Refreshing other full-line stores is also under way, with an emphasis on bringing them up to speed with the new design elements in the flagship New York location.</p>
<p>All of these company redesigns are aimed at showing off the new Vera Bradley styles. So far, these offerings have failed to boost comparable sales, with the figure coming in at negative 6.1% during the last reported quarter.</p>
<p>The final part of the makeover, and the one expected to drive a return to comparable sales growth, was supposed to be the relaunch of the online store, just in time for the big end-of-year shopping rush. With the security breach now making customer privacy a bigger issue and the website getting put on the back burner, it looks as if investors may have to cope with struggling sales a bit longer.</p>
<p>Also not known yet is how knowledge of the hack itself will affect customers' shopping habits. Over the past few years, retail companies that have lost customer information have gotten beaten up.</p>
<p>Before the news, Vera Bradley had been figuring on 2% to 8% full-year sales growth. Between the delay of the new site and possible short-term loss of trust from customers, it would be best to assume Vera Bradley will miss expectations for the fourth quarter of this year.</p>
<p>A secret billion-dollar stock opportunity The world's biggest tech company forgot to show you something, but a few Wall Street analysts and the Fool didn't miss a beat: There's a small company that's powering their brand-new gadgets and the coming revolution in technology. And we think its stock price has nearly unlimited room to run for early in-the-know investors! To be one of them, <a href="http://www.fool.com/mms/mark/ecap-foolcom-apple-wearable?aid=6965&amp;source=irbeditxt0000017&amp;ftm_cam=rb-wearable-d&amp;ftm_pit=2667&amp;ftm_veh=article_pitch&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">just click here Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/nrossolillo/info.aspx" type="external">Nicholas Rossolillo Opens a New Window.</a> owns shares of Target. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services <a href="http://www.fool.com/shop/newsletters/index.aspx?source=isiedilnk018048&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">free for 30 days Opens a New Window.</a>. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that <a href="http://www.fool.com/knowledge-center/motley.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">considering a diverse range of insights Opens a New Window.</a> makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/Legal/fool-disclosure-policy.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p> | What Investors Need to Know After the Vera Bradley Security Breach | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/10/24/what-investors-need-to-know-after-vera-bradley-security-breach.html | 2016-10-24 | 0 |
<p>COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) _ The winning numbers in Saturday evening’s drawing of the South Carolina Lottery’s “Palmetto Cash 5” game were:</p>
<p>05-16-18-27-32, Power-Up: 4</p>
<p>(five, sixteen, eighteen, twenty-seven, thirty-two; Power, Up: four)</p>
<p>COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) _ The winning numbers in Saturday evening’s drawing of the South Carolina Lottery’s “Palmetto Cash 5” game were:</p>
<p>05-16-18-27-32, Power-Up: 4</p>
<p>(five, sixteen, eighteen, twenty-seven, thirty-two; Power, Up: four)</p> | Winning numbers drawn in ‘Palmetto Cash 5’ game | false | https://apnews.com/8f85b846a355437ca4e484d8f1a31183 | 2018-01-21 | 2 |
<p>Green energy adoption has reached the point of no return, and usage is only going to increase in the future.</p>
<p>In this clip from <a href="http://www.fool.com/podcasts/industry-focus?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">Industry Focus: Energy Opens a New Window.</a>, Motley Fool analyst Sean O'Reilly discusses green energy yieldco 8Point3 Energy Partners(NASDAQ: CAFD), and why it's a company that long-term energy investors should be interested in. Tune in to find out how the company makes its money, how it manages to have pay out a whopping 7.4% dividend yield to shareholders, how long its growth is projected to continue, and much more.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>A full transcript follows the video.</p>
<p>10 stocks we like better than 8point3 Energy PartnersWhen investing geniuses David and Tom Gardner have a stock tip, it can pay to listen. After all, the newsletter they have run for over a decade, Motley Fool Stock Advisor, has tripled the market.*</p>
<p>David and Tom just revealed what they believe are the <a href="http://infotron.fool.com/infotrack/click?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.fool.com%2Fmms%2Fmark%2Fe-foolcom-sa-bbn-dyn%3Faid%3D8867%26source%3Disaeditxt0010449%26ftm_cam%3Dsa-bbn-evergreen%26ftm_pit%3D6312%26ftm_veh%3Dbbn_article_pitch&amp;impression=194be87c-d5ae-4d1a-82b8-8998f5b4a707&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">10 best stocks Opens a New Window.</a> for investors to buy right now... and 8point3 Energy Partners wasn't one of them! That's right -- they think these 10 stocks are even better buys.</p>
<p><a href="http://infotron.fool.com/infotrack/click?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.fool.com%2Fmms%2Fmark%2Fe-foolcom-sa-bbn-dyn%3Faid%3D8867%26source%3Disaeditxt0010449%26ftm_cam%3Dsa-bbn-evergreen%26ftm_pit%3D6312%26ftm_veh%3Dbbn_article_pitch&amp;impression=194be87c-d5ae-4d1a-82b8-8998f5b4a707&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">Click here Opens a New Window.</a> to learn about these picks!</p>
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<p>*Stock Advisor returns as of February 6, 2017</p>
<p>This podcast was recorded on Feb. 9, 2017.</p>
<p>Sean O'Reilly: So, Gaby, I want to talk to you about my pick in the energy and materials space, which is8point3 Energy Partners. What the heck is 8point3 Energy Partners?</p>
<p>Taylor Muckerman:I'm interested, too. I'd never heard of this company until you brought it up last week.</p>
<p>O'Reilly:Really? You're serious?</p>
<p>Muckerman:I'm dead serious.</p>
<p>O'Reilly:Oh, wow. Get out your pencils, kids. It is actually named after the time it takes for light from the sun to reach the Earth. It takes 8 minutes and 20 seconds for sunlight to reach the planet. Twenty seconds is a third of a minute, so, hence, 8point3 Energy Partners. It was formed as a joint venture betweenFirst SolarandSunPowerand is known as what is called a yieldco. This is actually analogous to something that you know a lot about, Gaby, which is REITs, real estate investment trusts.</p>
<p>Lapera:I do know a lot about those.</p>
<p>O'Reilly:So how does a REIT run their business? They own buildings, they charge rent to tenants, theytry to expand their foothold by occasionally selling shares or debt, buying new buildings, building new buildings, etc. It is not uncommon -- correct me if I'm wrong -- for a REIT, over the years, to have more and more shares outstanding. That's kind of what happens. Or, they just stay stagnant.</p>
<p>Lapera:It depends on the REIT. I'll say that. But, this isn't a REIT show, so continue.</p>
<p>O'Reilly:The other thing REITs do, of course, is pay out dividends to investors.</p>
<p>Lapera:Right, 90% of their taxable income.</p>
<p>O'Reilly:Right. Same deal with these guys. It is more or less the same business model. First Solar and SunPower build and install solar panels, and installations. It's mostly for industrial and large corporate customers, compared with aTeslaorSolarCitythat do rooftops. They created 8point3 Energy Partners to buy these projects, because, as you can imagine,it's not the easiest thing to do to build a $400 million solar-panel array in the middle of the desert and just keep that in your books forever. It is nice to be able to spin that off, maybe keep some of the revenues for servicing the project, but that is how they function. They created 8point3 Energy Partnerstogether with its subsidiaries to acquire, own, and operate solar-energy generation projects in the United States. As of right now, at the end of Nov. 30 -- they have not reported earnings yet -- they own nine utility-scale solar-energy projects and have a total capacity of 642 megawatts of electricity. It is a beautifully simple business model. It owns a bunch of solar panels; it contracts the energy generator for them out to utilities and pays out the cash to shareholders.</p>
<p>"Sean, what is this dividend yield that you keep talking about," you're wondering. Currently, it has a current quotation of about $13 and a half per share. It has a dividend yield of 7.4%. That'spretty darn good in a world where Treasury bills are yielding 3%, where we're at the very top of what has been an eight-year bull market. It actually compares very nicely with the average long-term returns of the stock market, which, in the last hundred years, as you know, was 8%. And, to boot, it is green. They own solar panels and free energy.</p>
<p>Lapera:So I feel good.</p>
<p>O'Reilly:You feel great. You're making 7% a year.</p>
<p>Lapera:I mean, investors in general feel good, not me in particular.</p>
<p>O'Reilly:Of course. You would never feel good. You would never feel anything about --</p>
<p>Lapera:Like the planet, you might feel good about this stock. Continue.</p>
<p>O'Reilly:Thelawyer over in the corner is looking at us. That's it; it's meat and potatoes. The company is projected to grow its dividend by about 12% this year. They are projecting long term to grow their dividend by about 15%. That is subject to revision based upon the number of projects that they are able to purchase from their sponsors. The pipeline of First Solar and SunPower does, more or less, appear to be rather lengthy. They do have a number of projects coming on board in the next couple of years that they'll be buying. And the last question I'm sure you're wondering is, how long will this continue? Because utilities won't just buy power from these people indefinitely without talking about it again. The average length of their current contracts for all their projects -- meaning they could actually stop right now buying projects from First Solar and SunPower, not expand at all, just keep hanging out, literally doing nothing but collecting money from selling electricity from theutilities -- the answer is 20 years. You could just sit there and do nothing for 20 years and get 7% per year off this thing.</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFCaffeine/info.aspx" type="external">Gaby Lapera Opens a New Window.</a> has no position in any stocks mentioned. <a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFBuckeye/info.aspx" type="external">Sean O'Reilly Opens a New Window.</a> has no position in any stocks mentioned. <a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFrunAMuck/info.aspx" type="external">Taylor Muckerman Opens a New Window.</a> owns shares of TSLA. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends TSLA. The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/Legal/fool-disclosure-policy.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p> | Why Investors Should Consider 8point3 Energy Partners | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/02/21/why-investors-should-consider-8point3-energy-partners.html | 2017-03-16 | 0 |
<p>VENTIMIGLIA, Italy (AP) — Italian police in riot gear forcibly removed a few dozen African migrants on Tuesday who had been camping out for days at Italy's Mediterranean border with France in hopes of going further north.</p>
<p>Some of the migrants protested, grabbing onto signposts, while others had to be carried off by their legs and arms — a violent scene that Italy used to show the rest of Europe that it needs to do more to deal with the continent's migrant crisis.</p>
<p>"We are human beings. We are not animals," said Saddam, a Sudanese migrant who watched the police operation Tuesday at the Ventimiglia border crossing and only gave his first name. "I know we are black and we are come from Africa, but we are still humans."</p>
<p>Migrants on the rocks jutting out into the sea were left alone, with police apparently unwilling to move into that more treacherous location. The rest were loaded onto a Red Cross bus and taken to the nearby train station.</p>
<p>It wasn't immediately clear why the Red Cross allowed their bus to be used for the police operation.</p>
<p>The would-be refugees, mostly from Sudan and Eritrea, had camped out for five days after French border police refused to let them cross. They had refused to leave, saying they want to find family members elsewhere in Europe.</p>
<p>Under EU rules, would-be refugees are supposed to be fingerprinted and apply for asylum in the first EU country where they land. Many new migrants, however, prefer to slip through Italy without being officially registered so they can head further north where they might find better job opportunities while their asylum claims are being processed.</p>
<p>Italian Interior Minster Angelino Alfano, arriving Tuesday at an EU interior ministers' meeting in Luxembourg, said the scenes from Ventimiglia were proof that migrants don't want to stay in Italy.</p>
<p>Italy, which has borne the brunt of rescuing migrants at sea and providing initial assistance to them, is demanding that other European countries take in the migrants and let them apply for asylum elsewhere. The country has seen 54,000 migrants land so far this year, according to refugee agencies. But many other EU nations are resisting an EU proposal to help.</p>
<p>In response, France has reinforced its border controls over the past few weeks.</p>
<p>VENTIMIGLIA, Italy (AP) — Italian police in riot gear forcibly removed a few dozen African migrants on Tuesday who had been camping out for days at Italy's Mediterranean border with France in hopes of going further north.</p>
<p>Some of the migrants protested, grabbing onto signposts, while others had to be carried off by their legs and arms — a violent scene that Italy used to show the rest of Europe that it needs to do more to deal with the continent's migrant crisis.</p>
<p>"We are human beings. We are not animals," said Saddam, a Sudanese migrant who watched the police operation Tuesday at the Ventimiglia border crossing and only gave his first name. "I know we are black and we are come from Africa, but we are still humans."</p>
<p>Migrants on the rocks jutting out into the sea were left alone, with police apparently unwilling to move into that more treacherous location. The rest were loaded onto a Red Cross bus and taken to the nearby train station.</p>
<p>It wasn't immediately clear why the Red Cross allowed their bus to be used for the police operation.</p>
<p>The would-be refugees, mostly from Sudan and Eritrea, had camped out for five days after French border police refused to let them cross. They had refused to leave, saying they want to find family members elsewhere in Europe.</p>
<p>Under EU rules, would-be refugees are supposed to be fingerprinted and apply for asylum in the first EU country where they land. Many new migrants, however, prefer to slip through Italy without being officially registered so they can head further north where they might find better job opportunities while their asylum claims are being processed.</p>
<p>Italian Interior Minster Angelino Alfano, arriving Tuesday at an EU interior ministers' meeting in Luxembourg, said the scenes from Ventimiglia were proof that migrants don't want to stay in Italy.</p>
<p>Italy, which has borne the brunt of rescuing migrants at sea and providing initial assistance to them, is demanding that other European countries take in the migrants and let them apply for asylum elsewhere. The country has seen 54,000 migrants land so far this year, according to refugee agencies. But many other EU nations are resisting an EU proposal to help.</p>
<p>In response, France has reinforced its border controls over the past few weeks.</p> | Police in helmets drag migrants from French-Italian border | false | https://apnews.com/amp/4d6c20ac6ca7447389933468200d0e3e | 2015-06-16 | 2 |
<p>By Bob Allen</p>
<p>Race, sexuality and politics emerged as recurring themes in daily news coverage by Baptist News Global in 2015.</p>
<p>Raphael Warnock, senior pastor of Atlanta’s historic Ebenezer Baptist Church, <a href="ministry/organizations/item/29723-preacher-says-holy-irritant-can-move-white-black-baptists-beyond-comfort-zones" type="external">challenged</a> black and white Baptists to move beyond comfort zones of race and theology toward a “covenant community” characterized by “creative and redemptive agitation” at the Jan. 14-15 New Baptist Covenant Summit in Atlanta. In July <a href="culture/social-issues/item/30327-confederate-flags-left-at-mlk-s-home-church" type="external">someone</a> left four Confederate flags on Ebenezer Baptist Church’s church property.</p>
<p>Russell Moore, president of the SBC Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, denounced segregated churches as “ <a href="culture/social-issues/item/29944-racially-segregated-churches-blasphemy-sbc-leader-says" type="external">blasphemy</a>” during a two-day summit in March in Nashville, Tenn., titled “The Gospel and Racial Reconciliation.”</p>
<p>The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship made it a first order of business at the June 15-19 General Assembly in Dallas to <a href="ministry/organizations/item/30190-cbf-prays-for-victims-in-s-c-church-shooting" type="external">pray</a> for victims in a deadly shooting at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C. Virginia pastor Jim Somerville <a href="culture/social-issues/item/30199-cooperative-baptists-challenged-to-build-bridge-over-gaping-wound-of-racism" type="external">called</a> on Cooperative Baptists to help bridge a “gaping wound of racism.”</p>
<p>The New Baptist Covenant joined other groups to <a href="culture/social-issues/item/30212-churches-urge-to-mark-independence-day-with-freedom-from-racism" type="external">sponsor</a> “Freedom from Racism Sunday” on July 5, which many churches devote to a service marking Independence Day.</p>
<p>Four of the 57 people <a href="ministry/organizations/item/30363-baptist-protestors-arrested-in-st-louis" type="external">arrested</a> Aug. 10 in a peaceful protest outside a federal courthouse in St. Louis were part of an eight-member Baptist Peace Fellowship of North America delegation in Ferguson, Mo., there to observe the one-year anniversary of the Aug. 9, 2014, police shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown.</p>
<p>In March the Kentucky Baptist Fellowship <a href="ministry/organizations/item/29923-state-cbf-group-forging-ties-with-historically-black-college" type="external">announced</a> a partnership with historically black Simmons College of Kentucky. In September Simmons College and the KBF <a href="ministry/organizations/item/30508-kbf-historically-black-college-join-forces-to-fight-poverty" type="external">led</a> a coalition of urban and suburban congregations called Empower West Louisville aimed at tackling urban poverty.</p>
<p>Students from historically black colleges and universities <a href="culture/social-issues/item/30682-protestors-to-sbc-all-souls-matter-in-campus-ministry" type="external">protested</a> a meeting near James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Va., Nov. 18, claiming despite the talk about racial reconciliation the convention is indifferent to the spiritual needs of African-Americans when it comes to campus outreach.</p>
<p>Historic black and white congregations in Murfreesboro, Tenn., that both identify as “First Baptist Church” worshipped together Nov. 29 in a service <a href="ministry/congregations/item/30722-black-white-first-baptist-congregations-unite-after-150-years" type="external">celebrating</a> both common history and distinctiveness of the two fellowships that went separate ways 150 years ago following the Civil War.</p>
<p>Gay marriage divides Baptists</p>
<p>Maurice “Bojangles” Blanchard, a gay-rights activist ordained to the gospel ministry by Highland Baptist Church in Louisville, Ky., was a <a href="ministry/people/item/29749-baptist-minister-s-case-for-gay-marriage-going-to-supreme-court" type="external">plaintiff</a> in one of four cases taken up by the U.S. Supreme Court challenging state bans on marriage between same-sex couples.</p>
<p>While Blanchard traveled to Washington for <a href="culture/social-issues/item/30035-supreme-court-hears-challenges-to-state-gay-marriage-bans" type="external">oral arguments</a> April 28, the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention <a href="culture/social-issues/item/29976-southern-baptists-urged-to-pray-as-supreme-court-weighs-gay-marriage-arguments" type="external">organized</a> a social media campaign entreating Southern Baptists to pray the Supreme Court would uphold traditional marriage.</p>
<p>An SBC <a href="ministry/organizations/item/30182-sbc-asks-supreme-court-to-rule-against-gay-marriage" type="external">resolution</a> adopted June 16 in Columbus, Ohio, called on the U.S. Supreme Court to leave it up to the states to decide whether or not to permit gay marriage. The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, which bans the hiring of openly gay missionaries but leaves church membership up to each congregation, <a href="culture/social-issues/item/30231-baptist-groups-react-to-gay-marriage-ruling" type="external">urged</a> churches with conflicting views to model unity.</p>
<p>The U.S. Supreme Court <a href="culture/social-issues/item/30223-supreme-court-legalizes-gay-marriage-in-all-50-states" type="external">ruled</a> by a thin margin June 26 that the Constitution does not permit the government to deny marriage benefits to gay couples that are available to married couples of the opposite sex. Seventeen months after being arrested for trespassing when they refused to leave a county clerk’s office that refused to issue them one, Blanchard and his partner, Dominique James,&#160; <a href="ministry/people/item/30232-gay-baptist-minister-followed-long-path-to-marriage-equality" type="external">obtained</a> their marriage license June 29.</p>
<p>Moderate and conservative Baptists in Georgia <a href="culture/social-issues/item/29720-clergy-divided-on-georgia-religious-liberty-bill" type="external">lined</a> up on <a href="culture/politics/item/29766-georgia-baptist-clergy-oppose-religious-liberty-bill" type="external">opposite</a> sides <a href="culture/politics/item/29773-georgia-baptists-divided-over-religious-liberty-bill" type="external">debating</a> a new “religious freedom” bill proposed after Atlanta fire chief Kelvin Cochran was <a href="culture/social-issues/item/29832-fired-atlanta-fire-chief-sues-city" type="external">fired</a> for giving employees a book he wrote denouncing homosexuality. Similar laws sparked <a href="ministry/organizations/item/29957-bjc-releases-statement-on-rfra-legislation-in-indiana-and-arkansas" type="external">controversy</a> in <a href="culture/social-issues/item/29952-southern-baptist-ethics-czar-defends-indiana-religious-liberty-bill-on-msnbc" type="external">Indiana</a> and <a href="culture/politics/item/30021-arkansas-baptist-leaders-satisfied-with-rfra-bill" type="external">Arkansas</a>, with critics calling them a license to discriminate. The Missouri Baptist Convention spearheaded a coalition <a href="ministry/organizations/item/30657-missouri-baptists-support-religious-liberty-law" type="external">asking</a> lawmakers to enact legislation or propose a constitutional amendment that “explicitly secures” freedom of conscience in conflicts over same-sex marriage.</p>
<p>Some Baptists joined efforts to oppose anti-discrimination ordinances in <a href="culture/social-issues/item/29844-proposed-bathroom-bill-raises-baptist-ire-in-n-c" type="external">Charlotte, N.C.</a>,&#160; <a href="culture/social-issues/item/30574-former-sbc-president-opposes-houston-equal-rights-ordinance" type="external">Houston</a>&#160;and <a href="culture/politics/item/30366-ordinance-foes-claim-religious-right-to-discriminate" type="external">Fayetteville, Ark</a>., nicknamed “bathroom bills” by critics who say they would allow transgender persons to use public restrooms opposite from their biological sex.</p>
<p>In March Madison Baptist Association <a href="ministry/congregations/item/29908-alabama-baptist-church-dis-fellowshipped-over-pastor-s-gay-friendly-views" type="external">voted</a> 74-5 to withdraw fellowship from Weatherly Heights Baptist Church in Huntsville, Ala., over its pastor’s support of same-sex marriage. Baptist officials investigated the church after news reports that an unpaid staff member officiated at one of the state’s first legal same-sex weddings. The SBC Executive Committee <a href="ministry/organizations/item/30180-sbc-ousts-another-gay-friendly-church" type="external">followed</a> suit June 15, finding the congregation in non-compliance with a ban on churches “which act to affirm, approve, or endorse homosexual behavior.”</p>
<p>In May First Baptist Church in Greenville, S.C., <a href="ministry/congregations/item/30380-historic-baptist-church-adopts-non-discrimination-policy-against-gays" type="external">approved</a> an affirmation that in “all facets of the life and ministry of our church, including but not limited to membership, baptism, ordination, marriage, teaching and committee/organizational leadership, First Baptist, Greenville, will not discriminate based on sexual orientation or gender identity.”</p>
<p>The South Carolina Baptist Convention wrote a letter <a href="ministry/congregations/item/30399-state-convention-challenges-church-s-acceptance-of-gays" type="external">asking</a> First Baptist Church of Greenville to either recant its decision or withdraw from the 2,000-church state affiliate of the Southern Baptist Convention. The church voted to withdraw in September.</p>
<p>The South Carolina Baptist Convention <a href="culture/social-issues/item/30649-south-carolina-baptists-boot-church-after-pastor-performs-gay-wedding" type="external">voted</a> Nov. 10 to withdraw fellowship from another church, Augusta Heights Baptist Church in Greenville, S.C., for allowing the pastor to perform a same-sex wedding outside of the church.</p>
<p>The Pine Belt Baptist Association <a href="culture/social-issues/item/30610-association-boots-church-for-affirming-gays" type="external">voted</a> Oct. 20 to withdraw fellowship from University Baptist Church in Hattiesburg, Miss., after a church billboard message, “Jesus welcomed everyone. So do we,” was interpreted as “affirming the homosexual lifestyle.”</p>
<p>Associations in <a href="ministry/organizations/item/30589-association-defends-booting-black-church" type="external">Tennessee</a> and <a href="faith/theology/item/30763-two-rural-churches-rile-baptist-association-by-calling-women-as-pastor" type="external">Kentucky</a> withdrew fellowship from churches after they called a woman as pastor.</p>
<p>Tony Campolo, a leader of the evangelical left who for years has famously disagreed with his wife about homosexuality, <a href="ministry/people/item/30156-tony-campolo-calls-for-full-acceptance-of-gays" type="external">announced</a> June 8 he now supports the full acceptance of Christian gay couples into the church.</p>
<p>Former President Jimmy Carter <a href="ministry/people/item/30255-jimmy-carter-says-jesus-would-approve-gay-marriage" type="external">said</a> in a Huffington Post interview he thinks Jesus would approve of same-sex marriage.</p>
<p>Baylor University quietly <a href="ministry/organizations/item/30260-baylor-drops-ban-on-homosexual-acts" type="external">dropped</a> a ban on “homosexual acts” from its sexual conduct code.</p>
<p>Woman on death row personalizes capital punishment</p>
<p>Cooperative Baptist Fellowship leaders joined hundreds of clergy <a href="culture/social-issues/item/29864-moderate-baptists-rise-to-aid-of-woman-on-death-row-in-georgia" type="external">seeking</a> reprieve for a Georgia woman sentenced to death for plotting to murder her husband in 1997.</p>
<p>Kelly Renee Gissendaner was a model prisoner. After <a href="ministry/organizations/item/29886-prison-theology-story" type="external">exceling</a> in a prison theological studies program offered by a consortium of area theology schools, she counseled other women in prison, reportedly talking some out of thoughts of suicide. Her March 2 execution was <a href="ministry/people/item/29914-woman-on-death-row-files-lawsuit-over-her-botched-execution" type="external">postponed</a> due to problems with the drugs to be used for her lethal injection.</p>
<p>The Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles <a href="culture/social-issues/item/30528-parole-board-green-lights-execution-of-georgia-woman" type="external">denied</a> a clemency petition Sept. 29. Gissendaner died by lethal injection Sept. 30.</p>
<p>A member of CBF-related Park Avenue Baptist Church in Atlanta and one of a group of female ex-cons calling themselves the Struggle Sisters <a href="ministry/people/item/30521-cbf-church-member-credits-kelly-gissendaner-for-second-chance" type="external">credited</a> Gissendaner with helping her turn her life around.</p>
<p>GOP race blurs line between preachers and politicans</p>
<p>In April the Southern Baptist Convention Pastors Conference <a href="ministry/organizations/item/30029-sbc-pastors-conference-disinvites-ben-carson" type="external">withdrew</a> an invitation to neurosurgeon Ben Carson, who at that point had not officially announced his candidacy, after criticism it could be viewed as an endorsement not only of his campaign but of his Seventh-day Adventist religion.</p>
<p>Russell Moore, president of the SBC Ethics &amp; Religious Liberty Commission, <a href="culture/politics/item/30303-southern-baptist-mission-rally-includes-interviews-with-presidential-candidates" type="external">interviewed</a> former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) during the Send North America Conference Aug. 3-4 in Nashville, Tenn. Bush later <a href="culture/politics/item/30344-bush-says-he-misspoke-at-sbc-event" type="external">apologized</a> for telling Moore that the government spends too much on women’s health, saying he misspoke.</p>
<p>A Southern Baptist pastor asked God’s blessing on Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump in an <a href="culture/politics/item/30480-robert-jeffress-prays-special-blessing-on-donald-trump" type="external">invocation</a> at a Sept. 14 campaign rally in Dallas. Trump, addressing a crowd estimated at 17,000 at the American Airlines Center, thanked Robert Jeffress, pastor of First Baptist Church in Dallas, for his support.</p>
<p>Jeffress later <a href="culture/politics/item/30534-evangelicals-lay-hands-on-donald-trump" type="external">joined</a> about three dozen religious leaders on the 26th floor of Trump Tower in New York, where cell-phone video showed them laying hands on Trump and surrounding him with prayer.</p>
<p>Jeffress <a href="culture/politics/item/30608-pastor-says-closeted-evangelicals-support-trump" type="external">said</a> Oct. 26 he believed Trump was buoyed in the polls by “closeted” evangelicals who think electing a strong leader is more important than whether a candidate has a deep personal faith.</p>
<p>Presidential candidate Ted Cruz received <a href="culture/politics/item/30728-preachers-endorse-ted-cruz" type="external">endorsements</a> from both his current pastor at First Baptist Church in Houston and a semi-retired Southern Baptist preacher who baptized him when he was 8 years old.</p>
<p>Russell Moore <a href="culture/politics/item/30736-baptists-among-christians-rising-up-against-trump-s-anti-muslim-rhetoric" type="external">slammed</a> Trump’s idea to close U.S. borders to Muslim immigrants in a Washington Post commentary, saying, “Anyone who cares an iota about religious liberty should denounce this reckless, demagogic rhetoric.”</p>
<p>Moore joined Sen. Marco Rubio in a penning another&#160; <a href="culture/politics/item/30786-sbc-leader-gop-hopeful-join-hands-on-behalf-of-persecuted-christians" type="external">article</a> that appeared in the Washington Post Christmas Eve claiming the Obama administration isn’t doing enough about persecution of Christians around the globe. Moore <a href="https://www.russellmoore.com/2015/12/24/isis-the-persecuted-church-and-christmas-in-wartime/" type="external">clarified</a> on his blog that he does not endorse candidates for president, and said there “are several candidates who are very good on the plight of persecuted Christians.”</p>
<p>“Senator Rubio is a friend and he and I have worked closely together for several years on issues of international religious freedom,” Moore <a href="https://www.russellmoore.com/2015/12/24/isis-the-persecuted-church-and-christmas-in-wartime/" type="external">said</a>. “I don’t think there’s been a stronger voice on these issues in the United States Congress since our beloved co-laborer Frank Wolf of Virginia retired from the House.”</p>
<p>Current and former leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention were <a href="culture/politics/item/30794-southern-baptists-present-at-private-cruz-rally" type="external">reportedly</a> in attendance for a two-day meeting in Texas to galvanize the Religious Right behind Texas Sen. Ted Cruz in the 2016 presidential election.</p>
<p>IMB cuts back missionary force</p>
<p>Citing budget shortfalls since 2010, the Southern Baptist Convention’s International Mission Board <a href="ministry/organizations/item/30416-southern-baptists-to-cut-missionary-force-by-15-percent" type="external">offered</a> voluntary incentive for early retirement in an attempt to cut between 600 and 800 jobs from the agency’s missionary force and staff.</p>
<p>CBF Global Missions Coordinator Steven Porter <a href="ministry/organizations/item/30490-cbf-leaders-lament-sbc-missionary-recall" type="external">called</a> the IMB cutbacks “a terrible loss for the Kingdom of God.” A new CBF global <a href="ministry/organizations/item/30105-cbf-official-gives-peek-at-new-global-missions-structure" type="external">missions structure</a> is in the works for approval in 2016.</p>
<p>SBC President Ronnie Floyd <a href="ministry/organizations/item/30561-sbc-president-suggests-a-single-mission-board" type="external">suggested</a> during a symposium on the denomination’s future Sept. 28-29 at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Kansas City, Mo., that it may be time to consider merging the International and North American mission boards into a single “Global Mission Board” overseeing the entire SBC mission enterprise.</p>
<p>Southern Baptists vs. Obamacare</p>
<p>The U.S. Supreme Court <a href="culture/politics/item/30645-supreme-court-to-hear-religious-challenge-to-obamacare" type="external">agreed</a> Nov. 6 to hear appeals from religious nonprofits including Baptist universities and the Southern Baptist Convention’s insurance provider challenging required coverage of contraceptives under Obamacare.</p>
<p>The high court combined seven cases to resolve once and for all whether an accommodation written by the Obama administration allowing institutions like religious hospitals and universities to opt out of the contraceptive mandate significantly burdens their religious freedom.</p>
<p>GuideStone Financial Resources, the Southern Baptist Convention’s insurance provider, is exempt from the contraceptive mandate but filed one of the lawsuits on behalf of clients that would be affected by the rules.</p>
<p>Jimmy Carter bounces back from cancer.</p>
<p>Condolences and <a href="ministry/people/item/30410-american-baptists-join-baptist-family-in-prayer-for-jimmy-carter" type="external">well-wishes</a> worldwide followed an Aug. 12 <a href="ministry/people/item/30372-baptist-leaders-pray-for-jimmy-carter" type="external">announcement</a> by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter that he has cancer.</p>
<p>In August Carter <a href="ministry/people/item/30393-jimmy-carter-says-his-future-in-the-hands-of-god" type="external">said</a> on hearing the diagnosis he thought he had only weeks to live but felt “surprisingly at ease.”</p>
<p>“Now I feel it’s in the hands of God, whom I worship, and I’ll be prepared for anything that comes,” he said.</p>
<p>Carter <a href="ministry/people/item/30536-jimmy-carter-celebrates-91st-birthday" type="external">turned</a> 91 on Oct. 1 showing no signs of slowing down.</p>
<p>On Dec. 6 Carter <a href="ministry/people/item/30727-jimmy-carter-says-he-is-cancer-free" type="external">announced</a> that he is cancer-free.</p>
<p>Church discipline gone awry</p>
<p>Elders at a Calvinist Southern Baptist megachurch in Texas made headlines <a href="ministry/congregations/item/30132-man-confesses-to-child-porn-church-disciplines-his-wife" type="external">after</a> forgiving a member who confessed to viewing child pornography while subjecting his wife to church discipline for having the marriage annulled without church permission. Village Church Pastor Matt Chandler later <a href="ministry/congregations/item/30169-church-apologizes-for-botched-discipline-case" type="external">apologized</a> to the woman.&#160;</p> | Race, sex, politics garner headlines in 2015 | false | https://baptistnews.com/article/race-sex-politics-garner-headlines-in-2015/ | 3 |
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<p>Researchers led by a team at the the University of Cambridge have extracted tiny nanomaterials from a meteorites found in Argentina. A careful examination of the magnetic signatures left on these materials has revealed secrets about the early solar system, the life and death of the asteroid and provided some clues about the future of the Earth.</p>
<p>The Argentine meteorites are composed of crystals of gem-quality around a matrix of iron and nickel. Contained within the iron however are tiny particles of tetrataenite about 100 nanometers across, which is about one-thousandth the width of a human hair. This magnetically stable material holds a ‘memory’ of magnetic events going back to their birth in the early solar system, 4.5 billion years ago.</p>
<p>Researchers used the Bessy II synchrotron in Berlin, an extremely powerful x-ray microscope, to capture the highest-resolution paleomagnetic measurements ever made. Among other things they were able to capture the exact moment that the core of the asteroid which spawned the meteorite froze, killing its magnetic field.</p>
<p>“We’re taking ancient magnetic field measurements in nanoscale materials to the highest ever resolution in order to piece together the magnetic history of asteroids – it’s like a cosmic archaeological mission,” said PhD student James Bryson to <a href="http://phys.org/news/2015-01-death-dynamo-hard-space.html" type="external">Phys.org</a>. Bryson is the lead author of the teams research paper which appears in the journal <a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v517/n7535/full/nature14114.html" type="external">Nature</a>.</p>
<p>The research demonstrated that magnetic fields generated by asteroids lasted much longer than previously thought, in many cases hundreds of millions of years. An asteroid’s magnetic field works in much the same way as the Earth’s. At the time they are formed, the core material is heated by radioactive material, as it spins the molten metal inside generates a magnetic field. This field then cools as the material cools and eventually disappears when the material freezes.</p>
<p>“It’s funny that we study other bodies in order to learn more about the Earth. Since asteroids are much smaller than the Earth, they cooled much more quickly, so these processes occur on shorter timescales, enabling us to study the whole process of core solidification,” said Bryson.</p>
<p>Scientists currently believe that the Earth’s core began to cool less than a billion years ago. It is not known however what affect this has had on the Earth’s magnetic field.</p>
<p>“Ideas about how the Earth’s core evolved through [our planet’s] history are really changing at the moment. We believe that Earth’s magnetic field is linked to core solidification. Earth’s solid inner core may have started to form at very interesting time in terms of the evolution of life on Earth. By studying an asteroid we get to see this in fast forward. We can see the start of core solidification in the magnetic records as well as its end, and start to think about how these processes work on Earth,” lead researcher Dr Richard Harrison, from the University of Cambridge, told <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-30916692" type="external">BBC News</a>.</p>
<p>The researchers believe that, given sufficient time, the Earth’s core could cool and eventually freeze. Like the asteroid, this would cause our planet to lose its protective magnetic field. It is unlikely that the Earth will have that much time.</p>
<p>“There’s no need to panic. The core won’t completely freeze for billions of years, and chances are, the Sun will get us first,” ” said Dr Harrison.</p>
<p /> | Meteorite’s magnetic memory can act like a hard drive from space | false | http://natmonitor.com/2015/01/22/meteorites-magnetic-memory-can-act-like-a-hard-drive-from-space/ | 2015-01-22 | 3 |
<p>The former vice president looks to be in fighting trim (does this make a candidacy more likely?) as he lectures on the Iraq disaster, the cultural failings that made it possible and how to move forward: "We will fix these problems when we the people decide that nobody else is going to do it for us, but that we have to become personally involved in saving American democracy."</p>
<p /> | Al Gore and the Assault on Reason | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/al-gore-and-the-assault-on-reason/ | 2007-05-31 | 4 |
<p>“As far back as I can remember, I’ve always wanted to be a gangster arms dealer.”</p>
<p>War Dogs is an entertaining, fast-paced and well-timed action comedy set in the Bush era, directed by Todd Phillips.</p>
<p>The Hangover director took several pages out of Martin Scorsese’s gangster classic, Goodfellas, and for old time’s sake, a few out of the Democrat Party handbook to go along with the Bush era.</p>
<p>If like me, you were hoping Todd Phillips would’ve resisted turning to anti-war, left-wing tropes (given how Bush has been out of office for EIGHT YEARS now), you’ll be slightly let down.</p>
<p>As the main character, played by Jonah Hill said, “I’m against the war. I f—king hate Bush. But this isn’t about being pro-war. This is about being pro-money,” and “War is an economy. Anyone body who tells you otherwise is stupid”</p>
<p>If you thought the Iraq war had anything to do with freeing Iraqis under the thumb of a barbaric butcher, spreading democracy or protecting America’s freedom, you’d be a total schmuck, as War Dogs bluntly lays out.</p>
<p>War is an economy. That’s it! Case closed. George W. Bush went to war after 9/11 for money, and America was never hit by another large-scale terrorist attack between September 12, 2001, and the day he left office because of all the money he made. Or something.</p>
<p>The good news is, by now you’ve likely heard these same talking points from the left ad nauseum, and can drown them out subconsciously.</p>
<p>The rest of War Dogs is highly enjoyable. It’s a classic rise and fall story.</p>
<p>The film follows David Packouz (played by Miles Teller). After dropping out of college, David quickly realizes his career as a masseuse is a dead-end and goes on to invest all his savings in a business venture. This, he quickly learns, is also a complete boondoggle.</p>
<p>Broke and attached to a pregnant girlfriend in need of support, David is desperate for a shortcut to the top.</p>
<p>Enter Efraim Diveroli (played by Jonah Hill). This is one of Jonah Hill’s best performances to date, and the first time I recall seeing him really carry a film rather than playing the side-kick.</p>
<p>Efraim is David’s childhood friend and big shot arms dealer from Los Angeles. He’s back home in Miami and has started his own arm-sales firm, AEY – the acronym he later professes, stands for nothing, “just like IBM”, he says. Efraim offers David the chance to embark on an adventure and make boatloads of cash, acting as middle-men in weapon sales to American troops stationed in Iraq. Given his economic predicament, David opts to waive his pacifism for the promised payday.</p>
<p />
<p>Following Scorsese’s style, War Dogs is narrated by the main character and apprentice arms dealer. This was a wise move on the director’s part as viewers get to learn how the business operates, how weapons are bought and sold, and how bidding on government contracts on the open market works simultaneously with David.</p>
<p>And so comes the rise. Bigger and bigger Pentagon contracts, greater profits and of course, cocaine galore. As their successes grow, so does Efraim’s greed and drug use.</p>
<p>Although successfully getting you to root for the drug-abusing, arms-dealing duo at first, War Dogs concludes with the spotlight on their moral depravity, as Efraim and David spiral down from their short-lived success, which unfortunately for them was built on a foundation weaker than the Chinese ammo they tried to repackage and sell to the Pentagon.</p>
<p>In the end, Todd Phillips crafted a truly entertaining film, blending his Hangover-style comedy with the gritty gangster classics of Martin Scorsese. He even paired individual scenes to some classic rock hits in usual Scorsese fashion.</p>
<p>Sure, War Dogs may, at times, annoy the one or two Bush fanboys in the audience like myself, but hey, even Hill admits to being a fan of the former commander in chief when a US attack helicopter literally saved his life, destroying a truck, full of terrorists.</p>
<p>“I love Cheney’s America!” he cried.</p>
<p>Follow Harry Khachatrian on <a href="https://twitter.com/harry1t6" type="external">Twitter</a></p> | REVIEW: 'War Dogs' | true | https://dailywire.com/news/8575/review-war-dogs-harry-khachatrian | 2016-08-23 | 0 |
<p>Muhammad Ali (photo: Ira Rosenberg/World Journal Tribune)</p>
<p>US television live broadcast a Muslim prayer service June 9. Of course, it was a memorial for world champion athlete and activist Muhammad Ali, who died June 3, aged 74.</p>
<p>And the fact that many Americans will likely see a Jenazah for the first time, in association with a widely admired and beloved figure, is some reflection of the intentionality of Ali’s life. He planned, one guest told AP, for it to be “a teaching moment.” Coverage of Muhammad Ali’s death can be a sort of teaching moment for media watchers as well, in the sense that’s it good to remember that the version of a person that corporate media embrace and concretize in the public mind sometimes blurs that person’s political complexity.</p>
<p>So while media talked about Ali’s conversion to Islam, and his refusal to be inducted into the Army—because, as some even <a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/more-sports/muhammad-ali-statement-wouldn-fight-vietnam-article-1.2661120" type="external">quoted</a>, he refused, in his words, to go “10,000 miles from home to help murder and burn another poor nation simply to continue the domination of white slave masters of the darker people the world over”—it’s still hard to convey how these things were heard, including by media, what it meant to say them, in 1967.</p>
<p>Reading today, you might not know that, as sportswriter Dave Zirin <a href="http://www.thenation.com/article/i-just-wanted-to-be-free-the-radical-reverberations-of-muhammad-ali/" type="external">reminds</a> us, Ali was deemed so dangerous his phone was bugged by the Johnson and Nixon administrations; that out on bail in 1968, he spoke at 200 college campuses; that peace activist Daniel Berrigan called him “a major boost to an antiwar movement that was very white”; that he would later describe his break with Malcolm X as his biggest mistake.</p>
<p>Outlets like the New York Times didn’t start using his name until years after he changed it, <a href="https://twitter.com/adamjohnsonNYC/status/739279675822878721" type="external">employing</a> dismissive locutions like “Clay, who prefers the name Muhammad Ali.” The Times ( <a href="http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/06/10/sports/muhammad-ali-name-cassius-clay-newspapers.html" type="external">6/9/16</a>) looked back with evident embarrassment on that policy after Ali’s death, noting that sportswriter Robert Lipsyte (among others) objected to it at the time: “We did not ask what John Wayne and Rock Hudson’s real names were.” When Lipsyte apologized to Ali for having to call him Clay in print, the boxer replied, “Don’t worry, you’re just a little brother of the white power structure.”</p>
<p>And here’s sports journalist Jerry Izenberg from the New Jersey Star Ledger, <a href="http://www.nj.com/sports/index.ssf/2016/06/former_heavyweight_champ_muhammad_ali_dies_the_gre.html" type="external">recounting</a> the effect of his 1967 defense of Ali’s draft refusal:</p>
<p>Some papers that carried my column regularly dropped it. Bomb threats emptied our office, making the staff stand out in the snow. My car windshield was smashed with a sledgehammer. Among the thousand of pieces of hate mail I received, two required the attention of postal inspectors. One turned out to be nothing but a ticking alarm clock, and the second contained what I hoped was dog feces.</p>
<p>At the time, facing five years in prison, Ali himself <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/books/98/10/25/specials/ali-army.html" type="external">addressed</a> the media, saying:</p>
<p>I strongly object to the fact that so many newspapers have given the American public and the world the impression that I have only two alternatives in taking this stand: either I go to jail or go to the Army. There is another alternative and that alternative is justice. If justice prevails, if my constitutional rights are upheld, I will be forced to go neither to the Army nor jail. In the end I am confident that justice will come my way, for the truth must eventually prevail.</p>
<p>Janine Jackson is the program director of FAIR and the producer and host of CounterSpin.</p> | Muhammad Ali: ‘The Truth Must Ultimately Prevail’ | true | http://fair.org/home/muhammad-ali-the-truth-must-ultimately-prevail/ | 2016-06-10 | 4 |
<p>The U.S. Supreme Court begins its new term Monday, so what follows may surprise you. I’m not going to begin my annual court preview with a rundown of the top pending cases (I’ll get to them in due course), but with a few questions and observations about Pope Francis’ landmark visit to the United States.</p>
<p>How many pope watchers and admirers, I wonder, noticed that only four of the high court’s members—Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justices Anthony Kennedy, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor— <a href="https://popevisit2015.yahoo.com/post/129797498159/catholic-justices-scalia-alito-thomas-are" type="external">showed up</a> to hear the pontiff address a joint session of Congress last week?</p>
<p>Among the missing were the tribunal’s three most conservative voices, all hard-core Republicans and ostensibly devout Catholics—Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito. You might think they would have wanted in on the celebration to demonstrate their fidelity, to see history in the making, or perhaps just to receive a personal blessing or two. Then again, you might be wrong.</p>
<p>So what gives? Was the nonappearance of the three judges a coincidence or the result of unavoidable scheduling conflicts? Or was the right-wing judicial troika sending a message of disapproval to Francis? After all, they’ve done much the same in recent years to President Obama by <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/why-samuel-alito-doesnt-like-the-state-of-the-union-2015-1" type="external">boycotting</a> his State of the Union addresses.</p>
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<p>Only Scalia, Thomas and Alito know the answers to these questions, and to be fair, Alito <a href="http://law.uky.edu/news/us-supreme-court-justice-samuel-alito-speak-uk-law" type="external">spoke</a> at the University of Kentucky College of Law on the same day Francis addressed Congress. But I’m guessing the collective absence from the pope’s speech in the end had more to do with doctrinal differences than happenstance or calendar commitments. Indeed, even allowing for the pope’s archaic stance on abortion and same-sex marriage, after hearing Francis talk and reading his <a href="http://www.vox.com/2015/9/24/9391549/pope-remarks-full-text" type="external">remarks</a> there can be little doubt that he and the court’s three extremists reside at opposite ends of the moral universe.</p>
<p>From his espousal of the Golden Rule to his concern for climate change, his kindhearted attitude toward immigration and his antipathy to the greed of unfettered capitalism, the pope’s views on many of the most essential issues of our time are irreconcilable with the increasingly coarse and mean-spirited jurisprudence of Scalia and his cohorts and, all too often, the court as a whole.</p>
<p>Still, as critical as the subjects of climate change and immigration are, from an immediate, practical standpoint, what fundamentally sets the pope at odds with Scalia, Thomas and Alito—and what may well have made them too uncomfortable to attend the papal sermon on the eve of another court term—is Francis’ full-throated opposition to the death penalty.</p>
<p>As the pope told Congress:</p>
<p>“The Golden Rule also reminds us of our responsibility to protect and defend human life at every stage of its development.</p>
<p>“This conviction has led me, from the beginning of my ministry, to advocate at different levels for the global abolition of the death penalty. I am convinced that this way is the best, since every life is sacred, every human person is endowed with an inalienable dignity, and society can only benefit from the rehabilitation of those convicted of crimes. Recently my brother bishops in the United States renewed their call for the abolition of the death penalty. Not only do I support them, but I also offer encouragement to all those who are convinced that a just and necessary punishment must never exclude the dimension of hope and the goal of rehabilitation.”</p>
<p>In complete contradiction to Francis’ teachings, the court ended its 2014 term last June with a heated 5-4 <a href="http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/14pdf/14-7955_aplc.pdf" type="external">decision</a> in Glossip v. Gross, authored by Alito, that upheld Oklahoma’s newly adopted three-drug lethal injection protocol for the execution of condemned prisoners.</p>
<p>As I’ve <a href="" type="internal">written</a> in this column before, quoting professor Steven Schwinn of the John Marshall School of Law in Chicago, Alito’s Glossip opinion was “an exercise in circular reasoning that has established a new set of <a href="http://www.scotusblog.com/2015/06/symposium-the-wonderland-rules-for-method-of-execution-claims/%20" type="external">‘Wonderland rules’</a> for method-of-execution claims.”</p>
<p>“Because capital punishment is legal,” Alito declared, “there must be a constitutional means of carrying it out.” Surveying the history of the death penalty, he explained that while methods of execution (from hanging to electrocution, firing squads, lethal gas and injections) have changed over the years, the Supreme Court “has never invalidated a State’s chosen procedure.”</p>
<p>Not content with Alito’s grim pronouncement, Scalia added a venomous concurrence in Glossip that began with the demented salutation: “Welcome to Groundhog Day.” From Scalia’s perspective, condemned prisoners have no business taking up the court’s precious time with futile objections to being executed.</p>
<p>What offended Scalia most, however, was that Justice Stephen Breyer suggested in an impassioned dissenting opinion that the nation’s experiment with creating a rational, reliable and fair system of capital punishment had failed and that the time had come to re-evaluate the entire system’s constitutionality. Breyer’s opinion marked the first time since the late Justice Harry Blackmun’s 1994 <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1994/02/23/us/death-penalty-is-renounced-by-blackmun.html?pagewanted=all" type="external">dissent</a> in a case from Texas that an active member of the court had formally expressed an abolitionist outlook.</p>
<p>Scalia remains deeply afraid for the death penalty’s future. In a <a href="http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/scalia_says_he_wouldnt_be_surprised_if_scotus_overturns_the_death_penalty" type="external">speech</a> delivered at Rhodes College in Memphis, Tenn., two days before the pope’s Washington homily, Scalia said he “wouldn’t be surprised if the Supreme Court overturns the death penalty.” The court, he charged, is “terribly unrepresentative of our country,” lamenting that except for Clarence Thomas, the panel includes no one from the South, where capital punishment is still widely practiced.</p>
<p>Scalia’s fears—and the pope’s admonitions—will be tested in the first month of the new term, when the court hears death penalty cases that will once again expose the cruelty and irrationality of capital punishment. These cases and the other big-ticket items that have thus far made it onto the official docket include the following, broken down by name and subject matter:</p>
<p>The Death Penalty</p>
<p>Set for argument on Oct. 7 are two companion appeals— <a href="http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/kansas-v-carr-2/" type="external">Kansas v. Carr</a> and <a href="http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/kansas-v-gleason/" type="external">Kansas v. Gleason</a>—that will require Scalia and his colleagues to re-examine the legal instructions given to juries at the conclusion of the penalty phase of a capital trial to guide them in weighing defense evidence presented in mitigation of punishment.</p>
<p>The Kansas cases will be followed on Oct. 13, when the court will consider Florida’s unique death-penalty sentencing practices in <a href="http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/hurst-v-florida/" type="external">Hurst v. Florida</a>. Alone among the states, Florida permits juries to recommend the death penalty by a simple 7-5 majority vote. Florida is also one of a <a href="http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/us-supreme-court-ring-v-arizona" type="external">handful of states</a> that permit judges to override jury recommendations of life in prison. Such procedures, abolitionists argue, undermine the Sixth Amendment right to trial by an impartial jury as well as the Eighth Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment.A fourth death penalty case, slated for argument Nov. 2, is <a href="http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/foster-v-humphrey/" type="external">Foster v. Chatman</a>, from Georgia, dealing with claims of racial discrimination and the exclusion of African-Americans in jury selection.</p>
<p>Taken separately or together, the court’s lineup of death-penalty suits could either assuage or heighten Scalia’s trepidations that the days of capital punishment are numbered.</p>
<p>Affirmative Action</p>
<p>Abigail Fisher, the young woman who was denied admission to the University of Texas, Austin, is back with a second <a href="http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/fisher-v-university-of-texas-at-austin-2/" type="external">challenge</a> (Fisher v. University of Texas) to the Lone Star State’s affirmative action program for higher education. Under that program, students graduating in the top 10 percent of their high school classes are granted automatic admission to any public university in the state. Other UT applicants are evaluated under a “holistic” review process that may take a student’s racial background into account for purposes of achieving the goal of on-campus diversity.</p>
<p>Fisher was recruited to contest the Texas plan on 14th Amendment equal-protection grounds by Edward Blum (no relation), a right-wing libertarian who runs the <a href="https://www.projectonfairrepresentation.org/about/" type="external">Project on Fair Representation</a>, a nonprofit legal defense fund located in Austin. The project has bankrolled other race-focused cases in the Supreme Court, including <a href="http://www.oyez.org/cases/2010-2019/2012/2012_12_96" type="external">Shelby County v. Holder</a>, the landmark 2012 decision that gutted the Voting Rights Act.</p>
<p>In a 2013 ruling, the Supreme Court <a href="http://www.oyez.org/cases/2010-2019/2012/2012_11_345" type="external">remanded</a> Fisher’s lawsuit to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals for more rigorous constitutional analysis. To the surprise of many observers, the circuit court upheld the 10 percent program, prompting the Supreme Court to take another look at the case.</p>
<p>This time, the prospects look especially dim for the survival of race-based affirmative action, which had been hanging by a legal thread even before Abigail Fisher came along. With Scalia’s track record of thundering against all forms of <a href="" type="internal">“racial entitlements”</a> and with few staunch defenders on the court apart from Justices Sotomayor and Ginsburg, affirmative action’s epitaph could be written by the close of the present term at the end of June. No oral argument date has been set.</p>
<p>Apportionment</p>
<p>Another lawsuit from Texas financed by the Project on Fair Representation and also awaiting a date for oral argument is <a href="http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/evenwel-v-abbott/" type="external">Evenwel v. Abbott</a>, a case with profound political ramifications for the way states draw legislative district boundary lines.</p>
<p>Under decades-old Supreme Court precedents, legislative districts must be devised as closely as possible to the ideal of “one person, one vote,” roughly equalizing populations in each district so that no individual’s vote carries more weight than any other’s when electing state and federal representatives. Left undecided by the high court’s prior cases, however, is whether the “one person, one vote” rule requires states to use total population figures, including children and noncitizens who can’t vote, for drafting district lines or merely the number of registered voters.</p>
<p>The fair-representation project isn’t asking the question for abstract, academic reasons. It wants the Supreme Court to hold that registered voters are the operative population group in order to weaken the political clout of Hispanics, who lean Democratic and tend to have big families with young children and whose communities also include large numbers of immigrants. With such people excluded for apportionment purposes, Texas Hispanics could legally be gerrymandered into fewer voting districts, diluting their electoral potential.</p>
<p>Union Busting</p>
<p>With Alito crafting bitterly divided majority opinions, the Supreme Court has taken dead aim at public-sector unions, the last bastion of organized labor in America and a key source of campaign money for liberal political causes and candidates.</p>
<p>In 2012 ( <a href="http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/knox-v-service-employees-intl-union-local-1000/" type="external">Knox v. SEIU</a>) and 2014 ( <a href="http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/harris-v-quinn/" type="external">Harris v. Quinn</a>), the court came perilously close to overturning the long-established “fair-share” system, which requires employees who exercise their right not to join a union nonetheless to pay a percentage of regular union dues to cover the costs associated with collective bargaining and contract administration. Fair-share fees exclude dues spent on political measures.</p>
<p>The fair-share system is under review once more this term in <a href="http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/friedrichs-v-california-teachers-association/" type="external">Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association</a>. Brought on behalf of 10 Orange County schoolteachers and the Christian Educators Association International by the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Individual Rights, the case seeks to end fair-share arrangements, threatening to turn the nation’s entire public sector into one enormous “right-to-work” jurisdiction.</p>
<p>The case, as I’ve <a href="" type="internal">noted previously</a>, is based on a twisted interpretation of the First Amendment, which asserts that mandatory fair-share fees are a form of compelled speech that undermines the rights of nonunion workers to freedom of association.</p>
<p>Oral argument has not yet been set.</p>
<p>Pending Petitions, the 2016 Elections, and the Pope’s Long Shadow</p>
<p>Before the court concludes its business next summer, it definitely will add other important cases to its docket. Among the most prominent under consideration are two police-misconduct suits from Texas ( <a href="http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/mullenix-v-luna/" type="external">Mullenix v. Luna</a>) and California ( <a href="http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/city-of-los-angeles-v-contreras/" type="external">City of Los Angeles v. Contreras</a>) dealing with the appropriate use of deadly force by law enforcement. Although each case involves Latinos, each could have an impact on the Black Lives Matter movement.</p>
<p>But no matter which cases the court elects to add as the current term unfolds, the presidential election will loom ever closer. As always, the court will be swept up in the quadrennial national debate over its proper role as the final arbiter of constitutional rights.</p>
<p>By then, of course, the pope will be long gone from the U.S. But his message of tolerance, fairness and equality will linger, casting a shadow over the deliberations of the justices—Scalia, Thomas, Alito and the rest—every time they violate those values.</p> | Supreme Court Preview: The Pope Casts a Long Shadow Over the New Term | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/supreme-court-preview-the-pope-casts-a-long-shadow-over-the-new-term/ | 2015-09-29 | 4 |
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<p>The California Supreme Court cleared a big obstacle to Gov. Jerry Brown’s plan to tunnel&#160;more&#160;Delta water out of Northern California, allowing the Southland’s&#160;Metropolitan Water District to proceed with the purchase of estuary islands that would be key to speeding up construction.&#160;</p>
<p>“The previous owner, Delta Wetlands, an affiliate of a Swiss insurer, had wanted to build reservoirs on the islands to market water to areas south of the Delta,” <a href="http://www.sacbee.com/news/state/california/water-and-drought/article89926727.html" type="external">according</a> to the Sacramento Bee. “The Supreme Court’s ruling doesn’t settle Metropolitan’s legal fight over the pending sale,” however, as the Bee observed, allowing San Joaquin’s lawsuit to go forward&#160;along with a separate suit&#160;arguing “that Delta Wetlands signed a contract that requires future buyers to abide by the negotiated settlements.”</p>
<p>Nevertheless, Brown’s plan has already gained strength under the ruling. “Two of the islands are in the path of the proposed $15-billion tunnel system, a project that MWD supports,” the Los Angeles Times <a href="http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-delta-islands-decision-20160715-snap-story.html" type="external">noted</a>. “MWD ownership of the islands would eliminate the need for eminent domain proceedings and provide easy access for construction crews on part of the project route.”</p>
<p>Still,&#160;a somewhat cagey WMD quickly left the fate of the tunnel project, which would promise&#160;a massive and controversial undertaking even under the best circumstances, up in the air. “An MWD spokesman reiterated Friday that the agency has not proposed a project for the land,” the Times reported. &#160;</p>
<p>“In the past, the district has said the 20,000 acres could be converted to fish and wildlife habitat or used to store materials for emergency levee repairs.&#160;They have also said the islands could be used to provide access for the construction of the tunnel system, which would carry Sacramento River water under the delta to the pumping operations that send supplies south.”</p>
<p>The court decision marked yet another turn in fortunes for the proposed deal, reversing a lower court’s own prior change of course. “One day after lifting a temporary order that blocked the sale, the state’s Third District Court of Appeal reinstated the stay, preventing the big Metropolitan Water District from completing the $175 million purchase of the islands,” as the San Jose Mercury News <a href="http://www.mercurynews.com/news/ci_30081943/delta-islands-sale-blocked-by-court-order-again" type="external">reported</a>.</p>
<p>In addition to eminent domain and breach of contract issues, MWD quickly faced staunch opposition to the prospect of tunnel construction on environmental grounds. Opponents, including “Contra Costa and San Joaquin counties, environmentalists, and Delta land owners,” argued “the tunnels will be used to export more Delta water to Southern California, and they assert that an environmental impact report should be done before the land sale is allowed,” the Mercury News&#160;added. In response, MWD&#160;claimed “there is no reason to stop the sale nor require an environmental report because no formal plan has been filed to use the island properties in a water project.”</p>
<p>For now, that argument has helped suffice to keep the deal moving forward. But by the time all the issues and controversies surrounding the ownership and use of the islands have finally been adjudicated, the political landscape in Sacramento could well be remade. Officials told the Times it could take “months or even years until all the legal challenges to the purchase are resolved,” placing the go-ahead for Brown’s tunnel project outside the reach of Brown himself, who is termed out of the governor’s office this year.</p>
<p>But Brown has moved perhaps as decisively as possible to hurry things along, bringing on&#160;former Clinton secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt to tip the Bay Area scales in Brown’s favor. Babbitt has remained “friends with Sen. Dianne Feinstein, among the most influential voices on the topic, and has access to partisans in the San Joaquin Valley and in Southern California,” Dan Morain recently <a href="http://www.sacbee.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/dan-morain/article89464542.html" type="external">noted</a> at the Bee. “One of Babbitt’s chief aides at Interior was Jay Ziegler. Now, Ziegler is policy director for The Nature Conservancy, one of the most influential environmentalist groups on water issues.&#160;In the Clinton years, Babbitt’s undersecretary was John Garamendi. As the Democratic congressman who represents the Delta, Garamendi is a pointed critic of Brown’s tunnel project.”</p> | CA Supreme Court removes obstacle to Delta tunnel project | false | https://calwatchdog.com/2016/07/20/ca-court-oks-divisive-delta-deal/ | 2018-07-20 | 3 |
<p>When you think of a traditional Santa Claus, you probably imagine a jolly old fellow with a long white beard in a red suit in a sleigh drawn by magical reindeer, right?</p>
<p>Well for some people in Micronesia, the large group of small islands in the South Pacific, Santa looks like an Air Force crew in a huge C-130J cargo plane airdropping presents from the sky. This unorthodox version of jolly St. Nick stems from a U.S. military training exercise known as Operation Christmas Drop, a military tradition at Andersen air force base in Guam that has existed for 66 years.</p>
<p>It all started quite spontaneously back during the Christmas season of 1952 when the crew of a weather reconnaissance aircraft flying over the small island of Kapingamarangi saw some islanders waving at them below. In the spirit of the holidays, the crew bundled up whatever extra supplies they could find on the plane, attached them to a parachute, and dropped them to the islanders. What started as a kind gesture quickly became a yearly tradition, with toys, construction materials and various other supplies added to the bundles. Eventually, it became a full-fledged military exercise.</p>
<p>"We saw these things come out of the back of the airplane and I was yelling: 'There are toys coming down,'" Andy Nepaial, who <a href="https://www.stripes.com/news/yokota-resident-recalls-memories-of-operation-christmas-drop-1.163013" type="external">witnessed</a> a drop on the island of Agrigan in the 1960s, told Stars and Stripes in 2011.</p>
<p>Life on the Micronesian islands can be tough. When the operation first started, many of them did not have running water or electricity, and they often suffer torrential weather during typhoon seasons. These harsh conditions make the aid a godsend.</p>
<p>Today, Operation Christmas Drop encompasses 1.8 million square nautical miles, which includes more than 50 islands and more than 20,000 people. This year, more than 65,000 pounds of aid were delivered.</p>
<p>In addition to the humanitarian aspect, the operation is also good practice for the airmen. The Air Force releases the bundles from low altitudes, giving them good practice for disaster relief operations.</p>
<p>"It's continued on and it has grown from the initial 'Hey, let's just deliver something to random people that we've found,' to [an] actual full-up training mission to better enhance our guys in humanitarian assistance disaster relief operations," said Maj. Christopher Dolby, the commander of Operation Christmas Drop.</p>
<p>The military personnel who participate in the operation thoroughly enjoy it. The load masters responsible for releasing the bundles often consider it a highlight in their careers.</p>
<p>"I'm very blessed and proud to serve in this capacity," said Dolby.</p> | 'Camouflaged' Santas air drop presents to those in need in the South Pacific | false | https://circa.com/story/2017/12/14/world/air-force-delivers-christmas-air-drops | 2017-12-15 | 1 |
<p>The UN's special representative for Libya told the Security Council that France's offensive in Mali could drive Islamic rebels into Libya.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2013/01/29/world/middleeast/ap-un-un-libya.html?ref=aponline" type="external">The Associated Press reported</a> Tarek Mitri said "the opposition of armed radical groups to the military intervention in Mali may exacerbate the situation (in Libya) given ideological and/or ethnic affiliations as well as porous borders in Libya."</p>
<p>More from GlobalPost: <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/africa/130128/mali-crisis-al-qaeda-militants-torture-amputation" type="external">Mali: Life under Al Qaeda</a></p>
<p>UN peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous said the rebels fled to northern Mali with looted heavy weapons after the fall of Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.</p>
<p>The Islamists have links to al-Qaeda.</p>
<p>Mitri said that he was also concerned about the continued detention of 7,000 people, still being held in Libya.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/01/29/us-mali-rebels-idUSBRE90S0OV20130129" type="external">Reuters reported</a>French-backed Malian troops searched houses in Gao and Timbuktu on Tuesday, where they found arms and explosives brought in by the rebels.</p>
<p>France's offensive into its former West African colony has prompted an international crisis which donors estimate will cost almost $1 billion, according to Reuters.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | UN special representative says Mali rebels may be heading to Libya | false | https://pri.org/stories/2013-01-30/un-special-representative-says-mali-rebels-may-be-heading-libya | 2013-01-30 | 3 |
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<p>AUSTIN, Texas - Lawmakers are set to launch a comprehensive review this week of how Texas should respond to an increase in complaints of sexual misconduct by teachers and inappropriate relationships between students and educators.</p>
<p>The Austin American-Statesman reports ( <a href="http://atxne.ws/1XOEUoG" type="external">http://atxne.ws/1XOEUoG</a> ) that a state Senate education committee hearing Monday will address these issues.</p>
<p>Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick has asked the committee to review training and education of school employees in regards to proper behavior. He also wants to know whether there needs to be an increase in Texas Education Agency staff to investigate teachers, and whether penalties and sanctions should be adjusted.</p>
<p>The agency reports that there has been a 53 percent increase in the number of student-teacher relationship investigations over the past seven years.</p>
<p>In 2015, there were 188 cases.</p>
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<p>Information from: Austin American-Statesman, <a href="http://www.statesman.com" type="external">http://www.statesman.com</a></p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | Texas lawmakers to discuss surge in teacher misconduct | false | https://abqjournal.com/687207/texas-lawmakers-to-discuss-surge-in-teacher-misconduct.html | 2 |
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<p>FILE - In this Wednesday, June 24, 2015 file photo, Philadelphia's Archbishop Charles Chaput, right, stands next to Pope Francis as they pose for a photo with a delegation from Philadelphia at the end of the pontiff's weekly general audience in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican. Pope Francis will be traveling to Philadelphia in September to attend the World Meeting of Families. Chaput, the meeting's host, is moving to limit lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Roman Catholics as they try to lobby for a broader role in the event. (AP Photo/Riccardo De Luca)</p>
<p>The World Meeting of Families, the central religious event of Pope Francis' first visit to the United States, is intended to convey a message of love and joy as it seeks to promote church teaching on marriage. Yet four weeks away from its opening in Philadelphia, friction is mounting as lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Roman Catholics lobby for a broader role in the event and organizers move to limit them.</p>
<p>The tensions surrounding the gathering will pose a real-world test of the pope's approach that emphasizes compassion and welcome while upholding Catholic doctrine that marriage is only between a man and a woman.</p>
<p>The only speakers specifically addressing LGBT issues at the Sept. 22-27 conference are a celibate gay man and his mother. Gays and lesbians can attend the meeting as individuals, but groups supporting gay marriage were denied exhibit space and other official options for presenting their views.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>"We don't want to provide a platform at the meeting for people to lobby for positions contrary to the life of our church," said Philadelphia Archbishop Charles Chaput, the meeting's host.</p>
<p>Francis DeBernardo of New Ways Ministry, an advocacy group for LGBT Catholics, said Chaput and other U.S. bishops "are putting their heads in the sand."</p>
<p>"They see LGBT issues as a problem to contain rather than to explore," DeBernardo said. "The entire Catholic community in the U.S. is having a discussion on this now. Why can't the World Meeting of Families?"</p>
<p>To counter the official message, New Ways Ministry and several allied groups have scheduled various programs - including a workshop on gender identity - to coincide with the Meeting of Families. The initial plan called for the programs to be held at a Catholic church in Philadelphia, but the LGBT groups said the church's pastor rescinded the invitation at the urging of Chaput's office. The LGBT groups said the events will be relocated to a nearby Methodist church.</p>
<p>Another area of contention is the status of openly gay employees at Catholic institutions in the U.S. Dozens of people have reported losing their jobs at such workplaces since 2010 over their same-sex relationships or support for gay marriage and gay rights, including Margie Winters, a married gay teacher dismissed in June by a Catholic school in Philadelphia.</p>
<p>The World Meeting of Families is a triennial Vatican-backed event, held seven times previously starting in 1994 with the goal of strengthening marriage and families. The Philadelphia meeting will be the first in the United States.</p>
<p>The U.S. ambassador to the Holy See, Kenneth Hackett, noting in an interview with The Associated Press that gay marriage is now "the law of our land," said: "How the pope will deal with that, I think it might be one of the issues of nontraditional marriage that he speaks about or he alludes to."</p>
<p>He cited Francis' views on "marriage situations where people are under stress" - because of divorce, or violence in the family, or where single parents are raising children. "So if we look at what he has said in so many previous occasions about extending the generosity and mercy of the church to these different situations, that's where I think he'll come down," Hackett said.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>More than two years into his papacy, Francis has disappointed some conservative American Catholics by not speaking about church teaching on marriage as frequently as his predecessors. Instead, he has emphasized compassion over defending the church on divisive social issues as he tries to bring back Catholics who have left the fold.</p>
<p>In 2013, he seemed to extend that attitude to gays when he responded to a question about a purportedly gay priest by saying, "If someone is gay and is searching for the Lord and has good will, then who am I to judge him?" However, Francis has also affirmed that same-sex relationships and marriages are contrary to church teaching.</p>
<p>Still, nearly 4 in 10 Catholics surveyed by the Public Religion Research Institute and Religion News Service mistakenly believe Francis supports allowing gay and lesbian couples to marry legally. The survey of 1,331 U.S. adults, released Tuesday, had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.4 percentage points.</p>
<p>While in Philadelphia, the pope is scheduled to visit an outdoor Festival of Families on Sept. 26 and celebrate Mass the next day at the conclusion of the Meeting of Families.</p>
<p>Among the more than 15,000 Catholics registered for the meeting are 22 people representing LGBT families on behalf of a coalition called Equally Blessed. Though no official speakers will convey their viewpoints, they hope to engage in conversations with other attendees.</p>
<p>Among them is Marianne Duddy-Burke, executive director of the LGBT Catholic group Dignity USA. She'll attend with her wife and two daughters.</p>
<p>"We want to be a visible presence, with the message that LGBT families are part of the church," said Duddy-Burke. "I would expect most people who are coming have LGBT family members - Most of them are going to recognize that what the church teaches is harmful."</p>
<p>The Equally Blessed contingent also includes Delfin Bautista, a transgender activist who runs the LGBT Center at Ohio University, and Bautista's husband, Jason Hernandez, and Bautista's 64-year-old mother, Rebeca del Cristo. Formerly disapproving of homosexuality, she's now active in gay-rights causes and wears a rainbow pin to Mass in Miami.</p>
<p>Bautista, who was sent as a youth to reparative therapy that aims to change sexual orientation, hopes the family can sway attitudes at the Philadelphia meeting simply by telling their story.</p>
<p>"We are just as Catholic and just as much a family as any other family," Bautista said.</p>
<p>Among the conservative Catholic groups that have been allocated exhibit space at the meeting is Courage International, which describes its core mission as trying to help people with same-sex attractions lead chaste lives.</p>
<p>Courage has come under criticism from gay-rights activists for supporting the option of reparative therapy for gays and lesbians. The Rev. Philip Bochanski, the group's associate director, said Courage does not advocate such therapy but respects the right of individuals to pursue it if they feel it's appropriate</p>
<p>Of the more than 70 speeches and presentations on the official Meeting of Families schedule, only one explicitly addresses gay and lesbian issues. It's a joint presentation by a celibate gay Catholic, Ron Belgau, and his mother, Beverly Belgau, addressing how Catholic families can respond when a family member comes out as gay.</p>
<p>Ron Belgau, who teaches at St. Louis University while pursuing a Ph.D. in philosophy, is co-founder of a blog called Spiritual Friendship that seeks to promote celibacy as an admirable option for gay Christians.</p>
<p>Belgau said he believes a majority of U.S. Catholics now support same-sex marriage, which became legal in all 50 states under a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in June.</p>
<p>He doesn't expect the church to change its teaching, but suggests there might be ways to make gay couples feel more welcome - comparable to engagement in the church by many Catholics who use birth control or have been divorced.</p>
<p>"I've always thought the Catholic Church should be as welcoming as it can be to people, even if they're not fully following the church's teaching," Belgau said.</p>
<p>Another speaker will be Douglas Farrow, a professor of Christian thought at McGill University in Montreal. He has written extensively about what he perceives as the harmful consequences of legalizing same-sex marriage, and says the Catholic Church needs to remain firm, but not antagonistic, in promoting its vision of heterosexual marriage.</p>
<p>"Of course there is room for improvement in the way the church responds to its people," Farrow said. "The church in America needs to be more thoroughly comfortable in its own theological skin - in order to be more comfortable in these conversations that are so fraught about what marriage is."</p>
<p>Ken Gavin, spokesman for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, expressed hope that differences on LGBT issues would not spark animosity.</p>
<p>"It is very much possible to show Christian charity and love for all even if you disagree with their point of view," he said in an email.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Associated Press writers Nicole Winfield in Rome and Rachel Zoll in New York contributed to this story.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Follow David Crary on Twitter at <a href="http://twitter.com/CraryAP" type="external">http://twitter.com/CraryAP</a></p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Online:</p>
<p>World Meeting of Families: <a href="http://www.worldmeeting2015.org/" type="external">http://www.worldmeeting2015.org/</a></p>
<p>Equally Blessed: <a href="http://equally-blessed.org/" type="external">http://equally-blessed.org/</a></p> | Ahead of pope's visit to US, some friction over LGBT issues | false | https://abqjournal.com/634000/ahead-of-popes-visit-to-us-some-friction-over-lgbt-issues.html | 2 |
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<p>Leaders of the Jewish state appealed for calm amid signs the death was revenge for the recent killings of three Israeli teenagers.</p>
<p>“We will not allow extremists, it doesn’t matter from which side, to inflame the region and cause bloodshed,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a nationally televised statement. “Murder is murder, incitement is incitement, and we will respond aggressively to both.”</p>
<p>He promised to prosecute those responsible to the full extent of the law.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>The region has been on edge since three Israeli teens – one of them a U.S. citizen – were kidnapped while hitchhiking in the West Bank last month. Last week, the teens’ bodies were found in a West Bank field in a crime Israel blamed on the militant group Hamas.</p>
<p>Just hours after the youths were buried, Mohammed Abu Khdeir, a 16-year-old Palestinian from east Jerusalem, was abducted near his home, and his charred remains were found shortly afterward in a Jerusalem forest. Preliminary autopsy results found he was still alive when he was set on fire.</p>
<p>Palestinians immediately accused Israeli extremists of killing the youth in revenge. And on Sunday, Israeli authorities said the killers had acted out of “nationalistic” motives.</p>
<p>The suspects remained in custody and were being interrogated, according to authorities.</p>
<p>An Israeli official said there were six suspects and described them as young males, including several minors, all of whom lived in the Jerusalem area.</p>
<p>He said police had located a car used by the suspects. During the investigation, he said, police learned of an attempted kidnapping the previous day of a child in the same neighborhood and concluded the cases were linked. Israeli TV showed pictures of the 9-year-old boy with red marks around his neck.</p>
<p>Abu Khdeir’s family said that the arrests brought them little joy and that they had little faith in the Israeli justice system.</p>
<p>Abu Khdeir’s death triggered violence in his neighborhood, as angry crowds destroyed train stations and hurled rocks. The unrest spread to sections of northern Israel over the weekend.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>On Sunday, the situation in east Jerusalem, home to most of the city’s Palestinians, appeared to be calming down, as businesses and markets reopened, and roads that had been cordoned off were reopened to traffic.</p>
<p>Top Israeli officials expressed concern that the charged atmosphere of recent days had led to the boy’s killing.</p>
<p>After the Israeli teenagers were found dead, several hundred Jewish extremists had marched through downtown Jerusalem calling for “death to Arabs.” Social media sites were also flooded with calls for vengeance.</p>
<p>Justice Minister Tzipi Livni said her ministry is investigating some of the anti-Arab incitement seen on Facebook last week.</p>
<p>“These things need to be cut when they are small,” she said. “At this moment, everybody’s job should be to lower the flames.”</p>
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<p /> | 6 arrested in slaying of Arab teen | false | https://abqjournal.com/426088/6-arrested-in-slaying-of-arab-teen.html | 2 |
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<p>A 5.4-magnitude earthquake hit the southeastern industrial city of Pohang, North Gyeongsang Province in South Korea earlier today. Tremors were felt across the nation including Seoul and Busan.</p>
<p />
<p>The quake occurred at around 2:29 p.m., around 9 kilometers north of Pohang. The Korea Meteorological Administration said a series of aftershocks followed.</p>
<p />
<p>Today's quake is only the second strongest of such disaster recorded in South Korea as one that struck the nation last year at magnitude 5.8 in the nearby city of Gyeongju was the strongest ever recorded in South Korea.</p>
<p />
<p>The initial quake earlier was followed by another one, with a magnitude of 4.6 at around 4:49 p.m.</p>
<p />
<p>There were no reports of damage to power plants near the affected region.</p>
<p />
<p>There are no immediate reported cases of fatalities as well from the quake. As of 5 p.m. local time, 10 light injuries have been reported in Daegu and the North Gyeongsang Province area.</p>
<p />
<p>South Korean President Moon Jae-in has just returned to Seoul from Manila following an eight-day tour of Southeast Asian nations on Wednesday. Moon attended the Asian Summit hosted by the Philippines. He was immediately briefed on the earthquake situation and he also convened a meeting with his senior aides quickly upon his return home.</p>
<p />
<p>Prime Minister Lee Nak-yon for his part urged government agencies to promptly attend to response measures following the nation's disaster relief manual. He also highlighted the need to guarantee the safety of nuclear facilities. He called on nuclear power plants, and related facilities, to go into emergency operations until the situation is over.</p>
<p />
<p>The Ministry of Interior and Safety quickly responded and compiled as he placed the emergency response headquarters into operation as early as about 2:43 p.m.</p>
<p />
<p>Marines and special operations troops were also quickly mobilized to support relief and clean-up initiatives.</p>
<p />
<p>Local reports say the earthquake shook buildings, causing books to fall from shelves for one, and sending tremors to as far as Seoul and northern Gyeonggi Province.</p>
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<p />
<p>Source:</p>
<p><a href="http://m.koreaherald.com/view.php" type="external">m.koreaherald.com/view.php</a></p> | Second Strongest Earthquake on Record Hits South Korea | true | http://thegoldwater.com/news/12027-Second-Strongest-Earthquake-on-Record-Hits-South-Korea | 2017-11-16 | 0 |
<p>Hurricane&#160;Harvey&#160;on Friday further intensified into a dangerous category four storm, just hours before it was due to slam into Texas with a force not felt on the US mainland since 2005.</p>
<p>Texas Governor Greg Abbott asked President Donald Trump to declare&#160;Harvey&#160;a "major disaster" in order to speed federal assistance, issuing disaster declarations for 30 counties.</p>
<p>The arrival of the storm —&#160;which was packing sustained winds of 130 miles (215 kilometers) an hour —&#160;was the first major domestic challenge for Trump, who the White House said would head to the affected region early next week.&#160;</p>
<p>"We can obviously tell already at this stage this is going to be a very major disaster," a somber Abbott said, as more than 1,000 National Guardsmen were activated to help with evacuation and recovery.</p>
<p>"We're going to be dealing with really record-setting flooding in multiple regions."</p>
<p>Coastal water levels were already rising, as the first major storm of the annual Atlantic hurricane season forced hundreds of thousands to flee their homes and wreaked havoc on air travel.</p>
<p>As of 2300 GMT,&#160;Harvey&#160;was located about 45 miles east of Corpus Christi —&#160;a major hub for the American oil industry —&#160;and moving at eight miles an hour, the National Hurricane Center said, warning of possible "catastrophic" flooding.</p>
<p>The storm was expected to make landfall by early Saturday on the populous Texas coast, dumping up to 40 inches (more than 100 centimeters) of rain over the next four or five days and generating storm surges of up to 12 feet.</p>
<p>"All the advice we can give is get out, and get out now," said Patrick Rios, the mayor of Rockport, where a majority of the town's 9,500 residents had left.</p>
<p>Rios had blunt words for those determined to stay, telling them to "mark their arm with a Sharpie pen, put their social security number" —&#160;to be identified if found dead.</p>
<p>Highways leading from coastal areas were jammed as authorities issued mandatory evacuation orders in many areas.</p>
<p>Before the storm hit, the US Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) prepositioned emergency supplies.</p>
<p>As he headed to the Camp David presidential retreat for the weekend with his family, Trump said: "Good luck to everybody."</p>
<p>Harvey&#160;is forecast to be the most powerful hurricane to hit the mainland since Wilma struck Florida in 2005, and could inflict billions of dollars in damage.&#160;</p>
<p>2005 was a huge year for hurricanes —&#160;before Wilma, Hurricane Katrina pummelled New Orleans, leaving more than 1,800 dead and becoming one of the greatest hiccups in the presidency of George W. Bush.</p>
<p>Coastal Texas is a fast-growing area, with some 1.5 million people moving into the area since 1999.&#160;</p>
<p>Authorities said the combination of dense growth and perhaps a year's worth of rain falling in just days could prove deadly.&#160;</p>
<p>Local television footage showed supermarket aisles plucked bare, houses and shops with windows boarded over, and long lines snaking outside gas stations.&#160;</p>
<p>The National Hurricane Center (NHC) warned of the "complete destruction of mobile homes," of many buildings "washing away," and some areas being left "uninhabitable for weeks or months."</p>
<p>In 2005, Bush faced severe criticism after FEMA appeared unprepared for the devastating damage inflicted by Hurricane Katrina.</p>
<p>"Keep on top of hurricane&#160;Harvey&#160;don't make same mistake Pres Bush made w Katrina," Republican Senator Chuck Grassley urged the US leader in a tweet.</p>
<p>In a series of tweets throughout Friday, Trump said he was closely monitoring the storm's progress and said he was "here to assist as needed."&#160;</p>
<p>"Storm turned Hurricane is getting much bigger and more powerful than projected. Federal Government is on site and ready to respond. Be safe!" he said after arriving at Camp David.</p>
<p>"This storm will likely be very destructive for several days," the White House said.</p>
<p>In Corpus Christi, a children's hospital evacuated 10 newborn infants to a facility inland due to the prospect of extended power outages.</p>
<p>But many Corpus Christi residents appeared bent on sitting the storm out, packing sandbags to protect their homes —&#160;until the supply of sandbags ran out.</p>
<p>Already, nearly 50,000 people in the city had lost power.</p>
<p>Sheriff Frank Osborne of Matagorda County, where evacuations were mandatory, described the high stakes.</p>
<p>"I'm not going to put one of my deputies' life on the line to save somebody that didn't leave when they were asked to," he told local TV station KHOU.</p>
<p>People east of the mammoth, three-mile (five-kilometer) seawall in Galveston Island were urged to evacuate. Galveston was the scene of a devastating category 4 hurricane in 1900 that claimed an estimated 8,000 lives.</p>
<p>Officials in Houston, the biggest city in the storm's path, canceled school but did not anticipate mass evacuations.&#160;</p>
<p>Inland cities like San Antonio prepared to welcome evacuees, and some began arriving on Friday.&#160;</p>
<p>FEMA chief Brock Long said the most pressing danger was the storm surge, the high tides powered by powerful winds, but said many inland counties should prepare for "significant" flooding.&#160;</p>
<p>One-third of the US refining capacity is potentially under threat. Crude prices rose slightly Friday ahead of landfall.</p>
<p>US authorities said about 22 percent of crude production in the Gulf of Mexico was shut down as of Friday mid-day —&#160;or more than 375,000 barrels a day. But total daily US production stands at 9.5 million barrels a day, experts say.</p>
<p>In Louisiana, Governor John Bel Edwards issued an emergency declaration for his entire state, as authorities in New Orleans —&#160;where Katrina did the most damage —&#160;readied high-water rescue vehicles and boats.&#160;</p>
<p>Edwards described a "worse-case scenario" in which the storm leaves Texas, gains new strength over the heated waters of the Gulf, and then heads toward Louisiana.&#160;</p>
<p>Meteorologist Eric Holthaus told AFP the prospect of the storm stalling on the coast, lashing it with heavy rain for days, was "just terrifying."</p> | Hurricane Harvey intensified to a monster Category 4 storm as it approaches Texas | false | https://pri.org/stories/2017-08-25/hurricane-harvey-approaches-texas-could-have-catastrophic-effects | 2017-08-25 | 3 |
<p>By Tim Radford, Climate News Network</p>
<p />
<p>&#160; &#160; High-capacity batteries will make wind and solar power viable energy sources. (Ed Suominen via Flickr)</p>
<p>This Creative Commons-licensed piece first appeared at <a href="http://www.climatenewsnetwork.net/safer-battery-could-spark-investment-in-renewables/" type="external">Climate News Network</a>.</p>
<p />
<p>LONDON — The dream of a home battery — cheap, durable, safe, and as big as you like — that could <a href="http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-09/hu-gsf091715.php" type="external">store solar or wind power</a> is a step nearer reality.</p>
<p>Researchers from Harvard University in the US&#160;report that they have tested a “flow battery” that uses cheap and abundant chemical elements, can be operated with plastic components, will not catch fire, and can operate at 99% efficiency.</p>
<p>Such batteries could be used to save and store surplus wind and solar power, which could then be used at times when neither form of renewable energy can deliver.</p>
<p>The latest advances are based on <a href="http://www.climatenewsnetwork.net/battery-offers-new-hope-to-renewables/" type="external">technology already tested</a>&#160;by the same engineers, but made more attractive with a switch to chemical components that are non-toxic, non-flammable, and safe for use in homes and offices.</p>
<p>Typically, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ob3_8QjmR0&amp;feature=youtu.be" type="external">flow batteries</a>&#160;have exploited a metal, such as vanadium, dissolved in acid to deliver electrical action.</p>
<p><a href="http://chemistry.harvard.edu/people/kaixiang-lin" type="external">Kaixiang Lin</a>, a chemistry student at Harvard, <a href="http://www.colorado.edu/rasei/michael-marshak" type="external">Michael Marshak</a>,&#160;now assistant professor of chemistry at the University of Colorado, Boulder, and colleagues <a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/lookup/doi/10.1126/science.aab3033" type="external">report in Science journal&#160;</a>that, instead of costly and difficult-to-handle metals, they have tested naturally-occurring, carbon-based molecules called quinines for the negative electrolyte component of the battery.</p>
<p>They had started their experiments with bromine-based electrolyte for the positive ions, but bromine is toxic and volatile. So they replaced it with a non-toxic, non-corrosive ion called ferrocyanide.</p>
<p>“It sounds bad because it has the word cyanide in it,” Dr Marshak says. “Cyanide kills you because it binds very tightly to iron in your body. In ferrocyanide, it’s already bound to iron, so it’s safe. In fact, ferrocyanide is commonly used as a food additive, and also as a fertilizer.”</p>
<p>The combination of a common organic dye and a cheap food additive in alkaline, rather than acidic solutions, meant that the researchers could increase their battery voltage by 50%.</p>
<p>It also means — at least in principle — that a domestic residence could store its own surplus solar or wind power and keep the refrigerator or the central heating running after sunset or on windless days. How much a house could store would depend only on the size of the tanks that held the two electrolytes.</p>
<p>“This is chemistry I’d be happy to put in my basement,” says <a href="http://www.seas.harvard.edu/directory/aziz" type="external">Michael Aziz</a>,&#160;a professor of materials and energy technologies at Harvard, who has led the research. “The non-toxicity and the cheap, abundant materials placed in water solution mean that it’s safe. It can’t catch fire — and that’s huge when you are storing large amounts of electrical energy anywhere near people.”</p>
<p />
<p>The improved flow battery stores energy in liquids contained in external tanks (here in red and green). Image: Kaixiang Lin/Harvard University</p>
<p>The storage problem has consistently been held against investment in solar and wind energy, but a safe, cheap and capacious technology could change the economics of renewable power generation.</p>
<p>Paradoxically, another group of researchers from the same university have, in the same week, argued that the storage shortfall might be a non-problem.</p>
<p>Hossein Safaei and David Keith, of the <a href="http://www.seas.harvard.edu/news/2015/09/green-storage-for-green-energy" type="external">School of Engineering and Applied Sciences</a> at Harvard, <a href="http://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2015/ee/c5ee01452b#!divAbstract" type="external">report in the Energy &amp; Environmental Science journal</a>&#160;that the supply of wind and solar power could be increased tenfold without any additional storage.</p>
<p>Even though wind and solar power deliver energy intermittently, relatively-low carbon gas turbines and zero-carbon sources&#160;— such as nuclear, hydropower and biomass — could be <a href="http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-09/hu-gte092115.php" type="external">used to make up the shortfall</a>.</p>
<p>The researchers do not argue that better batteries would be of no advantage. Their case is that the absence of better batteries need not, and should not, stop investment in renewables.</p>
<p>They are not the first to argue this. At least one group has calculated that the <a href="http://www.climatenewsnetwork.net/renewables-the-99-9-solution/" type="external">US could get 99% of its energy from zero-carbon sources</a>.</p>
<p>“We’re trying to knock out a salient policy meme that says you can’t grow variable renewables without a proportionate increase in storage,” Professor Keith says.</p>
<p>“We could cut electric sector carbon emissions to less than a third of their current levels using variable renewable, with natural gas to manage the intermittency. But this will require us to keep growing the electricity transmission infrastructure.”</p>
<p /> | Safer Battery Could Spark Investment in Renewables | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/safer-battery-could-spark-investment-in-renewables/ | 2015-10-01 | 4 |
<p>Keith Ellison, <a href="http://www.keithellison.org" type="external">the Minnesota congressman</a> who's running to lead the Democratic National Committee (DNC), won't fix everything that's wrong with the Democratic Party. But as the party girds itself for a years-long battle with the Trump administration while simultaneously rebuilding its grassroots base, electing Ellison is an important first step.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, we don't get a vote and neither do you, unless you're one of the 447 members of the DNC who will cast their ballots in Atlanta this weekend.</p>
<p>Ellison endorsed Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders in 2016 and he is strongly backed by Sanders now, as well as <a href="https://ourrevolution.com/candidates/keith-ellison/" type="external">by Our Revolution</a>, <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2016/12/keith-ellison-afl-cio-endorsement-232367" type="external">the AFL-CIO</a>, and a long list of liberal-left and progressive members of Congress. He was far and away the frontrunner when he announced his DNC bid last November. His main challenger, <a href="https://www.tomperez.org" type="external">ex-Labor Secretary Tom Perez</a>, joined the race in December with the tacit backing of President Obama and overt support from a range of Democratic establishment figures. According to DNC insiders, former Obama aide Valerie Jarrett is contacting DNC members, one by one, and urging them to vote for Perez.</p>
<p>So the DNC election - like it or not - has become a test of strength pitting the Sanders-led insurgent wing of the party against the Obama-Clinton wing.</p>
<p>Two things are at stake. First, if Perez beats Ellison, a big chunk of Democrats on the left, including those who backed Sanders in 2016, are going to feel like the party is ignoring them. "I think there's some danger that some of the Bernie people will believe that if Keith doesn't win, well, that's the nature of the DNC," Larry Cohen, chairman of Our Revolution, told ThePopulist.Buzz. "We got close to a million people to sign a petition for Keith. How do those people end up feeling like their voice counted, in a system where 447 people vote - probably half of them not coming from the grassroots in any way, or a big number anyway - how do they feel any ownership of the election?"</p>
<p>And second, the next chairman of the party will hold the balance, going forward, on the makeup of the DNC Unity Reform Commission. That's a commission that has its origin in last summer's Democratic convention in Philadelphia. In exchange for agreeing not to hold a floor fight over party reforms, including eliminating the power of superdelegates, Sanders won Clinton's agreement to establish the reform commission.</p>
<p>Clinton's team gets to name nine members of the commission, and Sanders' team gets seven. The DNC chair, whoever it is, will control three additional votes. If Ellison wins, he can command a 10-9 majority on the commission, which will decide on the future of superdelegates and other matters. In practical terms, a victory by Ellison can have a decisive impact on making the DNC more democratic and more responsive to rank-and-file Democrats.</p>
<p>On the issues, it's not easy to find differences between Ellison and Perez. Both support a grassroots, 50-state strategy for the party, both are running on a strong pro-labor, pro-civil rights and pro-immigration platform, and both say they'll focus on engaging Democratic activists. Each touts a long list of endorsements from elected leaders, party officials, and Democratic constituent groups.</p>
<p>But when it comes to the party's progressive activists, Ellison has the edge, having won the backing of key unions - including the Teamsters, steelworkers, Communications Workers of America, and UNITE HERE - and a long list of activist groups, including the political action arms of Democracy for America, 350.Org, the Center for Popular Democracy, MoveOn.Org, the Working Families Party, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, and others. Ellison is also backed by Senator Elizabeth Warren, Rev. Jesse Jackson, Zephyr Teachout, Gloria Steinem, Walter Mondale, and Dolores Huerta ( co-founder of the United Farm Workers). Earlier this month, he received <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/why-we-support-keith-ellison-for-dnc-chair/" type="external">The Nation's endorsement</a>. "It is Ellison who combines the ideals, skills, and movement connections that will revitalize the party," wrote the editors.</p>
<p>In one sense, the issue of who leads the DNC into the 2018 and 2020 electoral cycles is less important than what's happening now on the ground, in the field. The demand for change, now that Donald Trump is in the White House, is rising up organically with the emergence of literally hundreds of resistance groups across the country and wave after wave of massive, public demonstrations, beginning with the health care protests in mid-January, the four-million-strong women's marches on January 21, and the spontaneous protests that erupted in response to Trump's immigration crackdown. Besides that, there are national and local groups focusing on local, state and congressional races, including <a href="https://www.indivisibleguide.com" type="external">Indivisible</a>, <a href="https://justicedemocrats.com/home-1/?utm_expid=138498668-0.DbzB_JSuQ6u6dZl0XxJRfw.1&amp;utm_referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fmic.com%2Farticles%2F166390%2Fcenk-ugyur-bernie-sanders-staffers-team-up-to-take-over-the-democratic-party" type="external">Justice Democrats</a>, <a href="https://brandnewcongress.org" type="external">Brand New Congress</a>, <a href="https://swingleft.org" type="external">Swing Left</a>, and, of course, <a href="https://ourrevolution.com" type="external">Our Revolution</a>.</p>
<p>But if the party is to lead, or at least help coordinate the resistance movement, it'll need to get its act together, and Ellison is best-positioned to do that. "Beyond a 50-state strategy, we need a 3,143-county strategy," he says. As Ellison would agree, the party needs far more than a new chairman. It needs to be reorganized, from the ground up, bringing new people - including minorities, young people, and working-class activists into its ranks, rebuilding Democratic county organizations, and reducing its dependence on wealthy donors by following Bernie Sanders' model of $27-a-pop individual contributions. That's a tall order. If Ellison is elected, ThePopulist.Buzz will keep tabs on his progress.</p>
<p>On the surface, at least, judging by in a series of debates organized by the DNC and held coast-to-coast, the Ellison-Perez debate has been civil. But underneath the civility, the race has gotten ugly.</p>
<p>Starting in December, the party's knee jerk, pro-Israel wing launched an all-out attack on Ellison, an African-American Muslim who has challenged the party's dominant narrative that Israel can do no wrong. Ellison was <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/10/us/politics/10muslims.html" type="external">widely celebrated in 2006</a> as the first Muslim ever elected to Congress. Now opposition has come from the Anti-Defamation League, mega-donor Haim Saban, super-lawyer Alan Dershowitz, and others. And they didn't mince words.</p>
<p>Saban, a billionaire Clinton supporter, <a href="http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/308637-haim-saban-ellison-an-anti-semite" type="external">called</a> Ellison "an anti-Semite and an anti-Israel individual." Jonathan Greenblatt, the ADL's executive director, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/01/us/jewish-groups-and-unions-grow-uneasy-with-keith-ellison.html" type="external">said</a> Ellison's views "raise the specter of age-old stereotypes about Jewish control of our government." And Dershowitz <a href="http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/312243-harvard-law-professor-i-will-leave-democratic-party-if-they" type="external">declared</a>: "I'm going to tell you right here on this show, and this is news - if they appoint Keith Ellison to be chairman of the Democratic Party, I will resign my membership to the Democratic Party after 50 years of being a loyal Democrat."</p>
<p>It's hard to see the assault on Ellison as anything other than a coordinated effort by the party's establishment to torpedo his chances. It's true that Ellison, for years, has been a critic of Israel's policies and of America's unrestrained support for Israel regardless of what it does. "The United States foreign policy in the Middle East is governed by what is good or bad through a country of 7 million people," said Ellison, in a 2010 speech. "Does that make sense?" Ellison's views on Israel reflect the fact that fully 60 percent of Democrats favor imposing sanctions on Israel over Tel Aviv's expansion of illegal settlements in the West Bank. And Ellison was endorsed early by New York's Senator Chuck Schumer, a strong ally of Israel.</p>
<p>On Wednesday, CNN has <a href="http://cnnpressroom.blogs.cnn.com/2017/02/17/cnn-to-host-debate-night-democratic-leadership-debate-on-feb-22/" type="external">scheduled a televised debate</a> among the candidates for DNC chair. &#160;Visit ThePopulist.Buzz for analysis of the vote this weekend.</p>
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<p>&#160;</p> | Keith Ellison and the Stakes for the Democrats | true | http://thepopulist.buzz/keith-ellison-and-the-stakes-for-the-democrats | 2017-02-20 | 4 |
<p>In 30 years, you can learn a lot of lessons. But apparently it’s not long enough for many in Chicago.</p>
<p>Thirty years ago, I was in 3rd grade on the South Side. Most of my classmates were black. The graduating 8thgrade class was white. It was a stark reminder of the rapidly changing Auburn Gresham neighborhood where I live and spent most of my childhood.</p>
<p>The 1960s and 1970s were marked by white flight–”thousands of families fled to the suburbs as African Americans began to integrate their neighborhoods. Middle-class black people eventually followed, leaving South and West side neighborhoods predominantly black and largely poor.</p>
<p>The families that fled still commuted to Chicago for work and nightlife, creating roadway congestion.</p>
<p>For decades, the issues of race and class have clouded people’s judgment, creating a steep price to live in racially and economically homogenous neighborhoods. In this issue, The Chicago Reporter explores two ways in which those choices have cost us–”and the toll they will continue to exact upon us if we don’t change.</p>
<p>In “Car Sick,” Jeff Kelly Lowenstein illustrates the mistakes we’ve made managing regional transportation. If we don’t abandon our obsession with the car, move closer to work, expand our public transit capacity and use it, we could lose up to $750 billion in the next 30 years.</p>
<p>And without some attitude adjustments, the $1.6 billion facelift to public housing in Chicago might not sufficiently lift the boats of the city’s poor.</p>
<p>Public housing’s transformation from poverty-stricken, high-rise buildings to economically diverse townhouses and low-rise apartments is an untested and unproven model. The economic mix sought by the Chicago Housing Authority is almost nonexistent today, as Kari Lydersen reveals in “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?”</p>
<p>And the hundreds of families who’ve jumped on the “mixed-income” bandwagon have hit a few potholes during the first few years in the CHA’s newest developments, according to Natalie Y. Moore’s story “There’s No Place Like Home.” Marred by apprehension and tension, these developments lack the interaction and camaraderie of true neighborhoods. How can the poor benefit from their middle-class neighbors if they don’t know them?</p>
<p>We continue to be reluctant to live among folks who are different. Not only is that response insensitive to people we only think we really know, it’s also inefficient for all of us.</p> | Editor’s Note: May-June 2008 | false | http://chicagoreporter.com/editors-note-may-june-2008/ | 2008-05-21 | 3 |
<p>An industry leader in gold mining,&#160;Goldcorp&#160;(NYSE: GG)&#160;is expected to report its third-quarter earnings on Oct. 25. Analysts forecast earnings of $0.10 per share, but a company's quarterly report transcends one figure. Let's prepare for the report by keying in on some things that management will likely address.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Striving to increase annual gold production by 20% <a href="https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/03/21/why-the-best-is-yet-to-come-for-goldcorp-inc.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;uuid=83b8e8be-b591-11e7-8054-0050569d32b9&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">over the next five years Opens a New Window.</a>, Goldcorp has several projects in its pipeline that will help the company meet its fiscal 2021 gold production target of 3 million ounces. Investors, therefore, will want to confirm that development of the projects remains on track in terms of both timing and budget.</p>
<p>Representing a capital cost of $420 million, the Pyrite Leach Project at <a href="https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/04/05/how-goldcorp-inc-makes-most-of-its-money.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;uuid=83b8e8be-b591-11e7-8054-0050569d32b9&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">Penasquito Opens a New Window.</a>, for example, is expected to begin gold production in the fourth quarter of 2018 -- three months ahead of schedule. Besides an additional 100,000 to 140,000 ounces of annual gold production, the project is expected to contribute annual silver production of 4 million to 6 million ounces.</p>
<p>Another project the company will likely address is the Materials Handling Project at Musselwhite. Currently under construction, the project is expected to begin commercial production in first-quarter 2019 and will increase production at Musselwhite -- forecast to be 265,000 ounces for fiscal 2017 -- approximately 20%.</p>
<p>In addition to growing gold production 20% over the next five years, Goldcorp has targeted a 20% reduction in all-in sustaining costs (AISC). If successful, the company will lower its AISC from $856 per gold ounce in fiscal 2016 to $700 per gold ounce in fiscal 2021. According to management, Goldcorp's ability to recognize $250 million in annual sustained efficiencies by 2018 will play an integral role in helping the company to achieve the reduction in costs.</p>
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<p>Currently, the company is right on track. During the second-quarter earnings presentation, management noted that it expects to identify $200 million of the $250 million target by the end of fiscal 2017.&#160; The sustainable efficiencies program -- which includes cost-reduction initiatives as well as&#160;volume or productivity increases -- is already benefiting the company, leading management to&#160;revise its fiscal 2017 AISC guidance from $850 per gold ounce to $825.</p>
<p>Based on the program's success to date, management believes that the efficiency target will likely be increased and extended beyond 2018. This is something investors will want to watch keenly, since management recognizes that improved cash flow is one of the hallmarks of the sustainable efficiencies program's success.</p>
<p>Although Penasquito is expected to report an approximate 12% year-over-year drop in annual gold production for fiscal 2017 due to the mining of declining grades&#160;in the second half of the year, management remains confident that it will achieve its overall gold production target of 2.5 million ounces. According to management, ramp-ups in production at Cerro Negro and Eleonore will help the company to achieve third-quarter gold production between 625,000 and 650,000 ounces.</p>
<p>In addition, it will be important to monitor Cerro Negro, since the core mine figures prominently in the company's five-year gold production growth plan. At the Argentine project, investors should confirm that the company is successfully developing the Marianas Norte and Emelia mines, which, when operational, will help Cerro Negro achieve nameplate production capacity of 4,000 metric tons per day. The throughput rate, currently, is approximately 3,000 metric tons per day.</p>
<p>Although Goldcorp has strung together several quarters of beating analysts' earnings estimates, savvy investors know that a miner's earnings per share is not where the golden nuggets of wisdom into the company's performance can be found. And for Goldcorp, specifically, investors should be more interested in how well the company is executing its annual sustained efficiencies program. Should Goldcorp excel at streamlining its operations, there could be a strong improvement in the company's cash flow. This, in turn, could go a long way in helping the company to develop the numerous projects in its pipeline without having to sacrifice its balance sheet and resort to burying itself in debt.</p>
<p>10 stocks we like better than GoldcorpWhen 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 October 9, 2017</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFProudMonkey/info.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;uuid=83b8e8be-b591-11e7-8054-0050569d32b9&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">Scott Levine Opens a New Window.</a> has no position in any of the 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=83b8e8be-b591-11e7-8054-0050569d32b9&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p> | 3 Things to Look For When Goldcorp Reports Q3 Earnings | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/10/24/3-things-to-look-for-when-goldcorp-reports-q3-earnings.html | 2017-10-23 | 0 |
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<p>But we don’t know the moon as well as we think. In fact, for years, astronomy has been in an uproar over the origin of Earth’s only natural satellite, grappling to make sense of a model that seems increasingly unsatisfactory.</p>
<p>Now, a team of Israeli researchers has shaken up the debate by offering an entirely new explanation, published this week in the journal Nature Geoscience. They say the moon isn’t a single chunk of rock but an amalgamation of nearly two dozen “moonlets,” one that was formed during a steady bombardment of Earth by several smaller bodies.</p>
<p>It’s a major departure from the “giant impact model,” which was once the standard explanation for the moon’s existence. That hypothesis proposes that the satellite came about during a single, violent collision between Earth and a hypothetical protoplanet called Theia. Theia sideswiped our planet roughly 4.4 billion years ago, scattering debris that eventually coalesced into the moon, which drifted away and started to circle the Earth.</p>
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<p>The model explained the moon’s modern migration – it’s still receding, at a rate of about 4 centimeters per year. But it also had a problem: In the early 2000s, scientists examining lunar rocks brought back by the Apollo astronauts found the chemical composition of the moon was eerily similar to that of Earth. Its elements had the same ratio of isotopes as many on Earth do – and virtually no traces of Theia. How could a giant object create the moon and leave nothing behind?</p>
<p>“The whole giant impact model had been put into crisis several years ago,” Sarah Stewart, a planetary physicist at the University of California at Davis, told The Washington Post last year, “to the point where people thought it might be completely wrong because we couldn’t make it work in its details.”</p>
<p>Scientists added other elements to the hypothesis in an attempt to resolve that chemistry issue. Maybe Theia was chemically identical to Earth? Maybe the collision vaporized both bodies, mixing their ingredients until they condensed back into the planet and moon we now know?</p>
<p>But every tweak seemed to make the giant impact model even more improbable.</p>
<p>“If you do that too many times, everyone in the room starts squirming,” Stewart said.</p>
<p>A more likely scenario, researchers argue in the new Nature Geoscience paper, is a series of smaller impacts. Lead author Raluca Rufu, a planetary scientist at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, knew that the solar system’s infancy was a chaotic time. Small bodies (a 10th the size of Earth or less) ran rampant in the system, bumping into things like rambunctious toddlers. Though a collision with a major protoplanet like Theia would have been rare, bombardment by these smaller bodies happened frequently.</p>
<p>Each collision would have sent a spray of debris into orbit around Earth, forming disks made mostly of material from Earth (rather than the impactor). Each disk then cooled and coalesced into a moonlet, which would migrate outward and glom onto other newborn small rocks, forming a growing moon. About 20 of these moonlets could have combined to create the satellite that orbits Earth today.</p>
<p>This version of the moon’s origin story solves the big chemistry question that dogs proponents of the giant impact model. Creating a moon from many impacts dilutes the influence of each impactor on its chemistry – their individual signatures would have been lost amid all the Earth material each moonlet carried. That could explain why lunar samples are more like Earth than anything else in the solar system.</p>
<p>The idea for a many-impact model has been around since the 1980s, but no one was sure if such a process could create sufficiently large moonlets. With more than 1,000 computer simulations of potential ancient impacts, Rufu and her colleagues demonstrated that sizable moonlets are a fairly common outcome of these crashes.</p>
<p>Proving the second part of the hypothesis – that moonlets would bunch together, rather than drifting away or getting reabsorbed by the Earth – is Rufu’s next challenge. Right now, she and her colleagues have no model for that merging process.</p>
<p>But already they have gotten the attention of other factions in the moon debate.</p>
<p>“I applaud the group,” Robin Canup, an astrophysicist at the Southwest Research Institute and a backer of the single-impact hypothesis, told the New Yorker. “They’ve convinced me that maybe it’s now worth considering. Suddenly, the multiple-impact scenario looks equally probable – or improbable, depending on your perspective.”</p> | Study suggests Earth once had many moonlets – until they merged to form the moon | false | https://abqjournal.com/924707/study-suggests-earth-once-had-many-moonlets-until-they-merged-to-form-the-moon.html | 2 |
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<p>Video streaming service Roku is aiming to raise more than $252 million in its initial public offering as it looks to expand at a time of intense competition in the growing industry.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>The Los Gatos, California, company on Monday said it would offer about 18 million shares of stock at $14 apiece.</p>
<p>The company had 15.1 million active accounts as of June 30 and claims that its users streamed more than 6.7 billion hours over the six-month period ending June 30.</p>
<p>Roku is still unprofitable and has amassed $244 million in losses since it was founded in 2002. The company generates most of its revenue from selling its streaming players, but it's increasingly bringing in money from advertising and commissions from subscriptions and other transactions made on its devices.</p>
<p>Roku's growth strategy also includes boosting its content offerings. The streaming service also allows users to connect to apps like Netflix and YouTube.</p>
<p>Increasingly, Roku is competing with Amazon, Google and Apple as streaming video becomes a more popular option among people looking to cut the cord and move away from traditional cable service.</p>
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<p>Roku has emerged as the U.S. market leader in streaming players, with a 37 percent share during the first three months of this year, according to the market research firm Park Associates. Amazon Fire TV ranked second with a 24 percent market share, followed by Google's Chromecast at 18 percent and Apple TV at 15 percent.</p>
<p>Amazon has invested considerable resources into expanding its content offerings, including a $50 million deal to broadcast 11 NFL “Thursday Night Football” games and several original television series. Similarly, Apple is reportedly set to invest $1 billion in original content in 2018.</p>
<p>Most of Roku is currently owned by Anthony Wood, its founder and CEO, and Menlo Ventures, a venture capital firm. Wood, who previously invented one of the first digital video recorders, owns a 28 percent stake in Roku and Menlo Ventures has a 35 percent stake.</p>
<p>The Associated Press contributed to this report.</p> | Roku looks to raise $252M with IPO | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2017/09/18/roku-looks-to-raise-252m-with-ipo.html | 2017-09-18 | 0 |
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<p>ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — While any fast food chain’s dollar menu might hold appeal in the minds and wallets of belt-tightening locals, they cannot hold a candle to the experience of a place on north 4th Street with the bold red sign shouting, “TACOMEX.” Heed that siren call and go in for the best quick Mexican you’ve had all year at Tacos Mex Y Mariscos.</p>
<p>One could order tacos all day and all night in endless combinations, each for 99 cents, without growing bored for years with fillings like Lengua, Pastor, Asada, Carnitas and Chorizo. Eleven fillings comprise that 99-cent list, plus Tripe for $2. That’s right, tripe is dearly beloved and clearly worth the cost upgrade to many diners.</p>
<p>In street taco fashion, each soft corn taco is a two-tortilla affair to keep any juicy ingredients from bursting the payload onto your lap, and filling the belly for a little less money: three tacos for a light appetite, four or five in cases of serious hunger. My taste buds found the most pleasure in the Pastor, seasoned well and studded with pineapple, and the Lengua, impeccably tender chunks of tongue. Lengua novices couldn’t pick a better place to give it a try.</p>
<p>But wait — Tacos Mex has a ton more going on for all meals of the day: breakfasts of Machaca (eggs scrambled with meat) or huge burritos, bowls of Caldo de Res (vegetable beef soup), even cool seafood treats like Tostadas de Ceviche ($5.50) overflowing with shrimp, octopus and those fake-yet-tasty “crab” chunks. Wash it all down with a large Horchata ($3) sweet enough to cause toothaches, or a Mexican cola.</p>
<p>For local families, TacoMex is an upbeat and energetic place during mealtimes, especially supper — the whole dining room fills with moms and dads and kids and everyone out for a fun meal. Whether their monthly treat or a daily indulgence, it’s hard to tell from the smiles on everyone’s faces — it seems they just discovered the place yesterday.</p>
<p>Have a comment about the restaurant reviews? Send it to Rene Kimball at <a href="" type="internal">[email protected]</a>, or go to ABQjournal.com/venue, click on the review and add your take.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | A-list street tacos | false | https://abqjournal.com/247942/mdash-2.html | 2013-08-16 | 2 |
<p>The strategic heart of any military strategy in the conduct of war is the art of placing your adversary under menacing pressure to make a decision, while denying him the time to make sense out of the menacing conditions forcing that decision.&#160; The Baker Commission tried to buy time by throwing a life ring to the Decider-in-Chief, but he refused it and chose instead to squander two months of precious time putting together a&#160;complex military strategy&#160; that, in the best of circumstances, would require an extended time horizon to set up grand-strategically and execute militarily.</p>
<p>Mr. Bush, by his own admission, does not face the best of circumstances. The result is a paralyzing stew of contradictions.&#160; Even worse, he is running out of time.</p>
<p>The Decider-in-Chief is in trouble grand-strategically. Public reaction to his escalation speech was tepid, to put it charitably.&#160; He faces a growing revolt among Republicans on Capital Hill, not to mention an alienated Democratic majority in both houses of Congress.&#160; In short, the internal cohesion of the United States is breaking down, which Sun Tzu would have seen as entirely predictable, given the misrepresentations Bush used to justify the Iraq aggression.&#160; To make matters worse, resolve among our most important ally is weakening. Tony Blair has stated repeatedly that Britain will not send more troops to Iraq and will continue with its plans to begin withdrawing troops from the Shiite south.</p>
<p>Bush’s execution strategy is also disconnected from political and military reality in Iraq.&#160; According to a report By John Burns&#160; in the New York Times for January 15, Bush is setting up a cumbersome parallel chain of command involving Iraqis and Americans at each level of decision making.&#160; At best, the increased coordination will slow down operational tempos by stretching out decision cycles.&#160; At worst, by involving more people of dubious loyalty at each level of decision making, Mr. Bush’s chain of command will not only increase the opportunities but make it easier for our adversaries to penetrate and operate inside our tactical and operational decision cycles.</p>
<p>And there is more to this craziness.</p>
<p>Mr. Bush’s command and control system will be fundamentally at odds with the central logic of his “clear and hold” military strategy.&#160; “Clear and hold,” assumes one can expand and coalesce a distribution of small-scale tactical successes into a smaller number of larger-scale of operational successes, eventually culminating in overall strategic success.&#160; But he is putting in place a command and control arrangement that will make it much easier for our adversaries nip this strategy in the bud by disrupting our operations at the lower albeit necessary tactical and operational levels of conflict.</p>
<p>Now there is nothing new about the “Clear and Hold” theory, but Mr. Bush’s application of it is weird, to say the least.&#160; “Clear and Hold” is in fact a primitive repackaging of Marshal Lyautey’s turn of century colonialist tache d’huile&#160; (oil spot) strategy to win the support of separate Arab/Berber tribes in North African by offering them protection and social services in a methodical slow expansion of the area under control.&#160; Like, Lyautey, Mr. Bush would also use fast moving light infantry forces to quickly break of enemy concentrations.&#160; And like Lyautey, Mr. Bush understands that the heart of his strategy is a methodical expansion and coalescence of the pacified areas or “oil spots.” But unlike Lyautey, who fully understood that his strategy would require a great deal of time, Mr. Bush’s&#160;attitude, as well as that of his supporters, is “lets give it quick shot” to see if it will produce tangible results in a few months of an urban siege.</p>
<p>A lot of people are going to die in this quick shot, because unfortunately,TIME is on the side of the people trying to kick the US out of Iraq and they know it, even if they can not agree on anything else.</p>
<p>Fighter pilots have a term of art to describe the paralysis of thinking that accompanies the desperate mental state evidenced by Mr. Bush’s confusion:&#160; The man is “out of altitude, airspeed, and ideas.”</p>
<p>Franklin C. Spinney is a former Pentagon analyst, who worked in the DoD for 33 years; in the Pentagon for 28 of those. His first 7 years were as an AF engineering officer and remainder was as a civilian analyst in the Office of the Secratary of Defense. His writing on defense issues can be found on the invaluable <a href="http://www.d-n-i.net/" type="external">Defense in the National Interest</a> website.</p>
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<p>&#160;</p> | Why Time is not on Bush’s Side | true | https://counterpunch.org/2007/01/16/why-time-is-not-on-bush-s-side/ | 2007-01-16 | 4 |
<p>Edgardo Lander is a professor of social sciences at the Universidad Central de Venezuela in Caracas, and he is a member of CLACSO and the Hemispheric Council of the Social Forum of the Americas. His books include Modernidad y Universalismo (1991) and Neoliberalismo, sociedad civil y democracia (1995), and his academic writing has been published frequently in scholarly journals.</p>
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<p /> PAUL JAY, SENIOR EDITOR, TRNN: Welcome back to The Real News Network. I'm Paul Jay, and this is Reality Asserts Itself.
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<p />We're continuing our interview series about Venezuela, and we're now kind of switching gears into the modern history of Venezuela.
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<p />And we're joined again by our guest Edgardo Lander. He's a sociologist and professor at the Central University of Venezuela in Caracas. He's one of the main organizers of the World Social Forum in 2006, which took place in Caracas. He holds a degree in sociology from the Universidad Central de Venezuela in Caracas and an MA and PhD in sociology from Harvard University.
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<p />Thanks for joining us.
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<p />PROF. EDGAR LANDER, UNIVERSIDAD CENTRAL DE VENEZUELA IN CARACAS: Thanks, Paul.
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<p />JAY: And I should add you're well known as both a supporter and a critic of the Bolivarian Revolution and President Chávez's (now president Maduro's) leadership. And we're going to get into all this.
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<p />But before we do anything, we want to contextualize where the Bolivarian Revolution came from, how Chávez's leadership emerged.
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<p />But let's kind of start right back at the beginning, 'cause I think most people don't know anything about--most of our audience--at least I don't know that much about the early history of Venezuela's, meaning starting from when does Venezuela become an important oil producer/exporter and what are the politics that comes with that.
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<p />LANDER: The biggest--I mean, the large-scale deposits in Venezuela were discovered in the second decade of the last century in the Lake of Maracaibo in western Venezuela towards the Colombian frontier.
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<p />This was during the dictatorship of Gómez, and this led to, of course, a great increase in government revenue. Ever since colonial times, all the--everything below the soil belongs to the state. And this is sort of [incompr.] tradition. So there were very close relationships between the oil companies and this dictatorship. He got immensely rich, with hardly any control over the corporations. And this became an enclave sort of economy.
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<p />The camps where the foreign workers lived were absolutely isolated from--they looked like any American suburb, isolated from Venezuelan society, fenced in, absolutely isolated from the society. And the workers in the oil industry in general have higher levels of income than the rest of the workers in Venezuela.
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<p />JAY: And what's the relationship with the United States during this period?
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<p />LANDER: Absolutely dependent, I mean, 100 percent. Whatever the United States wished--and not only the United States, but the U.S. oil corporations, especially Standard Oil, which was a big player at the time. So they were very, very--.
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<p />JAY: So this is a dictatorship from '08 to '35, and this is a dictatorship that's essentially working--I guess this is one of these classic situations where the U.S. embassy is like a parallel government working with Standard Oil.
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<p />LANDER: Yeah, that's how it worked.
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<p />JAY: So what happens? First of all, you were mentioning to me before, during World War II Venezuela was the major supplier of oil to the Allied forces.
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<p />LANDER: Yup. Yeah, it was.
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<p />JAY: So this is a--.
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<p />LANDER: Well, it was the biggest exporter of oil in the world by then.
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<p />JAY: So this is a extremely important strategic, quote-unquote, asset for the United States.
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<p />LANDER: Absolutely. Absolutely.
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<p />JAY: 'Cause if there's something [incompr.] if the Monroe Doctrine's about anything, it's about a place like Venezuela.
<p />
<p />LANDER: Absolutely. That's what it was about.
<p />
<p />The price paid by the corporations for Venezuelan oil was really miserable. And so practically all the income from the oil was kept by U.S. corporations.
<p />
<p />JAY: So the dictator gets rich, Standard Oil gets a crazy cheap deal on the oil and makes the profit, and the Venezuelan people don't see much of it.
<p />
<p />LANDER: Yup. That was the case.
<p />
<p />So in 1945, when the war ends, things change.
<p />
<p />LANDER: Things change. As you mentioned before, there was a so-called October Revolution, 1945. Some young people in the military and Acción Democrática, which was the biggest party at the time, leftist social democrat, overthrew the government and started a process of sort of transformation of Venezuelan society, in terms of a new constitution, and there was a constitutional assembly, workers' rights were guaranteed, and land reform was started on a significant scale, voting rights were guaranteed universally, etc., etc. And there was a confrontation with the oil companies in terms of paying higher taxes.
<p />
<p />JAY: How did this revolution succeed? Was this, like, guns in the streets and things?
<p />
<p />LANDER: No. Part of the fact was the military were divided, I mean, at the moment of the coup. And there was all of the street mobilization as well. So the combination of people out in the streets and the split military led to overthrow of the government.
<p />
<p />JAY: So the coup comes out of the military.
<p />
<p />LANDER: Partly. Not all.
<p />
<p />JAY: So it's not so different in some ways of what happened later with--in terms of the kind of alliance of forces that led to Chávez.
<p />
<p />LANDER: Yeah. Well, this was a big sort of grassroots national party, Acción Democrática, which was by then the biggest one in the country that was involved. And so there was--I mean, the civil dimension was much more important.
<p />
<p />JAY: So that government lasts how long?
<p />
<p />LANDER: Three years.
<p />
<p />JAY: And it does various kinds of reforms. Does it take on the price of oil and start taking on Standard Oil?
<p />
<p />LANDER: That's [crosstalk]
<p />
<p />JAY: That couldn't have gone over too well either in New York or in Washington, D.C.
<p />
<p />LANDER: No, it didn't. So it led to a confrontation both with the oil companies, of course, and with the United States government. And so the military had some backing for the coup and got into much friendlier relations with the United States after that.
<p />
<p />JAY: This is when? In '47 the coup takes place?
<p />
<p />LANDER: Forty-eight.
<p />
<p />JAY: Forty-eight.
<p />
<p />LANDER: Yeah.
<p />
<p />JAY: And so the section of the army that's allied with the United States takes back the government.
<p />
<p />LANDER: Well, they were some of the same people. I mean, Pérez Jiménez, who was later a dictatorship, was part of the coup in '45. Yeah.
<p />
<p />JAY: So how long does that last?
<p />
<p />LANDER: Almost ten years, to '58.
<p />
<p />JAY: And that's essentially a dictatorship.
<p />
<p />LANDER: Absolutely.
<p />
<p />JAY: And as we talked about earlier, this is--and if you haven't watched part one, you probably should--this is a time when your family is exiled.
<p />
<p />LANDER: Yeah, during the whole period.
<p />
<p />JAY: So during that dictatorship, it kind of goes back to the way it was in the '30s?
<p />
<p />LANDER: Well, Venezuela receives--I mean, starts to produce more and more oil, so it starts to receive more and more money. There had been some legal changes during the transition between the previous dictatorship and the coup in 1948. So the government was receiving a lot more money than it ever did before. So there was a lot of sort of modernizing processes in the country in terms of the construction of highways and bridges and infrastructure of all sorts, and Caracas grew enormously during that period.
<p />
<p />But politically it was an absolutely undemocratic situation, and there was a lot of repression, torture.
<p />
<p />JAY: And I was about to ask what was the level of the resistance. I mean, I know a lot of people had been exiled, but--.
<p />
<p />LANDER: Yeah. No, there was a significant level of resistance. And it was basically the Communist Party and the sort of younger sectors of this Acción Democrática and social democratic party that sort of worked together in [resistance] for the whole of the ten years, actually. I mean, many of the leaders of Acción Democrática were killed, and [incompr.] were imprisoned and never came out. It was a very repressive [incompr.]
<p />
<p />JAY: These would have been colleagues of your father.
<p />
<p />LANDER: Yeah, yeah, friends of my father.
<p />
<p />JAY: So in '52 what happens?
<p />
<p />LANDER: Fifty-two there was an election called by the dictatorship, a completely fraudulent election in which Pérez Jiménez won and just continued the same thing.
<p />
<p />JAY: Essentially, more dictatorship.
<p />
<p />LANDER: Yeah.
<p />
<p />JAY: What, with another about six years.
<p />
<p />LANDER: Up to '58, yeah.
<p />
<p />JAY: So what happens in '58?
<p />
<p />LANDER: The pressure to change the situation was sort of building up in different places. There were some sectors in the private sector of the economy that weren't happy with the situation. But, basically, more and more people were active. The student movement became very, very active in the year before the overthrow of the government. People came out onto the streets again and again and again. And finally, dictator just took a plane and fled in early--January 23, 1958, and then a temporary government was established to call new elections.
<p />
<p />JAY: Alright. So then there's elections.
<p />
<p />LANDER: There's elections. And then the same party that was overthrown in 1948 comes back to power, but it's not really the same party anymore. I mean, they have matured. They were more reasonable. They weren't that radical. They realized that they had to have better relationships with the United States, with the private sector, and they sort of gave up on their transformative agenda that we carried out in the so-called October Revolution that I mentioned from the three years between '45 and '48. So it became quite a conservative government and quite allied with the United States.
<p />
<p />JAY: So the relationship with the oil companies is not so antagonistic.
<p />
<p />LANDER: No. No. There was sort of a national agreement between the National Workers Union (CTV, Confederación de Trabajadores de Venezuela), Fedecámaras, which was a sort of private sector group, the whole of the private sector, the church, and the two main parties, Acción Democrática and Copei. And they sort of signed a pact, what's called the Pact of Punto Fijo, in which they decided to sort of work together to overthrow the government and establish a new democratic government, but sort of with the checks and balances, in which everybody had a say. And that led to sort of this--that's the basis of the Venezuelan democratic experience from 1958 to the election of Chávez.
<p />
<p />JAY: And what was the American attitude towards this new government?
<p />
<p />LANDER: It wasn't particularly hostile at that moment, because they had guarantees by then that Acción Democrática didn't represent a threat to U.S. or oil industries anymore.
<p />
<p />JAY: This wasn't a critique of capitalism; it was opposition to too much power in too few hands. They wanted a kind of more modern capitalist form of government.
<p />
<p />LANDER: The resistance to the dictatorship was borne to a great extent--I mean, it was on the shoulders of, as I said, the Communist Party and the left of Acción Democrática, which were anti-capitalist. So the project was an anti-capitalist project. But the powers of the moment managed to have this national agreement in which the left was completely excluded. And this--the Communist Party was made illegal.
<p />
<p />The Acción Democrática split, with the creation of the movement of the radical--the Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria, the /mit/, and this was the beginning, around 1960, '61, of the guerrillas in Venezuela. Of course, the Cuban Revolution had a huge impact, not only in Venezuela, but I think more so in Venezuela than in any place else. But it had a huge influence in Latin America as a whole. And so the guerrillas started in this spirit where the socialists split in Acción Democrática in the first government of the so-called Venezuelan--.
<p />
<p />JAY: So a section of that split become guerrillas.
<p />
<p />LANDER: Yeah, yeah.
<p />
<p />JAY: And so there's an armed struggle going on.
<p />
<p />LANDER: There's an armed struggle going on.
<p />
<p />JAY: What's the scale?
<p />
<p />LANDER: It wasn't very big, and it was basically rural. But they didn't have much peasant backing, really. So it really wasn't very big.
<p />
<p />But there was a lot of repression and a lot of confrontation, and it was really scary to--especially to drive around the country, 'cause you would get stopped by the military every few miles and searched, and it was really an atmosphere of conflict.
<p />
<p />JAY: The CIA is helping orchestrate this?
<p />
<p />LANDER: It's probably the case, but I don't have information on that.
<p />
<p />JAY: Please join us for the continuation of our series of interviews with Edgardo Lander on The Real News and Reality Asserts Itself.
<p />
<p />End
<p />
<p />DISCLAIMER: Please note that transcripts for The Real News Network are typed from a recording of the program. TRNN cannot guarantee their complete accuracy. | The Modern History of Venezuela from 1908 to 1973 - Edgardo Lander on Reality Asserts Itself (2/9) | true | http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option%3Dcom_content%26task%3Dview%26id%3D767%26Itemid%3D74%26jumival%3D11732 | 2014-04-14 | 4 |
<p>'You’d need a manageable plan over five years or so to buy and phase out these companies. That’s doable under public ownership and it’s probably not doable using regulation, given how powerful these companies are.'</p>
<p>For those concerned about the future of earth and the people living on it, there are plenty of things to be worried about in the latest round of email leaks about Hillary Clinton: her <a href="https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/201" type="external">hawking</a> natural gas as a “bridge fuel,” <a href="https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/927" type="external">praising oil and gas exports</a> and admiring Canada's pipeline and extraction-heavy energy agenda. Much of this, though, will come as no surprise to those who have followed Clinton’s career, including her well-documented role in <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2014/09/hillary-clinton-fracking-shale-state-department-chevron" type="external">selling fracking to the world</a> as Secretary of State. And even given her many faults on energy and the environment, there remains a yawning divide between <a href="" type="internal">Clinton’s climate policies</a> and those of her opponent, Donald Trump, who promises to re-open shuttered coal mines and has called global warming a hoax invented by the Chinese.</p>
<p>So what do the latest round of WikiLeaks emails tell us that we didn’t already know? They reveal some of the Clinton campaign’s strategy for defeating Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders in the primaries. With that, the emails offer a behind-the-scenes glimpse into how her administration might approach the climate crisis—and what policy measures could get left off the table. In demonizing Sanders’ proposals as spendthrift socialism, Clinton may be foreclosing on a potentially key tool for capping emissions: Nationalizing the fossil fuel industry.</p>
<p>Like socialism, nationalization has been a taboo word in American politics since the Cold War and before, conjuring up images of disastrous five-year plans and authoritarianism. But a new proposal suggests that taking over coal, oil and natural gas companies could be the best way to take&#160;them down. It’s bold and exorbitantly expensive and might just work. But nothing could be farther from the Clinton campaign’s thinking—on either climate or the economy.</p>
<p>Crafting their line of attack against Sanders, campaign chairman John Podesta and Clinton’s senior staff sought to paint Clinton as the more reasonable and pragmatic of the two candidates. On <a href="https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/5512" type="external">Wall Street reform</a>, for instance, advisors looked to foster a public common ground between the two candidates, arguing that Clinton had the more realistic plan to reign in the banking industry. (“We don't need to prove he's bad on Wall Street …&#160;that’s not really credible,” one staffer wrote. “We need to prove we're ok.”) Their key differences, the campaign insisted, were on tactics, not goals. In a few cases, these offensives veered into outright red-baiting, targeting Sanders’s self-described Democratic Socialism.</p>
<p>In a message to senior campaign staff, Lanny Davis, Clinton’s special counsel, proposes organizing a “Sanders Truth Squad” of Clinton surrogates to flood cable news shows and “challenge Sanders on his non-facts and misleading ‘free’ proposals that will substantially raise middle class taxes or leave Millennials with trillions of dollars of debt to pay off for the rest of their lives.”</p>
<p>Stating that “most of our attacks haven't been working” in one email, longtime Clinton advisor Mandy Grunwald <a href="https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/677" type="external">laid out</a> a series of digs at Sanders to be deployed in the days after the New Hampshire primary, which Sanders won in a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/elections/results/new-hampshire" type="external">landslide</a>. “Why not use the old stuff,” she writes, “to prove how wacky this thinking is?”</p>
<p>The first suggestion, entitled “YOU PAY FOR SOCIALISM,” advises that Clinton go after Sanders on the basis of how much his reforms—from free healthcare to free college to expansions in Social Security—could cost taxpayers.</p>
<p>“Bernie Sanders says he wants to restructure America’s economy to make it work like it does in the socialist countries of Europe,” the memo reads, “But Sanders does not mention that the middle class picks up the bill in these countries, paying nearly sixty percent of their income in taxes.”</p>
<p>Other suggestions go on to accuse Sanders’ plans of increasing government spending by 50 percent and deceiving voters as to the true cost of his proposals.</p>
<p>The same memo warns that Sanders “proposed the complete government takeover of all oil companies, gas companies, electric utility companies, phone companies, health care companies, and all television networks.” The jab is a reference to Sanders’s time in Vermont’s Liberty Union Party (LUP), where he served as party chair in the early 1970s before leaving in 1977. At a rally in 1973, he challenged his state’s congressional delegation to “give serious thought to the nationalization of the oil industry,” and later called for a “public takeover of all privately owned electric utilities in the state.” After leaving the LUP, to run for office as an Independent, Sanders continued to call for nationalization, though softened on the question over the years until it faded from his agenda entirely.</p>
<p>For some, though, nationalization is not such a radical proposal. A <a href="http://thenextsystem.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/NSPOberlin-final.pdf" type="external">new working paper</a> from the Next System Project (NSP)—authored by Gar Alperovitz, James Gustave Speth, Ted Howard and Joe Guinan—outlines a plan for the U.S. government to take over the fossil fuel industry, using $1.15 trillion in public funds to do it. If the red-baiting tactics Clinton’s campaign used against Sanders are any sign, making it happen under her administration will be an uphill battle, to say the least.</p>
<p>Nationalized natural resources aren't a novel idea.&#160; <a href="http://www.economist.com/node/7276986" type="external">Sixteen of the world’s 20&#160;largest national oil firms are state-owned</a>, and the International Monetary Fund estimates that—worldwide—the fossil fuel industry rakes in <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/may/18/fossil-fuel-companies-getting-10m-a-minute-in-subsidies-says-imf" type="external">$10 million of government subsidies per minute</a>.</p>
<p>What the NSP lays out is quite a bit different. Rather than propping up coal, oil and natural gas firms indefinitely, the authors propose to “take over the companies, wind them down, and do it in a way that does not load the taxpayers with the costs.”</p>
<p>The idea that such a taxpayer friendly purchase is possible is rooted in something called <a href="http://thenewinquiry.com/essays/the-world-according-to-modern-monetary-theory/" type="external">Modern Monetary Theory</a>, a sub-genre of Post-Keynesian economics that holds that governments can print and spend money in a way that isn’t directly correlated to taxes, and with relatively little risk of inflation. “Modern Money,” or fiat currency, isn’t backed by gold, as it was in the United States before 1971. Instead, its creation is controlled by a series of computers housed in the Federal Reserve Bank. More importantly, those decisions rest with the White House-appointed officials who control those computers, like Fed Chairwoman Janet Yellen.</p>
<p>Reigning economic dogma paints a direct relationship between taxes and the federal budget; for every dollar we spend beyond Americans’ collective tax revenue, the national debt grows. Politicians— <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/10/us/politics/transcript-second-debate.html?_r=0" type="external">Clinton and Trump included</a>—compete over who can cap spending and lower taxes the fastest and most fairly across income brackets, while meeting their budget priorities. As Guinan argues, though, “sovereign governments around the world create money out of thin air all the time. It’s the dirty secret of monetary and fiscal policy.”</p>
<p>The federal government spent $3.7 trillion backing major banks and insurers after the financial crisis, effectively nationalizing firms like AIG with a few keystrokes known as Quantitative Easing (QE). That&#160;figure puts the seemingly massive $1.15 trillion needed to buy out the fossil fuel industry in perspective, as does the $2 trillion spent on the Iraq War between 2003 and 2014. Absent concerted action, climate change itself could end up costing millennials <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/are-you-a-millennial-congratulations-climate-change-will-cost-your-generation-8-8-trillion/" type="external">$8.8 trillion</a> in the coming years.</p>
<p>“Clearly we couldn’t buy and shut down these companies overnight,” Guinan tells In These Times. “You’d need a manageable plan over five years or so to buy and phase out these companies. That’s doable under public ownership and it’s probably not doable using regulation, given how powerful these companies are.”</p>
<p>“If there were another way to beat them that would be great, but we don’t seem to be winning and the clock is running down,” he added.</p>
<p>Keeping warming below the 2 and 1.5 degree Celsius guardrails agreed to at the Paris climate talks last year means leaving the vast majority of the fossil fuel industry’s known reserves buried. This, of course, contradicts that industry’s business model, to find and sell as much coal, oil and natural gas as possible—a model it spends millions lobbying each year to protect. The benefits of such a buyout, then, would be two-fold: Bringing an end to a world-wrecking industry and kneecapping its ability to stymie the transition away from it. Ironically, the move might also result in a better deal overall for fossil fuel executives, who would receive the full value of their companies rather than waiting for them to wither away into bankruptcy under the weight of impending regulations and climate rules.</p>
<p>The last time the U.S. government used QE, it bailed out the banks. If enacted, the NSP’s proposal would bail&#160;out the climate—at least to the extent that any one, heavily-polluting nation can. Complimenting the proposal, Guinan suggests, would be a Green Investment Bank created by the Treasury and with bonds taken out by the Fed, using the European Investment Bank as a loose model. Such a bank would allow for the creation,&#160;and sustainable funding,&#160;of things like an equitable and comprehensive job transition program for fossil fuel workers, a massive scaling-up in renewable energy sources and research and development&#160;into new green technologies.</p>
<p>As Guinan admits, there are several pieces left to figure out about such a massive purchase, including its impact on financial markets and—perhaps most urgently—how to make it palatable to a political landscape defined by fear-mongering about deficits and entitlements. While socialism is gaining legitimacy, especially among millennials, Clinton staffers’ tactics in the primaries show just how tough a sell public ownership could be. Key, in this context, will be loosening the dogma around taxes and nationalization that seems to reign everywhere from the far-right to the Clinton campaign. If NSP’s proposal takes root in the climate movement, Sanders might be just the tip of the public ownership iceberg for Clinton post-Election Day.</p>
<p>Like what you’ve read? <a href="https://secure.actblue.com/contribute/page/itt-subscription-offer?refcode=WS_ITT_Article_Footer&amp;noskip=true" type="external">Subscribe to In These Times magazine</a>, or <a href="https://secure.actblue.com/contribute/page/support-in-these-times?refcode=WS_ITT_Article_Footer&amp;noskip=true" type="external">make a tax-deductible donation to fund this reporting</a>.</p>
<p>Kate Aronoff is a writing fellow at In These Times covering the politics of climate change, the White House transition and the resistance to Trump’s agenda. Follow her on Twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/katearonoff" type="external">@katearonoff</a></p> | Could a Socialist Plot Save the Planet? | true | http://inthesetimes.com/article/19560/could-a-socialist-plot-save-the-planet | 2016-10-18 | 4 |
<p>It's that time of the year again -- when we not only start counting down toward Jan. 1, but also begin crossing critical items off our financial to-do lists. So if you'd like to end 2017 on a financially strong note, here are a few moves to start working on today.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>The benefit of working for a company with a 401(k) is the opportunity to save far more for retirement than you can with an IRAs alone. Unfortunately, most workers don't take full advantage of this option. According to Schwab, only 15% of participants max out their 401(k)s. If you aren't one of them, then now's the time to get moving.</p>
<p>The more you contribute to your 401(k) this year, the greater a tax break you'll get. Currently, workers under 50 can put up to $18,000 a year into a 401(k). Older workers 50 and over get an even more generous allowance -- a $6,000 catch-up provision increases this limit to $24,000.</p>
<p>What will <a href="https://www.fool.com/retirement/2017/07/26/3-reasons-to-max-out-your-401k-for-a-year.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;referring_guid=e4fd5b6a-cbb6-11e7-bdd7-0050569d4be0&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">maxing out Opens a New Window.</a> your 401(k) do for your taxes? Let's assume you're in your 40s, and that your effective tax rate is 30%. If you put $18,000 into your 401(k), you'll shave $5,400 off your IRS bill.</p>
<p>Keep in mind that it often takes a pay cycle or two to change your 401(k) allocation, so if you're looking to ramp up in December, now's the time to act. Once 2017 comes to a close, you can no longer contribute to your 401(k) for the year (though you can, of course, get started on your 2018 contributions).</p>
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<p>Whether you're saving in an IRA or 401(k), the end of the year is a good time to examine your holdings and see if it pays to do some <a href="https://www.fool.com/retirement/2017/06/04/1-important-portfolio-checkup-you-need-to-do-in-20.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;referring_guid=e4fd5b6a-cbb6-11e7-bdd7-0050569d4be0&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">portfolio rebalancing Opens a New Window.</a>. This especially holds true if you're getting closer to retirement, and expect to start selling off investments in the coming years.</p>
<p>Ideally, your portfolio should be fairly stock-heavy if you're younger, and contain a healthy mix of stocks and bonds when you're older. Furthermore, your investments should be spread out across a variety of industries; you don't want the bulk of your cash in a single sector, lest it take a dive.</p>
<p>Also, be wary of the way high-performing investments may unbalance your portfolio. Just because a particular stock or sector has a few good years doesn't mean that pattern well continue indefinitely. If you see that you're heavily invested in a single industry due to its recent growth, it might pay to take some gains, sell off part of that position, and put more money into a different sector. Remember, if you're talking about investments held in an IRA or 401(k), you won't pay taxes on those gains right away, and if you have a Roth-style account, you won't pay taxes on them at all.</p>
<p>Finally, do an annual review of the investment <a href="https://www.fool.com/retirement/2016/12/29/over-90-of-americans-make-this-401k-mistake.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;referring_guid=e4fd5b6a-cbb6-11e7-bdd7-0050569d4be0&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">fees Opens a New Window.</a> you're paying, and see if it makes sense to shift into lower-cost options, like index funds or exchange-traded funds. The less money you lose to fees, the more you'll have available for yourself down the line.</p>
<p>In a diversified portfolio, not every investment can be a winner. If you have underperforming investments in a traditional brokerage account, then selling them at a loss could benefit you in two ways. First, it'll free up cash to invest elsewhere -- ideally, in a better-performing alternative. Secondly, it can serve as a tax break.</p>
<p>Whenever you sell investments at a loss, you can offset a similar amount in gains. So if, for instance, you take a $5,000 loss for the year, but also have a $5,000 gain in a non-tax-advantaged account, the two will cancel each other out, which means you won't pay taxes on your gains. Don't have any profits to show for 2017? You can still apply up to $3,000 in losses to offset your income for the year, thus lowering your taxes that way, and carry over any unused losses to future years.</p>
<p>It'd be nice to go into 2018 debt-free, or as close to that point as possible. So if you're carrying a credit card balance, now's the time to work on making it disappear. If you have a bonus coming your way in the next few weeks, use it to eliminate whatever nagging debt you've yet to shake. Even if you can't retire your entire balance, the less debt you carry into the new year, the less you'll wind up paying in interest.</p>
<p>It's natural to get into the giving spirit as the holidays near, and while doing so will make you feel good, it can't be ignored that money contributed to a qualified charity can be deducted from your taxable income.</p>
<p>And it's not just cash that's tax-deductible: You can write off the goods you donate as well, provided you drop them off at a registered charity, retain a detailed receipt, and deduct only the fair market value of what you give away (meaning, the current value of those items, as opposed to their original value when you first obtained them).</p>
<p>But don't wait to be charitable. As the holidays near, you're apt to get busy and forget to write out that check. You'll also have less time to go through your closets or basement and scrounge up items you no longer need. So focus on those donations now, before you run out of time.</p>
<p>The financial moves you make in the coming weeks could set you up for a more successful 2018. Put in the effort now, and you'll have more to celebrate when you ring in the new year.</p>
<p>The $16,122 Social Security bonus most retirees completely overlook If you're like most Americans, you're a few years (or more) behind on your retirement savings. But a handful of little-known "Social Security secrets" could help ensure a boost in your retirement income. For example: one easy trick could pay you as much as $16,122 more... each year! Once you learn how to maximize your Social Security benefits, we think you could retire confidently with the peace of mind we're all after.&#160; <a href="http://www.fool.com/mms/mark/ecap-foolcom-social-security?aid=8727&amp;source=irreditxt0000002&amp;ftm_cam=ryr-ss-intro-report&amp;ftm_pit=3186&amp;ftm_veh=article_pitch&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;referring_guid=e4fd5b6a-cbb6-11e7-bdd7-0050569d4be0&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">Simply click here to discover how to learn more about these strategies Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>
<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;referring_guid=e4fd5b6a-cbb6-11e7-bdd7-0050569d4be0&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p> | Your 5-Point End-of-Year Financial Checklist | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/12/03/your-5-point-end-year-financial-checklist.html | 2017-12-03 | 0 |
<p>The fashion industry isn't particularly well-known for it's diversity and inclusion. When we hear the term "fashion model," we often think of tall, sleek&#160;and slender young women.</p>
<p>But there are more than a few trailblazers out there, including Alexandra Kutas. Paralyzed since birth, this Ukrainian model and accessibility advocate came to New York Fashion Week to court designers, photographers&#160;and publishers, and to show that models come in all shapes and sizes.</p>
<p>“I love to express different emotions to show real life in photos,” she says. “Fashion is alive — I never fake in pictures. If you look at my portfolio, it’s always how I really felt at the moment.”</p>
<p>By integrating disabled people into the world of fashion, Kutas says the conversation will change.</p>
<p>“Before it was kind of a stereotype: If you have a disability, you’re probably miserable, you’re suffering, or you’re not happy with your life,” she says. “But, right now, more and more [disabled] people are out there — more and more people that are successful in different kinds of areas.”</p>
<p />
<p>Model Alexandra Kutas.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1067185683295909&amp;set=t.100000703809012&amp;type=3&amp;theater" type="external">Alexandra Kutas/Andrey Sarymsakov</a></p>
<p>Kutas says that, in coming to New York, she is setting an example for other disabled people.</p>
<p>“I really want every single person who has any kind of disability to think, ‘OK, whatever my dream is, I can do it too,’” she says.</p>
<p>Though Kutas is bringing more visibility to disabled people through modeling, she says she’s also focused on raising awareness about the larger challenges facing individuals like herself.</p>
<p>“Honestly it’s more about infrastructure — a lot of things are not accessible, unfortunately, and especially in the Ukraine,” she says. “That’s the most difficult thing.”</p>
<p>Kutas, who is from Kiev, started a campaign in Ukraine to build more wheelchair ramps on sidewalks and in high population areas.</p>
<p>“You won’t see people in wheelchairs on the streets most of the time,” she says. “Usually, I joke that if you’ve seen someone [in a wheelchair in Ukraine], it’s probably me, which is a horrible thing. Right now, due to the war situation, we have more and more soldiers who are injured and who have gotten disabilities.”</p>
<p>Though she was able to overcome it, Kutas says having a disability in Ukraine has been difficult. She hopes that she can make things a little easier for the next generation.</p>
<p>“It should be different,” she says. “I believe that people, especially in my country, need such kind of change.”</p>
<p>Though the nation has been ravaged by war, Kutas says that many talented Ukrainians are looking toward the future, and are hoping to change their nation through the arts.</p>
<p>“We’re going through a tough time right now, but I believe with a laugh and some hard work, you can change things,” she says.</p>
<p />
<p>Takeaway host&#160;John Hockenberry with Alexandra Kutas.</p>
<p>The Takeaway</p>
<p>This <a href="http://www.thetakeaway.org/story/rollin/" type="external">story</a> first aired as an interview on PRI's <a href="http://www.thetakeaway.org/" type="external">The Takeaway</a>, a public radio program that invites you to be part of the American conversation.</p> | Meet a Ukrainian model blazing a new path for people with disabilities — on the runway | false | https://pri.org/stories/2016-02-18/meet-ukrainian-model-blazing-new-path-people-disabilities-runway | 2016-02-18 | 3 |
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<p>Prosecutors haven’t said whether they would accept the offer, and victims and survivors of last summer’s massacre were divided on what should be done.</p>
<p>Melisa Cowden, whose ex-husband was killed in the theater, said Wednesday she was resolutely opposed to a plea deal.</p>
<p>“He didn’t give 12 people the chance to plea bargain and say, ‘Let’s see if you’re going to shoot me or not,'” said Cowden, whose two teenage daughters were with their father when he was killed.</p>
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<p>“No. No plea bargain,” she said.</p>
<p>The attack during a crowded midnight showing of “The Dark Knight Rises” left a dozen people dead and 70 injured.</p>
<p>Prosecutors have said Holmes planned the assault for months, casing the theater complex in the Denver suburb of Aurora, amassing a small arsenal and rigging potentially deadly booby-traps in his apartment.</p>
<p>Then on July 20, he donned a police-style helmet and body armor, tossed a gas canister into the theater crowd and opened fire, prosecutors said.</p>
<p>The plea offer, made by Holmes’ lawyers on his behalf earlier this month, was disclosed a defense court filing on Wednesday. It was made public just days before the prosecution was set to announce whether they would seek the death penalty.</p>
<p>The filing didn’t include the specifics of the offer. It said only that Holmes would agree to life in prison without parole — instead of the death penalty — and didn’t mention any other concessions.</p>
<p>Pierce O’Farrill, who was shot three times, said he would welcome an agreement that would imprison Holmes for life. The years of court struggles ahead would likely be emotionally stressful for victims, he said.</p>
<p>“I don’t see his death bringing me peace,” O’Farrill said. “To me, my prayer for him was that he would spend the rest of his life in prison and hopefully, in all those years he has left, he could find God and ask for forgiveness himself.”</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Tom Sullivan, whose son Alex was killed, said he has wanted prosecutors to pursue the death penalty. But he said he wouldn’t object to a plea agreement if it avoided a lengthy court battle — and if Holmes got no privileges in prison.</p>
<p>“That was kind of a sore point with us,” he said, referring to privileges such as outside exercise or listening to music. “We didn’t think this kind of person should have any kind of privileges except the bare essentials.”</p>
<p>Holmes, a former graduate student at the University of Colorado, Denver, had seen a psychiatrist at the school before the shootings.</p>
<p>His lawyers have said he was taken to a hospital psychiatric ward in November because he was considered a threat to himself. Holmes was held there for several days and spent much of the time in restraints.</p>
<p>In their court filing, Holmes’ lawyers again said they were exploring a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity and would mount a vigorous defense if prosecutors rejected the plea offer and the case goes to trial.</p>
<p>Holmes was widely expected to enter an insanity plea at his arraignment on March 12, but his attorneys told District Judge William Sylvester they had too many questions about the constitutionality of Colorado’s death penalty and insanity statutes to advise Holmes on how to plead.</p>
<p>Sylvester then entered a plea of not guilty on Holmes’ behalf but said he could change it later to insanity if he chose.</p>
<p>The judge scheduled the trial to start Aug. 5, setting aside four weeks.</p>
<p>Doug Wilson, who heads the state public defenders’ office, told The Associated Press Wednesday that prosecutors haven’t responded to the offer. He didn’t know whether prosecutors had relayed the offer with any victims as required by state law.</p>
<p>Prosecutors declined to comment on Wednesday.</p>
<p>Dan Recht, a past president of the Colorado Criminal Defense Bar, said prosecutors likely started talking to victims long ago.</p>
<p>“The defense, by making this public pleading, is reaching out to the victims’ families,” Recht said.</p> | Colo. theater shooting suspect offers guilty plea | false | https://abqjournal.com/182829/colo-theater-shooting-suspect-offers-guilty-plea.html | 2013-03-27 | 2 |
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