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<p>SunTrust Banks (NYSE:STI) on Tuesday said it will pay nearly $1 billion to settle charges brought by federal and state regulators related to an array of allegations tied to the bank’s mortgage business in the run up to the 2008 financial crisis.</p>
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<p>In a statement, SunTrust said $500 million of the settlement will go towards consumer relief to homeowners hurt by mortgage abuses, and another $468 million will cover the penalty.</p>
<p>“Like most major financial institutions, we are addressing issues related to mortgage matters stemming from the financial crisis and recession period,” SunTrust’s CEO William H. Rogers, Jr., said in the statement.</p>
<p>Atlanta-based SunTrust said the settlement will not force the bank to take an “incremental charge.”</p>
<p>The deal was reached with the Justice Department, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and 49 state attorneys general and the District of Columbia’s attorney general.</p>
<p>SunTrust admitted that between January 2006 and March 2012, it originated and underwrote mortgages insured by the Federal Housing Administration that did not meet the agency’s requirements, the DOJ said in a statement.</p>
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<p>That means the government (taxpayers) we’re on the hook when the loans went bad.</p>
<p>“SunTrust’s irresponsible FHA lending practices caused grievous harm to homeowners and the housing market, as well as wasting hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer funds,” Assistant Attorney General for the Justice Department’s Civil Division Stuart F. Delery said in a statement.</p>
<p>In addition, SunTrust acknowledged that it failed to carry out an effective quality control program to identify non-compliant loans, and failed to self-report to HUD the defective loans it did identify.</p>
<p>SunTrust also admitted that numerous audits and other documents disseminated to its management between 2009 and 2012 described significant flaws and inadequacies in SunTrust’s origination, underwriting, and quality control processes, and notified SunTrust management that as many as 50% or more of SunTrust’s FHA-insured mortgages did not comply with FHA requirements.</p>
<p>“SunTrust’s conduct is a prime example of the widespread underwriting failures that helped bring about the financial crisis,” Attorney General Eric Holder said in a statement.</p>
<p>The agreement announced Tuesday requires SunTrust to reform is mortgage operations, including how it services mortgage loans, handles foreclosures, and ensures the accuracy of information provided in federal bankruptcy court.</p>
<p>The settlement, according to the DOJ, requires new servicing standards which will prevent past foreclosure abuses such as robo-signing, improper documentation and lost paperwork, and create dozens of new consumer protections.</p> | SunTrust In $968M Mortgage Settlement | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2014/06/17/suntrust-in-68m-mortgage-settlement.html | 2016-03-09 | 0 |
<p>Image courtesy NASA/JPL Ocean Surface Topography Team</p>
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<p>Hold onto your surfboards, <a href="" type="internal">El Niño</a> is experiencing a <a href="http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/features.cfm?feature=2358" type="external">late-fall resurgence</a>. A recent weakening of tradewinds in the western and central equatorial Pacific triggered a strong eastward wave of warm water known as a <a href="http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2002/05mar_kelvinwave.htm" type="external">Kelvin wave</a>. It’s headed to South America.</p>
<p>You can see the wave in the red-and-white line marking an area of sealevel in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific standing 4 to 7 inches higher than normal. That’s the result of <a href="" type="internal">heat expansion</a> where sea surface temperatures have risen 2 to 4 degrees Fahrenheit above normal.</p>
<p>In contrast, the western equatorial Pacific is experiencing lower than normal temperatures, with sealevels 3 to 6 inches below normal. You can see that in the blue and purple areas.</p>
<p>The image was created with data collected by a US/French Space Agency satellite (the <a href="http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/ostm/main/index.html" type="external">Ocean Surface Topography Mission/Jason-2</a> oceanography satellite) during 10 days this month.</p>
<p>Forecast: Everything gets <a href="" type="internal">wilder</a>. &#160;</p>
<p /> | El Nino Surfs Again | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2009/11/el-nino-surfs-again/ | 2009-11-14 | 4 |
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<p>Bentley, nurse Nina Pham’s King Charles spaniel, is in quarantine until Nov. 1. (City of Dallas and Dallas Animal Services/The Associated Press)</p>
<p>DALLAS – A Texas nurse who has recovered from Ebola must wait to see her King Charles spaniel, Bentley.</p>
<p>Nina Pham returned to Dallas late Friday after her release from the National Institutes of Health. She has repeatedly tested virus-free and said she was looking forward to seeing Bentley.</p>
<p>Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins said Saturday the reunion will have to wait until the dog is released Nov. 1 from a quarantine period.</p>
<p>Jenkins said officials must make sure the dog is virus-free and cannot infect others. Pham is now immune.</p>
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<p>Jenkins said veterinarians are concerned that if Pham visits the dog, it might affect Bentley’s behavior and make it harder to monitor for potential symptoms.</p>
<p>Pham contracted Ebola while caring for a Liberian man, Thomas Eric Duncan, who died Oct. 8.</p>
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<p /> | Nurse who survived Ebola must wait for dog | false | https://abqjournal.com/486353/nurse-who-survived-ebola-must-wait-for-dog.html | 2 |
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<p>WASHINGTON — A federal appeals court in Washington ruled Monday that the head of the Environmental Protection Agency overstepped his authority in trying to delay implementation of an Obama administration rule requiring oil and gas companies to monitor and reduce methane leaks.</p>
<p>In a split decision, the three-judge panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ordered the EPA to move forward with the new requirement that aims to reduce planet-warming emissions from oil and gas operations.</p>
<p>EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt announced in April that he would delay by 90 days the deadline for oil and gas companies to follow the new rule, so that the agency could reconsider the measure. The American Petroleum Institute, the Texas Oil and Gas Association and other industry groups had petitioned Pruitt to scrap the requirement, which had been set to take effect in June.</p>
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<p>Last month, Pruitt announced he intended to extend the 90-day stay for two years. A coalition of six environmental groups opposed the delay in court, urging the appeals judges to block Pruitt’s decision.</p>
<p>In a detailed 31-page ruling, the court disagreed with Pruitt’s contention that industry groups had not had sufficient opportunity to comment before the 2016 rule was enacted. The judges also said Pruitt lacked the legal authority to delay the rule from taking effect.</p>
<p>“This ruling declares EPA’s action illegal — and slams the brakes on Trump Administration’s brazen efforts to put the interests of corporate polluters ahead of protecting the public and the environment,” said David Doniger, director of climate and clean air program for the Natural Resources Defense Council.</p>
<p>EPA spokeswoman Amy Graham said the agency was reviewing the court’s opinion and examining its options. The EPA could seek to appeal the matter to the Supreme Court.</p>
<p>Natural gas is largely made up of methane, a potent greenhouse gas that traps dozens of times more heat in the planet’s atmosphere than the same amount of carbon dioxide. Environmental groups contend that actual methane emissions from leaks and intentional venting at fossil-fuel operations are many times greater than what is now publicly reported.</p>
<p>Oil and gas companies say they were already working to reduce methane emissions and that complying with the new rules would make many low-production wells unprofitable.</p>
<p>Pruitt has repeatedly moved in recent months to block or delay environmental regulations opposed by corporate interests.</p>
<p>Prior to his appointment by President Donald Trump to serve as the nation’s chief environmental regulator, Pruitt was attorney general of Oklahoma and closely aligned with the state’s oil and gas industry. In recent weeks, Pruitt has moved to scrap or delay numerous EPA regulations enacted during the Obama administration to curb air and water pollution from fossil fuel operations.</p>
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<p>Follow Associated Press environmental writer Michael Biesecker at <a href="http://www.Twitter.com/mbieseck" type="external">www.Twitter.com/mbieseck</a></p> | DC appeals court orders EPA to move ahead with methane rule | false | https://abqjournal.com/1027561/dc-appeals-court-orders-epa-to-move-ahead-with-methane-rule.html | 2017-07-03 | 2 |
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<p>SANTA FE – When New Mexico lawmakers banned the practice of retiree double dipping in 2010, the ban applied to almost all types of public employees – but not teachers.</p>
<p>A key legislative budget panel found recent increases in the number of teachers and other public sector retirees who return to work for schools or universities while still collecting their pensions – the so-called double dipping – but is not proposing any changes, at least for now.</p>
<p>The Legislative Finance Committee reported the number of retirees in the Educational Retirement Board’s “return-to-work” program has increased by 13 percent over the past three years, a figure backed up by the pension fund’s data.</p>
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<p>The LFC noted the practice is costing the state’s teacher retirement fund more than $4 million per year in contributions it cannot collect.</p>
<p>However, the money is just a small amount compared to the ERB’s total portfolio and, despite the legislative committee’s findings, the panel’s chairman said there is a good reason for keeping the current laws in place.</p>
<p>Other backers of the return-to-work program say it has provided a way to ensure that schools have enough teachers, particularly in rural areas.</p>
<p>“We think it has been helpful,” said Charles Bowyer, executive director of the National Education Association-New Mexico, a teachers union. “Our view is the return-to-work program doesn’t do any harm to the fund.”</p>
<p>In the 2013 budget year, more than 3,300 educators, administrators and other school employees around the state were working while also collecting a pension, according to the ERB. That’s up slightly from the previous two years, when there were about 3,000 such employees in each year, according to the ERB.</p>
<p>However, less than half of those employees were actually classified as participating in the ERB’s return-to-work program. Program participants receive both a salary and a pension, but must keep paying mandatory contributions into the pension fund.</p>
<p>Those not required to pay into the fund include individuals who work part-time or earn less than $15,000 a year and retired government workers under the state’s other retirement system – the Public Employees Retirement Association – who go back to work as teachers, school administrators or in higher education jobs. If those employees had been required to pay into the fund, the sum would have amounted to more than $4 million during the 2013 budget year.</p>
<p>The ability for PERA retirees to go back to work for schools and universities, collect both their pension and a salary and not have to make contributions into the ERB fund has been described as an unintended loophole in the 2010 double dipping bill.</p>
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<p>Law change required</p>
<p>The teacher retirement system cannot unilaterally do away with its return-to-work program or require that all retired employees who are rehired pay into the fund, ERB Executive Director Jan Goodwin said.</p>
<p>Instead, the Legislature would have to set limits or make changes to the practice, as it did for PERA employees in 2010.</p>
<p>“It would take statutory changes to collect those contributions,” Goodwin said. “It’s not that we’re not doing our due diligence.”</p>
<p>Goodwin also said the $4 million figure cited by the Legislative Finance Committee in a recent report represents less than 1 percent of the ERB’s total value – investments overseen by the pension fund totaled $10.6 billion as of Oct. 31.</p>
<p>As such, a change in the return-to-work rules would not have a major impact in improving the ERB’s future solvency projections, Goodwin said.</p>
<p>“It would help,” she said. “It would not make a significant difference.”</p>
<p>But Bowyer said it would be “unfair” to do away with the return-to-work program and make retirees who only work part-time – such as substitute teachers – pay into the pension fund.</p>
<p>ERB problem different</p>
<p>The legislative ban on double dipping for PERA retirees was enacted in 2010, after the practice came under fire from labor unions and other critics for straining the retirement fund and stifling internal promotions.</p>
<p>The bill, which was signed into law by then-Gov. Bill Richardson, grandfathered in roughly 1,500 double dippers, meaning they could continue receiving both a salary and a pension.</p>
<p>“There was a major problem of PERA employees coming back and blocking others’ upward mobility,” said Rep. Luciano “Lucky” Varela, D-Santa Fe, the chairman of the LFC and a chief architect of the legislation.</p>
<p>“ERB had a different problem,” he said. “They couldn’t recruit teachers.”</p>
<p>Indeed, the PERA return-to-work program differed from the ERB program in several aspects, including the fact that it only required retirees to sit out for three months’ time before returning to work. In order to qualify for the ERB return-to-work program, an employee must remain retired for at least one year before landing a new job.</p>
<p>Varela also said he’s not aware of any legislative proposals to change the ERB return-to-work rules.</p>
<p>The first day to pre-file legislation for the upcoming 30-day legislative session is Dec. 16.</p>
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<p /> | Double dipping by teachers is on the rise | false | https://abqjournal.com/316573/double-dipping-by-teachers-is-on-the-rise.html | 2 |
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<p>Your daily look at late-breaking news, upcoming events and the stories that will be talked about today:</p>
<p>1. FBI ARRESTS MAN WHO PLANNED TO BOMB CAPITOL</p>
<p>The 20-year-old Ohio resident allegedly plotted to “wage jihad”, expressed support for the Islamic State group, and was arrested after buying two semi-automatic rifles.</p>
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<p>2. NEW INTERNET THREAT IN FRANCE</p>
<p>The country’s top cyberdefense official says about 19,000 French websites have suffered cyberattacks in the days since a rampage by Islamic extremists left 20 dead.</p>
<p>3. WHAT THE POPE CONSIDERS HIS MISSION IN HIS VISIT TO ASIA</p>
<p>Francis says he will focus on the poor, the exploited and victims of injustice during his four-day trip to the Philippines.</p>
<p>4. “BIRDMAN” AND “THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL” GET THE MOST OSCAR NOMINATIONS</p>
<p>They were tied with nine nods each, including best picture.</p>
<p>5. SHIFT AT TARGET</p>
<p>The retail giant says it will shut down 133-store Canadian operation after its failed expansion.</p>
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<p>6. HOUSE VOTES TO ROLL BACK IMMIGRATION MOVES</p>
<p>Undoing Obama’s executive actions would expose hundreds of thousands of younger immigrants to expulsion from the U.S.</p>
<p>7. CLIMBERS REACH SUMMIT AT YOSEMITE</p>
<p>Tommy Caldwell and Kevin Jorgeson become the first to free-climb the 3,000-foot granite pedestal of El Capitan — a feat that many had considered impossible.</p>
<p>8. SHAKEUP FOLLOWS SECRET SERVICE MISTAKES</p>
<p>Four high-ranking executives have been reassigned, the biggest leadership shift since the agency’s director was forced to quit last year.</p>
<p>9. HARUKI MURAKAMI OPENS UP ONLINE</p>
<p>The publicity-shy novelist, who is a perennial candidate for the Nobel Prize, will answer questions readers pose on a website until the end of the month.</p>
<p>10. WHO IS FLYING THE LATEST JET</p>
<p>Qatar Airways’ first flight of the state-of-the-art Airbus A350 is taking passengers from the gas-rich nation’s capital Doha to Frankfurt.</p>
<p>—</p>
<p>Took out—</p>
<p>10. WHAT’S THE LATEST SIGN HILLARY CLINTON WILL RUN IN 2016</p>
<p>She’s recruiting veterans of Obama’s two successful White House campaigns as she builds her team for an expected presidential bid.</p> | 10 Things to Know for Today | false | https://abqjournal.com/526611/10-things-to-know-for-today-2.html | 2 |
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<p>MELBOURNE (Reuters) – Twice champion Victoria Azarenka has been given a wildcard for next month’s Australian Open, organizers said on Wednesday.</p>
<p>Azarenka, who won the Melbourne Park title in 2012 and 2013, returned to the WTA Tour in June after having a baby, but has been involved in a custody battle that has prevented her from playing since Wimbledon.</p>
<p>She withdrew from the U.S. Open and the Fed Cup final, which Belarus lost to the United States. She is currently ranked 210 in the world.</p>
<p>“Vika’s current situation is obviously very difficult for her and we have reached out to offer any support we can,” Australian Open tournament director Craig Tiley said in a statement.</p>
<p>“As a two-time Australian Open champion we’ve awarded her a wildcard and look forward to seeing her back on court in Melbourne in January.”</p>
<p>Azarenka said she was thankful for the opportunity to return to Melbourne Park and hoped it would kick-start the year for her.</p>
<p>“I’m so excited about coming back to Melbourne for the Australian Open, its my favorite tournament,” she said.</p>
<p>“I’ve won there twice and always feel so comfortable on court and the city is great.</p>
<p>“Its been a tough year and being able to come back to the AO will be a really positive way to start 2018.”</p>
<p>The tournament runs from Jan 15-28.</p>
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<p>Fusion Media or anyone involved with Fusion Media will not accept any liability for loss or damage as a result of reliance on the information including data, quotes, charts and buy/sell signals contained within this website. Please be fully informed regarding the risks and costs associated with trading the financial markets, it is one of the riskiest investment forms possible.</p> | Azarenka given wildcard for Australian Open | false | https://newsline.com/azarenka-given-wildcard-for-australian-open/ | 2017-12-12 | 1 |
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<p>Unanswered questions about Tony Rezko, a friend and contributor, who is <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Obama.html?scp=1&amp;sq=Rezko&amp;st=nyt" type="external">now on trial</a> for corruption and extortion. Contradicted denials about a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/04/us/politics/04nafta.html?em&amp;ex=1204779600&amp;en=bc1674b80a8eb1e3&amp;ei=5087%0A" type="external">campaign adviser’s contact</a> with the Canadian government concerning NAFTA. And don’t forget that lack of experience on national security.</p>
<p>The Hillary Clinton campaign seems rather satisfied with its current lines of attack against Barack Obama. On this morning’s conference call with reporters, as voters in Ohio, Texas, Rhode Island, and Vermont were hitting the polls, top Clinton aides hammered these points repeatedly, noting they were pleased that reporters covering Obama were beginning to ask him about these matters. Obama has “credibility questions,” asserted Phil Singer, who handles opposition research for the Clinton campaign. Howard Wolfson, the communications director, made much of the fact that the Obama campaign had sent an aide to take notes at the trial of Rezko, a developer indicted on corruption charges. His trial began yesterday. The aide’s presence “belies the fact,” Wolfson maintained, that Obama has downplayed his relationship with Rezko, who helped raised about $150,000 for Obama and who bought a strip of property next to Obama’s home.</p>
<p>The Clintonites suggested that Obama could be a witness in the trial–though the list of expected witnesses made public on Monday did not include the Illinois senator–and Wolfson noted that Obama will continue to be “dogged by questions” related to Rezko unless he “answers them fully.” Due to these “unanswered questions,” Wolfson said, Democratic voters will not want to seal the deal with Obama.</p>
<p>The Obama campaign insists it has come clean on Rezko. Obama has said he was dumb to have participated in a real estate transaction with Rezko when it was publicly known he was under investigation. The campaign gave to charity the $150,000 in Rezko-related donations Obama. Its position: there are no unanswered questions about Obama and Rezko. Bill Burton, an Obama campaign spokesperson, says, “After months of reporting and the many questions asked and answered, it is well established that this is not a case about Senator Obama. Senator Obama knew Tony Rezko for two decades in very different circumstances, none of which involve the actions with which Mr. Rezko has been charged.”</p>
<p>Still, the Clinton campaign claims there are “major questions.” Such as, did Obama do favor for Rezko’s business partners? Did Rezko help Obama allies get jobs? It could be that the answer to such questions is a simple “no.” There’s no evidence that has yet emerge to back up allegations of this sort. But that does not stop the Clinton campaign from posing questions and then claiming they are unresolved.</p>
<p>The bigger question is, will this matter to Democratic voters? As the Clinton aides discuss the Rezko case, the NAFTA dustup, and their recent assault on Obama’s national security experience, it seems that they finally believe they have managed to grab hold of Obama’s tail. But there’s no way of knowing if voters are paying attention to these attacks and if such matters will be a drag on Obama. (He has taken a <a href="/mojoblog/archives/2008/03/7461_clinton_attacks.html" type="external">a dip</a> in the Texas polls.) If Obama does not fare well in Ohio, Texas, Rhode Island and Vermont, the Clintonites will argue that the “unanswered questions” have slowed him down, and they will keep on firing them at Obama, as the campaign heads toward Pennsylvania on April 22 (188 delegates!). But if Obama wins one of the big states or more, he–that is, the voters–will answer the question about the “unanswered questions.” Then what will the Clinton campaign ask next?</p>
<p /> | Clintonites Claims “Unanswered Questions” Dog Obama; Obama Camp Says No; Voters to Decide | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2008/03/clintonites-claims-unanswered-questions-dog-obama-obama-camp-says-no-voters-decide/ | 2008-03-04 | 4 |
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<p>SANTA FE, N.M. — Seeking solutions to ongoing complaints, a local tourism advisory board agreed Thursday to ask the city of Santa Fe to create a task force to find ways to give the City Different’s weak nightlife a shot of adrenaline.</p>
<p>The plan grew out of an early morning meeting of the Santa Fe Occupancy Tax Advisory Board (OTAB) that attracted nearly 60 late-night and music enthusiasts.</p>
<p>“I’ve been on this board for 17 years and we’ve rarely had more than five people (in attendance) so this is kind of an exciting day for us,” board chair Miguel Castillo marveled.</p>
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<p>But it took the board, which makes recommendations to the City Council on how to spend more than $7 million the city collects annually in lodgers taxes, an hour to plow through other business, and attendance and energy waned by the time a public hearing kicked off two hours later.</p>
<p>R.J. Laino, a scheduled speaker, outlined a seven-point plan for improving local nightlife that included ideas such as the task force, educating service industry workers on how to make entertainment recommendations and creating transportation options to facilitate nighttime activities, including shuttle service.</p>
<p>“You can’t just market nightlife; there has to be one. Part of the reason nightlife is sinking is that we’re sticking with that first shift (of older tourists) and they just don’t go out and spend as much money,” Laino said.</p>
<p>If Santa Fe doesn’t provide the younger demographic with the events they want, “they will tell the rest of the world through Facebook this is not the place to be,” he said.</p>
<p>Laino said OTAB took up a similar challenge with shifting tourist demographics more than three decades ago and succeeded in helping make Santa Fe a “cool” destination in the 1980s.</p>
<p>Organizations like the Santa Fe Opera and Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival thrived in part because “OTAB got behind it year after year,” Laino said.</p>
<p>“This town rocked in the 1980s and OTAB led the way by funding a different approach to marketing and tourism,” he said.</p>
<p>The same support isn’t being funneled into current efforts to create excitement in Santa Fe, he added.</p>
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<p>Shannon Murphy, another scheduled speaker, advocated for more support for the city’s music scene.</p>
<p>A survey conducted some time back by MIX Santa Fe indicates that younger Santa Feans are dissatisfied with nightlife and local music options, she said. The After Hours Alliance has been organized to tackle the problem.</p>
<p>But obstacles include not enough music venues, a lack of nighttime public transportation, and Santa Fe’s relatively small population, Murphy noted. “You can’t have an ambitious music scene without tourism in a town this size,” she said.</p>
<p>“I don’t want to ask OTAB to solve all the problems in the music scene, but I do feel like OTAB has a stake in building Santa Fe as a music destination. Rather than asking for something, I’d like to offer to help,” she said.</p>
<p>Murphy and Laino emphasized that if locals find nightlife in Santa Fe lacking, tourists do, too.</p>
<p>OTAB board members tried to broaden the scope of the task force, which also will look at general entertainment in addition to nightlife.</p>
<p>Gallery owner Mary Bonney said she wants the group to be about more than music and night-specific events and would like to see the Canyon Road Gallery Association included in discussions.</p>
<p>Jon Hendry said he wants to see some related social issues examined. He suggested funding for efforts could come from a 10-cent surcharge on alcoholic drinks.</p>
<p>The Santa Fe City Council will have the final say on whether to create the task force. City Councilor Rebecca Wurzburger, who attended Thursday’s meeting, said she would bring the motion forward.</p> | Energizing City Nightlife Debated | false | https://abqjournal.com/127564/energizing-city-nightlife-debated.html | 2012-08-31 | 2 |
<p>Aug. 28 (UPI) — A lion that attempted to sneak up on a baby rhino in South Africa went away hungry when its earned a swift rebuke from the animal’s mother.</p>
<p>The video, filmed Aug. 19 near Carnarvon, shows the young male lion hiding in a bush as the mother and baby rhinoceros walk past.</p>
<p>The lion springs into action once the other animals have their backs turned, and attempts to pounce on the baby rhino.</p>
<p>The lion makes contact with the rhino, but quickly jumps back off when the mother turns to face it. The baby runs off, and the mother ends up pursuing her young instead of staying to fight with the failed predator.</p> | Mother foils lion's attempt to make meal out of baby rhino | false | https://newsline.com/mother-foils-lions-attempt-to-make-meal-out-of-baby-rhino/ | 2017-08-28 | 1 |
<p>Emergency manager Kevyn Orr says it would have cost the city big to fight bond insurer Syncora Inc.'s challenges to Detroit's bankruptcy.</p>
<p>Orr testified Thursday in Detroit's bankruptcy trial that legal fees were anticipated at $5 million to $10 million.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>He told federal Judge Steven Rhodes that Syncora opposed the city's use of some casino tax revenue, Detroit's bankruptcy eligibility and a loan to improve quality of life in the city.</p>
<p>The challenges were settled with a Sept. 9 deal with the city. Syncora is getting cash and long-term leases on a parking garage and the tunnel between Detroit and Canada, among other concessions.</p>
<p>Rhodes is to decide whether Orr's plan to remove $7 billion in debt is fair to creditors. Syncora now supports the city's debt plan.</p> | Kevyn Orr testifies that bond insurer challenges to Detroit bankruptcy would have been costly | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2014/10/02/kevyn-orr-testifies-that-bond-insurer-challenges-to-detroit-bankruptcy-would.html | 2016-03-09 | 0 |
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<p>Image source: WeChat.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>WeChat is rapidly closing in on 1 billion users. Last quarter, the messaging app owned by Tencent (NASDAQOTH: TCEHY) added 40 million new users to reach 846 million.</p>
<p>Tencent was once reliant on revenue from PC games and subscriptions to its social network QZone. With more and more mobile users, though, WeChat has become a central launch pad for Tencent's further revenue growth. WeChat is driving growth in all of Tencent's reported categories: online advertising, value-added services, and its catchall "others" segment, which includes payments.</p>
<p>Tencent reported third-quarter results on Nov. 16. In the quarter, Tencent's online advertising revenue grew 51%. Management said that performance-based advertising, in which users pay for the results they get, grew 83% year over year. Management attributed that growth primarily to advertisements within Weixin Moments and Weixin Official Accounts.</p>
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<p>Weixin Moments is Tencent's answer to Facebook's (NASDAQ: FB) News Feed. Facebook is blocked in China, so Moments has much less competition. The functionality is extremely similar to News Feed, with users mostly sharing photos and links with their circle of friends.</p>
<p>Tencent opened advertising on Moments to big brands at the beginning of last year, and to all advertisers in August of last year. As such, Tencent may see a slowdown in the growth of its performance-based advertising now that it's lapped the advertising rollout. But with the relative infancy of its advertising program, Tencent likely still has some levers to pull to continue growing -- not to mention user growth is still fantastic.</p>
<p>That stands in contrast to Facebook's more mature advertising business. Facebook management recently warned that its ad load is nearly saturated, and it expects a meaningful slowdown in ad revenue growth because of that. At the same time, Facebook's growth over the last few years is exemplary of the potential in WeChat's Moments advertising.</p>
<p>On the flip side, Facebook is now trying to emulate WeChat's success with Official Accounts. Official Accounts are more like chatbots that have access to special functions of WeChat like payments or location data. Official Accounts can opt to send updates to users and pay an advertising fee if users click through to read full posts.</p>
<p>WeChat also monetizes the accounts by taking a cut of payments. Facebook has yet to monetize its 30,000-plus chatbots, but it recently opened its payments API to developers.</p>
<p>While WeChat isn't directly tied to Tencent's success with smartphone games, part of Tencent's strategy is to "deepen user stickiness via broadened product offering." If WeChat is the hub of users' smartphones, it presents an excellent launchpad from which to sell users into its mobile games and deepen brand recognition.</p>
<p>Smartphone game revenue climbed 87% year over year last quarter to 9.9 million RMB, accounting for more than one-third of Tencent's total value-added services revenue. Tencent's PC gaming revenue bookings increased just 10% year over year, and active users declined 9%.</p>
<p>Mobile gaming should continue to drive Tencent's VAS revenue for some time. It recently bought Clash of Clans developer Supercell, and it's porting popular PC titles to mobile. It's also investing in eSports tournaments to drive adoption of and engagement in its games.</p>
<p>Tencent's payments business is lumped in with its cloud computing and other businesses. The entire segment grew revenue a whopping 348% last quarter, and it now accounts for 12% of Tencent's total revenue.</p>
<p>WeChat is one of the biggest drivers of payments revenue, with more and more stores accepting payment through the app. Tencent operates the No. 2 online payment platform in China between Weixin Pay and QQWallet,but more and more bricks-and-mortar stores are starting to accept Weixin Pay as well. 700,000 merchants participated in Tencent's "Cash-Free Day" in August.</p>
<p>But Tencent doesn't expect to generate much of a profit off of payments. Instead, it sees payments as a way to increase the stickiness of its products. Management described it as an "infrastructure" for the entire Tencent ecosystem -- WeChat, games, etc.</p>
<p>With WeChat's steady user growth driving revenue growth across all of Tencent's main segments, total revenue increased 52% year over year. With plenty of room left in performance-based advertising, mobile gaming, and payments, investors should expect revenue growth to remain relatively strong despite a falloff in growth of its legacy PC gaming revenue.</p>
<p>10 stocks we like better than Tencent Holdings ADR When investing geniuses David and Tom Gardner have a stock tip, it can pay to listen. After all, the newsletter they have run for over a decade, Motley Fool Stock Advisor, has tripled the market.*</p>
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<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/adamlevy/info.aspx" type="external">Adam Levy Opens a New Window.</a> has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Facebook. 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> | WeChat's 846 Million Users Are Fueling Tencent's Growth | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/11/26/wechat-846-million-users-are-fueling-tencent-growth.html | 2016-11-26 | 0 |
<p>On this <a href="https://www.fool.com/podcasts/marketfoolery/?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;uuid=ab66268c-6722-11e7-abaa-0050569d32b9&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">Market Foolery Opens a New Window.</a> podcast, host Chris Hill and Motley Fool Rule Breakers' Aaron Bush discuss how the cheesy marketing stunt that is Amazon&#160;(NASDAQ: AMZN) Prime Day has proven to be genius for the e-commerce giant. They also consider whether all the nation's newspapers bargaining en masse could staunch the flow of ad money to Facebook (NASDAQ: FB)&#160;and Alphabet&#160;(NASDAQ: GOOG) (NASDAQ: GOOGL)&#160;subsidiary&#160;Google. Finally, the duo explain why we should be paying attention to an obscure genetic engineering technology that may not be so obscure for much longer.</p>
<p>A full transcript follows the video.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>10 stocks we like better than FacebookWhen 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 July 6, 2017</p>
<p>This video was recorded on July 11, 2017.</p>
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<p>Chris Hill: It's&#160;Tuesday, July 11. Welcome to Market Foolery! I'm Chris Hill. Joining me in studio today, from&#160;Motley Fool Rule Breakers, Aaron Bush. Happy Prime Day!</p>
<p>Aaron Bush: Happy Prime Day!</p>
<p>Hill:&#160;I saw on&#160;Twitter&#160;that&#160;it's an actual prime number day. It's 07-11-2017.</p>
<p>Bush: Sounds right.</p>
<p>Hill: I&#160;like to think that somewhere, Jeff Bezos knew that.</p>
<p>Bush: It's&#160;part of his master plan.</p>
<p>Hill:&#160;I wasn't even chalking it up to a master plan,&#160;he just seems geeky enough that he's excited that on Amazon Prime Day,&#160;it's actually a prime number. We're&#160;going to talk about Prime Day, we're also going to&#160;get into the looming battle between&#160;Google&#160;and&#160;Facebook&#160;and what appears to be every newspaper in the United States of America. And we're going to talk about&#160;CRISPR, and the first thing we'll do with&#160;CRISPR is explain what CRISPR is. Some&#160;of you may already know. I was completely in the dark on this. But, let's&#160;start with Prime Day. This is dominating the business media today because,&#160;this started two years ago on Amazon's 20th&#160;anniversary as a company. You and I were talking yesterday,&#160;and I confessed to you that,&#160;even as an Amazon shareholder, when Prime Day came up two years ago,&#160;I just remember thinking,"This seems kind of cheesy." I get it, it's their 20th&#160;anniversary, but it just seems like a pretty&#160;shameless way to get people to sign up for Amazon Prime.&#160;As an investor,&#160;I should have been thinking, "Look! A&#160;great way to get people into Amazon Prime!" And&#160;even though they had problems in 2015, and frankly, the&#160;press coverage wasn't all that positive, either, this is one of those things that only takes us two years --&#160;some people saw it in the moment -- but now, we can look back and say, "This was yet another master stroke by Amazon."</p>
<p>Bush: Yeah. I think Prime Day is a bigger deal than&#160;people think it is. Absolutely, it helps acquire new customers, new Prime&#160;members. But I think&#160;that's probably actually most relevant internationally. If you think, India or Mexico, where they're newer and haven't really won over the space yet, having Prime Day is&#160;something that no one else can really do, so&#160;it attracts a lot of attention. Also, they can use Prime Day to leverage the members they already have.&#160;I was just looking this year,&#160;it seems to be all about the Echo. I won't say the A-word.</p>
<p>Hill: Yes. It has been helpfully pointed out by some of our listeners that, you need to call the Amazon Echo by its name, which is the Amazon Echo. If you say, as Aaron said, the A-word, then for&#160;anyone who&#160;actually listening on their Echo, it activates the Echo and messes up the listening. So, thank you.</p>
<p>Bush: Absolutely. Anyway, when&#160;consumers who have an Echo are&#160;able to get deals earlier, and&#160;sometimes they have more Echo-specific deals, and of course the Echos are on sale, too,&#160;so it's just driving what they want to be driven. Then,&#160;lastly, and I think this is probably a bit more&#160;under the radar, this actually affects the sellers, too. Over the past several quarters,&#160;there's been an acceleration of third-party sellers who are moving their&#160;services to fulfillment by Amazon,&#160;in which case they can take advantage of the manufacturing and the&#160;logistics, and be eligible on Prime. What's&#160;really interesting to me is, if you play Prime Day forward,&#160;you can see how they can add more&#160;tactics and strategy to it&#160;whenever they launch a new service or device. Even&#160;this Whole Foods&#160;deal, think about what they could do with Prime Day for that. Or, even&#160;the past couple weeks, they brought&#160;Nike&#160;on and&#160;built a storefront for Nike,&#160;or are going to. Bigger customers, bigger brands&#160;could also have a presence on Prime Day, too. So, I think Prime Day is just getting started.</p>
<p>Hill: If you think back to, again,&#160;for those who weren't paying attention in 2015 when this happened, you saw, on balance,&#160;negative coverage of this. Even&#160;people in the business media were saying, "We&#160;don't know exactly how many new Prime members they signed up,&#160;but they probably signed up a bunch, so long-term this was a win." But,&#160;short-term, Amazon took a little bit of a reputational hit,&#160;because there were some technical glitches,&#160;there were a lot of accusations of bait and switch,&#160;similar to what we see on Black Friday with&#160;traditional bricks-and-mortar retailers, where they're&#160;advertising the 90-inch flat screen TV to get you in the door&#160;and they only have a few of them on hand, and it's like, "We don't have those," those same&#160;kinds of things.&#160;I remember people were generating lists of&#160;pretty absurd, esoteric products that were on sale for Prime Day that you would look at and think, "Who is buying this 55-gallon tub of&#160;Vaseline?"</p>
<p>Bush: Hey, don't judge.&#160;[laughs]</p>
<p>Hill: But, it does, as you&#160;talked about, if you play this forward,&#160;you can think about the different things they can do with it. In a way, Amazon's first Prime Day was&#160;always going to be their worst,&#160;in terms of the experience,&#160;because they do what they do at Amazon, which is they put&#160;something out there and then they say, "OK,&#160;this worked, this didn't,&#160;how do we make it better?" Way&#160;back in the day when they were just focused on, "What&#160;does the main page of Amazon look like? What&#160;are people clicking on? How do we make the experience more seamless?" I'm&#160;going to be doing some shopping tonight. I didn't do it on either of the last two. But,&#160;again, they've gotten better at it.</p>
<p>Bush: Yeah. If you need any ideas,&#160;I have a couple for you that I pulled in. The&#160;Roomba, today, I noticed, 33% off. You can get yeti&#160;garden statues for 30% off.</p>
<p>Hill: Wait a minute,&#160;the yeti garden statue,&#160;I've only ever seen that in,&#160;I'm blanking on the name, but there used to be this magazine you would get,&#160;it was a catalog you would get on airlines, and&#160;there would be a yeti statue. Is this the big one? The&#160;6-foot yeti statue?</p>
<p>Bush:&#160;I think so. There are various versions, and&#160;you can get them all.</p>
<p>Hill:&#160;33% off?</p>
<p>Bush:&#160;I think it's more like 30% off. Still.</p>
<p>Hill: All right. Get with me right after the episode, because&#160;anyone who's ever walked around Fool&#160;headquarters knows that a large yeti statue would not be out of place in a corner somewhere.</p>
<p>Let's&#160;move on to the news business. As&#160;I mentioned,&#160;this is going to be something to watch. This is,&#160;newspaper publishers, through their&#160;trade association, which is&#160;the&#160;News Media Alliance,&#160;and if you're old like me&#160;you remember back in the day&#160;this was the Newspaper Association of America.</p>
<p>The News Media Alliance, which&#160;represents 2,000 newspapers in the U.S. and Canada --&#160;including, by the way, The&#160;Wall Street Journal,&#160;and this is a story from the Journal,&#160;so you have to assume that they are at least tacitly involved in this --&#160;newspaper publishes are calling on&#160;the United States Congress to allow them to&#160;negotiate collectively with Google and Facebook as&#160;what they are&#160;calling a digital duopoly which&#160;increasingly&#160;dominates online advertising and news distribution. And that part is not new,&#160;this is something we've talked about a bunch of times before. The growth in&#160;digital advertising over the last year or two has been captured almost entirely, if not entirely, by&#160;Google and Facebook. Now, you have&#160;every newspaper in North America essentially going to the Congress and saying, "The old&#160;antitrust rules that are in place here don't apply,&#160;we would like a waiver for this." I don't know. The thing about&#160;members of Congress is,&#160;every one of them has a bunch of newspapers back in their&#160;district or home state. It will be interesting to see where this goes. If you're Google and Facebook,&#160;are you worried about this at all? Are you&#160;putting your lawyers on this to any significant degree? Or,&#160;do you just think, this isn't really going anywhere?</p>
<p>Bush:&#160;I don't think it's going to go anywhere. It's&#160;kind of interesting&#160;because of the legal angle on it,&#160;how it could have an effect for the newspapers. But&#160;at the end of the day, I think what they're pushing for doesn't make any sense at all. And their argument, in my opinion, is built off a myth. And the myth is,&#160;Facebook and Google are using their dominance to&#160;purposefully harm traditional media companies, and&#160;that's just not true at all. There's&#160;nothing purposeful about it.</p>
<p>Hill: It&#160;might be a byproduct,&#160;but it's not the goal.</p>
<p>Bush: It's the new rules of&#160;playing a new game. If you think about it,&#160;Google and Facebook are digital aggregators here, and&#160;the economics of content&#160;fundamentally changes on aggregated platforms. So,&#160;it's not wrongdoing in any way at all,&#160;it's just a new reality. And that new reality means that&#160;newspapers and other media companies have no choice but to engage in perfect competition on those sites,&#160;because it's just a void that needs to be filled on people's timelines. That&#160;essentially means commodity products with zero marginal cost. And&#160;the main issue here for the&#160;publishers is that they're still built for the old way of doing things, not the new one. They have large fixed costs -- salaries, marketing, budgets, all that kind of stuff -- and&#160;they're still reliant on a daily basis on the&#160;traffic and data that the aggregators have,&#160;just so that they can stay afloat.</p>
<p>What the News Media Alliance is pushing for is essentially an escape from perfect competition, and begging for a way to make the old business model still work in a completely new world. But, the truth that I think is maybe a little too understood is that newspapers made money in the past not by adding&#160;societal value. They made it by,&#160;perhaps ironically, having monopolistic control&#160;of print advertising in&#160;whatever geographic region they were in. And&#160;why Facebook and Google are so powerful here&#160;is because they stole newspapers' advertising&#160;dollars, not their reporting. So,&#160;it's really just a simple business model problem. And none of that is going to change. What&#160;would be needed for this to change is&#160;fundamentally altering the way that Facebook feeds work, or Google searches work in&#160;the first place, and that's just not going to happen. So,&#160;I think what we're going to see is&#160;probably a fallout even more in newspapers,&#160;but those who survive will be the ones that can prove that their content is good enough and can&#160;attract enough attention that&#160;people are willing to pay for it. So,&#160;only the people that have subscriptions will stay alive, but they're still struggling.</p>
<p>Hill: And if you look at&#160;the&#160;The New York Times&#160;and&#160;The Washington&#160;Post, just to name two, and the strides that those two&#160;newspapers have made when it comes to digital subscriptions --&#160;The Washington Post is no longer a public company,&#160;but you can read the tea leaves of their business,&#160;particularly since Jeff Bezos bought them, and see that they appear to be having a similar level of success that The&#160;New York Times, which is a public company, is having in terms of digital subscriptions. The other thing, which is not a part of this, this is something that has&#160;nothing to do with Google and Facebook and everything to do with&#160;Craigslist, and that is want ads. Newspapers, as you said, once upon a time, they had this locality-by-locality&#160;monopoly on print advertising and want ads. And&#160;Craigslist came along and&#160;absolutely decimated that&#160;for the newspaper industry. And that was&#160;such a cash machine for so many newspapers. So, that's another thing. Even&#160;if this is successful for newspapers, let's say that Congress totally backs them on this,&#160;let's say that everything breaks their way, they're&#160;still not going to get close to the levels of profitability that they had when their want ad sections were really fat.</p>
<p>Bush: No,&#160;not at all. And I do think there will be a shakeup&#160;also in the sense that new&#160;business models will emerge, meaning that new players will emerge, too. I think,&#160;a lot of times, the traditional players have a really hard time changing their plans to fit how things will work in the future,&#160;but that also creates a void&#160;for those who are more social media-native,&#160;like the&#160;Buzzfeeds&#160;of the world, also,&#160;take over and carve out some space for themselves.</p>
<p>Hill: So,&#160;every once in awhile,&#160;I like to walk by your desk and ask you, "What&#160;are you working on right now? What's something that's caught your interest?" And you had brought up this,&#160;[laughs] frankly,&#160;you brought up a word I had never heard before, and that is CRISPR. I should say, an&#160;acronym I'd never seen before. CRISPR stands for --&#160;stick with me, folks -- clustered&#160;regularly interspaced&#160;short palindromic repeats. Let's do this again, shall we? CRISPR:&#160;clustered regularly interspaced&#160;short palindromic&#160;repeats, which is&#160;essentially a very fancy way of referring to biotech engineering.</p>
<p>The&#160;analogy that our colleague Michael Douglass mentioned to me, and also appeared&#160;in the article I read is that,&#160;imagine a DNA strand,&#160;and you have this microscopic pair of scissors, and it enables you to snip out one little piece of the DNA,&#160;and you can do any number of things with that,&#160;depending on which DNA we're talking about. This&#160;potentially has ramifications for food supply, for disease, for&#160;medicines, for treatments, all that sort of thing. Tell me&#160;where this space is right now, and&#160;what you're watching when it comes to this space. Biotech engineering has been, I would say, maybe not at the forefront of the news,&#160;but certainly 15 years ago or so, when we were going to sequence the human genome, what&#160;that was such a dominant story, I think since then, this is an industry that investors have&#160;at least had on their radar&#160;to some degree or another.</p>
<p>Bush: Right.&#160;I think it's still new enough to&#160;not be super relevant for investors. But&#160;every day or week that passes by, it&#160;becomes slightly more&#160;relevant. I think for the most part, the&#160;progress has been mostly restricted to labs,&#160;getting the fundamental technology itself to work,&#160;where you can actually change the genes in whatever creature. But,&#160;it is starting to move out more into the mainstream,&#160;and it's starting to become more relevant and&#160;creating cures for diseases and&#160;actually doing things with it. In my opinion, it's&#160;kind of like a big idea at this point. There isn't a lot to back it up. But,&#160;if you do play it forward, it is one of those really big ideas. It's&#160;probably on par&#160;with augmented reality, or machine learning, or cryptocurrencies, even, that can just disrupt the way that things are done at a fundamental level. So, I'm excited to see where it runs. But it's&#160;still definitely the early days.</p>
<p>Hill: And that was&#160;another thing Michael Douglass mentions. He said, "This is super early stage," and there are pure-play&#160;companies out there, one of which was&#160;smart enough to get the name&#160;CRISPR Therapeutics, so kudos to&#160;whoever nailed that one. But,&#160;you were saying before we started taping that there's a move right now to create a patent pool, because you could see where, for some companies,&#160;this could become incredibly lucrative. You could also see a situation where --&#160;and it sounds like this is maybe&#160;part of what is driving the move toward a patent pool --&#160;everything could just get tangled up in legal "he-said, she-said, that's my patent" stuff.</p>
<p>Bush: Right. One of the main blockers to the development of CRISPR is an ongoing fight over patent rights.&#160;I think we're at the&#160;point where things are getting slow&#160;and getting caught up legally. As you can imagine,&#160;there are several universities, labs,&#160;biotech companies just&#160;clamoring over this, trying to pile on&#160;as quickly as possible, because it is going to be&#160;one of the next big things. And right now,&#160;there are a few exclusive licenses&#160;that are probably too broad in the market, and should probably be re-evaluated so that there aren't specific gatekeepers to the technology. So, yeah, this needs to form a patent pool and simplify the&#160;licensing process, could ease that patent logjam and really help&#160;accelerate CRISPR's development&#160;across everything, across the entire space. So, right now,&#160;this is still at the proposal level, and&#160;I don't know how quickly that's going to move,&#160;because there are a lot of players here. There's still negotiation to be done, but if&#160;the negotiations go well,&#160;I think this could start to become much more relevant for investors sooner. And&#160;something with the biotech space in general is, you do need to invest early to get the big results. And if you wait until there's a drug on the market that works, you just missed a several-billion-dollar run-up. So, it is&#160;important to be watching these early moves. And&#160;seeing how all the different players, the&#160;Editas, the CRISPR&#160;Therapeutics, and others, how&#160;they're going to shake out in this patent pool issue.</p>
<p>Hill: It sounds like, as investors, we should be rooting for the patent pool to come to fruition, because that's going to&#160;accelerate the process, instead of being --&#160;and I'm just pulling these numbers out of thin air -- 10 years away from&#160;treatments being on the market, we are five to seven years away.</p>
<p>Bush: Yeah.&#160;I think it's hard to put specific numbers on it, but yes,&#160;that's definitely the idea. It'll allow companies to&#160;more quickly start building their own&#160;technologies and their own patents on top of a larger pool that's available to everyone.</p>
<p>Hill: To make this both more real and more fun, one&#160;example that I dug up&#160;when I was clicking around this morning, an&#160;article from Scientific American --&#160;which is six years old, by the way. I'm angry that no one in my life flagged this article for me. It was basically how researchers took the&#160;fluorescent proteins that appear in&#160;jellyfish genes and&#160;inserted them into a common household cat. And so, boom,&#160;glow-in-the-dark cat. I mean,&#160;who's not excited about that?</p>
<p>Bush: What else&#160;can you ask for?</p>
<p>Hill: Actually,&#160;our man behind the glass, Dan Boyd,&#160;when I mentioned that to him, he was like, "No.&#160;I have no interest in a glow-in-the-dark cat, they're&#160;enough trouble as they are at nighttime. Add the&#160;glow-in-the-dark feature and that's&#160;not sweetening the deal for me." Really&#160;interesting stuff. Definitely something to keep an eye on. Aaron Bush, thanks for being here!</p>
<p>Bush: Thank you!</p>
<p>Hill: As always, people on the program may&#160;have interests in the stocks they talk about, and The Motley Fool may have formal recommendations for or against, so don't buy or sell anything based solely on what you hear. That's&#160;going to do it for this edition of Market Foolery. The show is mixed by Dan Boyd.&#160;I'm Chris Hill. Thanks for listening, we'll&#160;see you tomorrow!</p>
<p>John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods Market, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Suzanne Frey, an executive at Alphabet, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. <a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFPaladin/info.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;uuid=ab66268c-6722-11e7-abaa-0050569d32b9&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">Aaron Bush Opens a New Window.</a> owns shares of Alphabet (C shares), Amazon, Facebook, TWTR, and WFM. <a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFWizard/info.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;uuid=ab66268c-6722-11e7-abaa-0050569d32b9&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">Chris Hill Opens a New Window.</a> owns shares of Amazon and WFM. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Alphabet (A shares), Alphabet (C shares), Amazon, Facebook, NKE, TWTR, and WFM. The Motley Fool recommends NYT. 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=ab66268c-6722-11e7-abaa-0050569d32b9&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p> | Loving Prime Day, Fighting a Duopoly, and Getting Hip to CRISPR | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/07/13/loving-prime-day-fighting-duopoly-and-getting-hip-to-crispr.html | 2017-07-13 | 0 |
<p>Although having sleep apnea has been linked to elevated risk of heart disease, high blood pressure and stroke, a new analysis of past research finds that apnea treatment with positive airway pressure (PAP) does not reduce the risk of cardiovascular events or death.</p>
<p>“Doctors need to be aware that while PAP may provide symptomatic relief for sleep apnea, it is unlikely to provide protection against cardiovascular events or death,” the study’s senior author Bruce Neal from UNSW Sydney in Australia told Reuters Health by email.</p>
<p>PAP is commonly used to treat sleep apnea, but it remains unclear whether PAP alters the risk of vascular disease and death in these patients, the study team writes in JAMA.</p>
<p>Neal’s team analyzed data on adults with sleep apnea from 10 randomized clinical trials that included a total of 7,266 patients.</p>
<p>In these trials, PAP was not significantly associated with major adverse cardiovascular events such as heart attack, major adverse cardiovascular events plus hospitalization for unstable angina, cardiovascular death, all-cause death, non-cardiovascular death, acute coronary syndrome, stroke, hospitalization for unstable angina or heart failure.</p>
<p>Four trials did hint that people who used PAP at least four hours per night might have improved cardiovascular outcomes, but the results didn’t reach a statistically meaningful threshold.</p>
<p>“Two points here: first, while it’s an intuitively appealing finding, it is statistically rather weak,” Neal said. “Second, good adherence is hard to achieve with current therapeutic options for PAP. If a new, very well-tolerated mode of PAP therapy is identified, it would be really helpful to do a large outcome trial to try and confirm this tantalizing observation.”</p>
<p>While PAP did not improve blood pressure, body mass index, blood lipids, blood sugar or overall quality of life, it was associated with improvements in sleepiness and some measures of physical and mental wellbeing.</p>
<p>“Based on the available evidence,” the researchers conclude, “it is reasonable to recommend PAP therapy for the improvement of symptoms in patients with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) but not for protection against vascular disease or death.”</p>
<p>“Patients with sleep apnea, who are often at increased cardiovascular risk, need rigorous management with other indicated therapies, such as blood pressure lowering, statins, and antithrombotic drugs,” Neal said.</p>
<p>“I think the most interesting finding of the meta-analysis is that the best estimate of the effect of obstructive sleep apnea treatment on risk of major adverse cardiovascular events is very similar to the reduction in risk seen with aspirin, beta-blockers, or statin medications,” said Dr. Daniel J. Gottlieb from VA Boston Healthcare System and Harvard Medical School, who wrote an accompanying editorial.</p>
<p>“That this was not statistically significant reflects the small number of patients entered in clinical trials up to this point,” he told Reuters Health by email.</p>
<p>“I don’t think these findings should have a major impact on CPAP prescribing,” Gottlieb said. “The main reason for treatment of CPAP remains control of symptoms, especially excessive sleepiness. Whether treatment of OSA will reduce cardiovascular risk remains an unanswered question.”</p>
<p>Most studies included in this analysis showed that patients are not using their CPAP machine as long as they should, noted Dr. Haitham Al Ashry from The Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston, which may explain the study results.</p>
<p>“However, when authors looked at patients who wore their CPAP more than four hours, they found decreased risk of death, heart attacks, and stroke, which is in concert with a similar analysis we published recently in the American Journal of Cardiology,” he told Reuters Health by email.</p>
<p>“I think physicians should continue to do their due diligence in counseling patients about the importance of adherence to CPAP,” Al Ashry said. “It is clear from this paper that cardiovascular benefits may be lost if CPAP is worn less than four hours. This is consistent with Medicare criteria that define patients’ compliance with CPAP as wearing the machine at least four hours each night for 70 percent of the nights.”</p> | Treating Sleep Apnea Doesn't Reduce Heart Risk | false | https://newsline.com/treating-sleep-apnea-doesnt-reduce-heart-risk/ | 2017-07-12 | 1 |
<p>It seems&#160;as though there may be more than the normal forces at play here. &#160; &#160; &#160; &#160; &#160; &#160; &#160; &#160; &#160; &#160; &#160; &#160; &#160; &#160; &#160; &#160; &#160; &#160; &#160; &#160; &#160; &#160; &#160; &#160; &#160; &#160; &#160; &#160; &#160; &#160; &#160; &#160; &#160; &#160; &#160; &#160; &#160; &#160; &#160; &#160; &#160; &#160; &#160; &#160; &#160; &#160; &#160; &#160; .</p>
<p>Former Governor of&#160;Alaska&#160;Sarah Palin&#160;was the victim of a horrendous crime this morning while driving to meet a friend on the Pacific Coast Highway. She was run off the road in what authorities are calling a hit and run and nearly killed. The SUV she was driving rolled over several times and ended up in a drainage ditch.</p>
<p>Governor Palin was taken to a local hospital under an alias in case the hit and run was on purpose and not a random act of reckless driving. According to her spokesman, she is currently in a coma with 2 broken vertebrae and a broken thigh.</p>
<p>The Palin family has been notified and are currently&#160;making their way to her bedside. The FBI has been dispatched to the scene to collect evidence. The vehicle that ran her off the road was caught on a traffic camera and is being hunted by every law enforcement agency in the northwest.</p>
<p>This is a developing story that will be updated.</p>
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<p><a href="" type="internal" /></p>
<p>From <a href="" type="internal">Seth Connell</a>:</p>
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<p>Say goodbye to the days of the Boy Scouts of America: it’s now going to be the… *Something* Scouts. No longer limited to boys, the Boy Scouts have given up their defining characteristic: their dedication to mentoring of America’s boys.</p>
<p>The more than 100 year old organization has gone Left-wing in recent years, with expressed desires to be more inclusive and equal. They also <a href="" type="internal">announced earlier this year</a> a policy allowing anyone who “identifies” as a boy to join the Scouts. Parents across the nation were outraged.</p>
<p>Breaking news updates and daily headlines from a news source you can trust.</p>
<p>After years of fighting the growing tide of liberalism, the Boy Scouts of America have caved and announced they will allow girls who “identify” as boys to join the organization.</p>
<p>On <a href="http://scoutingnewsroom.org/press-releases/bsa-addresses-gender-identity/" type="external">its website</a>, the century-old group defended their decision.</p>
<p>“For more than 100 years, the Boy Scouts of America, along with schools, youth sports and other youth organizations, have ultimately deferred to the information on an individual’s birth certificate to determine eligibility for our single-gender programs,” they said in a press release. “However, that approach is no longer sufficient as communities and state laws are interpreting gender identity differently, and these laws vary widely from state to state,” the statement explained.</p>
<p>So from now on, the Boy Scouts will disregard biological facts. From now on, they will essentially be accepting members based solely on whatever “gender” the applicant puts on their form.</p>
<p>As if that wasn’t bad enough, the Scouts have fully caved to the Left-wing obsession with “equality” that they have officially ceased to be the Boy Scouts: they will be accepting girls into their ranks, and will even enable them to achieve the highest rank of Eagle Scout, according to <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/boy-scouts-will-admit-girls-allow-them-earn-eagle-scout-n809836" type="external">NBC News</a>.</p>
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<p>“We believe it is critical to evolve how our programs meet the needs of families interested in positive and lifelong experiences for their children,” said Michael Surbaugh, chief executive of the Boy Scouts organization.</p>
<p>The board of directors voted unanimously to allow girls into the Scouts organization. Beginning next year, girls can join as Cub Scouts.</p>
<p>Now, granted, there will still be single-gender subsections at the local “dens,” as they are called. One will be boys, the other girls. But how long before that’s not acceptable for crazy Left-wingers?</p>
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<p>A separate program for older girls will be available in 2019, BSA said, enabling them to earn the rank of Eagle Scout.</p>
<p>The Boy Scouts said the moves reflect the changing nature of American life, adding to the appeal of a scouting program that can serve the entire family.</p>
<p>BSA said it commissioned two nationwide surveys that showed parents not involved in scouting had high interest in getting their daughters signed up for both Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts.</p>
<p>Earlier this year, the National Organization for Women (NOW), a prominent Left-wing feminist group, demanded that the Boy Scouts allow girls in. The Scouts decided it best to cave to their demands.</p>
<p>NOW backed Sydney Ireland of New York, who wanted to gain entry into the Boy Scouts but was denied because she is a girl.</p>
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<p>“I just want to do what the Boy Scouts do — earn the merit badges and earn the Eagle Award,” she had told NBC News. “The Girl Scouts is a great organization, but it’s just not the program that I want to be part of. I think girls should just have the opportunity to be a member of any organization they want regardless of gender.”</p>
<p>The Girl Scouts organization has been reluctant to support efforts to intermix girls into the Boy Scouts, citing research that shows girls can learn best when not with boys.</p>
<p>“We are unparalleled in our ability to build great female leaders who contribute to society at every level,” said Andrea Bastiani Archibald, a psychologist who is also a Girl Scouts guide.</p>
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<p>Nonetheless, private organizations cannot function how they desire in the modern world. They must pass the litmus test of Left-wingers who are so enamored with the idea of equality that facts or the private nature of an organization do not matter. All that matters is “equality” and “tolerance” and “acceptance”; that is, of their ideas.</p>
<p>And if they can’t get people to capitulate by persuasion, they have no qualms with taking those people to court and getting them to surrender at gunpoint. That kind of obsession with equality is incompatible with freedom.</p>
<p>What do you think? Scroll down to comment below.</p> | Don’t Be Like This Guy [Photo] | true | http://thefederalistpapers.org/us/dont-like-guy-photo | 0 |
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<p>Tribune Content Agency — August 10, 2016</p>
<p>“Without a border, we just don’t have a country,” Donald Trump says repeatedly. For him, the biggest threats to American sovereignty are three-dimensional items that cross our borders, such as unwanted imports and undocumented immigrants.</p>
<p>He’s wrong. The biggest threats to American sovereignty are invisible digital dollars wired into U.S. election campaigns from abroad.</p>
<p>Yet Trump seems to welcome foreign influence over our democracy.</p>
<p>Sovereignty is mainly about a government’s capacity to govern. A government not fully accountable to its citizens won’t pass laws that benefit and protect those citizens — not just laws about trade and immigration but about national security, the environment, labor standards, the economy and all else.</p>
<p>To state it another way: Without a functioning democracy, we just don’t have a country.</p>
<p>Trump’s recent public request that hackers connected to the Russian government sabotage his opponent, Hillary Clinton, is the tip of a Trumpian iceberg of foreign influence. He’s also been actively soliciting campaign funds from officials of foreign governments — in countries such United Kingdom, Iceland and Australia.</p>
<p>According to The Hill, Terri Butler, a member of the Australian parliament, was surprised to receive fundraising solicitations from Trump at her official government email address, asking her to make a “generous contribution” to the Trump campaign.</p>
<p>Bob Blackman, a member of Britain’s House of Commons who has also received fundraising requests from the Trump campaign, says, “I did not sign up, these are sent unsolicited.”</p>
<p>Peter Bottomley of the U.K. Parliament has received three such solicitations. “Neither [Trump’s] sons nor anyone else has answered my questions about how they acquired my email nor why they were asking for financial support that I suppose to be illegal for [Trump] to accept,” he told The Hill.</p>
<p>Katrin Jakobsdottir, chair of Left-Green Movement, a democratic socialist party in Iceland, told the Washington Post has “no idea” how she got on Trump’s fundraising list.</p>
<p>Someone should let Trump know it’s illegal for candidates for federal office to solicit foreign money, regardless of whether the donations ever materialize. In addition, foreign individuals, corporations and governments are barred from either giving money directly to U.S. candidates or spending on advertising to influence U.S. elections.</p>
<p>Why hasn’t Trump been held accountable? Because the Federal Election Commission, charged with enforcing the law, is gridlocked by its Republican appointees.</p>
<p>So we’re left with a presidential candidate screaming about threats to American sovereignty from trade and immigration while simultaneously urging officials of foreign governments to compromise American sovereignty.</p>
<p>The hypocrisy doesn’t end there. Leading Trump supporters such as Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions, a senior member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, are quick to blame global American corporations for disregarding American borders.</p>
<p>“There just seems to be this view, particularly in much of our business community — they’ve already transitioned to a trans-national status,” Sessions says. “They just see the world differently. Borders are just impediments to them.”</p>
<p>Yes, but the only way Americans have a fighting chance of getting trade deals that are in our interest — or, for that matter, any other kind of legislation that helps the vast majority of citizens — is by restricting the flow of global corporate money into American politics.</p>
<p>Yet Sessions is one of the staunchest defenders of the Supreme Court’s Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission ruling, which held that corporations are people under the First Amendment and can therefore contribute to election campaigns. (He’s even favorably compared Citizens United v. FEC to Brown v. Board of Education.)</p>
<p>Not incidentally, the Citizens United decision opened a back door for global corporations to influence American elections.</p>
<p>Just last week The Intercept reported on two Chinese citizens living in Singapore who own a U.S.-based firm called American Pacific International Capital, on whose board Neil Bush (Jeb’s brother) serves. Last year, the corporation donated $1.3 million to the Jeb Bush super PAC.</p>
<p>There’s reason to believe a lot more foreign money is being funneled into American election campaigns, either through tax-exempt entities that don’t have to reveal the identities of their donors, or via super PACs. So far in the 2016 election there’s been a surge of contributions to super PACs by so-called “ghost corporations” whose ownership remains unknown.</p>
<p>And the problem isn’t limited to the Trump campaign or even to Republicans. Hillary Clinton and the Democrats have been taking foreign money as well. That’s because almost all large publicly traded American companies have some foreign ownership. The Treasury Department estimates that about a quarter of the total market value of public U.S. corporations is owned by foreign nationals.</p>
<p>So whenever these corporations make campaign donations, they in effect funnel some of their foreign shareholders’ assets into American politics.</p>
<p>That wouldn’t matter so much if these global corporations cared about America. But they don’t. They care only about their global bottom lines. As an Apple executive told The New York Times in 2012, “We don’t have an obligation to solve America’s problems.”</p>
<p>Donald Trump is right to worry about American sovereignty. But the real threat to our sovereignty isn’t imports or immigrants. It’s global money influencing our politics.</p>
<p>Protecting our democracy requires two steps that Trump and his leading supporters oppose: First, enforce our laws against soliciting or receiving foreign money in our election campaigns. Second, reverse the Citizens United decision.</p>
<p>(c) 2016 By Robert Reich; Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC</p>
<p>Former U.S. Secretary of Labor Robert Reich is Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley and Senior Fellow at the Blum Center for Developing Economies. His new book, "Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few," is now in bookstores. His film "Inequality for All" is now available on iTunes and Amazon streaming.</p>
<p /> | The biggest threat to American sovereignty | false | http://natmonitor.com/2016/08/10/the-biggest-threat-to-american-sovereignty/ | 2016-08-10 | 3 |
<p>A <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/video/world/asia/100000004108808/the-killing-of-farkhunda.html?src=vidm" type="external">video</a> showing a mob of Muslims murdering a young woman in Afghanistan while shouting “Allahu Akbhar” was released by The New York Times on Saturday. An amalgamation of clips lifted from foreign-language websites and social media, the video shows the initial beating and subsequent stoning and burning of the woman’s body. The woman was accused of having burned a Quran.</p>
<p>The woman, adorned in a black niqab showing only her hand and eyes, is described by the video’s narrator as a “student of Islam.” The mob of Muslims - mostly men - strike her with kicks and punches.</p>
<p>According to subtitle translation, one man yells, “Kill her!”, another demands, “Beat her!”</p>
<p>“Long live Islam!” screams another, as many Muslims in the mob use mobile phones to record the killing.</p>
<p>As she is being beaten, the woman echoes the chants of her killers, wailing, “Allahu Akbhar!”</p>
<p>The report adds that a rumor of the woman being an “American sympathizer” spread throughout the surging crowd of Muslims, adding to its agitation.</p>
<p>At the peak of the mob’s size, hundreds of people, mostly men, are seen gathering to watch the mutilation of the woman’s body. Children are also seen participating in the killing and subsequent mutilation of the body.</p>
<p>“The ensuing brutality would become sobering commentary on how little Afghanistan had changed, despite more than a decade of Western engagement,” opined the narrator.</p>
<p>Farkhunda Malikzada, the woman seen being killed in the video, was 27-years-old when she was killed in <a href="http://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2015/03/25/afghans-protest-death-of-woman-falsely-accused-of-burning-koran/" type="external">March</a>. Ironically, Malikzada was studying Islam in Afghanistan.</p>
<p>The U.S. has <a href="https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL30588.pdf" type="external">provided</a> about $100 billion in foreign aid to Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban, presumably to help develop a civil society and democratic institutions protecting natural rights. This does not include the <a href="https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RL33110.pdf" type="external">hundreds of billions of dollars</a> spent on the war effort in Operation Enduring Freedom.</p>
<p>As of 2014, about 6% of the $1.6 trillion - $93 billion - accounted for in the Congressional Research Service report entitled “The Cost of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Other Global War on Terror Operations Since 9/11” has been spent on diplomatic operations, foreign aid, and reconstruction via the State Department.</p>
<p>Despite events like these, <a href="" type="internal">President Barack Obama</a>, <a href="http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/patrick-goodenough/clinton-repeating-words-radical-islamic-terrorism-distraction-plays" type="external">Hillary Clinton</a>, <a href="" type="internal">the Democratic Party</a>, and <a href="http://www.breitbart.com/video/2015/05/11/daily-beasts-obeidallah-radical-islam-made-up-idea/" type="external">left-wing media</a> continue to state that Islamic terrorism has nothing to do with Islam or Muslims.</p>
<p>WARNING: GRAPHIC VIOLENCE IN VIDEO</p>
<p><a href="http://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2015/12/28/mob-rips-apart-afghan-woman-falsely-accused-burning-koran/" type="external">H/T</a> Edwin Mora at Breitbart</p> | 'Long Live Islam!': Muslim Mob Beats Woman To Death Accused Of Burning Quran | true | https://dailywire.com/news/2204/long-live-islam-muslim-mob-beats-woman-death-robert-kraychik | 2015-12-29 | 0 |
<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p>
<p />
<p>The top dog in Internet cat stardom, known for her downward smile and bugged-out baby blues, spent her birthday Friday touring New York City with an entourage worthy of Hollywood.</p>
<p>Internet celebrity Grumpy Cat spent her 2nd birthday Friday in New York City, but is off to Hollywood for a movie project. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews)</p>
<p>And Hollywood is where the funny-looking feline is bound, with a movie project in the works to add to her pile of endorsements and licensing deals that include her scowling face on limited-edition bags of Friskies Party Mix treats and her own line of "Grumppuccino" bottled coffee drinks.</p>
<p>So who will voice the cat we love to caption? Grumpy's not saying, nor are her humans, the brother-sister team of Tabatha and Bryan Bundesen.</p>
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<p>With her own agent, YouTube videos that have racked up millions of hits, T-shirts, calendars and a best-selling book available in 14 languages, exactly how much is this cat worth?</p>
<p>"The business is doing very well," Bryan laughed. "Grumpy doesn't like to discuss specifics."</p>
<p>The humans, to be sure, are more than a little grateful.</p>
<p>"We both were blue-collar people," Bryan said - he a cable company lineman in Ohio and she a server at a Red Lobster near her home in Morristown, Ariz. "It has changed our lives. It's been a blessing. We're very thankful for it."</p>
<p>The grump's real name is Tardar Sauce, so dubbed (and misspelled) by Tabatha's now 12-year-old daughter, Chyrstal, soon after their female pet calico gave birth to her and three siblings. The cat was tiny and is still petite, a victim of feline dwarfism, and wobbles a bit when she walks due to elongated rear legs that have only added to her popularity.</p>
<p>"She looks like a snowshoe Siamese is what we're told most," Bryan offers. "We've had some nice comments from people about it being nice that the spotlight's on a cat that's unique and has feline dwarfism. A lot of people are happy that it kind of spreads the message that it's OK to be different. She's also such a happy cat."</p>
<p>If it hadn't been for Bryan slapping her photos on Reddit last year, then following up with videos after their authenticity was questioned, Tardar might never have become a phenom. "People said her face was Photoshopped," he said, so they took to YouTube to prove otherwise, earning about 1.5 million views overnight.</p>
<p>"There are a lot of cats on the Internet but there's no competition," a good-natured Bryan said. "She has the grumpy market cornered."</p>
<p />
<p /> | Grumpy Cat turns 2, heads to Hollywood | false | https://abqjournal.com/379631/grumpy-cat-turns-2-heads-to-hollywood.html | 2 |
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<p>PENDLETON, Ore. (AP) — Bob Jenson, who served nearly two decades in the Oregon House of Representatives, has died at 86.</p>
<p>First elected in 1996, the Pendleton legislator served so long his colleagues dubbed him the dean of the House. He was the most senior member of the House at the time of his 2015 retirement.</p>
<p>His death Saturday ended an on-and-off battle with cancer that lasted five years.</p>
<p>Jenson was elected once as a Democrat, once as an independent and eight times as a Republican.</p>
<p>Jenson’s wife, Evelyn, tells the <a href="http://www.eastoregonian.com/eo/local-news/20180108/bob-jenson-longtime-pendleton-representative-and-educator-dies-at-86" type="external">East Oregonian</a> newspaper her husband was more fiscally conservative than Democrats and socially liberal than Republicans, and got a kick out of being “a caucus of one.”</p>
<p>Gov. Kate Brown said Jenson was a dedicated public servant, beloved by many in Oregon, and will be missed.</p>
<p>PENDLETON, Ore. (AP) — Bob Jenson, who served nearly two decades in the Oregon House of Representatives, has died at 86.</p>
<p>First elected in 1996, the Pendleton legislator served so long his colleagues dubbed him the dean of the House. He was the most senior member of the House at the time of his 2015 retirement.</p>
<p>His death Saturday ended an on-and-off battle with cancer that lasted five years.</p>
<p>Jenson was elected once as a Democrat, once as an independent and eight times as a Republican.</p>
<p>Jenson’s wife, Evelyn, tells the <a href="http://www.eastoregonian.com/eo/local-news/20180108/bob-jenson-longtime-pendleton-representative-and-educator-dies-at-86" type="external">East Oregonian</a> newspaper her husband was more fiscally conservative than Democrats and socially liberal than Republicans, and got a kick out of being “a caucus of one.”</p>
<p>Gov. Kate Brown said Jenson was a dedicated public servant, beloved by many in Oregon, and will be missed.</p> | Longtime Pendleton legislator dies at 86 | false | https://apnews.com/a847a1be079f4183852e92f9fa64ff29 | 2018-01-09 | 2 |
<p>E-sports is a rapidly growing industry, and media companies across the board are taking notice.</p>
<p>In this episode of <a href="https://www.fool.com/podcasts/industry-focus?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;uuid=df18c220-8d9f-11e7-ac36-0050569d4be0&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">Industry Focus: Consumer Goods Opens a New Window.</a>, Motley Fool analyst Vincent Shen and Fool.com contributor Danny Vena look at some of the most exciting parts of e-sports, including hundreds of millions of viewers, massive prize pools, and billions in potential revenue.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>The cast also answers a listener question about a recent rash of headlines for&#160;iRobot (NASDAQ: IRBT)&#160;and investigations from law firms. Find out the most important things to keep in mind when any company or big-name investor publicly calls out a company.</p>
<p>A full transcript follows the video.</p>
<p>10 stocks we like better than&#160;Wal-MartWhen investing geniuses David and Tom&#160;Gardner have a stock tip, it can pay to listen. After all, the newsletter they&#160;have run for over a decade, the Motley Fool Stock Advisor, has tripled the market.*</p>
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<p>*Stock Advisor returns as of August 1, 2017The author(s) may have a position in any stocks mentioned.</p>
<p>This video was recorded on Aug. 29, 2017.</p>
<p>Vincent Shen: Welcome to Industry Focus, the podcast that dives into a different sector of the stock market every day.&#160;I'm your host,&#160;Vincent Shen, and I'm in the Fool&#160;HQ studio&#160;again this week,&#160;getting this listener Mailbag edition ready to air on&#160;Aug. 29. I'm excited to welcome&#160;a very special guest today, Fool.com&#160;contributor Danny Vena, who's&#160;joining us via Skype from&#160;San Diego, California. Hey there, Danny! Welcome to Industry Focus!</p>
<p>Danny Vena: Hey,&#160;thank you! I'm glad to be here! How's it going?</p>
<p>Shen: I'm doing well.&#160;I know this isn't technically your first time&#160;on the podcast. Dylan had you on for the Tech edition,&#160;I believe, not too long ago. But this is your first time with me talking consumer and retail, and&#160;I'm very much looking forward to tackling&#160;some of these listener questions together.</p>
<p>Vena: Exciting business.</p>
<p>Shen: Listeners,&#160;remember that you can write to the Industry Focus team&#160;at any time and that you'll hear back directly from one of the&#160;hosts. Our email is <a href="http://mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected] Opens a New Window.</a>. Our&#160;first question comes from&#160;Tom Gaffner. He asked early&#160;last month, "What's going on with&#160;iRobot, ticker IRBT? It's&#160;a bit unsettling when headlines&#160;are&#160;dominated by Shareholder Alert: Law Firm XYZ Announces Investigation Into the Firm. Is this an&#160;ordinary instance executed by bears&#160;or shorts, or something&#160;to really be worried about?"</p>
<p>If&#160;you go to Yahoo Finance and&#160;scroll through the major news headlines&#160;for iRobot from the past few months or so,&#160;you'll see a lot of examples of what Tom is talking about. Before we dive into the question,&#160;a really quick look at the company. iRobot is a $2.5 billion market cap company. You can likely guess from its name, they&#160;generate revenue by&#160;building and selling robots, about 18 million of them in the past 15 years. The company leads the consumer robotics&#160;industry, and its devices are designed to make its customers lives easier. iRobot offers four major product lines, and they're all&#160;robots that can either help vacuum your floors,&#160;mop them up, clear your gutter, or&#160;clean your pool. So overall, this seems rather harmless. But Danny, kicking it over to you, what's with the&#160;legal scrutiny&#160;the company is facing?</p>
<p>Vena: First of all,&#160;one of the things that investors will find after they've been doing this for a little while is that&#160;shareholder lawsuits are essentially&#160;just something that comes with the territory. There's a particular type of law firm that,&#160;this is their bread and butter, this is how they make their living, by&#160;basically exploiting a loophole in securities law.</p>
<p>You'll oftentimes hear these lawsuits referred to as a Milberg. The way it got its name was based on the infamous firm of&#160;Milberg Weiss,&#160;who gained notoriety back in the seventies. They would file lawsuits against companies supposedly on behalf of the little guy. It turns out, later on,&#160;they were prosecuted for kickbacks,&#160;racketeering, bribery, so basically, they were doing it to line their pockets. Now,&#160;the problem with&#160;these lawsuits is,&#160;once one of these lawsuit is filed, really the only one who makes&#160;any money is the attorneys involved. What you'll see is,&#160;the companies will spend a lot of money either pursuing these lawsuits or settling&#160;these lawsuits. Most of the money goes to the attorneys. And&#160;the people who are hurt are the shareholders. So it's not a good situation -- it's damaging to the&#160;present shareholders. In fact, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has calculated that shareholder lawsuits cost companies&#160;about $39 billion every year,&#160;but they actually only recover about $5 billion. So the additional $34 billion,&#160;guess where that goes? To the lawyers.</p>
<p>Shen: Yeah. So it seems in this case, then,&#160;that it's not as alarming as an issue that Tom needs to be worried about. But let's get specifically into this example with iRobot. What are the law firms here investigating then? What are they bringing up exactly? Because&#160;there has to be some basis&#160;for their investigations, no?</p>
<p>Vena: That's true. What has happened is,&#160;there's a research report that was issued by a short&#160;selling company called&#160;Spruce Point Capital Management. Now,&#160;that company is headed by a guy by the name of Ben Axler. And actually, that's the only person that works for the firm as far as we know. He made his name by&#160;uncovering fraudulent Chinese reverse mergers,&#160;which is essentially a Chinese company that wants to enter the U.S.&#160;stock market. What they'll do is buy up a shell company&#160;in the U.S.,&#160;and then do a reverse merger so they can basically cheat their way onto the stock market. So he made his name finding&#160;those types of situations and exposing those&#160;fraudulent companies.</p>
<p>Since then, once he's&#160;gotten beyond that,&#160;it's a little more difficult to continue in that vein. You're only going to find that many companies for a certain amount of time. So what happened thereafter is,&#160;he started issuing short reports on companies for a number of different reasons. In the case of iRobot,&#160;he said there were several points,&#160;the first being that the stock performance --&#160;the stock is up some 150% over the last year,&#160;and he said those gains are a result of&#160;the supply chain being restocked from the company divesting its military robot division,&#160;and also an acquisition of a Japanese distributor. Now,&#160;there's not necessarily a problem with any of those things,&#160;and what he says is the stock has run too far, too fast and there's going to be a reversion to the mean,&#160;they're not going to be able to keep up with those, that once it comes time for them to&#160;report earnings in the future,&#160;it's going to be difficult to meet those comps, and as a result of that,&#160;the stock is going to fall.</p>
<p>Shen: Yeah. It&#160;seems odd to me,&#160;what you mentioned in terms of this basis for&#160;some of these investigations in this report. This is an issue that will come up for&#160;plenty of stocks on the market.&#160;Things like hype do play&#160;into&#160;some of these bullish runs we see for these companies. And,&#160;overall, iRobot is followed quite closely here at The Fool,&#160;and some of the things that you mentioned,&#160;I understand the risk of having potentially flown too high,&#160;but there's nothing fraudulent here&#160;so far that we can see.</p>
<p>Vena: That's right. They&#160;didn't make any type of&#160;accusations, they merely said that because of these issues,&#160;he also pointed out that competition from&#160;SharkNinja,&#160;which is a competing vacuum company,&#160;they could potentially release a&#160;product to compete with the iRobot. SharkNinja&#160;released a product&#160;that competed and stole&#160;market share&#160;from the&#160;Dyson&#160;vacuum&#160;people. Also said that&#160;companies that have acquired their related&#160;party distributors have&#160;oftentimes run into issues that weren't apparent when they made the decision to do that. So they're saying there's potential for these types of problems. Not&#160;necessarily saying that there is any issue, but that there could be.</p>
<p>Shen: Sure. And I understand that you have some background here for&#160;Spruce Point Capital,&#160;in terms of some other instances where they've written reports and tried to leverage some of the market response in that. Could you share that with the listeners?</p>
<p>Vena: I'd be happy to. Let me first start by saying,&#160;anybody who wants to, all this information is publicly available. I went to Spruce Point Capital's website,&#160;I looked at the number of companies that they have written short reports on going back about two years. I eliminated the ones that were done most recently just because,&#160;whatever their thesis was&#160;hasn't had a chance to play out yet. So I want to look at my figures here for a second. Over&#160;the last two years, eliminating the reports from the last six months, the stock performance for the companies&#160;that were the subject of these reports, four of the 10 did&#160;significantly better than the market, three of them had&#160;single-digit percentage price moves either up or down,&#160;meaning they were essentially unchanged or even with the market, and three&#160;of them were down significantly. So what that shows is, out of these 10 reports that I've reviewed,&#160;Spruce Point Capital was right about 30% of the time. And if you take all 10 of those&#160;companies and compare the performance from the time they&#160;issued the report to the&#160;current day, and you compare that to the S&amp;P 500 over the same time frame,&#160;the differences in total is less than 2% overall.</p>
<p>Shen: So not really that much there, as&#160;the reports and the legal response would seem to indicate.</p>
<p>Vena: Right. So it's one of those things that shareholders have to be able to and ready to deal with. These things happen, there are some companies that will be the&#160;target of these types of short sellers. And&#160;how they work is, they'll do a report, they&#160;wait until the stock runs up or until there's an issue,&#160;and then they will release this research report after they've sold the stocks short. Then, the stock will fall and&#160;they'll cover that short and pocket all the money.</p>
<p>Shen: Sure. That's&#160;really helpful background,&#160;and I think it's a very good reminder in this instance&#160;to be wary of this kind of research. When it comes down to it, even some of the most well-known investors that we follow and really respect here at The Motley Fool, think,&#160;even a Warren Buffett, will&#160;have their own reasons for calling out&#160;companies, good or bad, so you have to keep their motivations in mind and make sure you&#160;perform your own due diligence before you take any kind of action.&#160;I know, Danny, that you've done some additional research for iRobot&#160;specifically in this case. Really quick, what is your take? They make these consumer-focused robots, what's your take on the company's outlook?</p>
<p>Vena: I'm&#160;an accountant by trade,&#160;so I prefer to think in terms of metrics. If you look at, for instance, the recent sales on&#160;Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN)&#160;Prime Day,&#160;they doubled year over year from the prior&#160;Amazon Prime Day. In&#160;their most recent quarter,&#160;revenue was up 45% year over year. They beat&#160;guidance for&#160;both top&#160;and bottom line for the year, and the stock jumped to an all-time high. So that's probably part of what made it a target. What's&#160;exciting about the company is that their robot,&#160;the Roomba, the most recent model uses something called spatial awareness,&#160;which basically gives the robot the ability to determine where it is in a confined space. Now,&#160;what they're doing is using&#160;this technology to map the room that the&#160;Roomba is in, and from that, they're&#160;pursuing an entry into the smart home market. Now,&#160;the smart home market was $10 billion in 2016,&#160;and it's projected to increase about 60% this year alone. So it's a hot market, and they're&#160;looking to get into that market. What they're&#160;doing is asking Roomba owners if they will opt into the&#160;program to basically map their home, and they're&#160;using that information to hopefully help consumers&#160;better move into the smart home&#160;products that are out there.</p>
<p>Shen: Yeah. With&#160;that information, the idea is, it could help homeowners, and&#160;also the creators of smart home technology,&#160;get the most out of the experience and convenience that smart home tech&#160;can offer. And management at iRobot is really focused on this. Keep in mind, this is a consumer products company in terms of what they sell and&#160;how they generate the revenue. But they hold dozens of patents,&#160;they spend $100 million&#160;every year on research and development, so they're very focused on the tech behind this. I think that is&#160;ultimately, with some of the smart home and the mapping and&#160;the opportunities to branch out of that,&#160;the main thing to watch for this company going forward.</p>
<p>Let's move on to our next question. It's one from Will in Chicago. He wanted to know, "What&#160;is the business model and future for e-sports,&#160;especially since Amazon owns Twitch?" The last time we covered e-sports was&#160;at the beginning of the year, and there have been some pretty big developments, including new partnerships with professional sports leagues, some&#160;licensing deals, and other investments from media companies and game publishers. But Danny, when we were chatting&#160;earlier this week, you had some really impressive updates that you shared with me that put&#160;the scale of the e-sports&#160;industry in perspective. Can you give Fools&#160;listening some of the bigger highlights?</p>
<p>Vena: Sure. I found&#160;some of these metrics to be pretty astonishing. I've only been following e-sports for a short time,&#160;but here are a few bullet points to whet your interest. The largest prize pool ever for e-sports is for DotA 2. DotA is Defense of the Agents,&#160;for the uninitiated. That prize pool for players was over $20 million. The top winner of that&#160;competition was, in 2015,&#160;Peter "ppd" Dager, he won&#160;more than $2 million himself in prize money. The E-sports League, which was the largest e-sports company that was broadcasting on Twitch at the time, was recently acquired by a company called&#160;Modern Times Group for $87 million. There are&#160;currently around 300 million people that tune into e-sports,&#160;and that number is expected to grow to over 500 million by&#160;the year 2020. Then,&#160;to give you a couple more specifics, the League of Legends World Championships that was held in Berlin's&#160;Mercedes Benz Arena,&#160;tickets to that event sold out in three minutes.</p>
<p>Shen: Wow!</p>
<p>Vena: Three minutes!</p>
<p>Shen: Yeah,&#160;that's crazy!</p>
<p>Vena: Like&#160;it was a Bruce Springsteen concert!</p>
<p>Shen: [laughs] Elsewhere&#160;in this industry, you have a lot of&#160;players from traditional sports like ESPN, professional sports teams buying in. I think that adds&#160;a lot of legitimacy to this&#160;opportunity as well. Just this week, there was the creation of the&#160;Madden NFL&#160;Club Championship. That's through a partnership&#160;between&#160;Electronic Arts (NASDAQ: EA), which is a huge video game publisher, and the NFL. Players&#160;basically will sign up to compete online, and eventually the top 32 players will end up each&#160;representing an actual NFL pro team, and they'll&#160;compete against each other in the finals,&#160;and those finals will actually be coordinated with the actual NFL Pro Bowl and Super Bowl games. The prize money is supposed to amount to several hundred thousand dollars. So you've given a pretty good context and background of the scale for the e-sports business. A&#160;word that you used to describe it,&#160;and how it's similar to&#160;traditional e-sports&#160;when we were talking about the show previously,&#160;you used the word "ecosystem", and how the different stakeholders&#160;come in. In this case, you have game publishers, you have console manufacturers,&#160;broadcasters, players. Will called out Twitch&#160;specifically in his question,&#160;and Amazon spent $1 billion acquiring Twitch three years ago. What is the story there?</p>
<p>Vena: With Twitch,&#160;they will charge users a monthly fee&#160;to be able to stream on&#160;their platform. Twitch is a wholly owned subsidiary of Amazon, it's the leading video game streaming site for gamers. It currently has about 10 million daily active users. Now,&#160;users on that platform will watch about 106 minutes of video per day. Just to give you a comparison, if you look at YouTube, YouTube is about an hour of video per day that users watch. So this far exceeds usage that YouTube enjoys, and YouTube&#160;is one of the world leaders.</p>
<p>Shen: Yeah,&#160;they're known for their engagement.</p>
<p>Vena: Absolutely.&#160;Amazon also offers, through Twitch,&#160;tools for developers so that they can include game broadcasting services into their apps. I think this is only going to get bigger from here. I think,&#160;currently, Amazon will charge, I believe the fee is&#160;$5 a month for these streamers, and&#160;people that are watching it will pay $5 a month,&#160;and the people who are actually streaming and playing the games will collect about half of that.</p>
<p>Shen: I think what's really special with the Twitch platform is&#160;the potential here for two-way interaction. That means between the players who are broadcasting their gameplay,&#160;and also the viewers. I know&#160;there are plenty of athletes out there, tennis players, golfers, basketball players,&#160;who love to play the sport and love watching professionals do it the best in the world. But&#160;now imagine being able to connect directly with the players, in this case, who are potentially the best in the world. An example in&#160;Twitter&#160;is,&#160;you can see how powerful it can be to have that connection between the viewers and the content creators.</p>
<p>Other than Twitch,&#160;there are also some traditional media companies that are taking the plunge with e-sports,&#160;and that includes, as I mentioned earlier,&#160;ESPN,&#160;NBC, TBS, and others. So if you read about what industry insiders have to say&#160;about the e-sports&#160;opportunity, a lot of them will&#160;mention a point in the future where e-sports eventually reaches mainstream&#160;audiences,&#160;and then the revenue potential that comes with that. But I actually think we're already at the point where we're talking about millions of viewers in the U.S. You mentioned&#160;something like 300 growing to 500 million viewers worldwide. Among&#160;younger consumers, e-sports viewers,&#160;the viewer base is already enough to rival&#160;established sports like hockey and baseball. So I think it's only natural that cable networks want to test the water&#160;to find out what the advertising potential and revenue&#160;potential is for this kind of programming.</p>
<p>They'll just ultimately have to compete with the likes of Twitch and YouTube and other digital alternatives for it. The thing is, Hollywood right now is kind of squaring off against tech companies like&#160;Netflix&#160;and Amazon, as well, for content and talent. These&#160;Silicon Valley companies and tech companies have very deep wallets, and they're willing to invest a lot to build out that viewership, to build up the market share in the industry. Let's talk about the business model a little bit for the content creators&#160;in this industry, the game publishers. How are they monetizing and leveraging these huge audiences?</p>
<p>Vena: There's&#160;a couple of different ways. The easiest way to think about this is comparing it to professional sports. Professional sports teams will make their money by selling media rights, advertising,&#160;players will have sponsorships from major corporations, you have tickets sales,&#160;and of course the game publishers themselves. So what's happening with the&#160;game publishers is, first of all, they're going to make money by not only collecting those fees for these&#160;channels to be able to use their games,&#160;but also, as the games become more popular,&#160;they get out there in the limelight, people say, "Wow,&#160;I've been meaning to pick up this game&#160;and I haven't,"&#160;so they're going to sell more games. But then, in those games, there's also --&#160;and this is where some of the big money is --&#160;microtransactions,&#160;virtual currency, downloadable add-on content, where&#160;you can buy more weapons or buy&#160;specialized items within the game. So game publishers make a lot of money doing that.</p>
<p>Shen: I really don't think it's possible to overstate how important it is now for game publishers to essentially maximize&#160;what is the shelf life for their most popular titles. In the past, it used to be,&#160;the main revenue stream for these companies&#160;was the initial sale of the game. So it was great to have a blowout first week&#160;or first month where you're setting a record for the number of sales. Even now, the more copies of your title that you can sell, the better. But now, you also want as many players as possible&#160;playing and being engaged because there's so much money to be made with those in-game purchases and the downloadable content that you mentioned. These add-ons, like&#160;weapons, special items, maybe new levels or gameplay modes, they amount to&#160;billions of dollars. So for&#160;Activision Blizzard (NASDAQ: ATVI), for example, the company reported a record $3.8 billion of in-game&#160;purchases in 2016. That doubles their tally from 2015 in just one year. Digital revenue now makes up&#160;the majority of the top line&#160;for companies like Activision, Electronic Arts, and most other competitors in this industry. So if e-sports can&#160;essentially help these games reach wider audiences,&#160;recruit new players, the publishers will naturally want&#160;to grow this opportunity as much as possible. I think that's why we're seeing a lot of the publishers&#160;establish specific teams and segments within their corporate structure that are focused on the e-sports opportunity.</p>
<p>Will,&#160;I think we've covered most of the business model for e-sports.&#160;I'd like to close out the conversation talking about the players who are cashing in. You&#160;don't have to be a pro,&#160;necessarily, at these mega tournaments to be making money&#160;enjoying your favorite video game. Danny, can you tell us a little bit else about the opportunities&#160;if you're a good player and you're interested in getting into this? What's out there for the gamers?</p>
<p>Vena: The&#160;best example that I found was with the company Riot Games,&#160;which is owned by&#160;Tencent Holdings. They are the&#160;sponsors of the League of Legends championship series. What they've done is provide each team&#160;with several players&#160;with a stipend,&#160;and they require that team to pay each player a minimum of $12,500 for their participation. Now, it might not seem like very much,&#160;but that's also the minimum. I was able to find one instance in Dec. 2015,&#160;a North American Challenger team that went by the name Ember.&#160;They became the first professional e-sports team to&#160;pay their players as employees rather than as contractors. They released their players' salary figures, in which case that&#160;each of their&#160;players received&#160;compensation between $70,000 and&#160;$92,000 per year. They also provided them with housing,&#160;office space, healthcare. So there's a lot of opportunity there. When&#160;you're the big player in the DotA league or Riot Games,&#160;you could make millions. But for the average player who's just really good,&#160;you can still make five or six figures just by doing what you love, playing video games.</p>
<p>Shen: Yeah. It's&#160;really an incredible growth in this space. Right now, the thing is, we're&#160;still in the early stages. However you think it pans out, we're getting a glimpse of it now with these licensing deals, these partnerships with professional leagues. But even on the small guy level, if you want to call it that,&#160;there's still a lot of opportunity out there. Overall, it's a really cool space. I very much intend to follow it going forward,&#160;hopefully with your help, Danny. But otherwise, that's all the time we have for today. Thanks again, Will and Tom,&#160;for your questions. Danny, it was great having you on the show!</p>
<p>Vena: Thanks&#160;for having me, I appreciate it.</p>
<p>Shen: People on the program may own companies discussed on the show, and The Motley Fool may have formal recommendations for or against any stocks mentioned, so don't buy or sell anything based solely on what you hear during the program. Fool on!</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFLifeIsGood/info.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;uuid=df18c220-8d9f-11e7-ac36-0050569d4be0&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">Danny Vena Opens a New Window.</a> owns shares of Activision Blizzard, Amazon, and Netflix. <a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFJourneyMan/info.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;uuid=df18c220-8d9f-11e7-ac36-0050569d4be0&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">Vincent Shen Opens a New Window.</a> has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Activision Blizzard, Amazon, iRobot, Netflix, and Twitter. The Motley Fool recommends Electronic Arts. 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=df18c220-8d9f-11e7-ac36-0050569d4be0&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p> | Do You Have What It Takes to Be a Professional Gamer? | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/09/04/do-have-what-it-takes-to-be-professional-gamer.html | 2017-09-04 | 0 |
<p />
<p>Seadrill is quickly running out of backlog. Image source: Seadrill.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>What:Shares of offshore drillerSeadrill Ltd. are up big on May 25, climbing 11.2% by 1:15 p.m. EDT. This is a nice bounce for the company's stock on a light news day but with earnings coming up.</p>
<p>So what:Oil prices are also up slightly, with both Brent and West Texas Intermediate above $49, but the big driver is almost certainly speculation ahead of the company's earnings report, which will be released before market open on May 26.</p>
<p>Now what:Tomorrow's earnings release isn't irrelevant, but investors in Seadrill -- along with any other offshore drilling company -- need to recognize that tomorrow's financial results will be the product of drilling contracts signed years ago, not anything that's happened in recent months.</p>
<p>In other words, even if Seadrill's revenue and earnings results come in better than analyst estimates, it won't change the big problem that the company faces, namely incredibly weak demand for new exploration work offshore.</p>
<p>A perfect example of this? The <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/2016/05/23/how-bad-is-offshore-oil-right-now-seadrill-ltd-is.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">recent news</a> thatStatoil ASAhad terminated a drilling contract with Seadrill for work in the North Atlantic, and would pay the company $61 million not to drill for the next six months. When offshore producers are willing to pay a company tonotdrill, that's a pretty clear sign that the offshore market is far from a recovery.</p>
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<p>Bottom line: Tomorrow's results matter inasmuch as they demonstrate that the company is continuing to drive down its expenses and maintain cash, but the biggest concern investors should have is whether the company has a large percentage of its fleet with contracts expired or expiring and producers aren't exactly lining up to put them back to work.</p>
<p>In other words, what matters most with Seadrill isn't how much business it tells us it did last quarter, but what management is doing to position the company to ride out an offshore market that continues to deteriorate. Offshore will eventually recover, but Seadrill must survive the downturn, and that's what matters most right now.</p>
<p>The article <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/2016/05/25/seadrill-ltd-stock-is-up-11-before-earnings-here-2.aspx" type="external">Seadrill Ltd. Stock Is Up 11% Before Earnings: Here's What Investors Need to Understand</a> originally appeared on Fool.com.</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/elihpaudio/info.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">Jason Hall</a> owns shares of Seadrill. The Motley Fool recommends Seadrill. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services <a href="http://www.fool.com/shop/newsletters/index.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">free for 30 days</a>. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that <a href="http://wiki.fool.com/Motley?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">considering a diverse range of insights</a> makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/Legal/fool-disclosure-policy.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">disclosure policy</a>.</p>
<p>Copyright 1995 - 2016 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/help/index.htm?display=about02" type="external">disclosure policy</a>.</p> | Seadrill Ltd. Stock Is Up 11% Before Earnings: Here's What Investors Need to Understand | true | http://foxbusiness.com/investing/2016/05/25/seadrill-ltd-stock-is-up-11-before-earnings-here-what-investors-need-to.html | 2016-05-25 | 0 |
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<p>Owner of Advantage Asphalt and Seal Coating LLC, Joe Anthony Montoya</p>
<p>Owner of Advantage Asphalt and Seal Coating, LLC, Marlene Montoya</p>
<p>SANTA FE, N.M. — A judge has ordered release of about $110,000 seized in a sheriff’s office raid of the home of the owners of Advantage Asphalt and Seal Coating in 2010 – but the money is going straight to pay off a bank debt.</p>
<p>The cash taken from the home of Joe Anthony Montoya and Marlene Montoya has become an important part of the fraud and bribery case against the couple and their company. The money’s seizure and subsequent long-term holding as evidence by the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office is the basis of an appeal to the New Mexico Court of Appeals by the Montoyas that has put a trial in the case on hold.</p>
<p>Advantage Asphalt and the Montoyas are accused of theft of more than $1 million from Santa Fe County taxpayers by misrepresenting work on county roads, submitting false or inaccurate invoices and fraudulently collecting county payments.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Former county public works director James Lujan in August pleaded guilty to a count of bribery and said in court that he collected about $20,000 and three trips to Las Vegas for his participation in the alleged scheme. He has not yet been sentenced.</p>
<p>The $110,000 was found in a safe in the Montoyas’ south Santa Fe home. Defense attorneys have argued that police and prosecutors failed to connect the cash to any crime and therefore it should be returned. Prosecutors and the Santa Fe County Commission have maintained it should be held to pay fines or restitution should the company and the Montoyas be convicted.</p>
<p>In June 2012, former state District Court Judge Michael Vigil denied the Montoyas request for return of the money, saying the prosecution had “made a good showing” that the seized $110,000 “may be the source of and directly related to” the crimes that the defendants are alleged to have committed.</p>
<p>Later, the Montoyas filed a motion for dismissal of all charges, on double-jeopardy grounds. Their attorneys maintain that the couple had already been punished by seizure of $110,000 and the fact that the sheriff’s office continued to hold it, and that the Montoyas can’t be punished again for the same alleged crimes. They also noted the money wasn’t being held in an interest-bearing account.</p>
<p>In August, former state District Judge Jim Hall, now serving as special judge for the Advantage Asphalt case, rejected the double-jeopardy motion. The Montoyas now are appealing that decision to the state Court of Appeals, and there can be no trial on the case until the appeal is concluded. The trial previously had been scheduled for September.</p>
<p>Court records show that earlier this month, Hall ordered the $110,000 disbursed from a court “registry” to Community Bank of Santa Fe.</p>
<p>In May, the bank had filed notice of a lien on the cash and demanded that the money be paid to the bank. The bank included documents about a $750,000 line of credit provided for Advantage in 2009.</p>
<p>In a recent filing, Community Bank said that “substantial advances” had been made to Advantage prior to the $110,000 being seized from the Montoyas’ home safe and that “the cash advances are traceable to the seized funds.”</p>
<p>The bank’s filing says the Montoyas have stipulated that the bank has “a valid and superior” lien on the funds and that the money should be returned to the bank “and applied to outstanding indebtedness owed to the bank.”</p>
<p>In his Dec. 12 order, Judge Hall ordered that the money go to Community Bank via check.</p>
<p />
<p /> | Seized cash ordered released in fraud case | false | https://abqjournal.com/326481/seized-cash-ordered-released-in-fraud-case.html | 2 |
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<p>By Kieran Cooke, Climate News NetworkThis piece first appeared at <a href="http://www.climatenewsnetwork.net/2013/10/energy-change-means-peril-for-investors/" type="external">Climate News Network</a>.</p>
<p>LONDON - The global energy system is rather like an oil supertanker, sailing the oceans with its vast cargo. Everything is fine as long as the giant ship doesn't have to alter course or stop suddenly.</p>
<p>The system, overwhelmingly reliant on fossil fuels, is highly complex but over time has been remarkably resilient, delivering considerable economic growth and political and societal stability in many regions.</p>
<p>The trouble, according to a new report, is that climate change and other factors mean the good ship energy is having to change course - but most investors in the sector are either asleep or looking the other way.</p>
<p />
<p>The report, compiled by Meteos, a UK-based not-for-profit think tank and strategy company, is the result of an ongoing dialogue between a number of heavy hitters in the investment community along with advisors from the fossil fuel industries and representatives from academia.</p>
<p>"The fact that energy contributes so much both to economic activity and political stability often leads analysts to conclude that the main characteristics of today's fossil fuel-reliant system are immutable", says the report.</p>
<p>Many of those contributing to this study do not agree. "The pace of change (in the sector) has been astonishing", says the study. If investors and the industry itself don't take notice of what's going on, then they'll end up shipwrecked.</p>
<p>Shale oil and gas have brought about an energy revolution in the US, with a dramatic drop in overall energy prices: all this is having a big impact on the finances of the energy companies. Meanwhile in Europe energy utilities are being hit by falling fossil fuel energy demand, particularly in Germany where renewables are taking an ever greater share of the market.</p>
<p>Beware stranded assets</p>
<p>The report says China might exploit its shale gas reserves, the world's biggest. There's also a push in the country towards cleaner energy and a decline in the take-up of some fossil fuels, particularly of coal.</p>
<p>"Efficiency improvements, slowing economic growth and aggressive pollution abatement measures are combining with competition from alternatives (particularly hydro and nuclear), leading some analysts to predict an absolute decline in Chinese coal consumption by 2016", says the report.</p>
<p>And, overhanging the whole energy sector, is the question of climate change.</p>
<p>The study says the market continues to underestimate the potential for climate-related change to the energy system.</p>
<p>"?At some point the disruptive economic impacts of climate change will come to outweigh the benefits of business as usual, and that will eventually lead to a concerted effort to constrain how much carbon is put into the atmosphere."</p>
<p>Energy investors, says the study, should be more concerned about so called "stranded assets" - fossil fuel reserves listed as corporate assets which will have to stay in the ground if any meaningful action is to be taken on global warming. They also need to keep pace with climate- and energy-related policy and regulatory changes in various countries.</p>
<p>Investors should also take note of significant changes in public opinion on climate-related issues, such as the concerns raised about smog in China which led to environmental issues being highlighted in the country's 2011-15 Five Year Plan.</p>
<p>The other factor having a big impact on the global energy system is the move towards greater energy efficiency in many countries.</p>
<p>Thinking local</p>
<p>"Across the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries (OECD) energy consumption has fallen while the economy has grown; for instance, in 2012 energy consumption fell 1.2% while the economy grew 1.4%."</p>
<p>In Europe there is a big push for more energy efficiency, driven by both climate change and price factors. China has developed targets to reduce the energy intensity of its economy. Even the US, the world's most profligate energy user, aims to double energy productivity by 2030.</p>
<p>The big energy companies are also threatened by a move towards localised, micro-generation power projects in many areas which could spark a phenomenon described as the "utility death spiral".</p>
<p>"?As more customers leave, fewer utility customers are left to finance an expensive infrastructure. This in turn drives up utility prices, leading to more customers leaving the utility, and so on."</p>
<p>Some groups say investors in the fossil fuel industry should divest quickly so as to avoid a fall in corporate share prices when the carbon bubble finally bursts.</p>
<p>Those involved in the Meteos report take a more measured approach, saying investors need to be far more proactive and to take a systematic approach to analysis of the energy system.</p>
<p>The considerable risks of investing in the sector need to be understood. Perhaps most important of all, fossil fuel companies need to be more transparent and willing to disclose their strategies for the future, including how they plan to tackle the risks to their operations posed by climate change.</p>
<p /> | Energy Change Means Challenge for Investors | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/energy-change-means-challenge-for-investors/ | 2013-11-01 | 4 |
<p>FLORHAM PARK, N.J. (AP) — New York Jets right tackle Brandon Shell will not play in the season finale against the New England Patriots because of a concussion.</p>
<p>Shell was injured while making a tackle on Keenan Allen's interception of Bryce Petty's Hail Mary toss that ended the first half of New York's 14-7 loss to the Los Angeles Chargers last Sunday.</p>
<p>Tight end Austin Seferian-Jenkins (ribs, foot) is doubtful. He ranks third on the team with 50 catches this season for 357 yards and three touchdowns.</p>
<p>Defensive end Kony Ealy (knee) and running backs Matt Forte (knee) and Akeem Judd (ankle) are questionable.</p>
<p>Coach Todd Bowles says he will make a decision Sunday on whether defensive end Muhammad Wilkerson plays. Wilkerson was benched two weeks ago for being late to a team meeting. He was inactive last weekend against the Chargers.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>For more AP NFL coverage: <a href="http://pro32.ap.org" type="external">http://pro32.ap.org</a> and <a href="http://twitter.com/AP_NFL" type="external">http://twitter.com/AP_NFL</a></p>
<p>FLORHAM PARK, N.J. (AP) — New York Jets right tackle Brandon Shell will not play in the season finale against the New England Patriots because of a concussion.</p>
<p>Shell was injured while making a tackle on Keenan Allen's interception of Bryce Petty's Hail Mary toss that ended the first half of New York's 14-7 loss to the Los Angeles Chargers last Sunday.</p>
<p>Tight end Austin Seferian-Jenkins (ribs, foot) is doubtful. He ranks third on the team with 50 catches this season for 357 yards and three touchdowns.</p>
<p>Defensive end Kony Ealy (knee) and running backs Matt Forte (knee) and Akeem Judd (ankle) are questionable.</p>
<p>Coach Todd Bowles says he will make a decision Sunday on whether defensive end Muhammad Wilkerson plays. Wilkerson was benched two weeks ago for being late to a team meeting. He was inactive last weekend against the Chargers.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>For more AP NFL coverage: <a href="http://pro32.ap.org" type="external">http://pro32.ap.org</a> and <a href="http://twitter.com/AP_NFL" type="external">http://twitter.com/AP_NFL</a></p> | Jets' Shell has concussion, won't play against Patriots | false | https://apnews.com/amp/b6d944153faf4c03b6d87b828f5a1a60 | 2017-12-29 | 2 |
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<p>SANTA FE – For David Daniels, both the toughest and most glorious part about portraying Oscar Wilde is that it slices deep into the marrow.</p>
<p>The singer the Chicago Tribune crowned “the gold standard among countertenors” has certainly tackled big roles before.</p>
<p>“I sang Julius Caesar,” the openly gay singer said between fittings for the Santa Fe Opera world premier of “Oscar” on July 27.</p>
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<p>“I’ve always been in love with Cleopatra or Violetta,” he explained. Oscar “has been the most emotional situation I’ve ever encountered in life other than losing my parents.”</p>
<p />
<p>Daniels commissioned composer Theodore Morrison, who was his choral professor at the University of Michigan and librettist, and Wilde scholar John Cox to create “something I could connect with.”</p>
<p>The opera is the catastrophic story of Oscar Wilde’s trial, conviction and imprisonment for “gross indecency.”</p>
<p>Known for his searing wit, flamboyant dress and glittering conversation, Wilde penned both “The Importance of Being Earnest” (1895) and “The Picture of Dorian Gray” (1890). He was at the height of his fame and success when he fell in love with Lord Alfred Douglas (“Bosie”), the son of the Marquess of Queensberry. Prodded by Bosie, Wilde sued the Marquess for libel after Queensberry left a calling card at the writer’s club reading “For Oscar Wilde, posing Sodomite.” The trial became a cause célèbre as salacious details of Wilde’s homosexual liaisons emerged.</p>
<p>Bosie was motivated by the “total hatred” he felt for his father, who rejected him because he was gay, Daniels said. Wilde’s friends had discouraged him from pursuing the lawsuit, which he lost.</p>
<p>The handsome and spoiled Bosie haunts Wilde’s imagination throughout the opera, portrayed by dancer Reed Luplau.</p>
<p>“Bosie was the most famous blond gay boy in the world,” Daniels said. “We’re portraying this as if it’s the love of (Oscar’s) life. (But) I don’t think Bosie was all flowers and butterflies.”</p>
<p>Neither was Wilde. Daniels said he was surprised to learn exactly how debauched the writer’s life had been. Wilde and Bosie frequented prostitutes, often together. Wilde indulged Bosie’s every whim: material, artistic or sexual.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>“I’m sure he had 8,000 boys and gave silver cigarette cases to everyone he met,” Daniels said. “But we want to believe they were the loves of each other’s lives.”</p>
<p>The judge sentenced Wilde to two years’ hard labor in a Victorian prison. Accustomed to a life of luxury, the author faced daily meals of bread, cheese, gruel and suet, a bucket for a toilet and a plank for a bed. He was allowed no books or pens. Prisoners were forced to wear masks so they could not speak except in chapel. They turned a crank or ran a treadmill for six hours a day.</p>
<p>“And all of this for loving a same-sex person,” Daniels said.</p>
<p>The singer faced his own brutal demonstration of homophobia when he was in his 20s.</p>
<p>“I was beaten up horribly when I was in South Carolina when I was 22 years old,” he said. But “my parents were the most unconditionally loving people on the planet.”</p>
<p>Daniels is the son of two voice teachers who grew up in Spartanburg, S.C. His father was one of the premiere members of the performing faculty during the summer at the Brevard Music Center.</p>
<p>My parents “encouraged and supported me, but they never pushed,” Daniels said. “I was 3 years old when I was in (Giacomo Puccini’s) ‘Gianni Schicchi.’ I was a boy soprano. I never wanted to do anything else.”</p>
<p>With the exception of a single 30-minute intermission, Daniels spends nearly three hours on stage singing “Oscar.” The music is difficult, he said.</p>
<p>“It’s great music, but it’s tough music,” he said. “It’s so tough because it’s got an edge and a bite to it that’s amazing. The orchestra loves it; that’s rare to see. Some of them wanted the libretto to read.”</p>
<p>Daniels first approached SFO general director Charles MacKay about staging the piece in 2008.</p>
<p>“I gave him a demo tape we had made in Ann Arbor, (Mich.)” he said. “I knew (Santa Fe) had a history of being open to new works.”</p>
<p>Daniels made his critically acclaimed Santa Fe debut in the title role of George Handel’s “Radamisto” in 2008, returning as Roberto in Antonio Vivaldi’s “Griselda” in 2010.</p>
<p>“Oscar” particularly resonates just weeks after the Supreme Court’s decision in favor of gay marriage, he said.</p>
<p>“But think of all the hate that’s still out there,” he added.</p>
<p>Wilde’s health plummeted in prison. He died of cerebral meningitis in exile in Paris at 46.</p>
<p>Daniels recently visited the city’s Pére Lachaise Cemetery to see Wilde’s tomb. The epitaph is a verse from the author’s “The Ballad of Reading Gaol,” written after his release:</p>
<p>“And alien tears will fill for him</p>
<p>Pity’s long-broken urn,</p>
<p>For his mourners will be outcast men,</p>
<p>And outcasts always mourn.”</p> | Singer says ‘Oscar’ cuts to the bone | false | https://abqjournal.com/223781/singer-says-oscar-cuts-to-the-bone.html | 2013-07-21 | 2 |
<p>State Senate Republicans want to set aside up to $5 million from the state's $250 million small business program to help provide micro-loans to urban entrepreneurs, saying Thursday that more jobs are needed to help Connecticut's struggling cities.</p>
<p>They also voiced support for much of Democratic Gov. Dannel P. Malloy's "Second Chance Society" proposals, with some modifications. They agreed that people re-entering society from prison should be provided with opportunities for success and that mandatory minimum sentences for non-violent drug offenses should be eliminated.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Those positions are part of a new urban agenda being offered during this year's General Assembly session by the GOP caucus. It comes after Senate Republicans announced in December they hired an urban affairs director to help relay the needs of minority groups to the caucus while sharing GOP policy ideas with urban communities.</p>
<p>"We believe the strength of our state depends on the strength of our cities," said Senate Minority Leader Leonard Fasano, R-North Haven, who has acknowledged that Republicans have struggled to penetrate cities with the party's message.</p>
<p>The GOP's proposed "CT Fast Funds" program calls for local banks to provide small business loans, ranging from $10,000 to $50,000, to startups. The state would provide a 70 percent loan guarantee. The plan also includes tax credits for investors and employment training for ex-offenders.</p>
<p>Some Senate Democrats questioned the GOP's commitment, saying Republican lawmakers opposed increases in the minimum wage and opposed the Earned Income Tax Credit program.</p>
<p>"It's nice that the Republicans have finally noticed that there are cities in Connecticut," said Sen. Ed Gomes, a Bridgeport Democrat.</p> | Connecticut Senate Republicans unveil urban agenda, propose micro-loans for small startups | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2015/03/12/connecticut-senate-republicans-unveil-urban-agenda-propose-micro-loans-for.html | 2016-03-09 | 0 |
<p>Taking a page from the Ronald Reagan Guide to Dodging Sticky Political Issues, Vice President Dick Cheney told Larry King that he didn't recall if he was the one who asked Alberto Gonzales to pressure John Ashcroft to sign off on a wiretapping program as Ashcroft lay in a hospital bed in 2004.</p>
<p>Watch the clip:</p>
<p />
<p>h/t to PoliticsTV.com</p>
<p /> | Cheney's Memory Issues | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/cheneys-memory-issues/ | 2007-08-02 | 4 |
<p>AUGUSTA, Maine (AP) — Police in Maine say a registered sex offender who took photographs of children in public places didn't break any laws.</p>
<p>The Kennebec Journal <a href="https://www.centralmaine.com/2018/01/17/police-reports-of-sex-offender-taking-photos-under-review-but-no-laws-broken/" type="external">reports</a> Augusta police have received numerous calls about a man taking photographs of children and posting them to an online photo management and display site. The Maine sex offender registry says the man was convicted of gross sexual assault in 2006 and served a sentence. Authorities haven't identified him.</p>
<p>Lt. Kevin Lully says the pictures are "concerning," but not criminal. Police say federal law allows people to photograph people in public places. Lully says the action would only be a crime if the sex offender was on probation. He is not.</p>
<p>Lully says police have interviewed the man.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Information from: Kennebec Journal, <a href="http://www.kjonline.com/" type="external">http://www.kjonline.com/</a></p>
<p>AUGUSTA, Maine (AP) — Police in Maine say a registered sex offender who took photographs of children in public places didn't break any laws.</p>
<p>The Kennebec Journal <a href="https://www.centralmaine.com/2018/01/17/police-reports-of-sex-offender-taking-photos-under-review-but-no-laws-broken/" type="external">reports</a> Augusta police have received numerous calls about a man taking photographs of children and posting them to an online photo management and display site. The Maine sex offender registry says the man was convicted of gross sexual assault in 2006 and served a sentence. Authorities haven't identified him.</p>
<p>Lt. Kevin Lully says the pictures are "concerning," but not criminal. Police say federal law allows people to photograph people in public places. Lully says the action would only be a crime if the sex offender was on probation. He is not.</p>
<p>Lully says police have interviewed the man.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Information from: Kennebec Journal, <a href="http://www.kjonline.com/" type="external">http://www.kjonline.com/</a></p> | Police: Sex offender broke no laws by photographing kids | false | https://apnews.com/amp/b06684d8d22443a89888fc10ec6f9640 | 2018-01-18 | 2 |
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<p>FILE - In this file photo taken Wednesday, April 8, 2015, Nigerian Soldiers man a check point in Gwoza, Nigeria, a town newly liberated from Boko Haram. Nigeria's military says it is moving 200 girls and 93 women from a northeastern forest where they were rescued from Boko Haram extremists. (AP Photo/Lekan Oyekanmi,File)</p>
<p>MAIDUGURI, Nigeria - A day after the Nigerian army celebrated the rescue of 200 girls and 93 women in the forest stronghold of Boko Haram, the army's spokesman said more women and children believed to have been abducted by the Islamic extremists were rescued as firefights broke out there.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Several lives were lost including that of a soldier and a woman during shootouts in nine separate extremist camps in the Sambisa Forest, according to a statement late Wednesday from Col. Sani Usman. He said eight women sustained gunshot wounds and four soldiers were seriously injured.</p>
<p>Some of the females who were freed earlier have been so transformed by their captivity that they opened fire on their rescuers, authorities have said. A veteran counselor said Wednesday they would need intensive psychological treatment.</p>
<p>The army spokesman said several Boko Haram field commanders and foot soldiers were killed and combat tanks and munitions of high caliber used by Boko Haram were recovered while others were destroyed.</p>
<p>"The troops have also rescued additional women and children," the statement said, without saying how many were rescued. "They have been evacuated to a safety zone for further processing."</p>
<p>The military was flying in medical and intelligence teams to evaluate the former captives, many of whom were severely traumatized, Usman said earlier.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>It remained unclear if any of the schoolgirls kidnapped from the northeastern town of Chibok a year ago were to be among the 200 girls and 93 women whose rescue was announced on Tuesday.</p>
<p>The plight of the schoolgirls, who have become known as "the Chibok girls," aroused international outrage and a campaign for their release under the hashtag #BringBackOurGirls. Their kidnapping brought Boko Haram, whose nickname means "Western education is forbidden" in the local Hausa language, to the world's attention. Of the Chibok girls, 219 remain missing.</p>
<p>Nigerian military and counter-insurgency spokesmen have said they have information indicating at least some of the Chibok girls still are being held in the Sambisa Forest.A counselor who has treated other women freed from Boko Haram captivity said some had become indoctrinated into believing the group's Islamic extremist ideology, while others had established strong emotional attachments to militants they had been forced to marry.</p>
<p>Some of the about 90 women and girls freed by the army four months ago in Yobe state, for example, had upset their community on their return by maintaining that the militants were good people who had treated them well, said the counselor, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because he has been targeted by the militants in the past.</p>
<p>"The trauma suffered by the (abducted) women and girls is truly horrific," said Amnesty International's Africa director for research and advocacy, Netsanet Belay. "Some have been repeatedly raped, sold into sexual slavery or indoctrinated and even forced to fight for Boko Haram."</p>
<p>Amnesty International said earlier this month that at least 2,000 women and girls have been taken by Boko Haram since the start of 2014.</p> | More women and children freed in Nigeria from extremists | false | https://abqjournal.com/577323/more-women-and-children-freed-in-nigeria-from-extremists.html | 2 |
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<p><a href="" type="internal" />PUEBLO, Colo. — A Pueblo County official wants counties to have the power to tax marijuana-growing operations to fund economic development, parks, trails and local governments.</p>
<p>The Pueblo Chieftain reported Monday ( <a href="http://tinyurl.com/k6p2ayq" type="external">http://tinyurl.com/k6p2ayq</a> ) County Commissioner Sal Pace says the excise tax would apply to marijuana grown in the county and sold elsewhere in Colorado.</p>
<p>Pace says he helped draft a bill that would authorize such a tax. The current version applies only to recreational marijuana, but he wants it to include industrial hemp as well.</p>
<p>Pueblo city voters rejected a marijuana tax in this month’s election, but Pace says letting voters know how the revenue will be spent should help gain support for a county measure.</p>
<p>——</p>
<p>Information from: The Pueblo Chieftain, <a href="http://www.chieftain.com" type="external">http://www.chieftain.com</a></p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | Pueblo County official wants pot-taxing authority | false | https://abqjournal.com/497331/pueblo-county-official-wants-pot-taxing-authority.html | 2 |
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<p>LOS ANGELES (AP) — After years of heavy NCAA sanctions, Southern California finally had a full complement of football scholarships to offer this year.</p>
<p>On a level playing field, coach Steve Sarkisian and the Trojans were awfully tough to beat.</p>
<p>USC landed one of the nation's top recruiting classes Wednesday, adding late commitments from several big-name prospects to the Trojans' stack of previous signees. Scout and Rivals both ranked the Trojans' class as the nation's best, ending Alabama's run of four consecutive No. 1 classes for Rivals.</p>
<p>"It turned out exactly how we wanted it to, and we couldn't be more happy," Sarkisian said.</p>
<p>The Trojans landed 24 players this winter after recruiting without 30 potential scholarships over the past three seasons, badly eroding USC's depth along with a two-year postseason ban.</p>
<p>Yet the school's desirability among the nation's best players remained strong under former coach Lane Kiffin, and Sarkisian's staff has increased the Trojans' momentum with a deep, balanced class of players who could contribute next season at nearly every position.</p>
<p>"It is great to be able to sign a full class this year," Sarkisian said. "Had this been last year, many of the players we signed today would have had to go somewhere else."</p>
<p>USC's championship tradition, national exposure and pleasant lifestyle attracted a wide range of top-level talent, both homegrown and far-flung.</p>
<p>The Trojans plucked the nation's top defensive back, Iman Marshall, out of nearby Long Beach, California, but went to Powder Springs, Georgia, to sign five-star offensive lineman Chuma Edoga.</p>
<p>Edoga and quarterback Ricky Town are among five prospects already enrolled at USC. Quarterback Sam Darnold also signed with the Trojans.</p>
<p>USC also grabbed two of the nation's speediest running backs to join the lineage at Tailback U: Dominic Davis of Mission Hills, California, and Ronald Jones II of McKinney, Texas.</p>
<p>"Dominic Davis might be the fastest guy in the state of California, and Ronald Jones might be the fastest guy in the state of Texas," Sarkisian said.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA</p>
<p>Top 25 Class: Yes. Scout No. 1/Rivals No. 1</p>
<p>Best in class: Iman Marshall, DB, Long Beach, California</p>
<p>Best of the rest: Rasheem Green, DL, Gardena, California</p>
<p>Late addition: Porter Gustin, LB, Salem, Utah</p>
<p>One that got away: Cordell Broadus, WR, Las Vegas</p>
<p>LOS ANGELES (AP) — After years of heavy NCAA sanctions, Southern California finally had a full complement of football scholarships to offer this year.</p>
<p>On a level playing field, coach Steve Sarkisian and the Trojans were awfully tough to beat.</p>
<p>USC landed one of the nation's top recruiting classes Wednesday, adding late commitments from several big-name prospects to the Trojans' stack of previous signees. Scout and Rivals both ranked the Trojans' class as the nation's best, ending Alabama's run of four consecutive No. 1 classes for Rivals.</p>
<p>"It turned out exactly how we wanted it to, and we couldn't be more happy," Sarkisian said.</p>
<p>The Trojans landed 24 players this winter after recruiting without 30 potential scholarships over the past three seasons, badly eroding USC's depth along with a two-year postseason ban.</p>
<p>Yet the school's desirability among the nation's best players remained strong under former coach Lane Kiffin, and Sarkisian's staff has increased the Trojans' momentum with a deep, balanced class of players who could contribute next season at nearly every position.</p>
<p>"It is great to be able to sign a full class this year," Sarkisian said. "Had this been last year, many of the players we signed today would have had to go somewhere else."</p>
<p>USC's championship tradition, national exposure and pleasant lifestyle attracted a wide range of top-level talent, both homegrown and far-flung.</p>
<p>The Trojans plucked the nation's top defensive back, Iman Marshall, out of nearby Long Beach, California, but went to Powder Springs, Georgia, to sign five-star offensive lineman Chuma Edoga.</p>
<p>Edoga and quarterback Ricky Town are among five prospects already enrolled at USC. Quarterback Sam Darnold also signed with the Trojans.</p>
<p>USC also grabbed two of the nation's speediest running backs to join the lineage at Tailback U: Dominic Davis of Mission Hills, California, and Ronald Jones II of McKinney, Texas.</p>
<p>"Dominic Davis might be the fastest guy in the state of California, and Ronald Jones might be the fastest guy in the state of Texas," Sarkisian said.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA</p>
<p>Top 25 Class: Yes. Scout No. 1/Rivals No. 1</p>
<p>Best in class: Iman Marshall, DB, Long Beach, California</p>
<p>Best of the rest: Rasheem Green, DL, Gardena, California</p>
<p>Late addition: Porter Gustin, LB, Salem, Utah</p>
<p>One that got away: Cordell Broadus, WR, Las Vegas</p> | USC gets banner recruiting class in 1st year after sanctions | false | https://apnews.com/amp/5fd7304fcc9b46e488700a297079def4 | 2015-02-05 | 2 |
<p>The American landscape is littered with hundreds of dead shopping malls. In places like the vast Rolling Acres Mall in Akron, Ohio, which has stood empty since 2008, the indoor fountains have stopped running, but the prosthetic plants inside remain eerily green. More will join them —&#160; <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/shopping-malls-are-going-extinct-2014-1#!CjNlJ" type="external">15&#160;percent of American malls</a> will close in the next ten years.</p>
<p>The biggest shopping mall in the world, the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_South_China_Mall" type="external">New South China Mall</a> in Dongguan, is also a dead mall. Opening in 2005, it boasted seven zones, each based on major international cities and featuring including a replica Arc de Triumph and a Venetian canal complete with gondolas. However, the mall has remained 99&#160;percent vacant since its opening. Aside from a cluster of fast food restaurants near its entrance, it’s nothing more than a network of vast atria, mothballed cinemas and roller coasters.</p>
<p>Unable to compete with online shopping, declining consumer affluence, rising oil prices, and a volatile property market, shopping malls are dropping like flies. The CEO of a major shopping mall building company recently warned that “within ten to fifteen years” the shopping mall “will be a historical anachronism — a sixty-year aberration that no longer meets the public’s needs.”</p>
<p>When archaeologists of the distant future dig through the vast ruins of these peculiar structures, they would be hard-pressed to find more fitting physical manifestations of our late twentieth-century condition. The global rise of the shopping mall in this sixty-year period has led to the greatest standardization of space that has ever occurred in human history.</p>
<p>In the era of the mall, whole swathes of the world are heated to precisely seventy-two degrees Fahrenheit and lit at 350 lux. Shopping malls have been used as tools for development in India, sites of protest in Brazil, and targets of terrorism in Nairobi. For geographers and historians, the sites have been seen as neoliberalism’s most precocious architectural form, instruments for enclosing and segregating public space, for fusing leisure and consumption and annihilating small independently run retailers.</p>
<p>It was not always this way. Shopping malls have a little known socialist pre-history — one that has been largely forgotten.</p> | The Shopping Mall’s Socialist Pre-History | true | https://jacobinmag.com/2014/04/the-last-shopping-mall/ | 2018-10-07 | 4 |
<p>Did you think it was over, Mitt? It’s over when Reid SAYS it’s over!</p>
<p>On Tuesday, Senate Majority leader, Harry Reid (D-Nevada), leveled a&#160;devastating&#160;and potentially campaign ending accusation against the presumptive Republican nominee, Mitt Romney. According to Mr. Reid, an investor in Bain Capital called him about a month ago and told him that Romney had not paid any taxes for ten years.</p>
<p>This would certainly explain why Romney has adamantly refused to release his tax returns beyond one year (and an incomplete year, at that). For a public fed up with the 1%, this would be quite possibly the worst financial revelation possible. It would be incredibly damaging to the GOP’s narrative that the rich need more tax cuts so they can spread that wealth around. If their nominee is supposed to represent the best of the private sector, as they have claimed, what does it say that Romney has paid&#160;no taxes at all?</p>
<p>Reid is quoted as saying, “His poor father must be so embarrassed about his son.” Kevin&#160;Madden, a Romney adviser countered,” [It is]troubling and disappointing that Senator Reid would cite Governor Romney’s father, George, as part of a personal attack against the governor. We have many substantive disagreements with the senator and his policies, but using insults about a father-son relationship is a step too far.”</p>
<p>Normally this might be true but&#160;George Romney was the first politician to release his tax returns under the belief that “Any politician who will not show multiple year&#160;taxes&#160;may be hiding something.” That his son refuses to follow in his own father’s steps is of great significance and is hardly a personal attack. It speaks to a lack of character and respect for tradition which in turn speaks to his readiness for the highest office in the land.</p>
<p />
<p>So far, Reid has refused to name his source so the story cannot be confirmed. I expect this to lead to accusations of dishonesty on Reid’s part. The obvious answer to this will be “If Romney has nothing to hide, why doesn’t he release the tax returns?” The irony of this controversy cannot possibly be lost on anybody with a pulse. The country has suffered through three years of birtherism in which tinfoil hat wearing lunatics have demanded to see President Obama’s birth certificate (but not because he’s black or anything). After he eventually relented, they went right ahead and kept demanding it as if it had never happened. Now, the roles are reversed and the spectacle of these same people insisting that&#160;Romney&#160;doesn’t have to release anything will be delicious in ways I had not thought possible.</p>
<p>It is&#160;possible that Reid just made it all up. After all, the momentum behind the tax return controversy was lost after the&#160;Aurora, Colorado shootings. If asked why he waited until now to reveal Romney’s tax dodging finances, I have no doubt Reid will say it wasn’t necessary to add fuel to the fire until it was reduced to a smolder. Cynical? Yes. Very, very smart? Very very yes.</p>
<p>On the other hand, Reid is not known for outlandish statements devoid of facts, like say, Michele Bachmann, Allan West, Rand Paul, et al, so his credibility is not the easiest of targets. No matter how hard his supporters try to smear Reid, the longer Romney refuses to release his tax returns, the more open to speculation the entire affair becomes and the more damaging it gets. Harry Reid has quite the poker face and he just played that Ace up his sleeve. Time for Mitt to fold.</p>
<p>Sign up to have all the AddictingInfo you can handle delivered directly to your email&#160; <a href="" type="internal">here</a>!</p>
<p>Feel free to tell me what a terrible person I am on&#160; <a href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/Proud-to-be-a-Filthy-Liberal-Scum/134176153323755?ref=tn_tnmn" type="external">Facebook</a>, at <a href="http://proudtobeafilthyliberalscum.com/" type="external">my home blog</a>&#160;or follow me on Twitter @FilthyLbrlScum&#160;</p> | Explosive Charge By Harry Reid: Romney Didn’t Pay Any Taxes For Ten Years! | true | http://addictinginfo.org/2012/07/31/explosive-charge-by-harry-reid-romney-didnt-pay-any-taxes-for-ten-years/ | 2012-07-31 | 4 |
<p>War is Hell, according to General William Tecumseh Sherman, who knew about these things. It is Sherman who gave the order to burn Atlanta to the ground during the American Civil War so that ‘Gone With The Wind’ would have a punchier third act. Sherman is among the most famous military leaders in history. Named after the Shawnee warrior Chief Tecumseh (not the manufacturer of hermetic compressors as is often claimed), Sherman saw the worst of the war that sundered the United States, and prosecuted that war with brutal determination. “Sherman’s March to the Sea” does not refer to a holiday expedition in quaint bathing costumes. America’s primary battle tank of the Second World War was named after Sherman, possibly because it had a similar smile. So Sherman knew from war. Here’s something else Sherman had to say–and he said this to the Mayor of Atlanta before he lit the match:</p>
<p>You cannot qualify war in harsher terms than I will. War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it; and those who brought war into our country deserve all the curses and maledictions a people can pour out. I know I had no hand in making this war, and I know I will make more sacrifices to-day than any of you to secure peace.</p>
<p>In other words, he didn’t talk the talk, he just walked the walk. And that leads us to the hawks of today, who insist that war is the only way to Support Our Troops.</p>
<p>Most of my hate mail comes from very angry people indeed who believe that dissent is treason. That would have put them in firm opposition to the Founding Fathers of our nation, back in the day (except John ‘Alien &amp; Sedition Act’ Adams, but he was a notorious spoilsport). Those old wig-sporting cats dissented like nobody’s business. My hate mailers believe in our political leaders with the passion of zealots (the zealot is a type of goat-eating mongoose). As many of these people are also hardcore Christian Nation types, I suppose this could be a habit of mind: you believe one thing with unquestioning faith and after a while you can believe anything, as long as it has the imprimatur of evangelical legitimacy on it. Children do this all the time, and it’s charming in some ways to discover so many adults willing to believe in politicians with the same unquestioning fervency as a kid’s belief in Santa Claus (Santa Claus is a type of goat that eats mongeese). ultra-patriots selflessly provide me with endless arguments in support of the Bush Administration’s policies which are so arcane and complex and ill-informed they would make the Flat Earth Society roll its collective eyes with embarrassment. Unfortunately the ultra-patriots correspond with me, not the Flat Earth folks, so I’m stuck with them. Be that as it may, the main thread of the argument for total war all the time in the name of Jesus and America seems to be that if we kill everybody who is from somewhere else, we’ll be safe. The problem with this argument is if you’re not eligible to open a casino on tribal land, you are from somewhere else.</p>
<p>These ultra-patriots gustily enumerate their relatives in the military, and extol the virtues of same, and deplore my apparent hatred of anybody in a buzz cut and boots. This is silliness. Let it be here recorded that I support our troops. I support them wholeheartedly. Why wouldn’t I? They’re mostly folks who needed some college money, or grew up in an area where there weren’t any other jobs to be found, wanted to learn some discipline, or felt like they owed their nation a few years of their lives in return for the opportunity to be called Americans. What the hell’s wrong with that? Nothing, and I put it to you that most folks in the anti-war movement would agree. I’ve had relatives in every single war this nation has ever fought, including the Civil War (1st New Hampshire Cavalry, Reb,) but I don’t go around sending people lists of them to show I’m the way most patriotic, so there. Particularly seeing as I have never personally served in the military, owing to a severe allergy to camouflage. George W. Bush had the same condition; it’s extremely widespread among the sons of affluent white people for some reason, a kind of sickle-cell anemia that strikes the country club set. How the hell I got it is anybody’s guess; my people are Swamp Yankees that didn’t get telephone service until Gerald Ford was president.</p>
<p>So the hawks can cut that crap right now. Support for our troops, those poor bastards in the middle of the desert with their tents blowing down and Meals, Ready To Eat from here forward, is not in question. The question here is whether to support this administration of lunatics who in less than two years have squandered an entire century of goodwill towards America and her ideals, destroyed the young edifices of international law and order, undermined Cherished American Freedoms, laid waste to the protections of earth, air, and water which ensure we continue to enjoy purple mountains majesty, amber waves of grain, and the like; and intend to create an American empire that runs the entire world according to the interests of a handful of venal plutocrats (a venal plutocrat is a kind of mongoose from outer space that subsists entirely on liverwurst). These Perles before swine don’t care a tittle about American troops. They’re just little khaki pawns on a great big board. Expendable common folk. Soldiers don’t even make good consumers, so why worry about them?</p>
<p>I worry about our troops. I wish they weren’t involved in the biggest roll of the political dice since Hannibal sized up the Alps and figured he could get elephants over them. The war could be over in three days, but its repercussions could last for centuries–just as Germany is still swarming with elephants due to Hannibal’s carelessness. I wish, in a more conventional bleeding-heart liberal way, that our troops weren’t in Mesopotamia arrayed against a foe composed mostly of ill-equipped men and boys-not because I’d rather they faced a burly enemy with proper uniforms, but because it’s going to be a ghastly slaughter, and even as our soldiers roll through Baghdad it’s going to cement America’s role as global bully and target of terrorist hatred, like some big pimply thug on the playground that the skinny geeks conspire to take out by slipping firecrackers down the back of his pants.</p>
<p>“Who cares how the world sees us?” My correspondents ask, although in coarser terms. They seldom go abroad and they don’t see why we should care about the opinions of Dagoes, Chinks, Wops, Frogs, Wogs, Krauts, Zipperheads, or Belgians. What the ultra-patriots fail to comprehend is that America is not an island, and it cannot be sealed off from the world as if in a giant Zip-Loc bag—and that furthermore the administration they so fervently endorse is embarking on a series of international adventures that would make Homer tremble in his caligulae. This contradiction doesn’t seem to disturb the ultra-patriot, as long as our endeavors around the world are strictly violent. What they miss is that the only alternative to remaining responsible to global interests (not to mention world bodies such as the United Nations, the International Court, and Salma Hayek) is holding the entire world hostage, and that’s not what our troops are for. It’s un-American, and it dishonors our military. For all his faults (that moustache, what is he thinking!) Saddam Hussein is not responsible for the attacks of 9/11. Osama bin Laden is. He’s the guy who, in Sherman’s words, deserves “all the curses and maledictions a people can pour out.” He brought the fight to America. So why is America bringing the fight to somebody else? Why not North Korea, which has stated its hostile intentions by manufacturing nuclear weapons? It’s obvious to anybody except my correspondents on the extreme Right that Bush has sent our forces on a snipe hunt (a snipe being, of course, an imaginary bird not eaten by any type of mongoose) for reasons unstated, at least by him. The real reasons, that is.</p>
<p>So support our troops by all means. I’m supporting them by opposing this grotesque war every step of the way. I want our men and women in uniform to come home without a shot fired, because we allowed the inspections to work, because we contained the putative threat from Saddam Hussein and thus made our forces available for serious threats in other parts of the world (such as North Korea and Lichtenstein), and because we didn’t rush things so Bush could throw a tickertape parade for himself instead of facing up to the shambles his administration has wreaked or reeked upon our nation.</p>
<p>Let me put it another way: in support of our troops, I recently offered one of my angry correspondents on this issue a bet: I will try my damnedest to keep her son out of combat in the Gulf, and she will continue to support the president’s war drive. Whoever keeps her son alive longest, wins.</p>
<p>BEN TRIPP is a screenwriter, satirist and cartoonist. He can be reached at: <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a>.</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | Support Our Troops…Quick! | true | https://counterpunch.org/2003/03/15/support-our-troops-quick/ | 2003-03-15 | 4 |
<p>Bernie Sanders is predicting a victory in the Golden State.</p>
<p>While campaigning yesterday in Santa Monica, Sanders asked the crowd to keep a secret so it wouldn’t make Hillary Clinton “nervous.”</p>
<p />
<p />
<p>“Keep this a big secret,” Sanders said, “because I don’t want to get Secretary Clinton too nervous.”</p>
<p>“She’s very…” he began, before stopping as the audience cheered.</p>
<p>“She looking very nervous lately and I don’t want to get her more nervous.</p>
<p>“So if you promise not to tell her, we’re going to win here in California,” Sanders declared as the audience went wild.</p>
<p>California voters head to the polls in two weeks, on Tuesday, June 7th.</p> | Bernie Sanders predicts California win | true | http://theamericanmirror.com/bernie-sanders-predicts-california-win/ | 2016-05-24 | 0 |
<p>&lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/gageskidmore/"&gt;Gage Skidmore&lt;/a&gt;/Flickr; Medyan Dairieh/Zuma</p>
<p />
<p>When it comes to civil liberties and national security, the two major party candidates for president on the ballot Tuesday don’t offer much of a choice.</p>
<p>“Regardless of who the next president is,” says Hina Shamsi, director of the ACLU National Security Project, “it must be up for debate in the next administration whether a global war-based approach is worth the costs to lives, American values, and our standing in the world.”</p>
<p>It may not be. If Mitt Romney wins on Tuesday, a lot of things could change: Medicare could be turned into a voucher system; Medicaid could be substantially cut. Any Supreme Court vacancies would be filled with conservative jurists hostile to abortion rights, attempts to rectify racial inequality, or rein in the influence of money in politics. The Affordable Care Act, which will guarantee health insurance coverage for millions of Americans, could be toast.</p>
<p>But the expansion of the American national security state will likely remain unimpeded by whomever sleeps in the White House on January 20.</p>
<p>“We’ve basically reached a general consensus, both political and legal about where we are,” says Harvard law school professor Jack Goldsmith, who worked in the Bush Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel. “I think that consensus explains why Obama continued Bush’s policies, and why the policies will continue no matter who gets elected president.”</p>
<p>Barack Obama came into office promising to reform the PATRIOT Act, rein in Bush’s warrantless surveillance, ban torture, and close Guantanamo. His torture ban remains in the form of a fragile executive order, many detainees at Gitmo have <a href="http://prospect.org/article/republicans-gitmo-chateau-dif" type="external">little hope of trial let alone release</a>, and renewal of the PATRIOT Act <a href="http://prospect.org/article/democrats-take-pass-civil-liberties-reform-0" type="external">steamrolled through Congress with the administration’s support</a> absent even the mild reforms civil-liberties-minded senators proposed. Obama said he’d only rarely use the state secrets doctrine to block national security policy from court scrutiny, but <a href="http://tpmlivewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/02/invoking-state-secrets-still-the-status-quo.php" type="external">he’s used it much the same way as his predecessor</a>. Obama <a href="http://washingtonexaminer.com/the-bipartisan-imperial-presidency/article/2505411#.UJc3aWl27qo" type="external">broke his own promise</a> not to go to war without Congress when he intervened on behalf of anti-Qaddafi rebels in Libya, and Romney <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/2102-3460_162-57454827.html?tag=contentMain;contentBody" type="external">thinks he could do the same with Iran</a>. While <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/15/world/threats-responses-hunt-for-al-qaeda-bush-has-widened-authority-cia-kill.html?pagewanted=all&amp;src=pm" type="external">targeted killing began under Bush</a>, Obama has expanded the covert global war on terror dramatically, even to the point of deliberately targeted American citizens.</p>
<p>There’s no reason to think Romney would significantly change any of this.</p>
<p>“[Drone] technology—and its ability to limit American military casualties on the ground—is driving the policy regardless of who sits in the Oval Office,” Yale Law professor Jack Balkin says. “It’s unlikely that Romney would be better than Obama on civil liberties or human rights issues; he might be worse.”</p>
<p>As far as drones are concerned, Romney already made himself clear during the third debate. “We should use any and all means necessary to take out people who pose a threat to us and our friends around the world,” <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/10/22/the-full-transcript-of-the-third-presidential-debate/" type="external">Romney said</a> when asked about the use of drone strikes. “And it’s widely reported that drones are being used in drone strikes, and I support that…entirely.”</p>
<p>During the campaign Romney hasn’t expressed an ounce of skepticism over the PATRIOT Act or the government’s use of warrantless wiretapping. He wanted to <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2007/05/16/12919/romney-guantanamo/" type="external">“double Guantanamo”</a> as a candidate in 2007, but Romney’s shifting positions leave what he’d do with the offshore detention camp a mystery. But regardless of who wins, it’s unlikely to close because of restrictions Congress has placed on the president’s ability to transfer detainees. Romney has struggled all year to get to Obama’s right on foreign policy, but his most consistent criticism is that the administration <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/07/24/romney-says-security-leaks-political-calls-for-probe-into-contemptible-conduct/" type="external">has leaked too much information related to national security</a>, which means it’s unlikely he’d be any less secretive than the current president.&#160;</p>
<p>“There is a bipartisan consensus on most aspects of the national surveillance state,” Balkin says. “At this point, you shouldn’t expect either party to cut back on its essential attributes.” Democrats who might have opposed certain policies with a Republican president in office have mostly fallen in line.</p>
<p>There could be some differences on the margins, experts say: Obama may try harder to close Gitmo in his second term, and Romney might decide to subject future terror suspects to indefinite detention. Romney might not have the same default preference for civilian trials of terror suspects that Bush and Obama had. But there’s little reason to expect the trajectory of American national security policy to change, absent intervention from the courts or a serious change of heart in Congress.</p>
<p>It’s easy to set the blame for this state of affairs on Bush’s disdain for the law or Obama’s cowardice. We like stories with simple explanations and obvious villains. The dirty little secret though, is that this is how Americans want it. Support for aggressive counterterrorism measures has only grown since 9/11, but beyond the polls the simple fact is Americans can tune out thousands of deaths a year from car accidents or disease but even a <a href="" type="internal">failed terror attack that kills no one</a> can generate enough hysteria to lead to <a href="" type="internal">drastic changes in American law</a>.</p>
<p>Americans don’t just have the government they deserve, they have the one they want, at least for now.&#160;Since 2004, <a href="http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1893/poll-patriot-act-renewal" type="external">support for the PATRIOT Act has increased</a>. Use of drones to kill <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/poll-finds-broad-support-for-obamas-counterterrorism-policies/2012/02/07/gIQAFrSEyQ_story.html" type="external">suspected terrorists remains popular</a>, and most Americans <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/poll-finds-broad-support-for-obamas-counterterrorism-policies/2012/02/07/gIQAFrSEyQ_story.html" type="external">want Gitmo to stay open</a>. Even <a href="http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/09/25/torture_creep" type="external">torture has grown more popular</a> since Obama banned it by executive order. Romney’s advisers <a href="" type="internal">drafted a memo recommending</a> a return to Bush-era interrogation techniques, but bringing those back would be more difficult than it sounds: According to Goldsmith, most of the harshest techniques are illegal under laws passed by Congress and court decisions issued while Bush was still in office.&#160;</p>
<p>“Just as Obama didn’t change much from Bush,” Goldsmith says, “Romney, if he gets in there, will realize he doesn’t have nearly as many options for change as he thinks he does.”</p>
<p /> | What Would Romney Do to Civil Liberties? | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2012/11/obama-romney-civil-liberties-no-choice/ | 2012-11-05 | 4 |
<p>Shares of Alkermes (NASDAQ: ALKS), an Irish-based commercial-stage drug developer with a focus on central nervous system medicines, jumped by as much as 12% during Thursday's trading session and ultimately ended the day higher by 11%. The reason for the volatile day, which at one point saw Alkermes shares lower by 5%, was the release of its third-quarter operating results.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>A topsy-turvy day for Alkermes was highlighted by an earnings report that <a href="https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/10/26/alkermes-reports-mixed-results-updates-guidance.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;uuid=91806ebe-ba9f-11e7-915c-0050569d4be0&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">seemed to head in opposite directions</a> at times.</p>
<p>The company wound up reporting $217.4 million in third-quarter sales, which, while up 21%, fell well short of Wall Street's consensus of $231.3 million. Weaker-than-expected sales of Vivitrol, which came in at $69.2 million for the quarter, were the main culprit for the company's disappointing sales results. Management also lowered its full-year outlook for Vivitrol to net sales of $265 million to $275 million, from a previous forecast of $280 million to $300 million. This sales outlook reduction also affected its full-year sales outlook, which was reduced from a range of $870 million to $920 million to a new expectation of $850 million to $880 million.</p>
<p>While the sales portion of Alkermes' earnings report had investors concerned in the early morning hours, the company's cost-cutting tactics and pipeline had them excited once again by the day's end. The company's third-quarter profit came to $0.03 per share, which was considerably better than the $0.01 per share loss&#160;Wall Street had been expecting. Also, some belt-tightening is expected to reduce full-year research and development and selling, general, and administrative expenses. The result is a narrower-than-expected full-year GAAP loss, which was reduced by $20 million on the top and bottom of the range to between $160 million and $190 million.</p>
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<p>Though cost controls were the star in the third-quarter report, don't discount the excitement surrounding Alkermes' expected 2018 milestones. CEO Richard Pops had this to say about the upcoming year:</p>
<p>ALKS 5461 is the company's once-daily oral experimental drug for the treatment of major depressive disorder in patients who've had an inadequate response to standard-of-care antidepressants. It wound up sailing through multiple pivotal phase 3 studies, with Wall Street analysts suggesting it could generate peak annual sales of perhaps $700 million to $1 billion. Given the lowered outlook for Vivitrol, ALKS 5461 has an opportunity, if approved, to become Alkermes' lead drug.</p>
<p>Long story short, shareholders should be ready for a news-packed 2018.</p>
<p>10 stocks we like better than AlkermesWhen investing geniuses David and Tom Gardner have a stock tip, it can pay to listen. After all, the newsletter they have run for over a decade, Motley Fool Stock Advisor, has tripled the market.*</p>
<p>David and Tom just revealed what they believe are the <a href="http://infotron.fool.com/infotrack/click?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.fool.com%2Fmms%2Fmark%2Fe-foolcom-sa-bbn-static%3Faid%3D8867%26source%3Disaeditxt0010449%26ftm_cam%3Dsa-bbn-evergreen%26ftm_pit%3D6312%26ftm_veh%3Dbbn_article_pitch&amp;impression=702ed951-7bab-4ec7-b43e-8fb0980c6cde&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;uuid=91806ebe-ba9f-11e7-915c-0050569d4be0&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">10 best stocks</a> for investors to buy right now... and Alkermes wasn't one of them! That's right -- they think these 10 stocks are even better buys.</p>
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<p>*Stock Advisor returns as of October 9, 2017</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFUltraLong/info.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;uuid=91806ebe-ba9f-11e7-915c-0050569d4be0&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">Sean Williams</a> has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Alkermes. 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=91806ebe-ba9f-11e7-915c-0050569d4be0&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">disclosure policy</a>.</p> | The Clear Reason Alkermes Plc's Shares Jumped by as Much as 12% | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/10/26/clear-reason-alkermes-plcs-shares-jumped-by-as-much-as-12.html | 2017-10-26 | 0 |
<p>DETROIT (AP) — Fiat Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne says he'll step down next year after leading the combined company since 2009.</p>
<p>Marchionne, 65, told media at the Detroit auto show that FCA will release a business plan through 2022 around June. The company will announce his successor sometime after that.</p>
<p>Candidates include Mike Manley, who leads the company's Ram and Jeep brands, and Reid Bigland, who leads the Alfa Romeo and Maserati brands and U.S. sales.</p>
<p>Marchionne also said the U.S. tax cuts passed in December are worth $1 billion annually to FCA and give the company confidence about the economic future.</p>
<p>FCA said last week it was moving heavy duty truck production from Mexico to Michigan and paying $2,000 bonuses to U.S. employees as a result of the tax cuts.</p>
<p>DETROIT (AP) — Fiat Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne says he'll step down next year after leading the combined company since 2009.</p>
<p>Marchionne, 65, told media at the Detroit auto show that FCA will release a business plan through 2022 around June. The company will announce his successor sometime after that.</p>
<p>Candidates include Mike Manley, who leads the company's Ram and Jeep brands, and Reid Bigland, who leads the Alfa Romeo and Maserati brands and U.S. sales.</p>
<p>Marchionne also said the U.S. tax cuts passed in December are worth $1 billion annually to FCA and give the company confidence about the economic future.</p>
<p>FCA said last week it was moving heavy duty truck production from Mexico to Michigan and paying $2,000 bonuses to U.S. employees as a result of the tax cuts.</p> | FCA's Marchionne says new CEO will be named this year | false | https://apnews.com/amp/e2d6dd7bf61940fb9bf1afeb7a4acd0a | 2018-01-15 | 2 |
<p>Sebastian Gorka, former deputy assistant to President Trump, discusses the ongoing nuclear threat from North Korea and whether or not China can help cool tensions between the countries.</p>
<p>The Alabama Senate primary run-off that’s transformed into a referendum on Mitch McConnell versus Donald Trump will likely end the way the incendiary 2016 presidential race did: With the anti-establishment candidate bucking his party and winning the nomination.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>“I expected Alabama to do what America did on November 8 and choose the anti-establishment candidate,” Sebastian Gorka, former national security aide to President Trump, told FOX Business’ Lou Dobbs on ‘Lou Dobbs Tonight.’ “And that is Judge Roy Moore.”</p>
<p>Moore, a former state Supreme Court Justice who’s already been pledged support by former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, is currently slated to win the GOP nomination in the election to fill the Senate seat vacated by Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Polls in Alabama closed at 8 p.m.</p>
<p>Gorka departed the White House at the end of August, claiming he’d be of better use to the president “from outside the People’s House.” It is unclear whether Gorka was fired or if he left of his own volition.</p>
<p>Last Friday, Trump arrived in Alabama to stump for Sen. Luther Strange, the GOP candidate in the election typically favored by rank-and-file Republicans. Strange was appointed to the Senate earlier this year upon Sessions’ appointment as Attorney General.</p>
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<p>During the speech, Trump seemed to distance himself from the candidate, who’s currently poised to lose the election, according to the latest polls.</p>
<p>“It was a very peculiar endorsement of Luther Strange,” Gorka said. “Because halfway through the so-called endorsement, the president said ‘You know what, I may have chosen the wrong guy. And if Judge Moore wins, I’m going to support him to the hilt.’”</p> | Anti-establishment will buck GOP in Alabama primary: Sebastian Gorka | true | http://foxbusiness.com/politics/2017/09/26/anti-establishment-will-buck-gop-in-alabama-primary-sebastian-gorka.html | 2017-09-26 | 0 |
<p>BELLEVILLE, Ill. (AP) - Illinois American Water has lifted a boil water order for customers in the Metro-East area near St. Louis that's been in effect since Wednesday.</p>
<p>Illinois American issued the order after there were water main breaks in the area, which includes Belleville and East St. Louis among other towns. The order was lifted for the utility's direct customers Friday afternoon. The utility said communities that buy water in bulk and distribute it via their own systems will notify their customers about the status of their boil water orders.</p>
<p>The utility says tests confirm the water meets all state and federal requirements in areas where the boil order was lifted.</p>
<p>Illinois American asked all customers to continue to conserve water while crews deal with cold weather and its effect on water systems.</p>
<p>BELLEVILLE, Ill. (AP) - Illinois American Water has lifted a boil water order for customers in the Metro-East area near St. Louis that's been in effect since Wednesday.</p>
<p>Illinois American issued the order after there were water main breaks in the area, which includes Belleville and East St. Louis among other towns. The order was lifted for the utility's direct customers Friday afternoon. The utility said communities that buy water in bulk and distribute it via their own systems will notify their customers about the status of their boil water orders.</p>
<p>The utility says tests confirm the water meets all state and federal requirements in areas where the boil order was lifted.</p>
<p>Illinois American asked all customers to continue to conserve water while crews deal with cold weather and its effect on water systems.</p> | Boil water order lifted in parts of Metro-East area | false | https://apnews.com/51de83a482da4099aa336b963ae9f498 | 2018-01-05 | 2 |
<p>The President of Venezuela Nicolas Maduro gave a media conference on February 15 that brought us to date on the Venezuelan government’s position to several important events that have occurred recently. The openness of the media conference could be inferred by the fact that Maduro gave a very short introduction and immediately allowed questions from reporters. The first two reporters to ask questions were one from the Washington Post and another from Reuters. At the time of writing I have not seen reports from those outlets. But the content of what Maduro had to say was more important.</p>
<p>Some observers have reacted to Maduro’s announcement that he will attend the Summit of the Americas in Lima in April “come rain, thunder or lightning!” despite the unwelcome message by Peru. That is sensational news that has gained him the label of “party crasher.” However, Maduro’s confirmation of holding early elections is more deserving of attention for its relevance to all Venezuelans, for the immediate future of the country and possibly the region, and for all those who believe in democracy.</p>
<p>The stalled dialogue by the Venezuelan opposition in the Dominican Republic did not stop Maduro from unilaterally signing the agreement with the terms agreed on. This allowed the Consejo Nacional Electoral (CNE – National Electoral Council) to announce the date established in the agreement for April 22 of this year.</p>
<p>Maduro has announced his candidacy for a second term 2019-2025. He stressed that y offered to achieve peace with the National Constituent Assembly and peace was achieved. “Now,” he said, “I offer to get out of the economic war and achieve [economic] recovery after the elections.”</p>
<p>But the Venezuelan opposition is seriously divided and cannot agree on an electoral tactic much less a platform other then getting rid of Maduro. Seemingly, they are caught between two not edifying alternatives. One is participating in the elections with the fear of being defeated by what appears to be a large support for the governing party, and then having to claim electoral fraud repeating the pattern of past elections. The other alternative is not participating and pre-empt the whole process with claims that the elections will be fraudulent. This can only be construed as a boycott.</p>
<p>The latter seems to prevail at this time as it coincides with the U.S. position of not recognizing the Venezuelan elections results. The Canadian government seems to be on the same page. On February 14, Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland echoed the statement by the Lima Group from the day before by saying, “We maintain our demand that presidential elections be called with sufficient advance notice, that international observers participate, and that all Venezuelan political players be included in the election. With these conditions unmet, Venezuela’s elections will lack any legitimacy or credibility.”</p>
<p>Maduro addressed those same points in his media conference. On the elections being called with “sufficient advance notice”, he stressed that the date was agreed on with the opposition in the unsigned agreement.</p>
<p>On the issue of international observers, he also seemed to refer to the unsigned document and said, “We have given all guarantees to the opposition for the upcoming electoral process, including a UN mission of observers.” On February 8 he had already posted a wider invitation to international observers on Twitter: “Venezuela is open to every necessary guarantee and welcomes every international observer willing to come. More than to inspect, they will be able to learn from the flawless electoral system we’ve built”.</p>
<p>On the last point of the Lima Group, that “all Venezuelan political players be included in the election”, Maduro spoke quite at length. He stated that the Lima Group “does not want elections”, but he was unequivocally adamant on the fact that “there will be elections with or without the opposition.” “We have a debt with Hugo Chavez”, he said.</p>
<p>To the Venezuelans abroad he reminded them that the National Electoral Council has extended the time to register to vote in their consulates until February 25. Ironically, if those voters would want to vote against Maduro, they will not be able to do so without their opposition candidates.</p>
<p>Having said that, there are some smaller opposition parties that are participating in the elections. But those do not question the democratic process in place now, nor are the ones that are receiving the support from the U.S. and Canada. On the contrary they are ignored.</p>
<p>In a clear sign of confidence Maduro added that he hopes the opposition would participate with a single coalition candidate suggesting his desire to have a real match of political forces. He called on specific opposition leaders like Henry Ramos Allup of the Accion Democratica party (AD – Democratic Action), Henri Falcón of the Avanzada Progresista (AP – Progressive Advance), and Claudio Fermín, independent, to register.</p>
<p>To the question of what will happen to the opposition, Maduro said, “Now the opposition does not know what to do because it depends on its foreign masters.” More explicitly he stated, “Only Washington knows. That’s the truth.”</p>
<p>Indeed, beyond the confusion of the Venezuelan opposition in disarray, and the obvious questionable interference by foreign governments in the internal affairs of a sovereign country, the greatest harm is being inflicted against the notion of democracy. Is abstention to participate in an electoral process, and claim fraud before the facts, contributing to democracy? Is encouraging abstention to participate in elections not a form of boycott of democracy and of holding the country hostage?</p>
<p>In 2018 there will be seven presidential elections in Latin America – a region of constant political changes, social unrest, resistance and resilience. Honduras has recently had turbulent elections with a lot to be questioned about “legitimacy or credibility.” No international voices were raised or sanctions slapped on the country.</p>
<p>Is the final message that some elections are more “democratic” than others? Do Latin American countries need Washington’s stamp of approval on when and how to hold elections despite all the assurances to abide to democratic process? The majority of Latin Americans are saying a resounding “No” if we care to listen.</p> | Venezuela Decides to Hold Presidential Elections, the Opposition Chooses to Boycott Democracy | true | https://counterpunch.org/2018/02/19/venezuela-decides-to-hold-presidential-elections-the-opposition-chooses-to-boycott-democracy/ | 2018-02-19 | 4 |
<p>It seemed like the Islamic State (IS) had run out of ways to shock the world until Tuesday, when the group&#160; <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/thomson-reuters/150203/islamic-state-supporters-post-photos-purportedly-showing-jordan" type="external">released a new video</a> purporting to show militants burning alive captured Jordanian pilot&#160;Maaz al-Kassasbeh in a metal cage.&#160;</p>
<p>The video, which is around 20 minutes long, combines many of the same features we've come to expect from IS videos, and some we haven't seen before.</p>
<p>In past videos that showed the beheadings of high-profile hostages from the United States, the United Kingdom, and Japan, the camera faded to black when the masked militant put the knife to his hostage's neck. There's no such fade in this video. The viewer is spared nothing. Al-Kassasbeh's suffering and apparent death is vivid and brutal — cynically transformed into a Hollywood-quality spectacle for the world to watch in horror.&#160;</p>
<p>While Jordanians and the world mourn al-Kassasbeh, it's worth reflecting on a pattern that's perhaps even more troubling:&#160;For every high-profile hostage who's been forced to wear the now iconic orange jumpsuit and die in front of an HD camera, hundreds of&#160; <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/12/28/us-mideast-crisis-casualties-idUSKBN0K60EK20141228" type="external">other victims</a>&#160;in Syria and Iraq have been executed, monitors and witnesses say.</p>
<p>When GlobalPost correspondent Tracey Shelton <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/middle-east/140915/video-what-front-line-fight-against-islamic-state-looks-like" type="external">reported</a> this summer from northern Iraq, she met many Yazidis, members of a minority religious group that IS considers infidels, who told her stories of <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/middle-east/140930/on-location-video-yazidi-men-boys-who-survived-islamic-state" type="external">mass public executions</a> of men and <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/middle-east/140929/how-two-teenagers-yazidi-girls-sinjar-escaped-islamic-state" type="external">enslavement of women</a> during IS's August assault against Yazidi towns around Mount Sinjar.</p>
<p>IS itself promotes news of many of the killings, which are less visible to Western audiences but no less designed to function as public spectacles. &#160;</p>
<p>Different publics and messages</p>
<p>IS has turned public executions into multifaceted tools of social control, recruitment and unconventional warfare, as well as performances of legitimacy and strength.</p>
<p>They're not all meant to start trending on Twitter.</p>
<p>IS speaks to a variety of different publics: Foreign governments, leaders, and citizens of those nations; people living in areas IS controls or could control in the future; IS militants fighting in Iraq and Syria; and sympathetic foreigners and potential foreign recruits.</p>
<p>And it communicates its messages in a variety of publics using a variety of forms of broadcast: Live in the town squares, streets, and places of worship within its self-declared caliphate; and around the world virtually via news media, and social media.&#160;</p>
<p>Its messages, too, are varied. But one of the tools that spans across these campaigns is public execution.&#160;</p>
<p>The most recent video is totally horrifying, and yet, in the universe that IS has created, it's just a widely disseminated and slickly produced version of everyday life.</p>
<p>Orange jumpsuits</p>
<p>Most visibly to Western audiences, IS has used high-profile videos featuring an English-speaking executioner — dubbed "Jihadi John" in some Western media — in order to terrorize people in the West, taunt foreign governments, and perform their power for potential foreign recruits.</p>
<p>While foreign hostages likely died under very controlled circumstances out of the "public eye," it would be hard to argue that their executions weren't "public" in conception, enactment, and dissemination.</p>
<p>You could argue that for most people in the world, the evolving story of IS has been defined by these videos. We know the names of the dead well.&#160;</p>
<p>James Foley, Steven Sotloff, David Haines, Alan Henning, Abdul-Rahman (Peter) Kassig, Haruna Yukawa, Kenji Goto, and now,&#160;Maaz al-Kassasbeh.</p>
<p>It's not clear how many more names will be added to that list.</p>
<p>As The New York Times <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/02/world/middleeast/isis-tactics-questioned-as-hostages-dwindle.html" type="external">reported recently</a>, IS is running low on individual hostages who could be used for high-profile executions. The group still holds a 26-year-old American female aid worker and British journalist John Cantlie. As the Times points out, though, there are "untold numbers" of Syrians being held as hostages. If the killing of&#160;al-Kassasbeh proves anything, it's that IS can be sickeningly creative when it comes to shocking the world, so there's no way to predict what might come next.</p>
<p>Local governance and social control</p>
<p>In the time it's taken IS to execute eight high-profile foreign hostages, the group has publicly executed Syrians, Iraqis, and ethnic minorities living in its self-declared caliphate.</p>
<p>It's very difficult to get accurate numbers and consistent reports, but as information and anecdotes have trickled out thanks to monitoring groups, governments allied against IS, and other sources on the ground, a clear picture has developed — IS routinely uses public executions as a means of governance and a tool of social control.</p>
<p>IS militants use public executions to demonstrate authority and establish power over the population. They also use executions to project legitimacy by wrapping the killings in their own interpretation of Sharia, or Islamic law. (They recently <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/isis-publishes-penal-code-listing-amputation-crucifixion-and-stoning-as-punishments--and-vows-to-vigilantly-enforce-it-9994878.html" type="external">published a penal code</a>, according to the Independent.)</p>
<p>On Jan. 20, 2015, The New York Times reported on a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/21/world/middleeast/isis-has-executed-scores-in-iraq-this-month-un-says.html" type="external">wave of public executions</a> in IS-controlled areas of Iraq, for example:</p>
<p>- In Mosul, two men accused of stealing were crucified and shot to death. Two other men, accused of engaging in homosexual acts, were thrown off the roof of a building.</p>
<p>- A woman was stoned to death for adultery.</p>
<p>- Four doctors were executed after they refused to treat IS fighters.</p>
<p>- Three women lawyers were executed for reasons that are unclear, but IS has a history of <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/islamic-state-executes-female-human-rights-lawyer-by-firing-squad-after-facebook-post/2014/09/25/c44b0a38-44f6-11e4-9a15-137aa0153527_story.html" type="external">executing educated women</a>.&#160;</p>
<p>The UN also heard repeated, but unconfirmed reports that IS had executed 13 boys and young men for playing soccer.</p>
<p>The immediate audience for these executions is local, but IS pushes images and videos out onto social media, where they're circulated by IS supporters and jihadi forums. Keep in mind — just because a <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/01/16/in-graphic-videos-and-on-twitter-isis-members-record-and-tout-executions-of-gay-men.html" type="external">photo of IS militants throwing a man off a rooftop</a> doesn't circulate in your own social network or show up on CNN doesn't mean it's not viral somewhere else. &#160;</p>
<p>Recruitment: Dabiq</p>
<p>Likely part of the reason IS disseminates images and videos of executions via social media is to attract new members, whether they're people who'd consider traveling to fight in Syria or Iraq or those who'd participate remotely by promoting IS online and in their communities.</p>
<p>But IS doesn't just rely on informal sharing for its stonings and beheadings to reach sympathetic eyes.</p>
<p>It's got a magazine for that.</p>
<p>If you want to see how IS communicates to its potential foreign recruits, check out a copy of <a href="http://www.clarionproject.org/news/islamic-state-isis-isil-propaganda-magazine-dabiq" type="external">Dabiq,</a> the group's glossy and design-conscious propaganda periodical. There are six issues so far, and they're available online in multiple languages, allowing curious proto-jihadis around the world to read about IS triumphs, learn the basics of whatever ideology IS claims to uphold, and get information about the enemies of the caliphate.&#160;</p>
<p>Every issue of Dabiq has featured coverage — including text and photographs — of public executions.</p>
<p>IS has also used Dabiq to celebrate the mass public execution of enemy soldiers, most of them alleged Syrian pro-government fighters. Issue three included a lengthy report with multiple photographs detailing the <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/08/16/us-syria-crisis-execution-idUSKBN0GG0H120140816" type="external">mass execution of&#160;members of the al-Sheitaat tribe</a> in Deir al-Zor Syria. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said IS executed 700 people there by beheading and gunshots. Photos in Dabiq showed IS militants firing into large groups of prisoners, images of whom were blurred as they toppled from their knees into mass graves.</p>
<p>Dabiq has also incorporated extensive "coverage" of the high-profile hostage executions. The heavily produced magazine mirrors, in a way, the high production quality of those videos.</p>
<p>Issue three prominently featured news of the killing of James Foley, including a full-page, high resolution photo of the moment a militant put his knife to Foley's neck.&#160;</p>
<p>An end to the bloodshed</p>
<p>Ever since IS executed Foley, who had worked for GlobalPost, and "Jihadi John" appeared onscreen holding Steven Sotloff by the collar of his orange jumpsuit, the world has debated how to counter the terror group. The US launched their campaign of airstrikes against IS just weeks before Foley was killed, and, with the help of coalition partners and local ground forces in Iraq, has managed to <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/middle-east/syria/150204/the-islamic-state-s-defeats-grow-so-does-its-barbarism" type="external">make some gains pushing them back</a>.</p>
<p>The question isn't so much 'how do we stop the killing?' as it is: How do we put an end to the world IS has created — one it reaffirms and puts on display for the world each time it murders a person in the eyes of others?</p>
<p>More from GlobalPost:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/middle-east/syria/150204/the-islamic-state-s-defeats-grow-so-does-its-barbarism" type="external">As the Islamic State’s defeats grow, so does its need to shock</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/middle-east/egypt/150203/inside-the-cairo-neighborhood-wont-stop-protesting" type="external">Inside the Cairo neighborhood that won't stop protesting</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/asia-pacific/japan/150202/islamic-state-beheadings-japan-hawks" type="external">Islamic State beheadings are firing up Japan's hawks</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/middle-east/egypt/150202/peter-greste-now-free-still-11-journalists-in-prison-egypt" type="external">Peter Greste is now free, but there are still 11 journalists left in Egypt's prisons</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/middle-east/iraq/150128/what-moviegoers-baghdad-think-american-sniper" type="external">Here's what moviegoers in Baghdad think of 'American Sniper'</a></p>
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<p>&#160;</p> | Every Islamic State execution is a public spectacle. But you'll never see most of them | false | https://pri.org/stories/2015-02-04/every-islamic-state-execution-public-spectacle-youll-never-see-most-them | 2015-02-04 | 3 |
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<p>MONTOYA: Case goes to jury today after closings</p>
<p>The defense decided against presenting any testimony or witnesses to the jury Monday and the case will now go to the jury after attorneys present closing arguments today. The prosecution had rested its case on Friday.</p>
<p>The trial, with hundreds of documents admitted as evidence, had been expected to take three weeks after opening statements by the prosecution and defense a week ago, on Dec. 8.</p>
<p>Montoya is on trial for allegedly bribing former Santa Fe County public works director James Lujan for a leg up on roadwork contracts and on charges of defrauding the county with substandard work, overbilling and use of county workers and equipment on projects awarded to Advantage Asphalt.</p>
<p>Lujan has pleaded guilty to accepting a bribe and other counts in the case. He testified last week that he “bit at the carrot” and accepted three trips to Las Vegas, Nev., and about $26,000 in cash, and that he and Montoya had an arrangement that “if I got him work, we can both make money.”</p>
<p>Besides Lujan, two other defendants – former county roads supervisor James Martinez and Montoya’s wife, Marlene – also have pleaded guilty to bribery, Martinez for accepting a Vegas trip and Marlene Montoya for offering such trips. “I got caught up in the moment, I guess,” Martinez testified last week.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Defense attorney Sam Bregman maintained that any quality-of-work problems with roads paved by Montoya’s company under its more than $7 million in county contracts belong in civil court, not a criminal case.</p>
<p>He also has argued during cross-examination that prosecution witnesses have no proof that Joe Anthony Montoya had anything to do with alleged “false” invoices submitted to the county or other key documents and has challenged whether documents presented as possible documentation of bribes provide any culpable information that can be tied to Montoya.</p>
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<p /> | Advantage Asphalt trial comes to early end | false | https://abqjournal.com/513187/advantage-asphalt-trial-comes-to-early-end.html | 2 |
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<p>Drake’s is eyeing a late September return for its Ring Dings, Devil Dogs and other snack cakes, following the return of rival Hostess.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>The former Hostess brand, which was sold to McKee Foods during the bakery’s bankruptcy proceedings, expects to have its cakes back on sale in the third week of next month, McKee spokesman Mike Gloekler said.</p>
<p>McKee, which already makes Little Debbie cakes, has said it doesn’t plan to cease making any of its current snack cakes that once competed with Drake’s.</p>
<p>Drake’s snack cakes are being made at McKee’s own baking plants and will remain the same as before the acquisition. Coffee Cakes and Yodels are also expected to return in September, although the company has yet to decide if it will bring back Funny Bones.</p>
<p>Hostess, now under the ownership of Metropoulos &amp; Co. and Apollo Global Management (NYSE:APO), started shipping its Twinkies and other snack cakes in July. <a href="" type="internal">Its products saw record demand in their first week back on store shelves</a>.</p> | Drake's Eyeing September Return | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2013/08/08/drakes-eyeing-september-return.html | 2016-01-25 | 0 |
<p>A new report details how Barack Obama's administration undercut the counter-nuclear proliferation efforts of agents and prosecutors against Iran during negotiations for the Iran deal.</p>
<p>The report, chronicled in <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2017/04/24/obama-iran-nuclear-deal-prisoner-release-236966" type="external">a lengthy Politico piece</a>, highlights how the Justice and State Departments halted cases against various Iranian figures working to obtain the necessary materials to arm the terror regime in Tehran starting in 2014.</p>
<p>Obama administration officials would not give the go-ahead to allow agents and prosecutors to move forward with investigations against these figures. Consequently, a number of important individuals who were under scrutiny for being involved in Iran's nuclear proliferation ended up slipping out of the grasp of agents and prosecutors.</p>
<p>Additionally, the Obama administration granted clemency to seven Iranian prisoners under the auspices of being held on "sanctions-related offenses" and "violations of the trade embargo." But the Politico report notes that "some of them were accused by Obama’s own Justice Department of posing threats to national security":</p>
<p>Three allegedly were part of an illegal procurement network supplying Iran with U.S.-made microelectronics with applications in surface-to-air and cruise missiles like the kind Tehran test-fired recently, prompting a still-escalating exchange of threats with the Trump administration. Another was serving an eight-year sentence for conspiring to supply Iran with satellite technology and hardware. As part of the deal, U.S. officials even dropped their demand for $10 million that a jury said the aerospace engineer illegally received from Tehran.</p>
<p>To make matters worse, the administration also dropped cases against 14 Iranian fugitives who were being investigated for proliferating arms and material for Iran's nuclear ambitions:</p>
<p>Three of the fugitives allegedly sought to lease Boeing aircraft for an Iranian airline that authorities say had supported Hezbollah, the U.S.-designated terrorist organization. A fourth, Behrouz Dolatzadeh, was charged with conspiring to buy thousands of U.S.-made assault rifles and illegally import them into Iran.</p>
<p>A fifth, Amin Ravan, was charged with smuggling U.S. military antennas to Hong Kong and Singapore for use in Iran. U.S. authorities also believe he was part of a procurement network providing Iran with high-tech components for an especially deadly type of IED used by Shiite militias to kill hundreds of American troops in Iraq.</p>
<p>The biggest fish, though, was Seyed Abolfazl Shahab Jamili, who had been charged with being part of a conspiracy that from 2005 to 2012 procured thousands of parts with nuclear applications for Iran via China. That included hundreds of U.S.-made sensors for the uranium enrichment centrifuges in Iran whose progress had prompted the nuclear deal talks in the first place.</p>
<p>Naturally, prosecutors and agents were enraged that their painstaking, years-long work was being sabotaged by the Obama administration, allowing national security threats to escape justice, which the administration "downplayed."</p>
<p>"Even though these men's crimes posed a direct threat to U.S. national security, the administration has essentially told them their efforts have produced nothing more than political capital that can be traded away when politically expedient," David Locke Hall, an ex-DOJ counter-proliferation prosecutor, told Politico.</p>
<p>David Albright, who has conducted "decades of scientific research into Iran’s secret nuclear weapons" and is in "regular close contact with federal authorities" as a result, told Politico, "We are shooting ourselves in the foot, destroying the infrastructure that we created to enforce the laws against the Iranians."</p>
<p>Iran is still believed to have been continuing their illicit proliferation efforts, but agents are unable to pursue cases against them because the United States' counter-proliferation efforts are still murky, although there is some optimism that the new administration will provide "more support for their efforts."</p>
<p><a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2017/04/24/obama-iran-nuclear-deal-prisoner-release-236966" type="external">Read the full report here.</a></p>
<p><a href="https://twitter.com/bandlersbanter" type="external">Follow Aaron Bandler on Twitter.</a></p> | Report: Obama Admin Blocked Counter-Proliferation Efforts Against Iran During Iran Deal Negotiations | true | https://dailywire.com/news/15689/report-obama-admin-blocked-counterproliferation-aaron-bandler | 2017-04-24 | 0 |
<p>&lt;a href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic.mhtml?id=94530991"&gt;zimmytws&lt;/a&gt;/Shutterstock</p>
<p />
<p>This <a href="http://www.propublica.org/article/the-for-profit-higher-education-industry-by-the-numbers/" type="external">story</a> first appeared on the <a href="http://www.propublica.org/" type="external">ProPublica website</a>.</p>
<p>The for-profit higher education industry was the target of a bruising <a href="http://www.propublica.org/documents/item/407797-help-senate-report" type="external">report</a> issued last week. Based on a two-year effort, the report detailed high rates of loan default, aggressive recruiting, higher than average tuition, low retention rates, and little job placement assistance. It was spearheaded by Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, a longtime critic of the industry. (ProPublica has written a <a href="http://www.propublica.org/tag/For-Profit+Colleges,+Higher+Education,+Student+Loans" type="external">number of pieces</a> looking more closely at the explosive growth sector, including questionable <a href="http://www.propublica.org/article/recruiters-experience-at-one-for-profit-university-suggests-reform-efforts-" type="external">recruiting</a> and <a href="http://www.propublica.org/article/at-u-of-phoenix-allegations-of-enrollment-abuses-persist-1103" type="external">marketing</a>.)</p>
<p>The report has provoked some pushback. The Association of Private Sector Colleges and Universities, a membership organization composed of accredited for-profit schools, issued <a href="http://www.career.org/iMISPublic/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Home&amp;CONTENTID=25566&amp;TEMPLATE=/CM/ContentDisplay.cfm" type="external">a statement</a> criticizing what it saw as “continued political attacks” on the for-profit sector. Saying the report “twists the facts to fit a narrative,” it went on to <a href="http://www.career.org/iMISPublic/Content/ContentFolders/PressReleases/APSCU-Harkin-Backgrounder-072912.pdf" type="external">challenge</a> several figures.</p>
<p />
<p />
<p>It didn’t contest the following numbers.</p>
<p>Growth</p>
<p>Cost of education</p>
<p>Loan — and debt</p>
<p>Recruitment and lobbying</p>
<p>Executive compensation</p>
<p>Academic progress</p>
<p /> | The Explosive Growth of For-Profit Higher Education, By the Numbers | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2012/08/explosive-growth-profit-higher-education-numbers/ | 2012-08-13 | 4 |
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<p>GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. - A Colorado man is facing criminal charges after spitting on deputies and yelling that he was glad another deputy had been killed.</p>
<p>The Grand Junction Sentinel reports ( <a href="http://bit.ly/216RMTA" type="external">http://bit.ly/216RMTA</a> ) that authorities say 32-year-old Jesus Villarruel of Grand Junction began yelling and cussing at citizens in the Mesa County Justice Center lobby Friday. Deputies say he also cussed at them and said he was glad Mesa County Sheriff's Deputy Derek Geer was shot to death last month.</p>
<p>According to court documents, deputies began questioning Villarruel and he told them he was going to kill them.</p>
<p>Officers handcuffed him but say Villarruel continued to threaten them, tried to fight them and spat on two officers.</p>
<p>A county judge on Monday denied a public defender's request that Villarruel be released on a personal recognizance</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Information from: The Daily Sentinel, <a href="http://www.gjsentinel.com" type="external">http://www.gjsentinel.com</a></p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | Colorado man arrested after yelling at, spitting on deputies | false | https://abqjournal.com/732977/colorado-man-arrested-after-yelling-at-spitting-on-deputies.html | 2 |
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<p>Right now, “Concerned Veterans for America” – a Koch Brothers-funded organization fighting against transparency in our elections – is targeting New Mexico.</p>
<p>Over the last two months, CV4A placed op-eds in at least three different newspapers, each time defending Gov. Susana Martinez’s veto of Senate Bill 96 – a bill that 9 out of 10 New Mexican voters want. It was also supported by a bipartisan majority in the state Legislature. (An anti-SB 96 op-ed by the group appeared in the Journal on May 26.)</p>
<p>SB 96 would have closed a loophole that “dark money” groups use to get around campaign finance disclosure laws. These groups, often from out of state, run vicious and frequently unfounded attacks – and in return want special consideration to influence government at the expense of local citizens.</p>
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<p>SB 96 would have delivered to New Mexico the kind of transparency that allows voters to see who their elected officials really represent, shining a light on who funds the campaigns in exchange for access to state money once a candidate is elected. It was supported by 92 percent of the state’s business community. Democrats and Republicans in New Mexico’s House and Senate worked together to send it to the Governor’s Office to sign into law.</p>
<p>Then it was vetoed by Gov. Susana Martinez.</p>
<p>Because of that veto, New Mexico still has two sets of rules. If an individual voter donates more than $200 to a candidate’s campaign, that person’s name, address and occupation are publicly disclosed in campaign finance filings. But nonprofit 501(c)(4) organizations like CV4A can take money without disclosing their donors and then use the money for electioneering, like attack-ad TV commercials and editorial pieces in newspapers.</p>
<p>Virginia-based CV4A is one of the organizations that would have been affected by the provisions of SB 96. CV4A spends millions of dollars each year – including money to support specific candidates and campaigns – but CV4A isn’t required to report who gave them the money they spend.</p>
<p>SB 96 would have leveled the playing field in New Mexico. If Gov. Martinez had signed the bill, donors who pay for political spending through dark money shell groups would have had to meet the same disclosure standards as New Mexico residents who donate directly to candidates’ campaigns.</p>
<p>As the amount of money spent to influence elections continues to increase, transparency in our electoral process becomes even more crucial. Voters deserve to know exactly who is spending money to influence the outcome of a campaign – because it is a clear indication of whose interests might ultimately be served if the candidate is elected.</p>
<p>Special interest influence isn’t a “victimless crime.” It has real, calculable costs to taxpayers that add up to billions of dollars each year. Research shows that states with higher levels of corruption spend more on budget items that benefit special interests and less on issues that benefit citizens. Studies also tie special-interest influence to higher levels of public debt, e.g. debt to fund private construction projects that are touted as “economic development.”</p>
<p>Each state resident pays more than $1,300 extra per year when these practices are allowed to continue, according to a University of Indiana study.</p>
<p>SB 96 wasn’t just a theoretical exercise in good government. It was an effort by citizens, acting through elected representatives, to institute common-sense transparency in New Mexico’s elections, and minimize political favors and access to public officials after the elections.</p>
<p>There will be another legislative session next year and hopefully the state Legislature will again send a disclosure bill – maybe even the same one – to the governor. The integrity of our democratic elections is at stake. New Mexico deserves common-sense, non-partisan disclosure, free from outside dark money influence.</p>
<p>John Pudner managed political campaigns for almost three decades, including Dave Brat’s 2014 upset win over U.S. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p /> | Integrity of democratic elections at stake | false | https://abqjournal.com/1016064/integrity-of-democracy-is-at-stake.html | 2 |
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<p>BRENTWOOD, N.Y. — Robert Mickens was just a regular dad who went to his daughter’s high school basketball games in their New York town, worried about whether she studied enough and sometimes got on her case for spending too much time gabbing with her friends.</p>
<p>Everything changed in September. That’s when his 15-year-old Nisa and her best friend, Kayla Cuevas, 16, were found beaten and hacked to death in the street, a killing authorities blamed on the violent gang MS-13, which has infested their school and gripped their Long Island community with fear.</p>
<p>Mickens is now turning his grief into action, running for the local school board to help change what he sees as a culture of gang violence that has claimed the lives of 11 people, mostly teenagers, in Brentwood and another neighboring town since the school year began.</p>
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<p>“I just thought I needed to do something to make it better for other kids, to do more,” said Mickens, a 39-year-old nurse’s aide with a trade-school degree and no experience in education. He is among eight candidates on the May 16 ballot for three spots in the Brentwood Union Free School District, one of the state’s largest districts, with more than 18,000 students.</p>
<p>The board does the usual tasks: manages a $380 million budget, evaluates the superintendent and ratifies union contracts. But increasingly it has been grappling with how to handle the mounting MS-13 threat, which has made parents afraid to send their children to Brentwood High School and students fearful that any slight to the gang, particularly a refusal to join, could get them killed.</p>
<p>“You hear from students and parents, they have concerns over about what is going down at the school,” Mickens said. “Me being a father who lost his daughter, I think I could probably help other kids and make a difference.”</p>
<p>The 11 killings blamed on MS-13 in Brentwood and neighboring Central Islip have led President Donald Trump to weigh in, calling them the result of lax immigration policies that let too much criminal “scum” slip through. About a dozen suspected gang members were rounded up and arrested in March, but four more high schoolers were found dead in a park last month.</p>
<p>Nisa’s death last year was particularly tragic because, authorities say, she was not the intended target and was merely in the wrong place at the wrong time.</p>
<p>An entryway to the modest home Mickens shares with his wife and two stepchildren has become a kind of shrine to Nisa, with condolence cards, pictures of her playing basketball, and a framed photo of her as a young child displayed with a cross and a vial of holy water.</p>
<p>Mickens, who is running as part of a slate with two other candidates — a lawyer and a pastor who delivered the eulogy at Nisa’s funeral — says he’s not looking for votes in the election because his daughter died. He’s looking for votes because people can believe in him and trust him.</p>
<p>A refrain from parents is that the district has done a poor job of providing enticing afterschool alternatives for children often left alone after school because parents work long hours.</p>
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<p>“Nowadays with things being so expensive, a parent has to practically do a 12-hour shift just to survive,” Mickens said. “Their child is coming home to an empty house and what’s the first thing they’re going to do? Leave.”</p>
<p>Parents are also questioning why they pay so much in taxes — more than $5,000 a year on a $300,000 home — only to have their schools feel underfunded. They complain there are not enough social workers and guidance counselors. School officials did not return calls seeking comment.</p>
<p>Evelyn Rodriguez, Kayla’s mother, said the high school social workers failed her daughter, who had been bullied for years.</p>
<p>“We need to bring programs into the school so we can catch them early, change their minds,” she said. “So we can avoid this ever happening again.”</p>
<p>Joseph Walsh, 58, a retired security guard at the high school who is running against Mickens, said the problem is both a lack of security guards and proper training for them against the gang threat. “What good is having more guards when they don’t know what they’re doing?” he asked.</p>
<p>Despite the public outcry over the deaths, a candidate’s night this week drew only about 35 people, where hopefuls took turns answering questions on how to best address the gang violence.</p>
<p>“I want to get to the heart of the matter,” said Bryan Greaves, the pastor on the slate with Mickens. “I don’t want to bury another child. I don’t want to have to counsel another family. I do not want to have to try to raise a GoFundMe for a family to bury a child.”</p>
<p>____</p>
<p>Associated Press writer Sara Megan-Walsh contributed to this report.</p> | Grieving dad runs for school board in gang-scarred suburb | false | https://abqjournal.com/999910/grieving-dad-runs-for-school-board-in-gang-scarred-suburb.html | 2017-05-07 | 2 |
<p>JOHANNESBURG, South Africa — Anene Booysen was gang raped, mutilated and left for dead at a construction site in Bredasdorp, a windswept town near the southernmost tip of Africa.</p>
<p>When found by security guards, the 17-year-old girl was barely alive. At the hospital, she managed to identify one of her rapists before dying of her injuries. She had been eviscerated from stomach to genitals; hospital staff needed counseling to deal with the trauma after fighting a losing battle to save her life.</p>
<p>Booysen’s rape and murder Saturday have led to an outpouring of anger among South Africans, frustrated with a national epidemic of sexual violence. Around the country people are wondering if this might at last be a “ <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/asia-pacific/india/121229/india-protests-resume-delhi-gang-rape-victim-dies" type="external">Delhi moment,</a>” referring to the protests that united India and the world after the violent gang rape of a 23-year-old woman on a bus late last year.</p>
<p>In South Africa, rape is so common it barely makes the news. The rapes of elderly women and babies are outlined in four-line stories on the inside pages of local newspapers, but most sexual assaults get no public attention.</p>
<p>The country has one of the highest rates of rape in the world, with some 65,000 rapes and other sexual assaults reported for the year ending in March 2012, or 127.6 per 100,000 people in the country. One in four South African men has admitted to having raped a woman, according to a <a href="http://www.irinnews.org/Report/84909/SOUTH-AFRICA-One-in-four-men-rape" type="external">widely cited study</a> from 2009.</p>
<p>Despite these frightening statistics, the last significant public outcry was a year ago, when a 17-year-old mentally disabled girl from Soweto was gang raped by young men who videotaped her anguish and offered her the equivalent of 25 cents to keep quiet.</p>
<p>But the rape and murder of Booysen, whose ex-boyfriend is one of two young men so far charged in the attack, have drawn the attention of the country’s president. On Thursday, Jacob Zuma called on the courts to “impose the harshest sentences on such crimes, as part of a concerted campaign to end this scourge in our society.”</p>
<p>“The whole nation is outraged at this extreme violation and destruction of a young human life,” Zuma said in a statement. “We must never allow ourselves to get used to these acts of base criminality to our women and children.”</p>
<p>Andy Kawa, a South African businesswoman who attended Columbia University and has an MBA from the Wharton School, was gang raped in 2010 on a beach in the coastal town of Port Elizabeth.</p>
<p>She survived the 15-hour attack, and founded Kwanele, or “enough is enough,” an organization that aims to break what she calls the “conspiracy of silence” around rape in South Africa.</p>
<p>Kawa said rape is common at all levels of South African society, including within families where it is hushed up.</p>
<p>“Rape has been normalized,” she said. “It’s not a black thing, it’s not a white thing. It affects all ages and backgrounds.”</p>
<p>“We need a paradigm shift.”</p>
<p>Mbuyiselo Botha, spokesman for the Sonke Gender Justice Network, which advocates for South African men to take a stand against rape, said the government needs to “walk the talk.”</p>
<p>“It’s good to have politically correct statements, but is there the willingness to go a step further?”</p>
<p>“In South Africa, rape is taken as a norm,” he said. “Why is it not taken as a crisis?”</p>
<p>Botha’s organization works with men and boys to address what he called a “toxic masculinity,” made worse by the violent nature of South African society.</p>
<p>“The president should take the lead and say, ‘I as a South African man think this should not be done in my name.’”</p>
<p>While South Africa has one of the world’s most progressive constitutions, and while more than 40 percent of the country’s cabinet ministers are women, the government has been accused of neglecting the issue of rape and violence against women.</p>
<p>President Zuma was tried for rape in 2006, and acquitted of charges that he raped a family friend who was HIV positive. The victim was verbally abused by Zuma’s supporters as she entered and exited the courtroom.</p>
<p>Kawa, who is helping to lead South Africa's involvement in a Feb. 14 global march against gender violence, said that while South Africa’s constitution is famously progressive, the judicial system is out of step.</p>
<p>In her own gang rape case, charges against her accused assailants were dropped due to a lack of DNA evidence.</p>
<p>“We are the envy of the world with our constitution and bill of rights, but the justice system is not there,” she said. “My experience as a victim is that the perpetrator has more rights. They can play the system.”</p>
<p>“My case has fallen through the cracks of the justice system,” Kawa added. “But I’m going to make sure it doesn’t happen to anybody else.”</p> | South Africa's 'Delhi moment' | false | https://pri.org/stories/2013-02-08/south-africas-delhi-moment | 2013-02-08 | 3 |
<p>In an interview with ‘Good Morning America.’ Ivana Trump called herself the real first lady. While Ivana was clearly only joking by the laugh she let out after muttering the nonsense, Melania is of course throwing a tantrum about it in true Trump fashion.</p>
<p>Ivana said this during the Monday interview:</p>
<p>“I have the direct number to White House, but I no really want to call him there because Melania is there. I don’t want to cause any kind of jealousy or something like that because I’m basically first Trump wife.&#160;I’m first lady, OK?”</p>
<p>Those are fighting words to an insecure little girl, Ivana.</p>
<p>A spokesperson for the first lady retaliated with the <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/10/09/politics/melania-trump-ivana-trump-first-lady/index.html" type="external">following statement</a>:</p>
<p>“She plans to use her title and role to help children, not sell books.&#160;There is clearly no substance to this statement from an ex. Unfortunately only attention seeking and self-serving noise.”</p>
<p>Melania Trump may have a bit of a chip on her shoulder over being Trump’s third, and possibly not final wife, and she is definitely perturbed that someone the likes of Ivana Trump would attempt to dismiss the important role she plays in the White House</p>
<p>(We’re still trying to figure out what that is too)</p>
<p>Regardless, to even address the GMA interview was classless and without tact; so pretty much business as usual with the Trumps.</p>
<p>Check out Ivana’s interview below via YouTube:</p>
<p /> | Melania Just Responded To Ivana’s ‘First Wife’ Comment Like An Insecure Third Wife | true | http://bipartisanreport.com/2017/10/09/melania-just-responded-to-ivanas-first-wife-comment-like-an-insecure-third-wife/ | 2017-10-09 | 4 |
<p>If you’re craving a bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich, be prepared to dig deeper into your pocket to pay for it.</p>
<p>Higher prices for lettuce and tomato contributed to a 31-cent increase in the cost of the FOX Business Shopping Cart, raising the cost of the items in the basket to$71.62, the second consecutive monthly increase.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>The month-over-month increase in the cost of all the items in the shopping cart outpaced the one-cent per hour increase in average hourly earnings in November. As a result, it took the average wage earner about a minute longer to earn the cost of the cart in November than in October, but 14 minutes less than it took in November 2008.</p>
<p>FBN calculates “minutes to earn” by dividing the cost of the basket by average hourly earnings as reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics which also collects average price data in compiling the <a href="" type="internal">Consumer Price Index</a> report.</p>
<p>Prices for meat and produce – hence the higher cost of a BLT – surged in November while the cost of dairy products fell as the aggregate cost of fun foods such as cola, chocolate chip cookies, peanut butter, potato chips and beer. The cost of grain products fell slightly.</p>
<p>While prices rose in November, the increase was relatively tame compared with the 50-cent increase from September to October.</p>
<p>Despite the November increase, the cost of the items in the cart is down 3.4%, or $2.50, from November 2008.</p>
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<p>Experts at the Department of Agriculture suggested seasonal factors contributed to the sharp – 13 cent per pound – increase in the price of field-grown tomatoes to $1.73.</p>
<p>At the same time, demographics may be a factor. According to researchers Hayden Stewart and Gary Lucier, demand for fresh vegetables among younger consumers is down.</p>
<p>Using data from the Consumer Expenditure Survey, collected between 1982 and 2003, Stewart and Lucier determined “people born more recently are found to spend less money for fresh vegetables than older Americans do.”</p>
<p>Kids really do have to reminded to eat vegetables, they said.</p>
<p>“Unless something happens to alter how the current young make food choices,” Stewart and Lucier wrote, “they likely will exhibit a lower level of demand for at-home fresh vegetables in their later years than today’s older generations currently exhibit.”</p>
<p>There are eight produce items included in the FBN Shopping Cart. Prices increased for four an aggregate 46 cents, the aggregate decline for the other four produce items (bananas, grapefruit, frozen orange juice and potatoes) was 12 cents.</p>
<p>Meat products rose a combined 55 cents for the month with sirloin steak and round roast contributed 38 cents. According to the Department of Agriculture’s monthly “Livestock, Poultry and Dairy Outlook,” beef supplies are down from 2008.</p>
<p>“Total federally inspected cattle slaughter has remained below year-earlier levels for most of 2009, with year-to-date estimated cumulative slaughter running almost 4% below 2008 levels,” the report said.</p>
<p>Grain products, which inched up generally in November, were, according to the <a href="" type="internal">Federal Reserve</a>’s <a href="" type="internal">Beige Book</a> report, affected by the weather.</p>
<p>“Excessively wet conditions during October and early November were reported in a number of [Federal Reserve] Districts,” according to the Beige Book. “As a result, the fall harvest was delayed in many parts of the Richmond, Atlanta, Chicago, St. Louis, Minneapolis, and Kansas City Districts. Flooding from Tropical Storm Ida and a November ‘noreaster’ damaged crops and delayed planting throughout the Richmond District."</p>
<p>The Beige Book also noted “corn and soybean prices rallied over the past month.” Written from the perspective of farmers, that means prices rose.</p>
<p>Some items in the FBN shopping cart – beer, chocolate chip cookies and ice cream – fell from record highs in October. The price for a half gallon of ice cream, for example, dropped 19-cents or 4.2% in November. After jumping 16 cents per pound in October -- the largest increase since June 2006 – the price dropped 9 cents in November.</p>
<p>Prices rose in November 13 of the 31 items in the FBN shopping compared with 15 in October.</p>
<p>As to that BLT, the cost of a pound of bacon and the cost of a pound of white bread declined in November, but by less than the increases in lettuce and tomatoes. You might want to consider a grilled cheese sandwich: the cost of a pound of American cheese dropped in November — the eighth month-over-month decline this year.</p>
<p>Mark Lieberman is the senior economist for the Fox Business Network. Prior to joining FOX, he served as first vice president and manager of economic analysis and research at <a href="" type="internal">Washington Mutual</a> in New York. Before that, he served as senior vice president at Dime Savings <a href="" type="internal">Bank of New York</a> (which was later acquired by Washington Mutual), where he specialized in credit and risk management. He is a member of the Executive Committee of the New York Association for Business Economics. He has a degree in Economics from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.</p>
<p>Follow Mark on <a href="" type="internal">Twitter</a> at foxeconomics: <a href="http://twitter.com/foxeconomics" type="external">http://twitter.com/foxeconomics Opens a New Window.</a></p> | FBN Shopping Cart Prices Rise in November | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2009/12/18/fbn-shopping-cart-prices-rise-november.html | 2016-03-18 | 0 |
<p>In 2005, China experienced more than seventy five thousand public protests in rural villages and urban factories. These bursts of discontent appear to have made a deep impression on China's party leaders. As in nineteenth-century Europe, the specter of revolution calls forth reform. But the capitalist road has lots of twists and turns. A recent trip to Beijing presented a myriad of images:</p>
<p>Most surprising of all in the seat of China's national government was the openness with which people criticized China's current position on the capitalist road. Now that the government has announced reform efforts to reduce rural poverty, end environmental degradation, raise the status of migrant workers, promote corporate social responsibility, strengthen labor unions, eliminate official corruption, and improve enforcement of labor laws, people freely criticize their country's shortcomings.</p>
<p>The migrants who leave China's impoverished rural areas have no citizenship rights in the cities, one activist explained to us. Under the hukuo system, their citizenship resides in their rural village of origin. When they come to the city to work, they have no access to full citizenship rights or to schools. If their employer fails to pay them (a not uncommon occurrence) their cases are not prosecuted the same way as citizens' cases are. However, there are some lawyers and nongovernmental organizations that have set up worker centers to press the migrants' claims. And the national government has urged urban administrations t...</p>
<p /> | China on the Capitalist Road | true | https://dissentmagazine.org/article/china-on-the-capitalist-road | 2006-06-21 | 4 |
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<p>No matter how many of those practice shots hit nothing but the bottom of the net of the south basket of an otherwise empty Pit arena, none could erase what had just happened.</p>
<p>It didn't change the fact that Brown missed a free throw with 26.3 seconds remaining that would have tied the game or that his late miss was one of just 12 misses the Lobos had en route to shooting 15-of-27 from the charity stripe.</p>
<p>It didn't change the fact that Wyoming star senior Josh Adams hit seven 3-pointers and scored a career-high 38 points, the first opposing player to score that many points in the Pit since Donta Richardson scored 39 in February 2003, which was also the last time Wyoming beat UNM in Albuquerque.</p>
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<p>It didn't change the fact that Brown, who was benched to start the game for violating team rules ( <a href="" type="internal">CLICK HERE for story on discipline</a>), and his Lobos teammates were out of sync throughout the game.</p>
<p>Wyoming's Josh Adams (14), defended by UNM's Sam Logwood, scored 38 points in the Cowboys? 70-68 win. (Jim Thompson/Albuquerque Journal.)</p>
<p>"We had to do some juggling and got off to a bad start, but I think some of our guys played hard. We just couldn't get into a rhythm," UNM head coach Craig Neal said. "? I thought we would turn the corner, but we've got a lot of work to do."</p>
<p>Nevertheless, UNM (10-8, 3-2 Mountain West), still had a chance to tie or win when drawing up a play in a timeout with 25.7 seconds remaining down by two.</p>
<p>Cullen Neal drove to the rim with about 10 seconds showing on the clock, getting by one defender only to run into another and getting called for traveling with seven seconds remaining. The turnover, UNM's 10th of the game, led to a pair of Adams free throws before a meaningless Lobo basket as time expired and the Cowboys (10-9, 3-3) were celebrating on Bob King Court.</p>
<p>"We got out of it," Craig Neal said of the play he drew up in the huddle. "We were supposed to go to Tim Williams on the block and then get some action, but we didn't really wait enough to get him the ball."</p>
<p>Williams, who had just two of his team-high 17 points in the final six minutes of the game, rarely touched the ball down the stretch. And every time the Lobos did seem to make a run, Adams ended it, often with well-defended shots late in the shot clock.</p>
<p>A 7-0 Lobos run with just under five minutes to play cut a nine point Wyoming lead to 62-60 with 2:23 remaining. But then, 30 seconds later, Adams' seventh 3-pointer put Wyoming back up five with 1:53 remaining, a shot at the end of the shot clock after UNM's defense had seemingly done all it could.</p>
<p>"It's deflating, especially when you play D for that long and he hits a tough shot like that, but those are the kind of shots we have to keep making guys shoot," Williams said. "We can't get worried about them making a couple of those. If they keep shooting tough shots like that, hopefully they'll start missing some."</p>
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<p>Just not Josh Adams, apparently.</p>
<p>"Josh Adams was a lot to handle tonight," Craig Neal said. "He kind of put them on his back. We had our chances."</p>
<p>Wyoming coach Larry Shyatt praised Adams, too, but said it was hardly a one-man gang.</p>
<p>"For me, it's the whole team, because to be honest with you (Cullen) Neal got by the initial defender, and it was the secondary defender that had a nice stunt that caused the travel," Shyatt said. "He was by the initial defender. You know, it's a team effort. We had one heck of a performance by one of our players, but there were 32 other points that had to be nailed or we don't win."</p>
<p>Five Lobos scored in double figures, with Brown, Neal and Xavier Adams each scoring 13 after Williams? 17.</p>
<p>UNM has a week off before playing at San Jose State on Saturday.</p>
<p><a href="https://d3el53au0d7w62.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/16/WY-NM-1.pdf" type="external">Box score: Wyoming 70, UNM 68</a></p> | Wyoming stuns Lobos behind Adams? 38 points | false | https://abqjournal.com/707200/wyoming-stuns-lobos.html | 2016-01-16 | 2 |
<p>FBN’s Stuart Varney provides insight into the Kate Steinle verdict.</p>
<p>It was not murder. It was not manslaughter. The death of Kate Steinle was judged an accident. The illegal immigrant who fired the gun may be deported. Again, our concern here this morning is not the verdict in the courtroom, but the events that lead to the shooting, and the politics of sanctuary cities.</p>
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<p>In March 2015, Jose Zarate was arrested in San Francisco on a charge of selling marijuana. &#160;He had a long criminal record,and he'd been deported before, but he was released, even though immigration officials wanted him detained. San Francisco is a sanctuary city. The feds can't identify and deport illegals.</p>
<p>Four months later Kate Steinle was shot. Jose Zarate fired the gun. Clearly, sanctuary city status lead to the death of that young woman.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, court rulings and leftist politicians have kept sanctuary cities in place. California Gov. Jerry Brown recently made California a sanctuary state. The political and media elites are protecting criminals at the expense of Americans. And if you want reform, you're a racist.</p>
<p>The Steinle case is surely a watershed. It will add momentum to the efforts of the president and the attorney general to roll back sanctuary rules. It will add momentum to the push to build a wall. And, it will make the sanctuary city crowd accountable.</p>
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<p>The parents of Kate Steinle are suing the city of San Francisco. Good, it’s about time the victims got justice.</p> | Kate Steinle murder verdict will make sanctuary cities accountable: Varney | true | http://foxbusiness.com/politics/2017/12/01/kate-steinle-murder-verdict-will-make-sanctuary-cities-accountable-varney.html | 2017-12-01 | 0 |
<p>The Poynter Institute will offer its popular Writers Workshop for Florida high school students and teachers on Feb. 26, 2011.</p>
<p>All Florida high school students and teachers are welcome. The workshop</p>
<p>costs $35, including lunch.&#160; (Late registration costs $40.)&#160; The program will last from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.&#160; Please plan to arrive by 9:45 a.m. so that we can begin promptly.</p>
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<p>Watch this space for a link to register online and reserve your seat.</p>
<p>We'll also post a registration form if you prefer to pay by check or if you want to request financial aid.</p>
<p>Enrollment is limited to the first 200 who register and pay their workshop fee.&#160;</p>
<p>Workshop presenters in 2010 included members of the Poynter Institute as well as professionals from Tampa Bay area news organizations, including Ben Montgomery and Stephanie Hayes from the St. Petersburg Times,&#160; Preston Rudie of WTSP Channel 10 and Roy Harris, a former Wall Street Journal reporter.&#160; Pulitzer Prize-winner Tom French presented a workshop, as did spoken word artist Aleshea Harris.</p>
<p>The day is open to all high school students in Florida and to eighth graders with prior permission.</p>
<p>"What an amazing day.&#160; Thank you so much for offering this opportunity to my eighth-grade journalism students. &#160;They raved about it all the way back to Tarpon Springs,"&#160; Shannon Johnson, journalism teacher at Tarpon Springs Middle School, wrote after the 2010 workshop. "I created many lesson plans from ideas discussed in the many mini-conferences. &#160; Speaking of inspiration, one of the writers in the group got out of the car and told her mother that she was 'inspired to be a journalist again.'&#160; What a blessing to have an institute where writing is treasured. &#160;Keep up the great work.</p>
<p>Workshop topics range from writing and reporting to ethics and media careers. Between workshops and&#160;during lunch, students may browse award-winning student newspapers from across the country and chat with student journalists from across the state. Participants do not need to be involved in journalism at their schools. But those who work on school publications are urged to bring copies to share.</p>
<p>Teachers who plan to bring more than 10 students should contact Wendy Wallace, program director, to ensure that space is available.&#160; Students registered for the SAT that morning who want to come just for the afternoon should <a href="" type="internal">contact the program coordinator</a>.For more information about the workshop, e-mail <a href="" type="internal">Wendy Wallace</a>. The workshop will take place at the Institute, <a href="http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&amp;hl=en&amp;geocode=&amp;time=&amp;date=&amp;ttype=&amp;saddr=&amp;daddr=801+Third+St.+S.,+St.+Petersburg.+Fl+33701&amp;sll=37.0625,-95.677068&amp;sspn=48.019527,65.390625&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;ll=27.76283,-82.637004&amp;spn=0.006598,0.007982&amp;z=17&amp;iwloc=ddw1&amp;om=1" type="external">801 Third St. S., St. Petersburg</a>.</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | High School Writers Workshop: Spend a Day Among Friends | false | https://poynter.org/news/high-school-writers-workshop-spend-day-among-friends | 2004-11-05 | 2 |
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<p>Source: Flickr user Simon Cunningham.</p>
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<p>For investors seeking growth, healthcare is a very attractive space. After all, with 10,000 baby boomers per day turning 65 from now through 2029, there are major demographic trends supporting greater use of healthcare services. And for new healthcare investors seeking dividends, the big pharmas -- with their diverse pipelines, broad reach, growing dividends, and stable business models -- are a particularly attractive group.</p>
<p>The biggest of the bunch are Johnson &amp; Johnson and Pfizer . Both are steady, stable stocks that have a track record of growing their dividends (just look at the following chart) -- but one is clearly better than the other.</p>
<p>Johnson &amp; Johnson: diversity meets stabilityJohnson &amp; Johnson is diversified across a number of different business lines, with only around 45% of 2015 revenue coming from pharmaceutical sales. About 36% comes from the company's medical device business, and 19% from consumer goods and OTC sales. While pharma is the standout growth driver of the group, growing 4.2% operationally year over year in 2015, with consumer goods up 2.7% and med devices down 1.4%, it's still a great thing that the company isn't wholly, or even primarily, reliant on pharma. After all, those slow-but-steady segments help provide stability in contrast to pharma's rollercoaster of drug approvals, failures, and patent expirations.</p>
<p>It is this diversity and underlying stability that has helped Johnson &amp; Johnson pay steadily growing dividends for over 50 years, making the company one of an elite handful of dividend aristocrats -- companies that have grown their dividends annually for at least 25 years.</p>
<p>Cancer drugs Imbruvica and Zytiga continue to post nice gains for J&amp;J, with Imbruvica selling $235 million in Q4 of 2015 -- getting it near a $1 billion annual run rate for J&amp;J -- and Zytiga holding up well to increased competition fromMedivationandAstellas' Xtandi, with 5.3% operational growth and overall bringing in nearly $600 million for the quarter. Blood thinner Xarelto grew 15.4% to $494 million for the quarter as well. And while Remicade remained J&amp;J's biggest drug at $1.7 billion and hardly grew at all -- about 3.8% operationally -- the company is working hard to further diversify its pharma pipeline.</p>
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<p>And with a variety of interesting drugs on the potential approval list over the next few years, J&amp;J looks likely to succeed in just that. Two big ones to keep an eye out for: daratumumab for double refractory multiple myeloma and imetelstat for myelofibrosis. Analysts project blockbuster potential for both if approved, with daratumumab at $3.7 billion in annual peak sales and imetelstat at over $1 billion.</p>
<p>Pfizer: revamping for the futurePfizer is heavily pharma reliant, which gives the stock more risk -- but also a little more pizazz. It has a slew of recent drug approvals doing very nicely on the market. For example, Ibrance for breast cancer achieved $315 million in sales in Q4 of 2015 and over $700 million during the year, despite only being approved in February. That implies at least blockbuster potential for the drug in 2016, its first full year on the market. And autoimmune drug Xeljanz posted 66% year-over-year growth to $172 million in 2015's fourth quarter. Pfizer's extensive pipeline includes dozens of drugs in trials, perhaps foremost among them bococizumab, a PCSK9 inhibitor to help control cholesterol, which has multibillion-dollar annual sales potential.</p>
<p>Pfizer has also invested heavily in beefing up its business for a possible future split. The 2015 purchases of biosimilar player Hospira and botox maker Allergan plcwill ultimately lead to significant economies of scale in generics and a number of branded drugs, which will then give management the flexibility to decide whether to keep the company together or split into two well-scaled businesses -- probably one focused on branded drugs and one with a number of legacy drugs and generic/biosimilar opportunities. If drug approvals continue to roll in and the split ends up unlocking value, then the business (or businesses, I suppose), would clearly benefit.</p>
<p>But when it gets down to it, the better choice is clearJ&amp;J has a management team that's executing on its current strategy, instead of potentially splitting because it hasn't been able to run the overall business effectively. J&amp;J has a longer and more robust history of dividends. You have a company here whose diversity has enabled it to be a steady, slow-growth behemoth. I'm not saying that Pfizer is necessarily a bad stock, but it doesn't compare with J&amp;J.</p>
<p>The article <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2016/03/07/better-dividend-stock-johnson-johnson-vs-pfizer-2.aspx" type="external">Better Dividend Stock: Johnson &amp; Johnson vs. Pfizer</a> originally appeared on Fool.com.</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFEnterprise/info.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">Michael Douglass</a> owns shares of Johnson &amp; Johnson. The Motley Fool recommends Johnson &amp; Johnson. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services <a href="http://www.fool.com/shop/newsletters/index.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">free for 30 days</a>. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that <a href="http://wiki.fool.com/Motley?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">considering a diverse range of insights</a> makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/Legal/fool-disclosure-policy.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">disclosure policy</a>.</p>
<p>Copyright 1995 - 2016 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/help/index.htm?display=about02" type="external">disclosure policy</a>.</p> | Better Dividend Stock: Johnson & Johnson vs. Pfizer | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/03/07/better-dividend-stock-johnson-johnson-vs-pfizer.html | 2016-03-28 | 0 |
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<p>Last year, the median pay for women CEOs rose to $15.9 million, a 21 percent gain from a year earlier, according to a study by executive compensation data firm Equilar and The Associated Press. That compared with median pay for male CEOs of $10.4 million, which was down 0.8 percent from 2013.</p>
<p>Marissa Mayer, the head of Yahoo, was the highest-paid female chief executive in the Equilar/AP pay study. Her compensation was almost double that of the next-highest earner on the list - Carol Meyrowitz of discount retailer TJX Companies.</p>
<p>Still, there is a big caveat: There are far fewer female CEOs than males among large U.S companies. The study of 340 CEOs included 17 women.</p>
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<p>No. 1: Marissa Mayer, Yahoo, $42.1 million, up 69 percent</p>
<p>Yahoo's stock price has climbed 177 percent since the technology company hired Mayer from Google in July 2012. That compares with a gain of 76 percent for the tech-focused Nasdaq over the same time. Earnings jumped at Yahoo last year after it raised $9.5 billion by selling part of its stake in Alibaba, the Chinese e-commerce site owner.</p>
<p>No. 2: Carol Meyrowitz, TJX Companies, $23.3 million, up 13 percent</p>
<p>Meyrowitz has led the parent company of T.J. Maxx, Marshalls and other stores, since January 2007. For the year that ended in January, the company reported profit of $2.22 billion on revenue of $29.08 billion. The company said in February that it would lift hourly wages for its employees. Workers that have been employed for six months or more will earn at least $10 an hour.</p>
<p>No. 3: Margaret Whitman, Hewlett-Packard, $19.6 million, up 11 percent</p>
<p>When Whitman rejoined HP in 2011, the company's board established an initial salary of $1 a year. For 2014, the board decided it was time to raise the salary portion of her pay package to make it consistent with her peers at similar technology companies. Her base salary increased to $1.5 million.</p>
<p>No. 4: Indra Nooyi, PepsiCo, $19.1 million, up 45 percent</p>
<p>PepsiCo., which makes Frito-Lay snacks, Gatorade sports drinks and Quaker oatmeal, has improved its performance by raising prices and slashing costs. The company's earnings were hit this year by currency volatility in countries like Russia and Bolivia, but this was offset by growth at Frito-Lay North America, which makes snacks such as Doritos, Cheetos and Tostitos.</p>
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<p>No. 5: Phebe Novakovic, General Dynamics, $19 million, up 1 percent</p>
<p>Novakovic was a senior executive at General Dynamics for more than a decade before she was promoted to the top job in January 2013. Since she took the position, the defense contractor's stock has doubled as it has increased dividend payouts and boosted stock buybacks.</p>
<p>No. 6: Virginia Rometty, IBM, $17.9 million, up 28 percent</p>
<p>The IBM boss was awarded a $3.6 million bonus for her performance last year, even though the company's sales and profits declined. Her overall pay jumped from 2013, when Rometty and other top executives did not take bonuses after IBM turned in disappointing results.</p>
<p>No. 7: Marillyn Hewson, Lockheed Martin, $17.9 million, up 13 percent</p>
<p>Hewson is a 32-year veteran at Lockheed Martin and the second chief executive at a defense company to top the list of best-paid female CEOs. Her pay award increased as the company's earnings rose. Lockheed's stock also gained nearly 30 percent.</p>
<p>No. 8: Patricia Woertz, Archer Daniels Midland, $16.3 million, up 138 percent</p>
<p>Woertz's near nine-year tenure as CEO of Archer Daniels Midland ended in December, though she still holds the position of chairman at the company, which makes vegetable oil, ethanol and ingredients used in packaged foods and drinks. Her compensation included $501,560 for relocation expenses after ADM moved its global headquarters to Chicago from Decatur, Illinois.</p>
<p>No. 9: Irene Rosenfeld, Mondelez International, $15.9 million, up 14 percent</p>
<p>The maker of Oreo cookies, Cadbury chocolate and Trident gum raised Rosenfeld's overall pay by 14 percent last year. Shareholders didn't fare as well. The company's stock rose 3 percent, compared with a gain of 11.4 percent for the broader stock market.</p>
<p>No. 10: Ellen Kullman, DuPont, $13.1 million, down 1 percent</p>
<p>Kullman spent much of last year fending off an attempt by activist investor Nelson Peltz to gain more influence over the 212-year old chemical company. She prevailed in May this year after shareholders voted against his campaign. But the fight showed that DuPont needed to do a better job of explaining its transformation from a traditional chemical maker to a faster-growing company focused on agricultural products and advanced materials, she said.</p>
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<p>Follow Steve on Twitter: @SteveRothwellAP</p>
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<p><a href="http://www.equilar.com/ap300" type="external">www.equilar.com/ap300</a></p> | The top 10 highest-paid female CEOs | false | https://abqjournal.com/591892/the-top-10-highest-paid-female-ceos.html | 2015-05-29 | 2 |
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<p>The U.S. Department of Justice said on Thursday that 243 people have been arrested across the country, charged with submitting fake billing for Medicare, a government healthcare program, that totaled $712 million.</p>
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<p>Attorney General Loretta Lynch described the arrests as the largest criminal healthcare fraud takedown in the history of the Justice Department.</p>
<p>Those arrested included 46 doctors, nurses and other licensed medical professionals. The charges are based on a variety of alleged fraud schemes, the government said, including submitting claims to Medicare and Medicaid, the healthcare program for low-income individuals, for treatments that were medically unnecessary and often never provided.</p>
<p>The nationwide sweep, led by the Medicare Fraud Strike Force and the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, involved about 900 law enforcement officials. It's the largest both in terms of the number of those charged and the amount of money lost.</p>
<p>Many of the arrests were in Florida, long an epicenter of Medicare fraud. In Miami, 73 defendants were charged with offenses involving approximately $263 million in false billings.</p>
<p>One mental health facility there billed close to $64 million for psychotherapy sessions that were nothing more than moving patients to different locations, Lynch said in a press conference.</p>
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<p>Other cities involved include Houston, Dallas and McAllen, Texas; Los Angeles; Detroit; Tampa; Brooklyn, New York; and New Orleans.</p>
<p>One case in Michigan involved a doctor who prescribed unnecessary narcotics in exchange for patients' identification information, which was used to generate false billings. Patients then became deeply addicted to the prescription narcotics and were bound to the scheme as long as they wanted to keep their access to the drugs.</p>
<p>"In the days ahead, the Department of Justice will continue our focus on preventing wrongdoing and prosecuting those whose criminal activity drives up medical costs and jeopardizes a system that our citizens trust with their lives," Lynch said.</p>
<p>Since 2007, as part of increased efforts to tackle Medicare fraud, federal authorities have charged nearly 2,100 people with falsely billing the Medicare program more than $6.5 billion, according to the Justice Dept. Thursday's arrests bring that total to over 2,300 people who have billed over $7 billion.</p> | Authorities Arrest 243 People in $712 Million Medicare Fraud | true | http://foxbusiness.com/industries/2015/06/18/authorities-arrest-243-people-in-712-million-medicare-fraud.html | 2016-03-09 | 0 |
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<p>Verizon has rolled out a new pricing scheme for its wireless data plans and T-Mobile CEO John Legere, unsurprisingly, took to <a href="https://twitter.com/JohnLegere?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor" type="external">Twitter Opens a New Window.</a> to bash the company.</p>
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<p>On the surface, the new Verizon plans actually look a lot like T-Mobile's. They offer roll-over data, protection from overage charges, and unlimited talk and text from the U.S. to Mexico and Canada. The problem -- and Legere seems to delight in pointing this out -- is that the plans are sort of like T-Mobile's but most of the new offers have catches, or cost extra.</p>
<p>"And OMG, my favorite part is that @verizon is going to charge you $5, to promise not to charge you for overages?! #SafetyMode #questionmark," the CEO wrote in a tweet, explaining that his rival wasn't making no overages part of its basic offering like his company does.</p>
<p>Legere also explained his answer to his own questions in another tweet.</p>
<p>"@verizon, why not just eliminate overages?! Oh, that's right... because you are greedy bullies! I think we need to have a little fun w/ this... ," the outspoken CEO tweeted. He then hosted a caption contest in his Twitter feed for a cartoon of "Verizon" (drawn as a playground bully) shaking down a "customer" (drawn as a smaller boy).</p>
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<p>Legere has been a crusader against overages, which he has noted bring Verizon and AT&amp;T billions of dollars each year -- much more, he has repeatedly said, when you consider that many people buy more than they need due to fear of running up bills for using more data than they paid for. T-Mobiles does not charge overages at all; it slows customers' access speeds down when they exceed their allotted data.</p>
<p>Legere, an outspoken critic of Verizon, is seen during the New York City Pride March in June. Image source: T-Mobile.</p>
<p>In addition to offering T-Mobile-like perks that are not quite as generous, the big-two carrier has raised its prices while offering customers more data. Its new plans, which are being sized like clothes, are as follows:</p>
<p>Image source: Verizon.</p>
<p>That's $5 more for small but double the data, $5 more for medium with one extra GB of data, $10 more for 2GB more with a large plan, $10 extra for 4GB extra on an XL plan, and the same $10 for 6 more GBs for XXL users. The three smallest plans have to pay $5 a month extra for unlimited calling to Mexico and Canada as well as $2 a day for unlimited talk, text, and data while visiting those countries. In addition, the three smaller plans pay $5 extra for "Safety Mode," which prevents the user from incurring overages while XL and XXL subscribers get that included.</p>
<p>Nancy Clark, senior vice president of marketing and operations at Verizon, shared the company's spin on its new offerings in a <a href="http://www.verizonwireless.com/news/article/2016/06/verizon-transforms-your-wireless-experience.html" type="external">press release Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>
<p>"The new Verizon Plan puts your mobile experience in the palm of your hand with the My Verizon app, giving you greater value with new capabilities that get rid of the fear of overages, offer bill simplicity, and help you better manage your overall mobile experience with a few quick taps," she said.</p>
<p>Verizon wants to have its cake and eat it, too. As Legere pointed out, the company wants to look like it's giving up overages without actually giving them up. Under its new plan it can either milk an extra $5 out of users or push people into buying more data than they use in order to not have to worry about pushing their bill higher.</p>
<p>"@verizon creates pain points, then charges more to solve the pain points created. Where have I heard this business model before? #Sopranos," Legere wrote on Twitter.</p>
<p>The T-Mobile CEO has a point. There are consumers who will benefit from Verizon's plans -- the ones who actually use a ton of data -- but overall this is a price increase, with new fees, being packaged as a consumer-friendly offer. It also shows that even though Verizon has shown solid results in recent quarters, the company does feel the pressure from T-Mobile.</p>
<p>It's hard to see how these new offers will entice any customers who have already left for T-Mobile, but it might prevent more from leaving. That's a small win for Verizon shareholders, but it seems likely that at some point, maybe soon, the company will have to give up overages, which will be a massive revenue hit it can't replace with fees.</p>
<p>The article <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/2016/07/07/for-kris-t-mobile-ceo-bashes-new-verizon-plans.aspx" type="external">T-Mobile CEO Bashes New Verizon Plans Opens a New Window.</a> originally appeared on Fool.com.</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/Dankline/info.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">Daniel Kline Opens a New Window.</a> has no position in any stocks mentioned. He can't pull off a magenta shirt. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Twitter and Verizon Communications. 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> | T-Mobile CEO Bashes New Verizon Plans | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/07/07/t-mobile-ceo-bashes-new-verizon-plans.html | 2016-07-07 | 0 |
<p>Over the past several months, a great deal has been written about Donald Trump as the Republican Presidential candidate, and how the GOP has become so fractured and dysfunctional as to allow a person such as him to receive the party’s nomination.</p>
<p>Well, looks as if the worm has now turned and many of the same people are wondering what has happened to the Democratic Party that has allowed a scandal-plagued candidate such as Hillary Clinton to be their representative in the same election cycle.</p>
<p>The flood of Wikileaked e-mails that, although containing no smoking guns as of yet, have done what seems to be a great deal of harm to Secretary Clinton’s already tarnished reputation, seem to enforce the opinion that the entire Democratic National Committee has been in on the project for quite some time.</p>
<p>And there are even hints of media compliance in raising the former First Lady to the top spot, what with questions being leaked to her campaign before town hall events and debates.</p>
<p>The American public has just about reached a saturation point with the corruption and back-stabbing politics, and is beginning to question not only the Democrat’s staff, but everyone connected with the Clintons in any way.</p>
<p>We always knew this type of thing was running rampant in Washington, but it was kind of like we just didn’t want to listen and just turned our heads.&#160; But now, with it being played out even in the mainstream media on 24-hour news cycles, and more damning hints and allegations surfacing with each new dump, we can no longer ignore it and we must take notice.</p>
<p>It’s kind of like walking in on your parents making love.&#160; You knew they had to be doing it, but as long as you had no proof, you could just go on your merry way.&#160; Once exposed, you can’t un-ring the bell and the truth must be faced.</p>
<p>Sure, the Democrats are attacking FBI Director James Comey and blaming all the Wikileaks on the Russians trying to influence the American election, but one thing you aren’t hearing are denials or statements saying the documents are false.&#160; And even if you question Comey’s timing on the re-opening of the investigation, all this would have been avoided if the subject emails had been simply released when they were subpoenaed.</p>
<p /> | How did it come to this? Now the shoe is on the Democrat’s foot | false | http://natmonitor.com/2016/11/01/how-did-it-come-to-this-now-the-shoe-is-on-the-democrats-foot/ | 2016-11-01 | 3 |
<p><a href="http://pienews.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/wsj.jpg" type="external" />In an appearance on WSJ Live, Wall Street Journal columnist Bret Stephens strongly criticized the White House's handling of the negotiations which resulted in the release of five Taliban prisoners in exchange for U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl . Stephens said that the combination of the White House's incompetent [?]</p>
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<p><a href="http://www.mediaite.com/online/wsj-columnist-obamas-handling-of-bergdahl-more-disturbing-than-benghazi/" type="external">Click here to view original web page at www.mediaite.com</a></p>
<p /> | WSJ Columnist: Obama's Handling of Bergdahl 'More Disturbing' than Benghazi | true | http://politicalillusionsexposed.com/wsj-columnist-obamas-handling-of-bergdahl-more-disturbing-than-benghazi/ | 0 |
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<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p>
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<p>The Agriculture Department is developing a vaccine that might be used if efforts to contain bird flu don't succeed. In Minnesota, 2 million turkeys have been culled because of the outbreak. (The Associated Press)</p>
<p>A pure "seed strain" would target the H5N2 virus - which has already cost Midwest turkey and chicken producers over 7 million birds since early March - as well as some other highly pathogenic viruses in the H5 family that have been detected in other parts of North America. If the USDA decides the vaccine is necessary to stop avian influenza, it will provide that seed strain to drug manufacturers.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>The process, though, is fraught with questions about which birds would get the vaccine, how it might affect exports and whether it would be effective against the rapidly spreading strain.</p>
<p>USDA officials say the H5N2 virus could be a problem for the poultry industry for several years. And they say the virus could reappear this fall when the wild waterfowl that are believed to carry it fly south for the winter. Another concern is that it could spread to big poultry-producing states in the East.</p>
<p>While government agencies and producers would much rather see tight biosecurity and other current strategies succeed, they want to have another tool available, said Dr. T.J. Myers, an associate deputy administrator for veterinary services with the USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service.</p>
<p>The USDA's Southeast Poultry Research Laboratory in Athens, Ga., is developing the seed strain, which is essentially a pure virus sample that could be the foundation for producing an effective vaccine. The center's director, Dr. David Swayne, said it has already gone through a couple rounds of lab testing, and that animal experiments will begin in early May to determine whether it's an effective strain to use. If those tests are successful and the USDA decides to put a vaccine into production, it would turn to the private sector to make it.</p>
<p>Dr. John Clifford, the USDA's chief veterinary officer, said it's not clear how much a vaccine would add to the cost of producing birds, but doesn't expect it would be much. It might be used mainly on the more expensive birds, such as those used for breeding, he said.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>For turkey producers, the price of the vaccine could be minor compared to the cost of losing entire flocks, according to Steve Olson, executive director of the Minnesota Turkey Growers Association and the Chicken and Egg Association of Minnesota. But a vaccine might be too expensive for the broiler chicken industry, where profits per bird are small.</p>
<p>Introducing a vaccine raises a lot of questions, Myers said, including which poultry would get it, in what kind of settings, whether it would be effective in stopping the disease and potential negative effects on poultry exports.</p>
<p>James Sumner, president of the Georgia-based USA Poultry and Egg Export Council, said some countries might regard vaccine use as a reason to bar imports from the U.S. The vaccine could mask any viruses that poultry are carrying, because tests for the disease look for antibodies - the same antibodies that vaccines trigger a body to produce, he said.</p>
<p>Dr. Kyoungjin Yoon, an avian influenza expert at Iowa State University, said human experience shows flu vaccines don't always match well with viruses in circulation. Vaccine-induced immunity could also slow the detection of outbreaks, Yoon said. One of the main symptoms is that flocks start dying off quickly.</p>
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<p /> | USDA works on vaccine against spreading bird flu | false | https://abqjournal.com/573658/usda-works-on-vaccine-against-spreading-bird-flu.html | 2 |
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<p>MAINZ, Germany — Public health officials were stunned to find five dead bodies at an abandoned supermarket in Germany.</p>
<p>A local undertaker had received permission to use the building’s storage rooms to keep empty coffins and other equipment in the eastern city of Klosterfelde.</p>
<p>However, five corpses were discovered inside the caskets in a refrigerated area after a tip-off, local official Elisabeth Schulte-Kuhnt told NBC News on Wednesday.</p>
<p>Local newspaper <a href="http://www.moz.de/nachrichten/brandenburg/artikel-ansicht/dg/0/1/1389531/" type="external">MOZ reported Tuesday</a> that public medical officer Heike Zander was "shocked when she saw what was being stored in a supermarket in the middle of town" during a visit last week.</p>
<p>But authorities could find little wrong with the undertaker’s methods.</p>
<p>The condition of the deceased and the temperature they were being stored at were "according to the rules" and therefore not in violation of Germany’s hygiene laws, county spokesman Oliver Koehler told NBC News. The undertaker also had the correct paperwork.</p>
<p>Officials are now looking into whether the correct request was filed with local planning officials to notify them that he was using the building for a different purpose.</p>
<p>The corpses were transported to a crematorium after being recovered on Thursday.</p> | 5 Corpses Found in Coffins at Supermarket in Klosterfelde, Germany | false | http://nbcnews.com/news/world/fives-corpses-found-german-supermarket-city-klosterfelde-n358216 | 2015-05-13 | 3 |
<p>U.S. stock markets reacted wildly Tuesday to the U.S. Federal Reserve's statement that it will keep short-term interest rates low through 2013.</p>
<p>After zigzagging in volatile trading Tuesday afternoon, the Dow soared 429.92 points, or almost 4 percent.</p>
<p>The S&amp;P 500 Index rose 53 points, or 4.7 percent. The Nasdaq jumped 5.3 percent.</p>
<p>Monday's close for the Dow industrials was among the top 10 worst by points in history. Tuesday's was among the top 10 best.</p>
<p>All eyes today were on the Federal Reserve, which held a one-day meeting and released a statement this afternoon about its latest views on the U.S. economy.</p>
<p>The Federal Open Market Committee statement indicated a sharply downgraded view of the <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904140604576498380497149042.html" type="external">U.S. economy</a>, though it stopped short of endorsing another round of quantitative easing, known as QE3.&#160;</p>
<p>The Wall Street Journal reports:</p>
<p>Fed officials said they expect the weak economy to warrant exceptionally low levels for the federal funds rate "at least through mid-2013." Seven voted in favor of this action, with three voting against.&#160;</p>
<p>Tuesday's session on Wall Street followed&#160; <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/business-tech/global-economy/110808/asia-share-stock-market-debt-crisis-panic" type="external">a difficult trading day across Asia's stock markets</a>.&#160;</p>
<p>On Monday, during the first session since Standard and Poor's downgraded the U.S. AAA credit rating to AA+, equities nosedived into " <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/09/markets-stocks-idUSN1E77804Z20110809" type="external">bear market</a>territory," Reuters reports.</p>
<p>The Dow fell 5.55 percent or 634.76 points on Monday - its steepest one-day drop since late 2008 - to close at 10,809.85.</p>
<p>(GlobalPost reports: Wall Street: <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/business-tech/110808/time-face-the-ugly-truth-about-the-us-economy" type="external">Time to face the ugly truth</a>)</p> | Wall Street stocks end higher after US Federal Reserve opts to keep rates low (UPDATES) | false | https://pri.org/stories/2011-08-09/wall-street-stocks-end-higher-after-us-federal-reserve-opts-keep-rates-low | 2011-08-09 | 3 |
<p>John Petty was huge in tonight’s win over Texas A&amp;M</p>
<p>1️⃣8️⃣ points4️⃣ rebounds3️⃣ assists2️⃣ blocks <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/RollTide?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" type="external">#RollTide</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/BuckleUp?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" type="external">#BuckleUp</a> <a href="https://t.co/IdOTElS1ZH" type="external">pic.twitter.com/IdOTElS1ZH</a></p>
<p>— Alabama Men’s Basketball (@AlabamaMBB) <a href="https://twitter.com/AlabamaMBB/status/947282426614644736?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" type="external">December 31, 2017</a></p>
<p>John Petty scored 18 points to lead four scorers in double figures as Alabama rolled to a 79-57 win over short-handed No. 5 Texas A&amp;M on Saturday at Coleman Coliseum in the Southeastern Conference opener for both teams in Tuscaloosa, Ala.</p>
<p>It was the Crimson Tide’s first win by double digits against a top-five team since they beat Kentucky on Jan. 12, 1980, and their first victory over a top-five team since beating Stanford in the 2010 NCAA Tournament.</p>
<p>Alabama (9-4, 1-0 SEC) never trailed and led by double digits for most of the second half, using an 11-1 run to build a 70-51 advantage with 6:23 to play.</p>
<p>The Crimson Tide, helped by a right leg injury to Aggies guard Duane Wilson that kept Texas A&amp;M off kilter, cruised from there.</p>
<p>The Aggies (12-2, 0-1) usually rule inside with their dominating front line, but Alabama matched Texas A&amp;M with 36 points in the paint.</p>
<p>Donta Hall added 17 points, and Collin Sexton and Dazon Ingram scored 16 each for the Crimson Tide. Alabama outshot Texas A&amp;M 45.6 percent to 30 percent in the game.</p>
<p>The Aggies got 14 points apiece from post players Tyler Davis and Robert Williams but were just 2 of 20 on 3-point attempts, missed seven of their 20 free throws and were outrebounded 43-42.</p>
<p>The Crimson Tide’s defense owned the first half as Alabama held Texas A&amp;M to 29.7 percent shooting while building as much as a 12-point lead before settling for a 35-28 advantage at intermission. A&amp;M never led in the first half.</p>
<p>Alabama was not much better offensively, shooting just 37.5 percent from the floor, but they did covert 3 of 12 3-point attempts and Texas A&amp;M went 1 of 10.</p>
<p>Back-to-back 3-pointers form Petty, the second with 13:55 left in the second half, allowed Alabama to expand its lead to 57-41.</p>
<p>NOTES: Texas A&amp;M matched its highest-ever ranking in the Associated Press Top 25 this week when the Aggies were slotted at No. 5. The 2015-16 Aggies also reached No. 5 in the AP poll. … Alabama now owns an 11-5 advantage in the series with Texas A&amp;M, including wins in four of the last five games. This game was the seventh time the two teams have played as SEC rivals. … The Aggies played without leading scorer D.J. Hogg, who is serving the second game of a three-game suspension for breaking team rules, and guard Admon Gilder, who suffered a knee injury on Dec. 12 in a win over Savannah State and is not expected back until the new year. … Texas A&amp;M returns home to host Florida on Tuesday. Alabama heads to Nashville to take on Vanderbilt.</p> | Balanced Alabama takes down No. 5 Texas A&M | false | https://newsline.com/balanced-alabama-takes-down-no-5-texas-am/ | 2017-12-31 | 1 |
<p>The girlfriend of the man behind a recent mass shooting in Las Vegas told investigators he displayed “mental health symptoms” before the attack, according to <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/las-vegas-shooting/vegas-shooter-s-girlfriend-says-he-would-lie-bed-moaning-n808156" type="external">NBC News</a>.</p>
<p>NBC News on Friday reported that one former FBI official briefed on the matter confirmed that Marilou Danley recently made the remark about Stephen Paddock.</p>
<p>“[Danley] said he would lie in bed, just moaning and screaming, ‘Oh, my God,’” another former FBI official aware of the situation said.</p>
<p>NBC News’s sources said Paddock may have been in mental or physical anguish before committing the worst mass shooting in modern U.S. history last Sunday.</p>
<p>The sources added, however, that the FBI has not yet identified what motivated Paddock to open fire upon an outdoor concert.</p>
<p>The FBI also does not believe Paddock’s mental health had eroded to a point that would have triggered him to begin his rampage, according to NBC’s sources.</p>
<p>Federal and state law enforcement officials additionally confirmed to NBC News that Paddock had been prescribed an anti-anxiety medication called Valium.</p>
<p>Some Twitter users on Friday speculated about Danley and her reported remarks to investigators about her boyfriend.</p>
<p>Las Vegas shooter's girlfriend says he would 'SCREAM in bed at night' <a href="https://t.co/5p763a7Kvx" type="external">https://t.co/5p763a7Kvx</a> via <a href="https://twitter.com/MailOnline?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" type="external">@MailOnline</a> I wouldn’t believe her!🤥🙈🙉🙊🐵👎🏿</p>
<p>One of the former FBI officials said that investigators are additionally scrutinizing about six media devices Paddock left behind.</p>
<p>The search includes an inquiry into Paddock’s web browsing history before he began shooting at a country music event last weekend.</p>
<p>Responding police found Paddock dead inside his hotel room on the 32nd floor of the nearby Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino.</p>
<p>The shooting killed at least 58 people and wounded more than 527 others, sparking renewed national debate over gun control.</p> | Las Vegas Police still unsure of concert shooter's motive | false | https://circa.com/story/2017/10/06/nation/stephen-paddock-showed-mental-health-symptoms-marilou-danley-says | 2017-10-06 | 1 |
<p>SpaceX’s Dragon capsule, the free-flying spacecraft designed to deliver both cargo and people to low-Earth orbit, has taken another step toward flying astronauts to and from the International Space Station.</p>
<p>SpaceX’s most recent milestone was passing NASA’s “certification baseline review.” This required the company to exactly how it plans to ferry crews to and from the space station, specifically using the company’s Dragon capsule and Falcon 9 rocket, under&#160;&#160;SpaceX’s Commercial Crew Transportation Capability contract&#160;with NASA.</p>
<p>“This milestone sets the pace for the rigorous work ahead as SpaceX meets the certification requirements outlined in our contract,” said Kathy Lueders, manager of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program in a <a href="http://www.nasa.gov/press/2014/december/spacex-completes-first-milestone-for-commercial-crew-transportation-system/#.VK2qa8eJOub" type="external">statement</a>. “It is very exciting to see SpaceX’s proposed path to certification, including a flight test phase and completion of the system development.”</p>
<p>The Commercial Crew Program has been encouraging private companies to develop American spacecraft to&#160;achieve more cost-effective access to the International Space Station and low-Earth orbit. The program seeks to return astronauts to space from U.S. soil as NASA has relied on using&#160;Russian Soyuz spacecraft since the shuttle fleet was grounded in 2011.</p>
<p>On Sep. 16, 2014, NASA revealed its selection of SpaceX and Boeing to transport U.S. crews to and from space, using their Dragon and CST-100 spacecraft respectively. This would allow for the current crew of six on the space station to be increased and enable more research to take place in its microgravity laboratory.</p>
<p>Relying on the private sector for transportation to low-Earth orbit should allow NASA to devote more resources to exploring the further reaches of space.&#160;This would include advancing the skills and techniques needed to explore Mars, agency officials said.</p>
<p>SpaceX still has a long way to go before it will be ferrying astronauts to the space station. The company is still expected to show how their systems will handle the rigors of space travel. This will ultimately culminate in at least one test flight with a NASA astronaut on board to verify the capsule can in fact perform as expected.</p>
<p>The original statement can be read <a href="http://www.nasa.gov/press/2014/december/spacex-completes-first-milestone-for-commercial-crew-transportation-system/#.VK2qa8eJOub" type="external">here</a>.</p>
<p /> | SpaceX plan to send astronauts to the space station approved by NASA | false | http://natmonitor.com/2015/01/07/spacex-plan-to-send-astronauts-to-the-space-station-approved-by-nasa/ | 2015-01-07 | 3 |
<p>Educators who reviewed the School Board’s preliminary plan for screening principal candidates say setting clear standards is critical.</p>
<p>Don Moore, executive director of Designs for Change, sees the proposal as a move back to a centrally controlled patronage system for principal appointment.</p>
<p>The policy fails to set detailed standards for meeting the requirements, he explains, leaving much to the discretion of central office administrators. “It provides no confidence to people that they are going to be judged fairly.”</p>
<p>He adds that the new requirements likely will discourage talented applicants from outside Chicago because it will be easier for them to secure positions elsewhere.</p>
<p>In contrast, Margaret Harrigan, a former CPS official who now instructs master’s degree candidates in educational leadership at DePaul University, applauds the proposed requirements, which include earning passing marks on both a written exam and a writing sample, and successful completion of an interview with central office administrators.</p>
<p>“They are taking a thorough look at individuals who are going to be responsible for the education of untold numbers of children,” she says. “The more they can find out about a potential principal, the better.”</p>
<p>Harrigan trusts that central office will establish fair guidelines for judging candidates on each of the proposed requirements. She says that standards for the interview, for instance, might include ability to speak correctly and fluently, to use good judgment and to think critically.</p>
<p>Clarice Jackson Berry, president of the Chicago Principals and Administrators Association, says she wouldn’t have a problem with the interview, writing sample and other requirements if the standards for meeting them were clear. “We’d like to have the criteria spelled out before the policy is approved—not afterwards,” she says.</p>
<p>The association won’t support the draft policy as written but is in negotiation with central office, she reports. “We’re hopeful that we will come to a meeting of the minds.”</p>
<p>Pamela Clarke, associate director of the business group Leadership for Quality Education, thinks that the new requirements should be part of a broader effort to better educate local school councils (LSCs) on principal selection and evaluation.</p>
<p>Principals report to both their LSCs and their area instructional officers, yet neither group has any contact with the other, she observes. “There needs to be some way of getting the LSCs and AIOs into a dialogue about how to hire a good principal : What does your particular school need in a principal? ” she explains.</p>
<p>Central office has yet to come up with a strategy for facilitating such a dialogue, she says. “In fact, I think they’ve resisted it.”</p> | But what are the standards? | false | http://chicagoreporter.com/what-are-standards/ | 2005-08-10 | 3 |
<p>Four mentally handicapped people were found chained to a boiler in a filthy basement in Philadelphia on Sunday, <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/16/us-captives-philadelphia-idUSTRE79F14120111016" type="external">Reuters</a>reports.</p>
<p>Three people were charged with holding the three men and one woman with the mental capacity of 10-year-olds, in a 15-by-15 foot room behind a steel door that was chained shut for as long as 11 years, <a href="http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/44920652/ns/today-today_news/t/disabled-adults-found-chained-philadelphia-basement/#.TpsmaDtJUkg" type="external">MSNBC</a>reports. The three men and one woman were likely victims of Social Security fraud, Philadelphia Police Sergeant Joseph Green said, Reuters reports.</p>
<p>Read more at GlobalPost: <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/asia-pacific/china/110923/china-sex-slave-rapist-arrested" type="external">Police arrect China sex slave suspect</a></p>
<p>"They were abused physically and emotionally," said Green, Reuters reports. "This is just a horror story."</p>
<p>The four adults were found malnourished. The room had a few water bottles and a bucket to urinate in, said Green, Reuters reports.</p>
<p>Linda Westen, 50, Eddie Wright, 51, and Gregory Thomas, 48, were arrested for allegedly holding the victims captive, Reuters reports. Westen allegedly posed as the captives' caregiver and cashed their disability checks, police said, Reuters reports.</p>
<p>It's believed that the four adults, ranging in age from 29 to 41, were taken from Texas to West Palm Beach, Florida, before arriving in Philadelphia Oct. 4, the <a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/2011/10/16/2011-10-16_4_adults_with_mental_capacity_of_10yearolds_found_chained_in_dungeon_in_philadel.html" type="external">New York Daily News</a> reports. Authorities are still not sure if the victims lived in Texas yet, the Daily News said.</p> | 4 disabled adults found in Philadelphia basement | false | https://pri.org/stories/2011-10-16/4-disabled-adults-found-philadelphia-basement | 2011-10-16 | 3 |
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<p><a href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-154181867.html" type="external">Shutterstock</a></p>
<p>President Obama has <a href="http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/283335-obama-this-is-the-most-transparent-administration-in-history" type="external">called his administration</a> the “most transparent in history,” but instead of allowing companies to be completely transparent regarding their involvement in government surveillance, Washington has muzzled them, spying on their customers or users and <a href="http://www.wired.com/2012/05/nsl-challenges/" type="external">employing gag orders</a> to prevent them from notifying the public. As we are well aware of by now, this kind of activity was not made transparent until people like <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/interactive/2013/nov/01/prism-slides-nsa-document" type="external">Edward Snowden</a> made it their business to expose such practices.</p>
<p>Twitter announced Oct. 7 that it had filed a lawsuit against the U.S. government for not allowing it to release a transparency report that would reveal a significant level of insight on what kind of information the government has requested. Twitter approached Washington with a reporting protocol it believed would not hurt the government’s efforts to obtain national security information, but the idea was roundly rejected, the company’s <a href="https://blog.twitter.com/2014/taking-the-fight-for-transparency-to-court" type="external">blog post</a> asserts. Twitter says, “It’s our belief that we are entitled under the First Amendment to respond to our users’ concerns and to the statements of U.S. government officials by providing information about the scope of U.S. government surveillance. …”</p>
<p />
<p>A previous lawsuit from Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Apple, Yahoo and others provided a slight win, with the Department of Justice declaring the companies could issue broad transparency reports that reveal a range in the thousands of how many requests for information they receive from the NSA and FBI, but the companies are still not able to say the exact number or kind of requests there were. Twitter was not part of that deal and <a href="https://blog.twitter.com/2014/fighting-for-more-transparency" type="external">came out against the DOJ decision</a> at the time, claiming it was too restrictive.</p>
<p>“Twitter demanded permission from the DOJ to give more information, to give truthful and accurate information, without tipping off the targets of the investigations, and the DOJ said no,” Nate Cardozo, a staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told Truthdig. “The DOJ said the guidance we issued in January is final and what we say goes. That’s kind of ridiculous. The DOJ guidance was just made up — no court issued it, Congress didn’t issue it, it didn’t come from in the law — it just came out of the mind of a DOJ lawyer.”</p>
<p>One of the most important revelations to come from Snowden’s leaks is the existence of a program called Prism. An NSA presentation slide shows companies that had started being monitored under the program. Twitter was not on that list. In its blog post, Twitter said it wanted to release “what types of legal process have not been received.” Not only does Twitter want to be able to provide a number for how many requests there were and what kind of requests there were, without hindering an investigation, but it wants to be able to say if there were no requests at all. “I think what Twitter probably wants to say is if they haven’t received any — either Section 215 orders or any Section 702 orders,” Cardozo said.</p>
<p>Section 215 orders are part of the Patriot Act, and they allow the FBI to request that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court force a company to turn over “tangible things,” which could be driver’s license records, credit card records, emails, phone metadata and much more if it could be relevant to a national security investigation. Section 702 orders are the part of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act that allows the NSA to request communication information of non-U.S. citizens, though communications from American citizens are often obtained with 702 orders due to “ <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/09/nsa-loophole-warrantless-searches-email-calls" type="external">incidental collection</a>” that results from how wide the scope of the surveillance has become. As it stands, Twitter cannot release information on whether it has received these orders.</p>
<p>Another part of the Patriot Act, National Security Letters, often affect companies like Twitter. Section 505 of the Patriot Act supplements Section 2709 by including gag orders with the National Security Letters that are used to request a customer’s communication information from phone companies and Internet service providers. The Electronic Frontier Foundation <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/03/depth-judge-illstons-remarkable-order-striking-down-nsl-statute" type="external">won its battle</a> to repeal that part of the Patriot Act in March 2013, when a District Court ruled the gag orders attached to the National Security Letters authorized by the Patriot Act are unconstitutional, mainly because no judge signs off on them. The National Security Letters have allowed the FBI to request information about Americans from companies <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/07/eff-challenges-national-security-letter-statute-landmark-lawsuit" type="external">hundreds of thousands</a> of times, while preventing them from notifying the public about it. The U.S. government is appealing the District Court decision, and deliberation began in the 9th Circuit on Oct. 8. There are many different ways the government is getting information from companies like Twitter and preventing them from speaking of it.</p>
<p>Twitter’s recent battle to be able to release a more specific transparency report isn’t just a PR move, Cardozo contends. “I think the six tech companies that sued in the FISA court last year and then rolled over and agreed to the Justice Department’s guidance — I think that was PR. Those companies — Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Apple — declared victory when the DOJ issued the guidance. Twitter could have been a part of that, and it said very strongly at the time that it didn’t feel that was enough,” he said.</p>
<p>Instead, Twitter is asking for more, and there’s a lot on the line. “We all stand to lose quite a bit if this [lawsuit] doesn’t work. If Twitter loses this case, that means the government can impose restrictions on what service providers can say without Congress passing a law and without a court issuing a decision,” Cardozo said. He said that Twitter losing this battle could make it possible for the executive branch to uniformly decide how transparent companies are allowed to be — when they can speak — and he believes that that’s “not the way our democracy is supposed to work.” Once a precedent is set in court, the government can use it for future decisions, meaning Twitter’s lawsuit could affect many future edicts from the executive branch. Essentially, if it fails, everyone fails.</p> | Why Twitter's Lawsuit Could Make or Break Transparency | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/why-twitters-lawsuit-could-make-or-break-transparency/ | 2014-10-22 | 4 |
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<p>Welcome to the permanent global energy crisis. Though experts differ on when the precise moment of “ <a href="http://www.energybulletin.net/primer.php" type="external">peak oil</a>” (also known as the end of cheap oil) will come, few deny that it’s on the way. Already, supply is tightening, even as demand surges, pushing the price of oil (and gas at the pump) skyward. Increasingly, countries are scrounging the world for additional supplies and competing for a declining pool of essential petroleum, most of it located in politically unstable corners of the developing world—in the Middle East, Africa, Latin America, and Central Asia. In the coming years the United States, which consumes 25 percent of the world’s oil, and whose economic and military might are utterly dependent on it, will increasingly be drawn into a geopolitical struggle over dwindling supplies with other “great powers,” especially China. American foreign and military policy, already inextricably intertwined with energy imperatives (see Iraq), will be driven more and more by the need to keep oil flowing to the U.S.</p>
<p>The above is the broad argument of Blood and Oil: The Dangers and Consequences of America’s Growing Dependency on Imported Petroleum, by Michael T. Klare. For all the periodic high-sounding talk of energy independence, he writes, Washington has in fact made little serious effort to wean the United States from oil. Instead, our government has recklessly set the nation up for more dependence, more U.S. military entanglements overseas, and, consequently, less security for Americans at home and abroad.</p>
<p>There is a way out of this—what Klare calls a “strategy for energy autonomy and integrity”—but it will take leadership from government and sacrifice from citizens, and some enlightened long-term thinking from both. Klare is the Five College Professor of Peace and World Security Studies at Hampshire College in Amherst, and author of Resource Wars, among other books. He’s also a frequent contributor, via Tomdispatch, to MotherJones.com.</p>
<p>Mother Jones: You argue that in the 21st century resources, rather than ethnic, civilizational, or religious differences will increasingly be at the root of conflict.</p>
<p>Michael T. Klare: Yes. I think this is true both of internal and interstate conflicts. Two of the bloodiest wars under way in the world today—in Congo and Darfur—have arisen from the stress caused by rising population, a scarcity of resources, and climate change, which have exacerbated traditional ethnic differences, pushing people into conflict with one another. There are ethnic differences involved, of course, and I’d never say that a war is exclusively driven by resources, but they are a major factor.</p>
<p>As for international conflict, the focus is particularly on energy. I think there’s a growing panic in the major industrialized countries about the future availability of oil and natural gas, which are absolutely essential in modern industrial societies. And this is causing the United States, Russia, China, and Japan and other large industrial countries to try to gain control over foreign sources of oil and natural gas, particularly in Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia. I wouldn’t say we can expect direct conflict between these countries in the immediate future, but they are supporting local allies, often militarily, and this creates the conditions in which a local conflict can escalate into something very much bigger.</p>
<p>MJ: This is almost a reassertion of the great power politics of old.</p>
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<p>MTK: Absolutely. I see this being very similar to the period before World War I, where you had a group of contending empires—the British, French, Prussian, Russian, Austro-Hungarian, and Ottoman empires—all competing with one another for control over colonies and the resources those colonies brought them. A lot of the skirmishing that lead to World War I occurred in these colonial areas, in Africa and in the Balkans, and this triggered a war between them.</p>
<p>MJ: So resources will be at the core of much conflict, and oil in particular. What’s special about oil?</p>
<p>MTK: Oil is essential for a modern, industrial society. It’s unique, first of all, because it’s the primary source, at 40 percent, of the world’s entire supply of energy, and it’s irreplaceable in the transportation field; it provides 98 percent of world transportation energy.</p>
<p>Oil is also essential for military operations. No other substance, no other raw material, is so vital for the prosecution of warfare, than petroleum. And the United States being the world’s only global power, is totally dependent on petroleum. The Department of Defense is the world’s leading petroleum consumer. And the U.S. couldn’t play a military role in different areas like Iraq and Afghanistan without huge quantities of oil. So a shortage or disruption in oil would not only damage the U.S. economy; it would undercut American military supremacy.</p>
<p>For that reason, oil in the United States is treated as a national security matter, not just an economic one. No other substance has that character, such that the president of the United States has said—in this case it was Jimmy Carter in 1980—that oil from the Middle East is essential to the United States, and therefore we’ll use any means necessary to protect it, including military force.</p>
<p>MJ: You argue that we’ve already entered a permanent energy crisis? What do you mean by that?</p>
<p>MTK: We are in a state of a permanent energy crisis, and it will last indefinitely—until there is a solution to it. And no solution right now is in sight, so this is a permanent feature of our landscape. It arises from several factors. One we’ve mentioned: U.S. dependence on oil for its economy and military power. The second problem is that the global supply of oil is going to decline because we’ve used up a good deal of the easy-to-get oil. We’re going to reach a point in the not-too-distant future when it is impossible to keep increasing the daily supply. People call this the moment of “peak oil” production. There’s debate about when that moment will arise, but there’s no question that it’s coming. Everybody is going to be scrounging the world looking for additional supplies and competing for a declining pool of essential petroleum. Making matters worse, most of the world’s remaining pool of oil is in the developing world, in the Middle East, in Africa, in Latin America, and Central Asia, and these are areas that are inherently unstable. And so we’re becoming more dependent and competing with other countries for access to a diminishing pool of oil in fundamentally dangerous areas. That’s a sure recipe for disaster.</p>
<p>MJ: There was what you called ‘a fork in the road’ in 2001 where the Bush administration, despite having explicitly acknowledged that there was some kind of an energy crisis, “chose dependency.”</p>
<p>MTK: We had an energy crisis, remember, in 2000 and in 2001, with electricity black outs in California, natural gas shortages in the Mid West and oil shortages in the Eastern part of the country. And this was a major theme in the 2000 election. And President Bush said his highest priority—this was before 9-11, before terrorism became the focus—was to address the energy crisis. He said we need a fundamental change, a top-to-bottom review, and he gave the impression that he was ready to contemplate rather substantial innovations. But he picked Dick Cheney, an oil man, to run this review, and Cheney chose only to consult people in the oil industry, primarily Kenneth Lay and people from Enron. No environmentalists.</p>
<p>What they essentially decided—secretly, because the administration has refused to make public any of the minutes of these meetings—was to perpetuate the existing energy system for another 20 years at massive public expense, rather than to consider the proposals coming from the environmental community to shift very rapidly towards energy alternatives. And now, five years later, as a result of that decision, the United States is in worse shape than ever before. We’re even more dependent on imported oil. No progress has been made in developing energy alternatives.</p>
<p>MJ: And Hurricane Katrina brought that fact into pretty stark relief, didn’t it?</p>
<p>MTK: Yes, because Katrina destroyed or damaged the oil facilities in one of the most promising new areas for oil production, which is the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico. Those facilities in the deep waters were hit the hardest by Katrina, and they have not recovered since. The more we look into the future we see that all the other potential sources for new oil are in dangerous areas, whether because of climate or the environment, or politically. And Katrina, I think, was a turning point in that since it threw into relief the fragility of the international energy system, and it shows us that we can have no confidence that things are going to get better in the future.</p>
<p>MJ: The Bush administration calculated in 2001 that a campaign to wean the country from oil dependency wasn’t a political winner.</p>
<p>MTK: Right. In 1975 and 1976, we faced an energy crisis, President Carter told everyone they had to tighten their belts and lower the thermostat and wear sweaters. He wore a cardigan on a national TV speech! And at the time people found this to be too depressing and distasteful, and so they voted him out of office. So there is a kind of belief that the public is not willing to undertake any measures that would require them to change.</p>
<p>MJ: Do you see any sign of a shift on that score?</p>
<p>MTK: Yes, I do. I think, beginning with Katrina and continuing to the present—gaining momentum even—the public is now moving ahead of politicians. There are many signs, polling data in particular, that the public does grasp the magnitude of the problem and is now prepared to make sacrifices and changes. And this, I think, is going to have a significant political effect in the coming elections.</p>
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<p>MJ: One possible response to the permanent energy crisis is to diversify, meaning getting oil from a range of different areas, to reduce the dependency on oil from the Persian Gulf. But you don’t buy that.</p>
<p>MTK: This was part of the strategy adopted by the administration in 2001. They recognized the U.S. would become more dependent on imports if we were going to continue to rely on oil as our main source of energy, but to try to reduce vulnerability to crisis in any one area they favored the strategy of diversification. The problem is that all the alternatives to the Middle East are just as dangerous. They include Africa, the Andean region of Latin America, Central Asia, North Africa—all places prone to corruption, internal warfare, and conflict. And so the logical conclusion of this strategy is what I call the globalization of the Carter doctrine, the notion that the United States has to send troops all over the world to protect oil—not only in the Middle East, but in Latin America, Africa and Central Asia. And that’s the policy the administration has carried out.</p>
<p>MJ: And anyway, isn’t it the case that no matter how much the U.S. diversifies, we’ll still be largely dependent on Persian Gulf oil?</p>
<p>MTK: That’s absolutely right, because nowhere else has that much oil. And even if the U.S. doesn’t get it’s own oil from the Persian Gulf, we’re still dependent on Persian Gulf oil because that’s the major source of supply for Japan and Western Europe. If they weren’t able to get more oil from the Persian Gulf, then they would be coming to the places that we rely on—Nigeria, Latin America and so on, and that would hugely increase the competition and the price. So, for world oil prices to remain relatively low—they seem high today, but they could get a lot, lot higher—is for the Persian Gulf to churn out more and more and more oil every year.</p>
<p>MJ: It’s also hard to imagine that the US would have gotten involved in Iraq if there didn’t happen to have massive oil reserves.</p>
<p>MTK: Absolutely. But bear in mind that the invasion of Iraq was not an unprecedented event; it really was the natural extension of a conflict with Iraq that began on August 2, 1990, when Iraq invaded Kuwait and occupied Kuwait, which was a major oil supplier to the United States, and threatened Saudi Arabia, the leading foreign supplier to the United States. So when George Bush, Sr. announced U.S. intervention in the Persian Gulf conflict in 1990 it was explicitly to protect oil, the oil of Saudi Arabia. And that lead to a massive deployment of American forces to the region, to the acquisition of more military bases, and later to the quarantine of Iraq. The invasion can’t be separated from all of that broader conflict, which is a conflict, at its root, about oil—not just about the oil of Iraq, but about dominance of the entire Persian Gulf region.</p>
<p>MJ: What role do you think oil and energy are playing in U.S. policy toward Iran?</p>
<p>MTK: You have to view Iran, like Iraq, as part of the large Persian Gulf region. Under U.S. policy—[enshrined in the Carter doctrine]—stability in the greater Persian Gulf region is essential to U.S. national security, because of its oil supplies, so anything that threatens stability in the Persian Gulf is a threat to America’s national interests. That’s how Iran is seen in Washington—as a potential threat to American dominance of the Persian Gulf. We’re really talking about a geopolitical contest in which oil is the ultimate prize. That is the primary issue between the U.S. and Iran here—the power struggle over who will be dominant in this crucial region.</p>
<p>That having been said, Iran is believed to be the second largest producer of oil and the second leading producer of natural gas. Under the current U.S. policy, because of this power struggle, American oil companies can’t do business with Iran. So I think the ultimate goal of the U.S. administration in Iran is regime change, to put into power a pro-Western government that will eliminate the strategic challenge to U.S. interests and, at the same time, allow the lifting of sanctions and allowing American oil companies to do business with Iran.</p>
<p>MJ: Any opinion on the chances of a military strike by the U.S.?</p>
<p>MTK: Knowing how the U.S. government has worked in the past, I imagine that President Bush has on his desk a national security game plan that has a host of options—Plan A, Plan B and Plan C, Plan D. They probably all have code names. But Plan A is to continue things as they are—diplomatic pressure. Plan B, I think, is precise, limited attacks on Iranian nuclear weapons facilities, like the Israeli attack on the Osirak Reactor in Baghdad. Plan C would include covert operations aimed at stirring up a rebellion in Iran that would overthrow the clerical government. And Plan D would be more full-scale military operations. This is pure speculation on my part, but I’m sure planning like this is underway.</p>
<p>MJ: How do the same dynamics that apply to oil relate to natural gas?</p>
<p>MTK: There’s a great deal of similarity between oil and gas in the sense that it’s a finite commodity. And increasingly the United States and other users are going to have to go to the few sources that remain, and those include primarily Russia, Iran and Qatar. These countries between them have about 50 percent of the world’s natural gas supplies, which obviously makes them very important from a geopolitical standpoint. The U.S. has established very close ties with Qatar; we have military bases and troops there. The Europeans are becoming very dependent on Russia, and now India and China want to draw on Iran’s natural gas. And that enters into this great game we were talking about before, the jockeying for position.</p>
<p>Natural gas might be the spark in a war between China and Japan, because there’s believed to be a lot of natural gas in the East China Sea, the body of water between the Chinese mainland and the Japanese islands. And those two countries have yet to agree on where their maritime boundary exists. China claims most of that water, almost right up to the Japanese islands, and the Japanese argue that the border between them should be in the middle line between them. China is beginning to extract natural gas right up to the line claimed by Japan, even going into what the Japanese consider their territory. This has provoked military posturing, the kind where you send out planes and they buzz ships, and the ships make threatening moves. No shots have been fired yet, thank goodness, but it’s easy to see how a clash at sea between Chinese and Japanese ships and planes could lead to a real war between them.</p>
<p>MJ: The trends are pointing toward greater and deeper and more problematic U.S. involvement, often military involvement, in all sorts of parts of the world. Can we expect evermore U.S. basis in these parts of the world, ever-closer military ties with these countries?</p>
<p>MTK: Yes to all of the above. The U.S. is already well established in the Persian Gulf. We have a very elaborate military infrastructure there. We have a growing military infrastructure in Central Asia in the Caspian. And Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld is talking about acquiring more bases in that area, possibly in Azerbaijan, Georgia or Kazakhstan. So there it’s well underway.</p>
<p>The place I think is the most interesting in this discussion, and that hasn’t received the attention it deserves, is Africa. The world is becoming very dependent on oil from Nigeria and Angola and Equatorial Guinea, and now from Libya. And this is an area of great instability—ethnic, religious, political. It’s mixed up in places with Islamic fundamentalism. But the greatest threat comes from ethnic unrest, particularly in southern Nigeria where the local people, who are the victims of oil production, of all the oil spills and environmental damage, receive virtually none of the benefits of the oil production. All that goes to the elites in Abuja, the capital. And they’re now fighting a low-level insurgency against the central government. In the process they’re seizing oil facilities, they’re sabotaging oil facilities, they’re kidnapping oil workers, including Americans. The U.S. is looking at creating a capacity for intervention in Nigeria and in other parts of Africa, looking at the establishment of bases, training with Nigerian and other local forces, providing military aid, developing military ties.</p>
<p>MJ: In the book you propose an alternative energy strategy to the one we’re operating under, one you call a strategy of “autonomy and integrity.” What do you mean by that?</p>
<p>MTK: The phrase that is most often used in this discussion is “energy independence.” And the administration talks about ‘energy independence’ from the Middle East, by which they seem to mean, exclusively drilling in Alaska and other protected environmental sites. So, I want to avoid that word, because I think it’s become a sham expression to cover up a failed policy.</p>
<p>So by ‘autonomy’ I mean having the freedom to say no to the Saudi Royal family when they ask for more American troops; having the power to say no to military intervention; and the ability to repudiate the Carter doctrine—the commitment to use force to protect oil—which has to be our ultimate objective. The only way to achieve this is by diminishing our reliance on petroleum altogether. I think there’s a growing recognition of that fact in this country—that Alaskan or Gulf of Mexico oil is not going to save us. If we keep on using more oil each year, it’s not going to work. We have to reduce each year the amount of oil we use. So it’s a combination of demilitarizing our oil policy, cutting back on our consumption of oil and gaining more freedom in international affairs.</p>
<p>MJ: What will that take?</p>
<p>MTK: Some combination of conservation and fuel efficiency to reduce our consumption of petroleum. This means driving vehicles that are much more fuel-efficient or using improved public transit facilities. We also need to develop more alternatives, and more rapidly than we are, to look at the potential for biofuels, for biodiesal and hydrogen as future energy sources.</p>
<p>MJ: How optimistic are you that public opinion will come around to accepting a certain level of sacrifice?</p>
<p>MTK: Fairly optimistic. This is the one thing that makes me hopeful—that the American public is beginning to grasp all that we’ve been speaking about, both from a national security and an environmental perspective. These two things are coming together. I think the public is very reluctant to get involved in more foreign wars, especially in the Middle East. And they understand, implicitly, that we go to war in the Middle East because of oil. And if we don’t want to go to war in the Middle East, then we have to do something about the oil problem. And I think that view is gaining ground in the U.S. And at the same time concern over global warming is growing, which also leads to reduced petroleum use. I do see these two things coming together, and I do think they’re altering the political landscape in this country.</p>
<p /> | The Permanent Energy Crisis | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2006/06/permanent-energy-crisis/ | 2006-06-19 | 4 |
<p>Violent protests have broken out in the Indian capital of Delhi after news broke that a seven-year-old was sexually assaulted at her school.</p>
<p><a href="http://zeenews.india.com/news/delhi/crowd-disturbance-in-delhis-mangolpuri-after-girl-allegedly-raped_832317.html" type="external">According to Zee News</a>, the girl was been taken to a hospital in Delhi, and medical officials have confirmed that she was raped.</p>
<p>"The victim was raped by a man inside the school campus yesterday," said a senior police official to Zee News. "Her parents approached us this morning and a case has been registered. The victim could not tell us anything about the attacker."</p>
<p>The police official confirmed that they were questioning male staff at the school, including teachers and the guard.</p>
<p>Enraged over the incident, hundreds of people gathered outside the hospital where the girl was taken for treatment. <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-21626210" type="external">According to the BBC</a>, protestors pelted policemen with stones, and attacked buses.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.firstpost.com/india/violent-protests-in-delhi-over-sexual-assault-of-seven-year-old-girl-645384.html" type="external">FirstPost India reported</a> that police had to break up the protests using their batons.</p>
<p>The recent gang rape and murder of a student on a Delhi bus in December brought the issue of sexual assault in India to the limelight. &#160;</p> | India: Student's rape in Delhi sparks violent protests | false | https://pri.org/stories/2013-03-01/india-students-rape-delhi-sparks-violent-protests | 2013-03-01 | 3 |
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<p>It was business as usual for Boomer Esiason as he took solo hosting duties for his show with Craig Carton, occasionally only letting out a few jabs against his co-anchor for calling in sick that morning. The real reason proved to be shocking.</p>
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<p>Even with Carton's absence on the program, everything appeared normal on the program- until the show's homestretch when Esiason dropped the bombshell of a revelation why Carton could not make it that day on their show. No, he's not sick. No, he wasn't just feeling lazy or tried and decided to skip the program. He wasn't there because he could not. Esiason announced that he was arrested.</p>
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<p>Craig Carton was arrested by the FBI on charges he ripped off investors for millions in a concert-ticket scheme.</p>
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<p>Esiason said: "By the way, just a little bit of an announcement. There's nothing else I can say. I thought he called in sick this morning. Unfortunately, he was arrested this morning. We here at the station, they're aware of it as well. They're cooperating with authorities. I'm taken aback and surprised by it just like I'm sure everyone is."</p>
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<p>Esiason hastened to add that he does not have further information on the arrest. He also said he has nothing more to say. He said that for sure, there will be more news about it from somewhere, but that he's sure it won't be coming from him. The host said "it's not easy" for him.</p>
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<p>The pair's show airs from 6 to 10 a.m., and the news on Carton started breaking after 7.</p>
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<p>The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filed a complaint stating that Carton "falsely claimed to investors that he- sometimes on his own and sometimes through his business partner Joseph Meli- had access to millions of dollars' worth of concert tickets at face value."</p>
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<p>"Boomer and Carton" has been a radio tandem since 2007, the shock jock and former NFL quarterback partnering as an odd couple- with the team-up working well to think they've lasted for close to a decade. It's uncertain now how the show will proceed with the arrest of Carton, and if a temporary or permanent co-host will be tapped in his absence.</p>
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<p><a href="http://nypost.com/2017/09/06/shaken-boomer-esiason-announces-cartons-arrest-on-air/" type="external">nypost.com/2017/09/06/shaken-boomer-esiason-announces-cartons-arrest-on-air</a></p> | Shocked Boomer Esiason Announces Carton's Arrest On Air | true | http://thegoldwater.com/news/7667-Shocked-Boomer-Esiason-Announces-Carton-s-Arrest-On-Air | 2017-09-06 | 0 |
<p>Alfalfa is the fourth largest crop grown in the United States and Monsanto wants to control it. On April 27, the Supreme Court heard arguments in a case that could well write the future of alfalfa production in our country.</p>
<p>Fortunately, for those who are concerned about the potential environmental and health impacts of genetically engineered (GE) crops, Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan is not yet residing on the bench.</p>
<p>For the past four years, the Center for Food Safety (CFS), a Washington DC-based consumer protection group, and others have litigated against Monsanto and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) regarding the company’s Roundup Ready alfalfa. The coalition has focused their fight against Monsanto’s GE alfalfa, based on concerns that the plants could negatively impact biodiversity as well as other non-GE food crops.</p>
<p>In 2007, a California US District Court ruled in a landmark case that the USDA had illegally approved Monsanto’s GE alfalfa without carrying out a proper and full Environmental Impact Statement. The plaintiffs argued that GE alfalfa could contaminate nearby crops with its genetically manipulated pollen. Geertson Seed Farm, with the help of CFS, claimed that the farm’s non-GE crops could be damaged beyond repair by Monsanto’s Roundup Ready alfalfa.</p>
<p>Monsanto’s well-paid legal team appealed the court’s decision, but, in June 2009, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the previous ruling and placed a nationwide ban on Monsanto’s Roundup Ready alfalfa.</p>
<p>“USDA should start over and truly evaluate the contamination of non-GM alfalfa and the potential affects on seed growers, organic and natural meat producers, dairy producers, and conventional and organic honey producers,” said farmer and anti-GE advocate Todd Leake shortly after the ruling.</p>
<p>Monsanto, however, didn’t back down and appealed the Ninth Circuit’s decision to the US Supreme Court. In stepped Elena Kagan, whose role as solicitor general is to look out for the welfare of American citizens in all matters that come before the high court.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, Kagan opted to ditch her duty and instead side with Monsanto. In March 2010, a month before the Supreme Court heard arguments in the case, the solicitor general’s office released a legal brief despite the fact that the US government was not a defendant in the case. Monsanto appealed the lower court’s decision so the USDA was not party to the suit. The Solicitor General’s office produced an amicus brief during the petitioning stage of the appeal at the behest of the Supreme Court.</p>
<p>As Kagan’s office argued, “The judgment of the court of appeals should be reversed, and the case should be remanded with instructions to vacate the permanent injunction entered by the district court.”</p>
<p>Despite numerous examples of cross-pollination of GE crops, Monsanto argued during the April 27 court proceedings that this was highly unlikely to occur. CFS and other plaintiffs are concerned that a federal law could be affected by the Supreme Court’s ruling. Courts in Oregon and California have already argued in previous cases that GE seeds must also be studied as to the potential impact on other conventional and organic crops.</p>
<p>Surprisingly, it seems that Kagan does not support a thorough study of GE seeds and their potential impact on environmental and human health. In doing so, Kagan has sided with conservative justices on the court who appeared skeptical that the lower courts had made the right decision in banning GE alfalfa.</p>
<p>During the Supreme Court hearings, Chief Justice John Roberts questioned whether the Ninth Circuit had the authority to issue a ban on GE alfalfa. Roberts contented that the court ought to have instead remanded the issue back to the USDA. Conservative Justice Antonin Scalia took his defense of Monsanto even further, stating, “This isn’t the contamination of the New York City water supply,” he said. “This isn’t the end of the world, it really isn’t.”</p>
<p>Apparently Scalia and Roberts aren’t up on the latest scientific analysis that Monsanto’s GE crops have, in fact, bred new voracious super-weeds, which have forced farmers to “spray fields with more toxic herbicides, pull weeds by hand, and return to more labor-intensive methods like regular plowing.”</p>
<p>“Bowing to pressure from Monsanto and the other biotech companies, our federal agencies approved [GE] corn and cotton without requiring any mandatory testing for environmental impacts,” Andrew Kimbrell, executive director for the CFS recently wrote. “And the expected happened: a few years later, independent university researchers – again not the government – discovered that this [GE] pesticide was potentially fatal to Monarch butterflies and other pollinators … Without mandatory government testing, we’re clueless about the universe of keystone pollinators and other species that are being decimated as the [GE] plants continue to proliferate in our fields.”</p>
<p>The Supreme Court’s decision on Monsanto’s alfalfa ban will likely come early this summer. Justice Stephen Breyer recused himself from the case because his brother Charles Breyer oversaw the lower court’s decision against the company. Unsurprisingly, Justice Clarence Thomas, who once worked in the legal department for Monsanto, did not recuse himself from the matter.</p>
<p>While Elena Kagan has no experience on the bench and has provided the public with little to no information about where she stands on some of the most important issues of the day, the fact that she came to bat for Monsanto two months ago, at a time when the company is reeling from negative press, may shed some light on how she could rule in future GE cases if she’s confirmed as the next Supreme Court justice.</p>
<p>JOSHUA FRANK is co-editor of Dissident Voice and author of <a href="" type="internal">Left Out! How Liberals Helped Reelect George W. Bush</a> (Common Courage Press, 2005), and along with Jeffrey St. Clair, the editor of <a href="" type="internal">Red State Rebels: Tales of Grassroots Resistance in the Heartland</a>, published by AK Press.</p>
<p>A version of this piece first appeared in Truthout.org.</p>
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<p><a href="http://greentags.bigcartel.com/" type="external">WORDS THAT STICK</a></p>
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<p /> | Elena Kagan and Monsanto | true | https://counterpunch.org/2010/05/19/elena-kagan-and-monsanto/ | 2010-05-19 | 4 |
<p>Most national and international news sites saw terrific traffic spikes on Sunday, after the news was announced about Saddam's capture. In what's typical in cases like this, MSNBC.com is reporting that its Sunday traffic more than doubled from normal. What's interesting is that today the numbers are climbing even higher, according to an MSNBC.com spokesperson, as at-work Internet users log in. Had Saddam's capture been on a weekday, I suspect we'd even be seeing triple normal numbers for some news sites in the hours after the news broke.</p> | Plenty of Saddam Traffic, and Growing | false | https://poynter.org/news/plenty-saddam-traffic-and-growing | 2003-12-15 | 2 |
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<p>Image source: Getty Images.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>The demand for a la carte television is continually growing as consumers tire of big bundles of channels. Several networks, including CBS (NYSE: CBS) and Time Warner's (NYSE: TWX) HBO, already offer their channels a la carte through over-the-top streaming services. And while we may never see an a la carte menu of channels from big cable companies like Comcast (NASDAQ: CMCSA), providers are trying to put together skinny bundles of the most popular networks.</p>
<p>Some insight into which channels consumers most want to buy and how much they'd pay for each channel can be helpful in determining which media companies stand to survive the shift to more skinny bundles. TiVo's Digitalsmiths recently conducted a <a href="http://www.fiercecable.com/broadcasting/abc-cbs-nbc-most-desirable-a-la-carte-channels-report" type="external">survey Opens a New Window.</a> to find out exactly that.</p>
<p>Five of the top 10 channels people want a la carte are available for free. Disney's (NYSE: DIS) ABC, CBS, NBC, 21st-Century Fox's (NASDAQ: FOXA) Fox, and PBS can all be picked up using a simple antenna, but customers seem to prefer the convenience of a cable delivering the feed.</p>
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<p>In fact, consumers said they are willing to pay around $1.50 per month for each channel, while PBS viewers are willing to pay $1.74 per month on average in this survey. Interestingly, PBS could be a big value-add for skinny bundles without any additional cost as cable operators don't pay to retransmit it.</p>
<p>The other networks may have room to increase their retransmission fees based on these survey results. That's something both CBS and NBCUniversal have been aggressively pursuing. CBS is such a tough negotiator that its channel was blacked out on multiple occasions, but never for long.</p>
<p>And the prices consumers say they'd pay may underestimate how much networks will be able to charge for value added services. For example, CBS charges $6 per month for CBS All Access, which includes access to its entire back catalog of content as well as a live-stream of its broadcasts (except NFL football). HBO, which Digitalsmiths' survey respondents said they'd pay $3.13 per month for, on average, charges $15 per month for HBO Now. Both services have over 1 million subscribers.</p>
<p>The fourth most popular network in Digitalsmiths' survey was the Discovery Channel. Discovery Networks (NASDAQ: DISCA) has faced trouble with declining ad revenue due to cord-cutting and cord-shaving. While Discovery Channel made the top 10, none of its other networks (TLC, Animal Planet, OWN, Science, etc.) cracked the top 20. While Discovery's flagship network might be popular enough to survive a la carte, the company benefits much more from the big bundle with all of its channels.</p>
<p>The History Channel and A&amp;E give Disney at least part ownership in three of the most in-demand television networks. However, Disney has seen income from A&amp;E (the company behind A&amp;E and History Channel) decline thanks to lower advertising in recent quarters.</p>
<p>While Disney has a lot of channels in the top 10 and top 20, it's important to note that its most valuable networks -- ESPN's family of networks and the Disney Channel itself -- are much lower on the list. What's more, people say they aren't willing to pay much of a premium for those channels. Today, pay-TV distributors pay Disney about $7.21 per ESPN subscriber. The 44% of Digitalsmiths' survey respondents that wanted ESPN said they'd pay an average of $1.95 per month. As a result, Disney has a strong interest in masking the price of ESPN with a bundle from cable companies.</p>
<p>Lastly, Time Warner's TNT and TBS also made the top 10. Time Warner's Turner segment continues to see revenue from both subscriptions and advertising climb, up 9% year over year last quarter and 7% year to date. It has thus far had success getting its networks into skinny bundles. Turner CEO John Martin, though, sees a day when <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/2016/09/19/turner-wants-to-sell-cnn-tnt-and-tbs-directly-to-c.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">it may sell its networks directly to consumers Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>
<p>Not every media company would benefit from an a la carte distribution model -- not even those with the most in-demand networks. Even Time Warner is hesitant to go over the top with channels like TNT and TBS because it could impact the number of subscribers for its other channels. That's the problem Disney and Discovery face, while other big broadcasters featured in the top 10 have less to worry about.</p>
<p>Nonetheless, as people shift to more skinny bundles, this survey indicates these are the companies with the most leverage with distributors to maintain their subscription and advertising revenue streams.</p>
<p>10 stocks we like better than Comcast When investing geniuses David and Tom Gardner have a stock tip, it can pay to listen. After all, the newsletter they have run for over a decade, Motley Fool Stock Advisor, has tripled the market.*</p>
<p>David and Tom just revealed what they believe are the <a href="http://infotron.fool.com/infotrack/click?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.fool.com%2Fmms%2Fmark%2Fe-foolcom-sa-bbn-dyn%3Faid%3D8867%26source%3Disaeditxt0010449%26ftm_cam%3Dsa-bbn-evergreen%26ftm_pit%3D6312%26ftm_veh%3Dbbn_article_pitch&amp;impression=6b056bf7-96d9-4492-a5c8-551ba55471fe&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">ten best stocks Opens a New Window.</a> for investors to buy right now...and Comcast wasn't one of them! That's right -- they think these 10 stocks are even better buys.</p>
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<p>*Stock Advisor returns as of November 7, 2016.</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/adamlevy/info.aspx" type="external">Adam Levy Opens a New Window.</a> has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Walt Disney. The Motley Fool recommends Time Warner. 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> | Top 10 Channels People Want to Buy a la Carte | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/11/27/top-10-channels-people-want-to-buy-la-carte.html | 2016-11-27 | 0 |
<p>(ABP) — A Dallas-area pastor says he will introduce a resolution “on Baptist dissent” — apparently aimed at controversial actions by some Southern Baptist Convention agency trustees — during this summer's SBC annual meeting.</p>
<p>Benjamin Cole, a leading critic of recent actions by the SBC's International Mission Board, acknowledged April 17 he is the author of a resolution published April 14 on IMB trustee Wade Burleson's weblog.</p>
<p>The resolution says Southern Baptists “recognize majorities are not always right, and it is necessary for the voice of dissent — the minority voice — to be welcomed and heard if we are not to become authoritarian in our doctrinal confession or tyrannical in our denominational governance.”</p>
<p>The resolution posted by Burleson — who did not name its source — says that “all attempts by those who call themselves Baptist to silence the principled dissent of fellow Baptists within our denomination, or of other believers in our nation, or of any person in any other country, are both a compromise of our cherished Baptist witness and a disservice to the Kingdom of God.”</p>
<p>Cole, pastor of Parkview Baptist Church in Arlington, Texas, earlier wrote an open letter suggesting Southern Baptists should vote during their meeting June 13-14 in Greensboro, N.C. to dismiss all the trustees of the IMB. Cole's ire was raised by the board's January vote to ask messengers to the convention to dismiss Burleson, pastor of Emmanuel Baptist Church in Enid, Okla., from his trustee post.</p>
<p>At the time, IMB trustee leaders had accused Burleson of “gossip and slander” for blogging about his opposition to restrictive new policies approved for IMB missionaries. Trustees later voted to rescind their request to remove Burleson, but they also approved a new policy that bars dissenting trustees from criticizing actions of the board.</p>
<p>That policy has proven as controversial as the original move to dismiss Burleson, particularly among younger pastors and laypeople who populate the SBC-related “blogosphere.”</p>
<p>Cole, reached by telephone at his home April 17, told an Associated Baptist Press reporter he is the author of the resolution. He said it wasn't necessarily aimed solely at the IMB but at SBC agencies and leaders in general.</p>
<p>“I really do think the cherished principle of dissent has been subverted in certain quarters of our denomination,” he said.</p>
<p>Cole several other SBC members had run proposals for other resolutions and motions by him.</p>
<p>Some of those may involve a motion to force the IMB to re-think its controversial policy changes and report back to the convention before the June meeting is over. Normally, motions made from the floor of SBC meetings are referred to the agency that they concern, and the agency's trustees report back at the following year's annual meeting. However, a two-thirds majority of the convention can vote to require that the agency report back on the motion before the meeting is over.</p>
<p>The moves could be part of the stormiest SBC annual meeting since the decades-long battle between moderates and fundamentalists for control of the denomination reached its apex in 1990. The moderates, who lost, largely stopped attending SBC meetings and went on to form their own missionary-sending agencies and other institutions.</p> | IMB critics propose resolution affirming right of dissent | false | https://baptistnews.com/article/imbcriticsproposeresolutionaffirmingrightofdissent/ | 3 |
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<p>Gold miners are in full-rally mode on Thursday, following the precious metal higher.</p>
<p>Anticipating more easy money from the Federal Reserve, gold advanced $16.30 a troy ounce, or 1.22%, to settle at $1,350.20.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Below are some of the strongest-performing gold mining stocks on Thursday, including Agnico-Eagle Mines (NYSE:AEM) and Goldcorp (NYSE:GG).</p>
<p>Gold Mining Stocks Rally</p> | Gold Miners Soar on QE Hopes | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2013/10/24/gold-miners-soar-on-qe-hopes.html | 2016-03-04 | 0 |
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<p>On Monday afternoon, Netflix reported that growth remained strong during the recently ended first quarter. But as a high-flying growth stock trading for nearly 100 times forward earnings, "good" wasn't good enough for Netflix in the eyes of Mr. Market.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Let's take a look at the highlights from Netflix's earnings report.</p>
<p>Solid numbers all aroundFor most key financial metrics, such as global streaming revenue, operating income, and segment contribution profit, Netflix's Q1 results came in very close to what management had projected three months ago.</p>
<p>Netflix key Q1 metrics</p>
<p>Data source: Netflix Q4 2015 and Q1 2016 subscriber letters. Chart by author.</p>
<p>Of these six metrics, the only ones for which Netflix's guidance was off by more than 1% were domestic subscriber additions, international subscriber additions, and international contribution profit. In all three cases, Netflix's Q1 performance exceeded its guidance.</p>
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<p>Domestic subscriber growth was particularly impressive. Netflix added 2.23 million domestic subscribers, 27% ahead of its guidance and roughly in line with its performance a year earlier. Netflix stated that growth exceeded the company's expectations "because we underestimated the positive acquisition impact of our major original content debuts."</p>
<p>Investors were hoping for moreA few days ago, I noted that investors were likely to care about one thing more than anything else when interpreting Netflix's Q1 results: <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2016/04/16/netflix-earnings-on-tap-what-you-should-watch.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">international subscriber growth Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>
<p>Netflix beat its guidance by nearly 4%, adding 4.51 million international subscribers, compared with its forecast of 4.35 million. However, Netflix's international subscriber growth had come in at least 14% ahead of the company's forecast in every single quarter of 2015.</p>
<p>As a result, most investors were probably expecting faster international growth last quarter. The company's much-hyped <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2016/01/10/netflix-inc-completes-its-global-expansion-with-on.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">expansion into 130 new markets Opens a New Window.</a> back in January further contributed to investors' high expectations.</p>
<p>Netflix went global in January -- building up big growth expectations. Image source: The Motley Fool.</p>
<p>To make matters worse, Netflix projected that it will add 2 million international subscribers in Q2, after adding 2.37 million in Q2 2015. The company attributed this projected growth slowdown to tough comparisons. In Q2 2015, Netflix benefited from a surge of signups in Australia and New Zealand after going live there in late March.</p>
<p>Caution is warranted -- but Netflix should bounce backAfter the Q1 earnings release, Netflix shares dropped precipitously. As of 5:15 p.m. ET on Monday, the stock was down 10.3% in after-hours trading, following a 2.8% decline during the regular session.</p>
<p>Netflix's Q1 earnings report showed that the company has a lot of work left to get to breakeven outside the U.S. -- and even more to make international markets just as profitable as its domestic business. It will need to invest heavily in foreign language support, local content, and marketing in order to stimulate growth in its new markets.</p>
<p>That said, Netflix already has a lot of experience working in fairly diverse international markets. Management has a good idea of what needs to be done, and the company will gradually learn more as it gains experience in its newest markets.</p>
<p>Furthermore, Netflix's strong domestic growth shows that it still has a lot of upside in the U.S. -- a market where it has already demonstrated strong profit potential. Thus, if Netflix shares continue to pull back, long-term investors could get some enticing opportunities in the months ahead.</p>
<p>The article <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2016/04/18/netflix-inc-earnings-international-growth-disappoi.aspx" type="external">Netflix, Inc. Earnings: International Growth Disappoints Opens a New Window.</a> originally appeared on Fool.com.</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFGemHunter/info.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">Adam Levine-Weinberg Opens a New Window.</a> has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Netflix. 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> | Netflix, Inc. Earnings: International Growth Disappoints | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/04/18/netflix-inc-earnings-international-growth-disappoints.html | 2016-04-18 | 0 |
<p>MANCHESTER, England (AP) — Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho says midfielder Henrikh Mkhitaryan has been left out of the squad for the English Premier League match against Stoke because there are "doubts about his future."</p>
<p>Mourinho says, "I would lie if I said it was a pure tactical decision. It was just a choice of the players that we know, in this moment, they have 100 percent their heads in Manchester United."</p>
<p>United has been linked with a move for Arsenal forward Alexis Sanchez, with Manchester City also interested in the Chile international. Reports in the British media say Mkhitaryan could be included by United as a makeweight in a deal to bring Sanchez to Old Trafford.</p>
<p>Mourinho says, "It's the best for him and for us, while the doubt is in the air, to protect him."</p>
<p>Mkhitaryan joined United from Borussia Dortmund in July 2016.</p>
<p>MANCHESTER, England (AP) — Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho says midfielder Henrikh Mkhitaryan has been left out of the squad for the English Premier League match against Stoke because there are "doubts about his future."</p>
<p>Mourinho says, "I would lie if I said it was a pure tactical decision. It was just a choice of the players that we know, in this moment, they have 100 percent their heads in Manchester United."</p>
<p>United has been linked with a move for Arsenal forward Alexis Sanchez, with Manchester City also interested in the Chile international. Reports in the British media say Mkhitaryan could be included by United as a makeweight in a deal to bring Sanchez to Old Trafford.</p>
<p>Mourinho says, "It's the best for him and for us, while the doubt is in the air, to protect him."</p>
<p>Mkhitaryan joined United from Borussia Dortmund in July 2016.</p> | Mkhitaryan left out by Man U amid uncertainty over future | false | https://apnews.com/amp/ebc5da00d34e48d993fbe47cbec08795 | 2018-01-15 | 2 |
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<p>THE HAGUE, Netherlands — A European Union report published Tuesday concluded that there is “at most, a very low level of concern from exposure to recycled rubber granules” in artificial sports fields, allaying fears about risks posed by chemicals present in the rubber.</p>
<p>Based on current evidence, the Helsinki-based European Chemicals Agency said it “has found no reason to advise people against playing sports on synthetic turf containing recycled rubber granules.”</p>
<p>While there are hazardous substances in the granules, they are in low concentrations, the report said.</p>
<p>Late last year, Dutch researchers reached a similar conclusion, following an investigation triggered by fears over chemicals found in the rubber crumbs, which are usually made from old tires. The Netherlands’ National Institute for Public Health and the Environment said the risk from playing on such fields is “virtually negligible.”</p>
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<p>The EU report said that by 2020 an estimated 21,000 full-size playing fields and about 72,000 mini fields, which are low-maintenance alternatives to natural grass, will be in use throughout the EU.</p>
<p>The report evaluated the risk posed by the granules if they come into contact with the skin, are ingested or if players or workers installing or maintaining such fields inhale dust or substances evaporating from the granules.</p>
<p>It made five recommendations, including that regulations be changed to ensure that only granules with very low concentrations of hazardous substances can be supplied and that owners and operators of synthetic fields measure concentrations of such substances and give clear information about them.</p>
<p>Researchers added that “players using the synthetic fields should take basic hygiene measures after playing on artificial turf containing recycled rubber granules,” including washing their hands and cleaning any cuts and scrapes. Players who get rubber crumb in their mouths should not swallow it, the report said.</p> | EU report: Rubber crumb fields pose very low risk | false | https://abqjournal.com/958823/eu-report-rubber-crumb-fields-pose-very-low-risk.html | 2017-02-28 | 2 |
<p>Facebook Inc's Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg has enlisted Samsung Electronics Co Ltd, Qualcomm Inc and four other companies for a project aimed at bringing Internet access to people around the world who cannot afford it, following efforts by Google Inc.</p>
<p>The project, called Internet.org, is the latest move by an Internet company trying to expand Web access globally. Facebook rival Google is hoping technology, including balloons, wireless and fiber connections will expand connectivity.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Internet.org, which was launched on Wednesday, will focus on seeking ways to help the 5 billion people - or two-thirds of the world's population - who do not have Internet access, come online, the company said in a statement.</p>
<p>It added that so far, only 2.7 billion people around the world have Internet access.</p>
<p>The partnership's potential projects will include the development of lower-cost smartphones and the deployment of Internet access in underserved communities as well as working on ways to reduce the amount of data downloads required to run Internet applications, according to Facebook.</p>
<p>But at least initially, the company appeared to have few details on concrete plans.</p>
<p>In an interview with CNN on Wednesday, Zuckerberg said the group had a "rough plan" for achieving its goal. He said the project was not just about making money for Facebook, which has more than 1 billion members and needs to keep expanding to boost revenue.</p>
<p>Zuckerberg noted that the first billion Facebook members "have way more money" than the rest of the world combined.</p>
<p>While many of today's Facebook members use the service just to keep in touch with friends, Zuckerberg said future Internet users may have more lofty needs.</p>
<p>"They're going to use it to decide what kind of governments they want, get access to healthcare for the first time ever, connect with family hundreds of miles away that they haven't seen in decades," he told CNN.</p>
<p>Facebook recently reported stronger-than-expected quarterly results due to an increase in advertising revenue from mobile users.</p>
<p>Other players in the Internet.org project include Ericsson, MediaTek Inc, Nokia and Opera Software ASA.</p>
<p>While the list did not include mobile network operators, Facebook that these companies would play a central role.</p>
<p>In June, Google announced it launched a small network of balloons over the Southern Hemisphere in an experiment it hopes to use to bring reliable Internet access to the world's most remote regions.</p>
<p>The pilot program, Project Loon, took off from New Zealand's South Island, using solar-powered, high-altitude balloons that ride the wind about 12.5 miles, or twice as high as airplanes, above the ground.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p> | Facebook Project Looks to Bring Internet to All | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2013/08/21/facebook-project-looks-to-bring-internet-to-all.html | 2016-01-29 | 0 |
<p>The Topeka, Kan., city council voted Tuesday to decriminalize domestic battery, in a political move to force the Shawnee County District Attorney's office to take up the cases instead. And on Wednesday, it got what it wanted.</p>
<p>District attorney Chad Taylor had announced earlier that, to save money after a 10 percent budget cut, his office would stop prosecuting misdemeanors committed within Topeka, the <a href="http://cjonline.com/news/2011-10-12/taylor-will-again-prosecute-city-cases#.TpYPPa7-SNo" type="external">Topeka Capital-Journal</a> reports. That meant Topeka had to do it instead. On Wednesday afternoon, in response to the Topeka vote, Taylor said his office would resume prosecuting Topeka's domestic violence cases.</p>
<p>"I am deeply saddened by the City of Topeka's unfortunate decision to place resources and political grandstanding before its constituents' safety," Taylor said in a statement, according to ABC News. "Public safety is the core responsibility of government and a responsibility I am deeply committed to upholding. Therefore, effective immediately, my office will commence the review and filing of misdemeanors decriminalized by the City of Topeka."</p>
<p>Topeka Mayor Bill Bunten and other city officials claimed that the city didn't have the resources to prosecute its own domestic violence cases.</p>
<p>More from GlobalPost: <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatches/globalpost-blogs/weird-wide-web/topeka-kansas-legalizing-domestic-battery-chad-taylor" type="external">Topeka, Kan., considers legalizing domestic violence</a></p>
<p>According to <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/US/kansas-da-prosecute-domestic-violence/story?id=14720962" type="external">ABC News</a>:</p>
<p>The DA's office has prosecuted the crimes for over 10 years, according to Bunten, and Topeka shouldn't be forced to absorb those costs. The DA would need to continue prosecuting misdemeanor domestic violence offenses for the five towns in the county that do not have municipal courts, and so would need to employ the support staff either way. Additionally, Bunten noted, any convictions could be appealed to the county level, which would make the municipal court redundant.</p>
<p>Victims' advocates decried the Topeka city council's cynical move. "I absolutely do not understand it," Rita Smith, executive director of the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, told the <a href="http://www.kansascity.com/2011/10/11/3202008/topeka-repeals-law-against-misdemeanor.html" type="external">Kansas City Star</a> after the vote. "It's really outrageous that they're playing with family safety to see who blinks first. People could die while they're waiting to straighten this out."</p>
<p>While the Topeka city council won their game of chicken, Taylor argued in his statement that its victory was nothing to celebrate. He said his office had increased misdemeanor domestic battery filings by more than 80 percent and convictions by more than 50 percent in the past three years, the Topeka Capital-Journal reported. However, he added:</p>
<p>"This progress is now threatened by the Shawnee County Commission and Topeka City Council's actions. Public safety is being ignored by the leaders of this community, and we will shortly see the consequences of their actions. A drastic reduction in staffing levels will impact the timely filing of criminal cases. It will impact what cases are filed. And it will impact the services provided to the public. In short, these decisions to put politics above public safety will make our community a less safe, less secure place to live."</p> | Topeka decriminalizes domestic battery, D.A. blinks | false | https://pri.org/stories/2011-10-12/topeka-decriminalizes-domestic-battery-da-blinks | 2011-10-12 | 3 |
<p>An Israeli man detained by Egyptian security services in Cairo on Sunday, charged with spying for Israel's Mossad intelligence service, is also an American citizen, GlobalPost has learned.</p>
<p>Egyptian authorities arrested 27-year-old Ilan Chaim Grapel, a dual Israeli/U.S. national, from his downtown Cairo hotel early yesterday morning.</p>
<p>Grapel is suspected of being a spy in Egypt "with the aim of harming its economic and political interests," according to <a href="http://af.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idAFTRE75B1SJ20110612" type="external">the Reuters news agency</a>, which cited Egyptian state media.</p>
<p>A state-run newspaper <a href="http://english.ahram.org.eg/News/14168.aspx" type="external">reported</a> that Grapel was carrying a laptop and three cell phones "containing top-secret information that would have harmed Egypt."</p>
<p>"[Grapel] allegedly was sent to Egypt by the Israeli government, tasked with taking advantage of the security vacuum in the country following the January 25 revolution and instructed to recruit others to acquire military and political information," <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/meast/06/12/egypt.israel.suspected.spy/" type="external">reported CNN</a>, citing a spokesman for Egypt's general prosecutor.</p>
<p>Israel's foreign ministry is <a href="http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?id=224692" type="external">currently investigating</a> reports of the capture of an alleged spy.</p>
<p>The U.S. Embassy in Cairo confirmed on Monday that the American/Israeli dual national was in custody of Egyptian authorities. &#160;An American consular officer visited Mr. Grapel on Monday and confirmed that he was in good health, according to a written statement provided by American officials to GlobalPost.</p>
<p>According to the U.S. Embassy in Cairo:</p>
<p>"We have confirmed that Ilan Chaim Grapel, age 27, is a U.S. citizen and was detained on June 12, 2011 by Egyptian authorities. &#160;As is the case with all U.S. citizens arrested overseas, consular officers visit the detained citizen, work with local authorities to make sure he is being treated fairly under local law, provide information about the legal system, and facilitate communication with family and friends in the U.S."&#160;</p>
<p>Grapel's mother, Irene, who lives in New York City, told GlobalPost her son is a dual American/Israeli citizen. An employee at the Cairo hotel where Grapel was staying confirmed that the man checked in on a U.S. passport with valid Egyptian visas.</p>
<p>Grapel was visiting Cairo for the summer, according to Irene. &#160;She said there was no way her son could have been fomenting discord during Egypt's revolution.</p>
<p>"He only arrived in Egypt on May 10th," said Irene via telephone. "So he was no where near Tahrir Square during the revolution."</p>
<p>Grapel is a student at Emory University's School of Law in Atlanta, Georgia. &#160;He came to Egypt to work as an intern at a Cairo-based non-profit organization that provides legal assistance to refugees and asylum seekers, according to Irene.</p>
<p>An Egyptian newspaper <a href="http://www.youm7.com/News.asp?NewsID=433837" type="external">published pictures</a> from Grapel's Facebook account showing the man posing in a soldier's uniform, reportedly for the Israeli Defense Forces. &#160;Irene&#160;confirmed that Grapel - as most Israeli citizens are required - performed his compulsory service to the IDF. &#160;</p>
<p>Grapel is not the first alleged Israeli spy accused of being sent to Egypt.</p>
<p>The regime of former president Hosni Mubarak, who was toppled on February 11 after widespread street protests, used state television to accuse foreigners of instigating the January uprising.</p>
<p>Last year, an Egyptian official <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/egypt/101207/jaws-egypt-coast-shark-attack" type="external">stirred controversy</a> after claiming that Israel's Mossad could have been behind a spate of shark attacks off Egypt's southern Sinai coast.</p>
<p>Egypt was the first Arab country to sign a peace treaty with Israel in 1979. &#160;Since then, however, relations between Egypt and its neighbor to the north have been chilly at best.</p>
<p>Egyptian police forces <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatches/globalpost-blogs/the-casbah/egyptian-police-fire-live-ammunition-at-anti-israel-protest" type="external">used live ammunition and teargas</a> to disperse protesters outside Israel's embassy in Cairo last month.</p>
<p>Many Egyptians disagree with their government's sale of natural gas to Israel, believing that members of Mubarak's regime profited illegally by selling it at a discount.</p>
<p>Israel receives nearly 40 percent of its natural gas from Egypt.</p>
<p>A Sinai pipeline providing Israel with natural gas was finally reopened last week, nearly two months after unknown assailants attacked it - for the second time since January. &#160;</p> | Israeli man arrested in Egypt for spying is a dual American citizen | false | https://pri.org/stories/2011-06-13/israeli-man-arrested-egypt-spying-dual-american-citizen | 2011-06-13 | 3 |
<p>It doesn't come as a surprise that <a href="http://www.sportsline.com" type="external">CBS SportsLine</a> is finally getting out of the gambling business. The real wonder is that took it so long. The online provider of sports information (we don't call these sites portals anymore, do we?) has sold its leading gambling site, VegasInsider.com, to British company Sports Information Ltd. to appease concerns of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) in the U.S. For those of you in Great Britain, who may be wondering why SportsLine would get out of such a lucrative business, the NCAA is the governing body for U.S. collegiate sports and strongly discourages gambling on its events because, according to a story on Reuters, it "fears they can be tainted by organized crime and other illegal gamblers who prey on the impressionable students who compete in the games."We won't get into just who the innocents are here. But make no mistake: This is a business decision, pure and simple, as the association with the gambling site to date demonstrates. SportsLine, which is based in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, plans to focus on managing the websites for the NFL and its 32 teams, the PGA Tour, and the NCAA. "In all honesty, the other entities weren't thrilled with us being in that business, and we felt like those other relationships were more important," says Larry Wahl, a SportsLine spokesman.</p> | SportsLine Cleans Up Its Act | false | https://poynter.org/news/sportsline-cleans-its-act | 2003-06-24 | 2 |
<p />
<p />
<p>When it comes to naming new family members, the Bush dynasty isn’t particularly creative. There are at least three Georges, two Barbaras, and a couple of Prescotts in the family. Apparently this sort of limited imagination also applies to John Ellis “Jeb” Bush (father to a George Prescott and another John Ellis Jr.). When he was given a black Labrador a year before winning his first election as Florida governor, in 1998, Jeb opted to call the dog Marvin, after his least-famous little brother. (Perhaps this was revenge for Marvin’s role in ensuring there is only <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-02-23/thanks-to-frank-zappa-jeb-bush-has-just-one-wedding-photo" type="external">one surviving photo</a> from Jeb’s 1974 wedding. As the official wedding photographer, Marvin accidentally loaded his camera with film previously used at a Frank Zappa concert.)</p>
<p>Marvin the dog made several appearances in Bush campaign ads, and at one point even h <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/98/07/circuits/articles/30poli.html" type="external">ad his own chat room</a> (remember those?) on Jeb’s campaign website when he was running for governor. But Marvin wasn’t always as cooperative as the Bush children, who also featured prominently. As Bush explained in a recent&#160; <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/jeb-bushs-man-in-hollywood/2015/06/12/febca268-0584-11e5-a428-c984eb077d4e_story.html" type="external">Washington Post</a> story about his former campaign advisor Mike Murphy:</p>
<p>“We were doing <a href="http://www.c-span.org/video/?c4519922/jeb-bush-governor-1998-ad" type="external">a family bio ad</a>, the family was having a picnic, along with our beloved dog Marvin. Marvin didn’t follow the script and jumped on the table and destroyed the neatly staged picnic.” Bush said Murphy “turned lemons into lemonade” and created “a real and funny” spot, “one of the better ads of its kind I’ve seen.”</p>
<p>Here’s the full ad:</p>
<p />
<p />
<p>Poor Marvin isn’t around for any cameos in Jeb’s presidential campaign. He <a href="http://www.ocala.com/article/20060601/NEWS/206010404?tc=ar" type="external">expired in 2006</a>at the age of 11, just two days before Bush signed into law <a href="http://petsinco.ipower.com/MightyMarvin.htm" type="external">“doggie dining”</a> legislation, allowing canines in Florida restaurants. “Now, man’s best friend can enjoy Florida’s fine dining too,” Bush said at the time. Judging from his picnic performance, Marvin might have relished the opportunity more than most.</p>
<p>Contributing GIFing by AJ Vicens</p>
<p /> | Jeb Bush Named His Dog After His Brother (No, Not That One) | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2015/06/jeb-bush-named-his-dog-after-his-brother-marvin/ | 2015-06-16 | 4 |
<p>Evan Vucci/AP</p>
<p>Here’s a point missing in much of the coverage of Donald Trump Jr.’s <a href="" type="internal">bombshell emails</a>: If they are an accurate depiction of events, these messages show there was a conspiracy between the Putin regime and the Trump camp that was exceedingly simple and compact and quite easy to implement. The apparent&#160;plot—yes, it was a secret plot—involved a small number of people: three of Donald Trump’s closest advisers, a Trump business partner (and that man’s son), a Russian official close to Vladimir Putin, and two emissaries. Actually, none of this is surprising. Or complicated. You do not need Agent Mulder to get to the bottom of this.</p>
<p>Let’s start with Aras Agalarov. He is a billionaire developer in Russia in favor with Vladimir Putin, who in 2013 awarded him the Order of Honor for his construction work in Russia. Agalarov is also a business partner of Donald Trump. In 2013, he signed up with Trump to bring to Moscow the Miss Universe contest, which Trump co-owned at the time. That deal was <a href="" type="internal">brokered</a> by Emin Agalarov, Aras’s son and a middling pop star, and Emin’s manager, a Brit named Rob Goldstone.&#160;</p>
<p>For years, Trump had tried to do hotel and condo projects in Moscow. All these endeavors had failed or fizzled. (Trump Vodka had flopped, too.) The Miss Universe event was his only successful venture there. It was good for the Agalarovs. The contest was held in Crocus City Hall, part of a large shopping and exhibition complex they own on the outskirts of Moscow, and they were able to raise their profile and promote their ritzy theater there. Emin, as part of the deal, got to perform two songs before a global audience, which he and Goldstone hoped would boost his career.</p>
<p>The event made at least $12 million for Trump’s Miss Universe Organization. Even better for Trump, the pageant forged a tight bond between him and Aras and Emin Agalarov. Trump appeared in a music video Emin released. The Trump Organization and the Agalarovs started working on a deal to bring a Trump tower to Moscow. In fact, as Yahoo News <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/news/new-details-emerge-moscow-real-estate-deal-led-trump-kremlin-alliance-190126219.html" type="external">reports</a>, Ivanka Trump traveled to Moscow shortly after the event to scout locations. Here is a photo Goldstone posted on his Facebook page of Ivanka meeting with Emin there:</p>
<p>And in the following years, there was steady contact between the Trumps and the Agalarovs—and Goldstone, too. Though no Moscow project materialized, there remained a relationship.&#160;</p>
<p>Come the campaign of 2016, it was no surprise that Emin and Aras Agalarov were pulling for their pal Donald. And it’s only natural they wanted to help.&#160;</p>
<p>According to emails released Tuesday by Trump Jr., on June 3, 2016—shortly after Trump had secured the Republican presidential nomination—Aras was in a meeting with Yury Chaika, the prosecutor general of Russia, who had been in the post since 2006. A few weeks earlier, Putin had&#160; <a href="https://themoscowtimes.com/articles/putin-recommends-chaika-for-reappointment-as-prosecutor-general-52973" type="external">recommended</a> that Chaika serve another five-year term. Certainly, only a Putin-fancied official would be in this job. But this was a sign that Chaika remained in Putin’s good graces. (The previous year, a prominent Russian opposition activist had accused Chaika’s family of being involved in corruption and criminal activity.)</p>
<p>The Trump Jr. emails do not note how the meeting between Chaika and Aras Agalarov came about. But according to an email sent from Goldstone to Trump Jr., Chaika told Agalarov he could provide the Trump campaign “with some official documents and information that would incriminate Hillary” and that would be “very useful” for Donald Trump. This contact makes plenty of sense. If the Russian government wanted to help Trump win the presidency by passing his campaign dirt on Hillary Clinton, the natural go-between would be Aras Agalarov, who had been Trump’s business colleague. Agalarov could go straight to the source.</p>
<p>And apparently he did. According to the Trump Jr. emails, Aras Agalarov made the obvious play. He had Emin ask Goldstone to contact Trump Jr. Emin’s manager then emailed Donald Trump Jr. and told him about the Agalarov-Chaika meeting and added, “This is obviously very high level and sensitive information but it is part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump – helped along by Aras and Emin.”</p>
<p>Nothing complex here. A Putin official seems to be collaborating with Trump’s business partners to get Trump negative material on Clinton.</p>
<p>Next, Trump Jr. seems to have a phone call with Emin, and a meeting is scheduled for a few days later in Trump tower where Trump Jr. will meet with what one email describes as a “Russian government attorney.”</p>
<p>Trump Jr. then widens the cabal by informing Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort about this operation, and they are added to the meeting. An email forwarded to them about the get-together has the subject heading: “Russia – Clinton – private and confidential.” On June 9, the meeting occurs.</p>
<p>It only took three days for this plot to zip from the discussion between Chaika and Aras Agalarov to the inner circle of Trump’s campaign. Trump Jr. says nothing came out of the conversation between the Trump advisers and the Russian lawyer, claiming she spoke only in vague and meaningless terms. But given that the president’s son has repeatedly dissembled about this episode, there is no telling if this description can be trusted. (The lawyer,&#160;Natalia Veselnitskaya, <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/russian-lawyer-who-met-trump-jr-i-didn-t-have-n781631" type="external">has denied</a> working on behalf of the Russian government or conveying negative information about Clinton.)</p>
<p>This is what ought to register: The scheme&#160;appears&#160;to have been&#160;put into play by a Putin regime official and a Putin-friendly oligarch who was Trump’s business partner in Russia—and Trump’s son, son-in-law, and campaign manager all joined in. (A pop singer, a Russian lawyer, and a talent manager all had supporting roles.) Trump Jr., Kushner, and Manafort were looking to collude with a foreign power to gain an advantage in the election—an allegation the Trump team has repeatedly and passionately denied.</p>
<p>This is not Alex Jones stuff. This was straightforward conniving. Moreover, this is reality within the part of the universe where Trumpland overlaps with Putin’s world. It was a conspiracy, pure and simple. The obvious question now is: Are there any others to uncover?</p> | The Trump-Russia Conspiracy Is Now Very Simple | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2017/07/the-trump-russia-conspiracy-is-now-very-simple/ | 2017-07-11 | 4 |
<p>By Bob Allen</p>
<p>An interdenominational divinity school connected to an Alabama Baptist university celebrated its 25th&#160;anniversary in a chapel service April 23.</p>
<p>“In the history of an institution, 25 years is not that long,” Beeson Divinity School Dean Timothy George <a href="http://www.beesondivinity.com/fromthedean" type="external">said</a> in remarks at the anniversary <a href="http://www.beesondivinity.com/fromthedean/posts/beesons-25th-anniversary--a-special-service-of-commemoration" type="external">celebration</a>. “Yet in all of our lives gathered here today it is a significant stretch of time.”</p>
<p>Samford University President Andrew Westmoreland said he predicted 25 years ago that establishing the first divinity school at a Baptist college or university in the nation would be too risky to survive. He admitted that he was wrong, citing reasons including the “vision, intellect, courage, integrity, compassion and obedience” of the school’s founding dean.</p>
<p>Westmoreland described George, a former church history professor at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, as “a person called by God for a task worthy of his life.”</p>
<p><a href="http://www.beesondivinity.com/history" type="external">Established</a> with the largest gift from a living donor in Samford history, Beeson Divinity School opened its doors to an entering class of 32 fulltime students in the fall of 1988.</p>
<p>Today, Beeson is one of eight schools that make up <a href="http://www.samford.edu" type="external">Samford University</a>, a school in Birmingham chartered in 1841 and affiliated with the Alabama Baptist Convention. The divinity school has awarded nearly 1,000 degrees through its master’s and doctoral programs.</p>
<p>Ralph Waldo Beeson, a retired insurance executive and Presbyterian layman, envisioned a place to train pastors from all Christian denominations. During their lifetimes, members of the Beeson family gave Samford more than $100 million.</p>
<p>Prior to the anniversary service, Beeson students, faculty, staff and others marched in a processional from the statue of the divinity school’s founding benefactor to Hodges Chapel, dedicated in 1995 and named in 2002 in honor of Andrew Gerow Hodges, an insurance executive who served on Samford’s board of trustees for 43 years.</p>
<p>Speakers at the anniversary service included Richard Bewes, former pastor of All Souls’ Church in London, England, and a longtime friend of George.</p> | Beeson celebrates 25 years | false | https://baptistnews.com/article/beeson-celebrates-25-years/ | 3 |
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<p>SAN JUAN DE MARCONA, Peru (AP) — Nasser Al-Attiyah won a second stage three days into the Dakar Rally on Monday to remain a contender in the world’s toughest rally.</p>
<p>Al-Attiyah dominated the almost 300-kilometer third stage through and over sand dunes in the Ica Desert to rise to third place.</p>
<p>The two-time champion from Qatar won the opening stage on Saturday but lost time on Sunday because of two flat tires. He endured another flat tire not long after the start from Pisco on Monday but fixed it quickly and still blew away the field en route to San Juan de Marcona.</p>
<p>Al-Attiyah was just under eight minutes behind overall leader and defending champion Stephane Peterhansel of France. Countryman Cyril Despres, the stage two winner, was second, about three minutes behind.</p>
<p>Nani Roma, the 2014 champion from Spain, rolled his car a kilometer from the finish. Though he still managed to cross the finish line, he was taken to hospital with reported neck and head injuries.</p>
<p>In the motorcycle race, British rider Sam Sunderland won the stage to lead overall.</p>
<p>His cause was helped when Joan Barreda, who dominated the second stage, missed a turn and had to double back. He finished almost 28 minutes behind Sunderland.</p>
<p>Sunderland won by more than three minutes on Monday from Kevin Benavides of Argentina.</p>
<p>SAN JUAN DE MARCONA, Peru (AP) — Nasser Al-Attiyah won a second stage three days into the Dakar Rally on Monday to remain a contender in the world’s toughest rally.</p>
<p>Al-Attiyah dominated the almost 300-kilometer third stage through and over sand dunes in the Ica Desert to rise to third place.</p>
<p>The two-time champion from Qatar won the opening stage on Saturday but lost time on Sunday because of two flat tires. He endured another flat tire not long after the start from Pisco on Monday but fixed it quickly and still blew away the field en route to San Juan de Marcona.</p>
<p>Al-Attiyah was just under eight minutes behind overall leader and defending champion Stephane Peterhansel of France. Countryman Cyril Despres, the stage two winner, was second, about three minutes behind.</p>
<p>Nani Roma, the 2014 champion from Spain, rolled his car a kilometer from the finish. Though he still managed to cross the finish line, he was taken to hospital with reported neck and head injuries.</p>
<p>In the motorcycle race, British rider Sam Sunderland won the stage to lead overall.</p>
<p>His cause was helped when Joan Barreda, who dominated the second stage, missed a turn and had to double back. He finished almost 28 minutes behind Sunderland.</p>
<p>Sunderland won by more than three minutes on Monday from Kevin Benavides of Argentina.</p> | Al-Attiyah wins 3rd stage of Dakar, Peterhansel tops overall | false | https://apnews.com/de2ec7f362b345258fa12d244f33b8ce | 2018-01-08 | 2 |
<p>The Secrets of the Denver International Airport Secret Underground Bunkers Are Only The Tip Of The Iceberg</p>
<p />
<p>"For there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; neither hid, that shall not be known." <a href="http://www.blueletterbible.org/Bible.cfm?b=Luk&amp;c=12" type="external">Luke 12:2</a></p>
<p>Hiding in very plain sight</p>
<p>The most amazing thing about the Denver International Airport (DIA) is not that it is filled to the brim with very freaky occultic symbols everywhere you look, it's that it is everywhere you look. Instead of trying to hide them, or be clever about it, these works of darkness are on bold display, daring you to figure them out. And there is no question of any kind that all these symbols do indeed tell a story that is yet to be realized. The story of an evil, tragic holocaust. Do I have your attention?</p>
<p>If the Masonic logo sitting right above the 'New World Airport Commision' doesn't grab your attention, then what will?</p>
<p>The satanic nature of the Masons is well-known, and we shall not go into that here in this article. (if you would like to learn about Freemasonry, <a href="http://www.jesus-is-savior.com/False%20Religions/Freemasonry/freemasonry_exposed.htm" type="external">click here</a> for an excellent introduction.) But what I would like to call your attention to is what is written right under the Masons logo. It reads "New World Airport Commission." Not only does it sound like a name created by conspiracy theorists, the other startling fact is that the 'New World Airport Commission' doesn't seem to exist. Anywhere. Except where it is written here on the capstone.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>Anubis, the Egyptian god of the Dead</p>
<p>With all the planes crashes, high-level security intimidation, and the constant threat of terrorist attacks, you would think that the last thing you would want to see before getting on an airplane would be a statue invoking the spirit of Anubis, the Egyptian god of the dead.</p>
<p>�</p>
<p>This airport is absolutely sending you a message, are you receiving it?</p>
<p>A colorful airport mural of the coming world holocaust</p>
<p>Now, this is where it gets freaky, and I mean like chills-down-your-spine freaky. I will show you some of the panels from the main mural inside the airport, and you can make up your own mind.</p>
<p>Panel #1: The lord of Death killing the dove of peace</p>
<p />
<p>A long, long trail of mothers holding dead babies in their arms, many more lying dead on the ground, as a faceless, evil warlord holds a huge sword and a machine gun, thrusting the sword into the belly of the white dove of peace. Notice, too, that the evil warlord doing the killing is a military soldier, a reference to the coming United States police state perhaps? Notice the symbol of the radical Gay Agenda, a multi-colored rainbow, as the banner under which this madman is slaughtering people.</p>
<p>What would be the message here other than a warning of a coming holocaust of unimaginable proportion. In any event, why are these images used if not to send a meesage of somekind? The mural clearly is telling the viewer a story of some kind, and it is absolutely one of deeply-disturbed horror. This imagery would be considered far too graphic to be on the wall of a prison that would house the most violent of offenders. So why is it used in an airport where families, friends and neighbors go to fly to be with their loved ones?</p>
<p />
<p>Panel #2: Solar flares of the Apocalypse</p>
<p><a href="javascript:;" type="external" /> Click image to see full size! ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------</p>
<p>Children buried in coffins underneath, while on top above ground a solar fire storm rages. Everyone in this mural is either terrified, dead, or looking to do someone else harm. Do the flames make hidden reference to the sun burning up the earth as in the Mayan 2012 calendar predictions, or a reference to the devastation caused by nuclear bombs exploding?</p>
<p>Again I ask you - why are these images in an airport?</p>
<p>Panel #3: Worshipping the gods of the Hindus</p>
<p />
<p>This panel shows all the peoples of the world, perhaps those who have lived the horrific bloodshed depicted in the first two panels, worshipping what looks like a Hindu god of some kind. Everything is very New Age and multicultural, like a New World Order where one is all and all are one.</p>
<p>Conclusion</p>
<p>Obviously, something is very, very wrong here at the Denver International Airport. It is filled with symbols of the occult, of the Devil, and put all together they seem to urging the viewer to 'figure it out.' It like the crime scene for a crime yet to be perpetrated. Is it a coded message of a coming holocaust of unimaginable proportions? Could this be connected to the FEMA camps which are now being built across America to house Americans that refuse to go along with the coming New World Order? What is it??? We did our job in bringing you this story. Now, you decide what it means.</p> | The Secrets of the Denver International Airport | true | http://nowtheendbegins.com/pages/deception/denver-airport-hides-secret-underground-bunker.htm | 0 |
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<p>REUTERS / Jonathan Ernst</p>
<p>Don’t you want to know which hotel evicted people from their rooms and canceled their ballroom reservation just so Eric Cantor wouldn’t have to hear anything dissident during his stay? And don’t you want to hear what those people had to say?</p>
<p>It was the Holiday Inn Koger Conference Center in Chesterfield, Va., just outside of Richmond. <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2011/09/01/309923/holiday-inn-abruptly-ejects-progressive-groups-who-reserved-space-for-jobs-rally-in-same-hotel-as-cantor-event/" type="external">ThinkProgress</a> reports that three Virginia grassroots organizing groups had booked space in a separate ballroom at the same hotel where Rep. Eric Cantor, House Majority Leader, was holding an “advisory council” with pre-registered constituents. The liberal-leaning citizens said they had hoped to discuss with Cantor their concerns about unemployment and job creation after his scheduled event. The ThinkProgress article continues:</p>
<p>But just hours before the events were set to begin, the Holiday Inn canceled the groups’ ballroom and room reservations and ordered the groups to remain off of hotel property during Cantor’s meeting. According to organizers, hotel management falsely accused them of smoking in their rooms and used that as justification to cancel their reservations. However, a representative of Holiday Inn who only agreed to speak on the condition of anonymity, said the hotel was seeking to avoid confrontation between the progressive groups and those attending the Cantor event.</p>
<p>Cantor <a href="http://www.nbc12.com/link/347753/decisionvirginia?redirected=true" type="external">said of the desperate Va. residents</a> who had gathered to speak with him:</p>
<p>“I don’t see how that’s productive.”</p>
<p>Cantor also made the misleading claim that anyone who wanted to could have attended his pre-registration-required, closed-to-the-immediate public event. In fact, the event had only been <a href="http://bluevirginia.us/diary/4765/a-cantor-town-hall-sorry-tea-party-only" type="external">advertised on the Richmond Tea Party Website</a>.</p>
<p />
<p />
<p>The protestors’ purpose, according to <a href="http://www.nbc12.com/link/347753/decisionvirginia?redirected=true" type="external">Chesterfield NBC12 news</a>, was to:</p>
<p>“Call on Rep. Cantor to end tax breaks and loopholes for CEOs, hedge fund managers and others, and make big, profitable corporations pay their fair share of taxes so America can invest in creating quality jobs here at home.”</p>
<p>These people are the voice of an America <a href="http://bit.ly/pEgjrc" type="external">that is slipping ever further behind</a>. They are desperate for jobs and desperate for lawmaker accountability. You can hear it in their voices.</p>
<p>Four different citizens <a href="http://www2.godanriver.com/news/2011/aug/31/2/protestors-voice-desire-for-jobs-and-fru-13340-vi-30251/" type="external">recorded in the video at this link</a> had this to say:</p>
<p>“We are losing our homes, we are losing our health, we are losing our families, and we are losing our minds.”</p>
<p>“I need a job, I need to get Cantor to help us get construction jobs going.”</p>
<p>“We have over 40,000 unemployed people living in this district; we cannot get a meeting [with Cantor] by phone, in person, we cannot get a town hall meeting – and now we can’t get into the advisory council.” (Said by an elderly woman.)</p>
<p>“We the people can’t get an interview or a meeting with Cantor – and it was us, the people, who put you in office!”</p>
<p>Please remember that Cantor was not willing to entertain talk from people without jobs or calls to accountability when the polls open on Tues., Nov. 6, 2012.</p>
<p>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~</p>
<p>Visit the author: <a href="http://liberallamppost.com/" type="external">The Liberal Lamp Post</a>&#160; – <a href="http://twitter.com/LiberaLLamp" type="external">@LiberaLLamp on Twitter</a>&#160; – <a href="http://www.facebook.com/LiberaLLampPost" type="external">On Facebook</a></p>
<p>Click to view <a href="../2011/08/29/2011/08/25/2011/08/25/2011/08/23/author/liberal" type="external">Liberal Lamp’s archive</a>on this site or <a href="http://liberallamppost.com/contact/" type="external">Click to contact the author</a>of this post.</p>
<p><a href="http://bit.ly/noNKeT" type="external">Click to read “18 Reasons to Thank a Liberal: A Partial List of Liberal Achievements; 1935-2010.”</a></p>
<p>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~</p> | VA Hotel Evicts Paying Liberal Guests to ‘Avoid Confrontation’ with Eric Cantor | true | http://addictinginfo.org/2011/09/01/va-hotel-evicts-paying-liberal-guests-to-avoid-confrontation-with-eric-cantor/ | 2011-09-01 | 4 |
<p>Rep. Brian Higgins (D-N.Y.), a member of the House Ways and Means Committee, discusses why he and other Democrats will not support the GOP’s tax cut plan.</p>
<p>Rep. Brian Higgins (D-N.Y.) on Wednesday said that he would not vote for President Trump’s tax reform plan because he believes that the bill is a “fraud” and won’t benefit the American people.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>“If you make $730,000 a year or more, your after tax income will increase 8.5%, if you make $150,000, your after tax income will increase by 1%. That is a direct violation of what the Treasury Secretary said. Additionally this tax bill will add $4 trillion to the federal deficit over the next 10 years,” he told FOX Business’ Liz Claman on “Countdown to the Closing Bell.”</p>
<p>Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said that Trump’s tax plan will more than pay for itself and will start paying down the debt.</p>
<p>“[Mnuchin is saying that] through dynamic scoring this plan will produce two trillion dollars in additional revenues, that’s not true. He also said that tax cuts will pay for themselves. Tax cuts never pay for themselves; they haven’t paid for themselves ever in human history,” Higgins said.</p>
<p>Higgins also criticized Mnuchin’s assessment of how Trump’s tax plan will influence the economy.</p>
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<p>“Goldman economists themselves say that there will be no appreciable growth in the economy from this tax cut plan over the next several years,” he said. “The reason why Goldman is important here is because Steven Mnuchin is an alumnus of Goldman as is Gary Cohn and if the organization from which he came flatly rejects any of these rosy projections than I think the American people have a right to be very skeptical,” he said.</p> | Trump's tax bill is a 'fraud': Rep. Higgins | true | http://foxbusiness.com/politics/2017/10/25/trumps-tax-bill-is-fraud-rep-higgins.html | 2017-10-25 | 0 |
<p>JACKSON HOLE, Wyo. -- Central bankers have been looking forward for years to a moment when the world economy is growing steadily again, allowing them to unwind extraordinary monetary stimulus from global markets.</p>
<p>They are now in such a moment, but at the Federal Reserve's annual retreat here over the weekend they found their attention turned to other challenges, including a possible leadership transition at the Fed next year and the risk of a government shutdown or debt-ceiling crisis in Washington next month.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Congress returns to Washington in September with just a few short weeks in which to raise the federal borrowing limit and authorize new funding to keep the government operating beyond Oct. 1. Signs of angst over the debt limit are beginning to rise in financial markets amid worries lawmakers won't be able to close a deal on time. Treasury officials have urged Congress to raise the borrowing limit by Sept. 29.</p>
<p>"What's being discussed regarding the shutdown and the debt ceiling, we have to monitor very carefully," Dallas Fed President Robert Kaplan said in an interview on the sidelines of the conference. Fed governor Jerome Powell warned in a television interview that failing to raise the debt ceiling would be a "major shock to the economy," while Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told reporters at a White House briefing Friday he was "100% confident" Congress would act in time.</p>
<p>Fiscal brinkmanship comes as the Fed is preparing to take the next step in its gradually unfolding plan to withdraw monetary stimulus from the economy. It has raised short-term interest rates four times since December 2015. Next month it is expected to announce it will start shrinking its portfolio of mortgage and Treasury securities by allowing some to mature without reinvesting the proceeds into new bonds.</p>
<p>"The base case for me is that we should begin the roll-down of the balance sheet very soon," Mr. Kaplan said. "Obviously I'm monitoring closely, though, events in D.C., and I'm hopeful they won't have an effect on our efforts to begin that process. But we'll have to see." The Fed next meets Sept. 19-20.</p>
<p>Fed Chairwoman Janet Yellen did nothing to dispel the market's expectation that the Fed will start shrinking the portfolio next month. Her remarks Friday focused instead on bank regulation in the post financial crisis era. President Donald Trump has vowed to roll back regulation across sectors, but Ms. Yellen defended the Fed's efforts since the crisis to toughen oversight of banks, which she said has bolstered lending and economic growth rather than hindered it.</p>
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<p>Rather than focusing on near-term monetary policy issues, most of the conference dealt with long-term challenges, such as rising protectionism, growing inequality and the ability of fiscal policy makers to respond to the next recession -- issues over which central bankers may have limited influence.</p>
<p>On the sidelines of the meeting, participants buzzed about the potential for a leadership shake-up at the Fed next year, as Ms. Yellen closes in on the final months of her four-year term as the leader of the U.S. central bank.</p>
<p>Ms. Yellen is a top contender for another term as Fed chair, Mr. Trump has said. He has praised her stance on interest rates and said he liked her. But Ms. Yellen's remarks Friday highlighted a difference in world views on regulation, which could lead Mr. Trump in another direction.</p>
<p>Mr. Trump has said his top economic adviser, National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn, along with "two or three" other candidates he declined to name, are also being considered, leaving markets and Fed watchers guessing about where policy might be headed beyond early next year.</p>
<p>Analysts have theorized about a handful of dark horse candidates who may be in the mix, several of whom attended this year's Jackson Hole gathering, including former Fed governor Kevin Warsh, Stanford economist John Taylor and Columbia Business School dean Glenn Hubbard, who was chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President George W. Bush.</p>
<p>Among her peers, Ms. Yellen earned high marks for her steady approach and clear communication as the Fed unwinds its crisis-era stimulus program.</p>
<p>"President Trump has to take his own decision, and that's his prerogative," Bank of Mexico Gov. Agustín Carstens said. "But I can speak for myself, and I can say that she has done an outstanding job."</p>
<p>South African Reserve Bank Gov. Lesetja Kganyago said Saturday that, since the so-called taper tantrum of 2013 that roiled emerging markets, the Fed has done an excellent job of communicating its policy plans to the public and financial markets. Ms. Yellen took over the Fed in early 2014.</p>
<p>"The Fed has actually communicated so well, so transparently, that it has actually made it easier for us when we have to make our own monetary policy decisions," Mr. Kganyago said. "We base our decisions on what we see the outlook for the U.S. economy is, and I think that the communication from the Fed has been so clear that if the markets decide not to believe what the Fed says, it is at their own peril."</p>
<p>Fed policy decisions are felt far beyond U.S. borders, he said, and "the more you have certainty about what is impending in the U.S., the easier it is for all of us who have make decisions."</p>
<p>Write to Kate Davidson at [email protected] and Ben Leubsdorf at [email protected]</p>
<p>(END) Dow Jones Newswires</p>
<p>August 27, 2017 13:17 ET (17:17 GMT)</p> | Central Bankers Can't Savor Their Stimulus Success | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2017/08/27/central-bankers-cant-savor-their-stimulus-success.html | 2017-08-27 | 0 |
<p>Jesse James has married for the fourth time, to pro drag-racer and heiress Alexis DeJoria.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.usmagazine.com/celebrity-news/news/jesse-james-marries-alexis-dejoria-2013253" type="external">US Weekly wrote</a> that the two began dating in Sept. 2012, shortly after James broke off his engagement to “LA Ink” star Kat Von D.</p>
<p>Jesse, 43,&#160; and DeJoria, 35, walked down the aisle at his father’s Malibu, California home on Sunday, <a href="http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20685016,00.html" type="external">according to People magazine</a>.</p>
<p>James' youngest daughter Sunny, 9, from his marriage to porn star Janine Lindemulder, and DeJoria's 10-year-old daughter Bella both reportedly served as flower girls during the ceremony.</p>
<p>James also has two kids, son Jesse James, Jr. and daughter Chandler, from his marriage to first wife Karla James.&#160;</p>
<p>The West Coast Customs owner — who recently relaunched <a href="http://www.WestCoastChoppers.com" type="external">WestCoastChoppers.com</a>, opening a WCC shop in Austin, Texas, where he lives with DeJoria&#160; — also has a son by his first marriage.</p>
<p>James was also previously married to actress Sandra Bullock, and was engaged to Von D.</p>
<p>James and Bullock split in 2010, when reports surfaced he had cheated on her with several women.</p>
<p>Staright after Bullock sang James' praises as she collected an award on national TV, James' mistress, Michelle "Bomb-Shell" McGee came out with her story about being Jesse's lover.</p>
<p>DeJoria drives the Patron Nitro Funny car on the drag race circuit.</p>
<p>Her father is John Paul DeJoria, co-founder of Paul Mitchell hair products.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | Jesse James marries a fourth time, to professional drag-racer and hair products heiress Alexis DeJoria | false | https://pri.org/stories/2013-03-25/jesse-james-marries-fourth-time-professional-drag-racer-and-hair-products-heiress | 2013-03-25 | 3 |
<p />
<p>The author is indebted to the good people at History Commons for their “Complete 9/11 Timeline.”&#160; If a reference is not evident below, it can probably be found there.</p>
<p>A recent interview with former “Counterterrorism Czar,” Richard Clarke, is making a splash in the alternative media.[1]&#160; In this interview, Clarke speculates about CIA malfeasance related to the pre-9/11 monitoring of two alleged September 11 hijackers.&#160; This interview is somewhat interesting due to Clarke’s vague suggestion that the CIA had courted 9/11 suspects as sources, but it is far more interesting for what was not said with regard to Clarke’s personal history and associations.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">&lt;img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-12820" style="margin: 5px;" title="richard-clarke" src="https://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/richard-clarke.jpg" alt="Richard Clarke" width="300" height="238" srcset="https://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/richard-clarke.jpg 300w, https://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/richard-clarke-150x119.jpg 150w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /&gt;</a>The seeming point of these new statements from Clarke is that the CIA might have withheld information from him, the FBI, and the Department of Defense (DOD) in the twenty months leading up to the 9/11 attacks. &#160;Clarke is not suggesting that the CIA did this maliciously, but only that his good friend, George Tenet, and two others made a mistake in their approach.&#160; Clarke says of these CIA leaders — “They understood that al Qaeda was a big threat, they were motivated, and they were really trying hard.” &#160;The mild twist that Clarke now puts on the story is that &#160;the CIA’s diligent effort to secure much needed sources within the al Qaeda organization was pursued without any suspicion that these sources might turn out to be “double agents.”</p>
<p>Clarke claims that if the CIA had simply told him, the FBI and the DOD, “even as late as September 4th, [2001]” they would have “conducted a massive sweep, we would have conducted it publicly, we would have found those assholes.&#160; There’s no doubt in my mind.&#160; Even with only a week left.”</p>
<p>There are many obvious problems with these new claims from Clarke.&#160; For one thing, the evidence we have indicates that FBI headquarters did everything it could to protect the alleged 9/11 hijackers in the months leading up to 9/11. Another spectacularly obvious problem is that those “assholes” lived with an FBI asset for at least four months and there are reasons to believe the FBI knew that.&#160; More importantly, Richard Clarke personally thwarted two of the attempts the CIA made to capture Osama bin Laden (OBL) in the two years before 9/11.&#160; It seems disingenuous at best that Clarke would say he didn’t have enough information to capture two of OBL’s underlings in 2000 when he was responsible for preventing the capture of OBL just the year before.&#160;</p>
<p>In an attempt to make sense of these matters, we should take a closer look at Richard Clarke.&#160; His own history might shed some light on why he is trying to confuse us today.</p>
<p>Not just another COG</p>
<p>Clarke began his government career in the Ford Administration’s DOD as a nuclear weapons analyst. &#160;At the time, several characters that were central to the events of 9/11 were in the highest positions of that administration.&#160; Toward the end of that era, White House chief of staff Dick Cheney and DOD secretary Donald Rumsfeld were fighting a war of public perception to preserve the increasingly unpopular aspects of the CIA. &#160;Nuclear policy was a big issue at the time as well, and at least one of Clarke’s closest colleagues in later years, Paul Wolfowitz, worked to present false “Team B” information.</p>
<p>After getting his MA from MIT, Clarke went on to become President Reagan’s Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence.&#160; In this role, Clarke negotiated US military presence in Egypt, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Qatar, and Saudi Arabia.&#160; He asked these foreign governments for “access” agreements and the right to enhance existing facilities.&#160; As a result, the US moved large numbers of contractors into Saudi Arabia.&#160; One such contractor, Bernard Kerik, the New York City police commissioner and “9/11 hero” who had worked for Morrison-Knudsen’s Saudi group in the mid-seventies, went back for another three year tour as the “the chief investigator for the royal family of Saudi Arabia.”[2]</p>
<p>During his half a dozen years in Reagan’s State department, Clarke called Morton Abramowitz, the Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence and Research, his boss and mentor.&#160; Abramowitz, who was said to be influential in the career of Clarke, had worked as Assistant Secretary for Defense under Donald Rumsfeld in the seventies when Clarke worked in the DOD. &#160;Abramowitz left his position at State in 1989 to become the Ambassador to Turkey.&#160; The next person for whom Abramowitz was boss and mentor was his Deputy Ambassador, Marc Grossman, who is a 9/11 person of interest according to Sibel Edmonds.</p>
<p>In 1984, Clarke was selected to take part in one of the most highly classified programs of the Reagan Administration.&#160; This was the highly secret Continuity of Government (COG) program run by the National Program Office that continued up to and after the attacks of September 11.[3]&#160; The members of the COG group included Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Oliver North, George H.W. Bush, Kenneth Duberstein, James Woolsey, and Richard Clarke.&#160; Although Cheney and Rumsfeld were not government employees throughout the twenty years that Clarke participated in this official government program, they both continued to participate anyway.</p>
<p>COG was developed to install a shadow “government in waiting” to replace the US Congress and the US Constitution in the event of a national emergency like a nuclear war. The first and only time that COG was put into action was when Richard Clarke activated it during the 9/11 attacks. &#160;Clarke had been the one, in 1998, to revise the COG plan to use it as a response to a terrorist attack on American soil.&#160; Apparently, COG and the shadow government these men created are still in play to this day. [4]</p>
<p>In 1989, Clarke was appointed by George H.W. Bush to be the Assistant Secretary of State for Politico-Military Affairs, under James Baker. Clarke was in this position until 1992, and his role was to link the Department of Defense and the Department of State by providing policy in the areas of international security, security assistance, military operations, defense strategy, military use of space, and defense trade.&#160; One important aspect of his job during this time was that Clarke coordinated State Department support of Operation Desert Storm and led the efforts to design the international security structure after the Gulf War.</p>
<p>Throughout the years of the George H.W. Bush Administration, Clarke worked intimately with many people who should be investigated with regard to the events of 9/11 and the crimes that followed. This included:</p>
<p>• James Baker, the Secretary of State who went on to join the Carlyle Group</p>
<p>• Donald Rumsfeld, the State Department “Foreign Policy Consultant” who was Chairman Emeritus of the Carlyle Group at that time, and Secretary of Defense on 9/11</p>
<p>• Dick Cheney, the Reagan Secretary of Defense who, later as Vice President, coordinated the response to the 9/11 attacks</p>
<p>• Paul Wolfowitz, the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy who, in the week before 9/11, ran meetings with Pakistani ISI General Ahmed</p>
<p>• Duane Andrews, the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence who left to run SAIC</p>
<p>• Robert Gates, the CIA Director who was implicated in the Iran-Contra crimes and later also worked with SAIC</p>
<p>• Senate Intelligence Committee representatives George Tenet and William Cohen, the latter of whom, in 1997, dramatically reduced the number of jet fighters protecting the US</p>
<p>• And Reagan advisor Richard Armitage, who participated in the failed air defense teleconference on 9/11</p>
<p>According to his book, Clarke remembers that “Wolfowitz and I flew on to Bahrain, Abu Dhabi and Salaleh” to coordinate relations with the UAE, at Cheney’ request.&#160; Over the following decade, Clarke negotiated many deals with the Emirates, essentially becoming an agent of the UAE, and he was “particularly close to the UAE royal family.”[5]&#160;</p>
<p>Not long after Clarke began going there,the royal family of Abu Dhabi took over full ownership of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI).&#160; BCCI is significant relative to 9/11 because it was involved in funding terrorists in the late 1980s and was linked to the Pakistani intelligence network from which several alleged 9/11 conspirators came, including Khalid Sheik Mohammed. In fact, Time magazine reported that, relative to BCCI — “You can’t draw a line separating the bank’s black operatives and Pakistan’s intelligence services.”[6]</p>
<p>More importantly, there are strong suspicions that the CIA was involved in the founding of BCCI.[7]&#160; The CIA connection to the origins of the BCCI terrorist network is interesting in this context because the royal family of the UAE was also said to have played a primary role in the creation of BCCI.&#160; As the official US government report on the subject pointed out — “There was no relationship more central to BCCI’s existence from its inception than that between BCCI and Sheikh Zayed and the ruling family of Abu Dhabi.”[8]</p>
<p>As stated before, Clarke’s friends in the UAE royal family not only created the BCCI terrorist network, they took it over when the Bank of England shut it down:</p>
<p>By July 5, 1991, when BCCI was closed globally, the Government of Abu Dhabi, its ruling family, and an investment company holding the assets of the ruling family, were the controlling, and official “majority” shareholders of BCCI — owning 77 percent of the bank. But since the remaining 23 percent was actually held by nominees and by BCCI’s alter-ego ICIC, Abu Dhabi was in fact BCCI’s sole owner.[9]</p>
<p />
<p /> | Questions for Richard Clarke on COG, the UAE, and BCCI | false | http://foreignpolicyjournal.com/2011/08/22/questions-for-richard-clarke-on-cog-the-uae-and-bcci/ | 2011-08-22 | 1 |
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<p />
<p>The UNM men are still searching for not only their first win in conference play, but also a complete performance. They have yet to score in both halves of a game this season.</p>
<p>The Blazers (4-7-0, 1-2-0) feature C-USA preseason Offensive Player of the Year Freddy Ruiz. However, UAB has struggled defensively at times and hasn't shut out anyone this season. UAB's last outing was a 4-3 come-from-behind win over FIU on Oct. 10.</p>
<p>UAB's two goalies (Hunter Weber and Joe Kuzminsky) have combined to allow 2.16 goals per game and have saved just 63.6 percent of shots on goal. In addition to Ruiz (4 G, 2 A), UAB can deploy 6-foot-6 defender Ian Svantesson (5 G, 1 A) on set pieces to wreak havoc on the Lobos' backline.</p>
<p>Despite the presence of Ruiz, the Lobos field the game's most formidable offensive threat in Chris Wehan. The redshirt junior scored just 35 seconds into UNM's match against Valparaiso on Wednesday and&#160; has nine goals on the season and 22 in his career, tied for eighth in Lobo history.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>The women (6-7-1, 4-2-1), who fell 2-1 in overtime on Friday night at home to San Jose State, have lost two in a row at home.</p>
<p>New Mexico dropped a spot to fourth place in the Mountain West with 13 points. Fresno State (4-9-1, 3-3-1) and Wyoming are tied for fifth with 10 points each.</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | Soccer: UNM men, women play day-night twin bill Sunday | false | https://abqjournal.com/661464/soccer-unm-men-women-play-day-night-twin-bill-sunday.html | 2 |
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<p>It is once again time to look back on the year past and make our plans for the year to come, that bittersweet time after the festivities of the midwinter holidays when Jesus and Santa Claus duke it out for supremacy and Jews accidentally set fire to the dining room curtains, when black people must decide whether to observe Kwanzaa, which might be a silly, pointless holiday, but at least it pisses off the old white people. A new year is hard upon us, fellow humans, the year 2006, if you follow the Christian calendar (I used to observe the Aztec calendar but the goddamn things are made of rock and weigh six tons, so I gave up and now use the free Gregorian one from my optometrist); that’s six years longer than most of us figured the species would last, and 350 years longer than the dodo had time for. But what’s in a year? It’s an arbitrary delineation of time, after all, the way page numbers are an arbitrary delineation of story; we don’t read a book and say, “ah, it’s page 287 next, I remember page 286 fondly”. But we do that with years, and it’s a silly habit. This might have something to do with the fact that at the end of a book’s pages, it is not usual for the reader to die, whereas with our allotted years, the opposite custom pertains.</p>
<p>In any case, the New Year’s celebration is one that I embrace fondly, and I embrace others fondly during the actual festivities. So time once again, as columnists the nation are now writing in unison, to draft up a list of amusing New Year’s resolutions that will wittily chide the old year while revealing our cheerful hopes for the prospects of the next. I will make my list brief, as my kilt needs a good sponging before the party. There is still evidence of last year’s party on the front. The whiskey did make me look more Scottish though.</p>
<p>Be it here noted that in 2006 I, Benjamin Whitney ‘Mongo’ Tripp, will adhere to the following resolutions for at least the first sixteen days of the year Anno Domini Nostri Lesu Christi 2006:</p>
<p>I vow to make love to 300 attractive women in 2006, or 500 marginally good-looking ones; as a further stipulation, I will not resort to the use of GHB, rohypnol, or ketamine, especially on myself.</p>
<p>I will hunt down and kill everybody that ever borrowed one of my books and still has it.</p>
<p>I will return all the books that seem to have turned up on my shelves that don’t belong to me, except the ones belonging to my father. He should know better.</p>
<p>I resolve to stop picking on George W. Bush, the members of his administration, or any of the other hell-bound bipedal rectoids that have destroyed the promise of America and left her a ruined and disgraced nation; it is not for me to say that the leader of my country would make maggots vomit.</p>
<p>2006 will be the year I stop gloating about being blessed with genitalia of the type Typhoon-class submarines are modeled after. That’s right, I said 300 women.</p>
<p>2006 is the year I will stop being so angry about everything. Instead I will be happy and optimistic, because after all, everything is for the best and it will all turn out great. To help retain this resolution I’ll be sucking back a great deal of Dilaudin and living in a fallout shelter until at least late October.</p>
<p>This year I vow to stop writing low-budget genre movies where people die at the fangs of hideous monsters, and start writing smart, edgy political comedies. Just as soon as somebody offers to pay for it. Also, I’m going to start using those fancy screw-on script brads instead of the cheap brass-plated ones from Office Mart.</p>
<p>Finally, when 2006 inevitably draws to its tragic and hideous conclusion, I am taking a leaf from the Fundamentalist Christian’s Book of Retarded Media Distraction Ploys and will get offended when anyone says “Happy Holidays”, “Merry Christmas”, “Happy Chanukah”, or “Joieuse Kwanzaa”. This is because I am a Buddhist, and as I’m sure you all know Buddhism is a rewarding persuasion to follow most of the year, but all we get in December is ‘Bodhi Day’ on the 8th, celebrating Buddha’s enlightenment under the tree that loans its eponym to the occasion. As anyone that has ever tried to decorate a fig tree will tell you, it’s not worth the effort.</p>
<p>Now, where’s my sporran?</p>
<p>BEN TRIPP is an independent filmmaker and all-around swine. His book, Square In The Nuts, may be purchased here, with other outlets to follow: <a href="http://www.lulu.com/Squareinthenuts" type="external">http://www.lulu.com/Squareinthenuts</a>. Swag is available as always from <a href="http://www.cafeshops/tarantulabros" type="external">http://www.cafeshops/tarantulabros</a>. And Mr. Tripp may be reached at <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a>.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | A Hapless New Year | true | https://counterpunch.org/2005/01/01/a-hapless-new-year/ | 2005-01-01 | 4 |
<p>Jean-Pierre Filiu, a professor of Middle Eastern Studies at the School of International Studies, SciencesPo in Paris, is in Boston to lecture at Harvard on the topic revolution, Islamism and jihad in North Africa, but he stopped by our studio to talk with anchor Marco Werman about his other interest, hip hop inspired by the Arab Spring.</p> | Hip Hop Inspired by the Arab Spring | false | https://pri.org/stories/2013-03-05/hip-hop-inspired-arab-spring | 2013-03-05 | 3 |
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